1000 years in perfect symmetry [one-shots by nora]

that's all there is for miles. copper-tinged earth and dust that sparks like embers. i grow up thinking that it's beautiful, that this ramshackle place isn't shadow and decay, no, no, it's a hearth. it's warm, isolated, sheltered, spreading heat over a desert i'll never see. traders come in from the outskirts and i never wonder why there are never any tourists. 'cause,' papa says, 'tourists don't wanna come to no place like this.'

i show him the sunset one day. we hike up the wall of pyrite and my hands rub raw from the sand. callouses have long dimpled my fingers and everyone's used to the pain, so i'm not really feeling it as i look out to the after, to the forefront. look, papa. don't you see how pretty it is?

nobody can tell me why it starts. papa tells me to buck up. hit them where it hurts, baby girl. sometimes all you got's yourself. he tells me he's proud 'cause i've never been a crier. there's shame in that. cowardice, weakness. i try to tell him i'm not coward and all he says is, prove it.

i come home with red cheeks, a swollen eye, one time a gash on my right leg. what did i tell you about walking home after dark? and then he gets the med kit out and we sit silently as he patches up the red. and when it's too quiet, he looks at me in this way and i see a storm. something's coming, my head whispers, but the voices start to fade when i start punching back.

she's the crazy bitch who busted jimmy's leg with a baseball bat.