Finn
“What are you up to you, ugly bastard?” Magni’s face hovered about my wristband in a holographic projection.
“Not as much as I would like to be.”
“We haven’t received a report so Khan wanted me to call you.”
“That’s not true,” a female voice sounded in the background. “It was I who wanted Magni to call you.”
“Hi, Pearl,” I said. “Did Isobel tell you where I am? I’m sorry I haven’t checked in with you myself, but I figured your mom would tell you about Athena’s demand.”
“Hey, don’t push,” Magni complained. “If you wanted Finn to see you, you could have called him yourself.”
Finn’s hologram flickered and Pearl’s pretty face came into view only to flicker out again.
“Why can’t you just change the camera to include us both?” she asked Magni.
“Because this is a conversation between me and Finn.”
“Khan, will you tell your brother to let me talk to Finn? He’s being difficult.”
“You haven’t seen difficult,” Magni muttered but it was Pearl’s face that came up, so he must have moved over a bit.
“Finn, what is going on between you and Athena?” she asked.
“Nothing. She needs time to undo the curse and has asked that I stay here for five days.”
“How many times must I tell you that there is no such thing as a curse, Finn?”
“Yeah, well, Athena says there is and she’s working to lift it.”
“And what is this curse supposed to do that is so bad?” Pearl asked.
“That’s personal,” I said and changed the subject. “How about the other men, have you had reports from them?”
“Yes, and they are exceeding my expectation. I’m very proud of all of them, and according to my mother the Motlanders are really impressed with them.”
I could hear deep laughter, and Magni reclaimed the connection with a sound of protest from Pearl. “They made Bruce Lee do some kind of balancing act on a toy.”
“It’s not a toy, it’s a bicycle,” Pearl commented behind him.
“Yeah, whatever it is, it was hilarious and the idiot kept falling on that stupid thing.” Magni was shaking his head and laughing. “Did you see them humiliate him on the news?”
“No.”
“First they showed him falling on his ass and then they interviewed him with a bloody nose. I’m telling you, Momsies might appear all sweet and fussy, but they are experts at emasculating a man.”
“We are not!” Pearl protested in the background.
“Hey, butt out of my conversation with Finn,” Magni said over his shoulder. “And don’t think I didn’t hear you ask Khan to hold your purse the other day. You might as well have cut off his balls.”
“I didn’t hold her purse,” Khan muttered loud enough for me to hear.
“But you considered it, and that’s weakness enough. I’m telling you, Finn, Momsies are a dangerous species and if you don’t watch out, man, one of them is going to suck out whatever masculine pride you have.”
“I’m not holding any purses,” I promised.
“Damn right you aren’t. And neither are you, Khan. Got it?”
“I wasn’t intending to,” Khan confirmed. “And Finn…”
“Yes sir, what is it?”
“I want you to stay away from dance classes. Bruce Lee made a fool out of himself on that bicycle and Richard was tricked into taking a dance lesson. It was a shameful moment in our country’s history.”
“I wish I could have seen it,” I said and chuckled.
“Yeah, well, the rest of us wish we could un-see it.”
“That’s not fair,” Pearl interjected. “Richard did his best and I thought he looked good.”
Magni rolled his eyes. “No six-foot-three, muscled man will ever do well in a ballet class. The man looked retarded the way he jumped around. It was a disgrace, and I don’t care what you say but there’s no way the Council didn’t plan this, just so they could humiliate us all.”
“They are trying to share our culture with you, and ballet is very popular in the Motherlands,” Pearl piped up.
“It’s guerilla war, is what it is,” Magni told her. “Don’t think I don’t see how Richard was ambushed.”
“You’ve got war on your mind, Magni,” Pearl complained. “Khan, will you say something, please?”
“Magni does have a point, honey. What man can think straight with twenty beautiful women in tight outfits dancing around him? I agree, that it was a sneaky attack to make us look bad.”
“Finn, tell them they are paranoid and crazy,” Pearl begged.
I laughed and realized how much I missed them. “You two are paranoid and crazy.”
“Not at all,” Magni protested. “You wait until you see the way the women danced. At one point a whole group of them bent over and touched their toes, right in front of Richard. And it’s not like the fucking costume they made him wear did anything to hide his excitement. I would have flat-out refused to put on those tight pants,” Magni pointed out with a grimace.
“Okay, no dance lessons,” I said. “It’s understood.”
“If you’re done talking your crazy talk, ask Finn what’s he’s been doing these past two days,” Pearl said.
“Why? He can hear you, you know.”
“Pearl, I’m happy to tell you that I’ve been to a family unit and met a pair of five-year-old twins and a baby called Marita.”
“Aww, I love babies. Did you get to hold her?”
“No, but she gripped my finger, and we also went to visit the local school, and that‘s when things got crazy.”
“Why? Did you get in a fight?”
“What the fuck, Magni?” I frowned. “Who the hell would I fight in a school?”
“I don’t know.” Magni shrugged. “You were the one who said things got crazy.”
“Because I met a copy of myself.”
“I’m not following.”
“There’s a kid there. His name is Tristan and I swear to you, the boy looks just like me.”
“That is crazy.” Magni lifted his eyebrows. “A Motlander kid that looks like a thirty-four-year-old Nman. I wanna meet that kid.”
“Ha-ha, very funny.” I flipped him my finger. “I’m serious. It was like seeing myself at fifteen.”
“Send me his picture and let me be the judge.”
“You don’t remember what I looked like,” I said and added, “Do you?”
Magni grew serious. “I remember everything from those days.”
I stopped breathing for a second, all too aware what he was saying. But then I threw in a joke like a diffuser to take the tension out of the moment.
“Well, then maybe you can remember if I got really piss-drunk about sixteen years ago and sneaked across the border for a quickie with a woman named Randa Christine?”
“Nope, doesn’t ring a bell. If you did I wasn’t with you that night.”
“No, I didn’t think so. I’m just so amazed at how much the boy looks like me,” I said and regretted that I hadn’t brought a jacket outside with me. It was cold and when rain started falling, I said, “Look, I promise to check in more often, but I’ve got to get inside to my prison guard and her sidekick, the sparkly turtle. Just tell me before I go, how are the kids at the school doing?”
Magni’s face softened. “I come back as often as I can, but the rebels on the east coast have been giving me grief. I’m telling you, Finn, there’s no better feeling than the hugs I get from those kids every time I swing by the school. It’s like vitamin shots, you know.”
“Magni hung one of the boys upside down in a tree because he teased Mila,” Khan shouted in the background.
“That’s right,” Magni nodded and lifted his chin. “Nobody touches my little princess.”
I chuckled and raised a hand, signaling I was ending the call. “Talk to you soon, my friend.”
“All right, go show that witch who’s the boss.” Magni gave a mock growl and I smiled at him before I pressed end and returned to the house.
We didn’t do much that day, except meditating, talking, and relaxing. Athena kept pushing me to sit down and put my words down on a pad. What she didn’t understand was that I had spent my whole adult life suppressing my emotions and now she was asking me to reflect on my emotions.
It wasn’t that I have no feelings; I had too many fucking feelings and they lurked just under the surface, with the power to drag me down in the darkness with them.
“Here,” I said and handed Athena the electronic pad I had used to scribble on.
“You don’t have to show me what you wrote.”
“Wait, so you’re not going to grade my effort? That’s disappointing. If I had known that I wouldn’t have tried so hard.”
Athena’s gaze lowered to the pad in her hands, and then her eyebrows lifted in perfect arches. “Your favorite moment here was when I rode your…” she looked up at me. “I’m not going to say that word.”
“What, my cock?”
Athena closed her eyes for a second before she uttered a sigh and looked at me. “You were supposed to reflect on what happened these past days, and not on what you fantasized about.”
Lifting my shoulders in a shrug, I said, “You should’ve specified that.”
Athena returned her gaze to her pad again. “What most surprised you in the Motherlands was that we don’t have any eggs.”
“Or chickens,” I added. “But let’s not get caught up in the whole ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg’ debate. I just wish I could have an omelet in the morning, that’s all.”
Athena was running over my answers and was clearly not impressed. “You’re using your humor as a shield, Finn. These are supposed to be deep questions, yet you have answered each one with fewer than ten words.”
“I worked hard on the last question. What was it again?”
Athena read out loud, “What I want my people to know about the Motherlands is this.”
“Yes, that’s the one. I gave a brilliant answer.”
Athena looked down. “You should always check their fridge to look for leftover pie, or you will end up eating disgusting kale for breakfast.” Athena put the pad down on the sofa and got up without a word.
“What?” I asked. “That was solid advice, and it was way more than ten words.”
“Hans,” she called up the stairs. “You want to go out to dinner with me?”
“Sure,” he called back and came down a few seconds later. “Where are we going?”
“There’s a restaurant I’ve been wanting to try for a while,” Athena said, looking only at him.
“Great.” Hans went to grab his jacket and smiled at me. “Then you get to see some of the Motherlands.”
“I’m afraid not,” Athena said in a soft but serious voice. “I was planning for all of us to go, but Finn still has some reflection work to do, and it turns out he prefers leftover food anyway.” She pointed to the fridge. “You’ll find some pancakes and fruit salad in there. We should be back in less than two hours.”
Crossing my arms, I rocked back and forth on my heels. “I see what you’re doing.”
“Excellent, then you’ll appreciate that I’m giving you time to think things through.”
“I’m not supposed to leave him alone,” Hans said and wrung his hands.
“I know, but you will.”
When Hans still looked skeptical, Athena added. “Don’t worry, Finn is an adult and he can take care of himself for a few hours.”
Like the trained puppy Hans was, he followed Athena out the door and left me to reflect on my miserable past.