Rene knew that Khal was anxious to get started on their plan to save the world. A few days after their chat in the car, following their trip home from the hospital, Khal approached him when he was alone, and laid out everything in terms of the vast fortune he had accumulated over the previous centuries. Rene was in awe. He was fairly certain that Khal was more wealthy than anyone else alive at the moment, and was impressed that he had managed so well to keep it all under wraps.
A treasure trove of trillions in stocks, bonds, liquid assets, and land. It appeared he was just below Japan’s GDP in terms of wealth. Khal had inadvertently protected A great deal of wilderness in several countries, something Rene had to give him credit for. He had also written down a number of options for how he wanted to begin using his abilities to actually make the world a better place.
He was right in the middle of explaining one of these plans to Rene when Rene had the second seizure of his life.
Rene came to on the couch, looking at Ari, who was staring at him in concern. She was leaning over him, holding him back against the couch, presumably for his safety.
“Hey, how are you feeling?” Ari asked.
The first thing he felt was the painful sensation of his tongue, a searing throbbing pain, like it had been ripped apart. He gingerly brought his fingers up to his mouth, and took them away with not an insignificant amount of blood.
“You bit your tongue.” Ari said. “It’s going to hurt for a while. I’ll get you some painkillers in a minute. Does anything else hurt?”
“Everything hurts.” Rene pointed out. It felt like he had just done every exercise known to man all at once. Every muscle was sore.
Ari nodded, and checked her watch, “Khal said you were seizing about a minute before I got here, and you kept going for another three minutes. I almost called an ambulance. You were in the post-ictal state for a solid half hour. Very out of it, very confused. That’s the post seizure state, if you didn’t know.”
“I had a seizure?” Rene asked, looking around and just now noticing the small puddle of blood on the floor from where he had presumably fallen and drooled the blood and saliva after biting his tongue.
“Khal pointed out that you had one before, when you were attacked. I’m going to guess that this one also has to do with your assault.” Ari stated gingerly. “We’ll need to get you a referral to a neurologist to get that precious brain of yours looked at.”
Rene looked around, trying to get his bearings.
“Where’s Emory?” He asked.
“I had Khal take her on a walk so that she wouldn’t have to watch you seizing.” Ari explained.
“Khal took her?!” Rene asked, perhaps a little too forcefully.
“Yeah…why? What’s wrong?” Ari asked.
Rene was still attempting to orient himself. Something strange had happened with the seizure, a whole slew of memories from past lives had come pouring forth at once. Memories he hadn’t dreamed yet, all jumbled together in a confusing montage. As he was still processing these memories, he realized that Ari was staring at him anxiously.
“Is there a reason that Khal shouldn’t have taken Emory?” Ari asked.
Rene thought about his precious baby girl, out there walking with the man who had tortured him. Who had nearly killed him. He knew he could never be 100% certain that Khal wasn’t really watching him through Ari’s mind, waiting for him to mess up. Waiting to punish him again.
As memories of being Lee, Ling, Lestari, Nita, Aidan, Cody, and all the others came rushing back to his mind, he forced himself to look into Ari’s eyes and shake his head.
“No. It’s fine, of course.” Rene lied.
Ari was definitely studying him now. “Are you sure?”
Rene nodded, “Mmhmm.”
She continued to look at him with doubt, and Rene wanted so badly to ask her to drop it, but he knew that would make her more suspicious. And if Khal was controlling her, then Emory would be completely vulnerable to his wrath.
“Did something happen?” Ari asked quietly. “Did Khal do something?”
“Khal loves me.” Rene said. “He would never hurt me.”
It felt so wrong to lie, but the lie was to protect all of them. A memory popped into his mind now of when he had been Iara, fighting the Portuguese in their aggression against her fellow Amazonian natives as they’d been forced to work the sugar cane fields. The memory felt as though it could have happened yesterday. Flashes here and there flitted through his mind of fighting against the aggressor, against the ruling class, against those who would do him and his people harm in all his various lives…
He took Ari’s hand in his and asked her a question that had been on his mind in the weeks since his chat with Khal in the car.
“Ari, if you had the ability to change the world for the better, what would you do?” Rene asked.
“What?” Ari looked at him like he had two heads.
“Let’s say hypothetically, you can control minds, or have unlimited resources, and can change things to make the world a better place, what would you do?”
Rene was acutely aware of the pain in his tongue as he spoke, but he didn’t care. He genuinely wanted to know Ari’s opinion. He had wanted to know it as soon as Khal proposed the whole idea to him. Of course, Khal must already know what she thought about making the world a better place, having been inside her mind, but Rene wanted to hear it from her personally.
“Rene, I think we might need to get you to the hospital.” Ari said. “You’re starting to scare me.”
“I’m totally fine.” Rene lied, taking both of her hands in his now. “I have always valued your opinion, Ari, and I genuinely want to know what you would do to make the world a better place.”
She hesitated for a moment, then shrugged in a “screw it, why not” sort of gesture as she sat down next to him on the couch.
“Purely hypothetically, if I could control minds, I’d get rid of misogyny.” She said.
“Misogny…” Rene repeated curiously.
“Well yeah. I mean, you could make an argument that the majority of what’s wrong with the world boils down to the pointless hatred of women. I mean, think about it, most of the slurs in the world have to do with degrading women. Bitch, slut, whore, pussy, all terms that demean women, and if you’re calling a guy any of these, you’re basically calling him subhuman. Even bastard implies that someone is deficient for being raised only by a mother. But mothers have been raising children by themselves for as long as mothers have been around. And they’ve done a pretty damn good job of it.
And religions! So many religions are built on subjugatiing women, leading to generations of trauma. Beat your wife to show her you are her boss. Place her in a burqua so no one else can look upon her, like she’s something sinful. These women are seen as possessions, as bang-maids and mommies, whose only roles are to exist for their men’s pleasure, or to bring children into the world and nurture everyone. Beyond that, though, they’re second class. They’re blamed for everything that goes wrong in the household. Why isn’t dinner ready on time? Why haven’t you cleaned the place top to bottom while also caring for the children? Why haven’t you made sure the husband has been properly pampered when you’re struggling so hard just to get through the 9,000 other tasks you have to do.
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. They’re abused, some of them literally murdered for removing hijabs, or for wearing cute dresses. For just existing, because years of brainwashing have convinced the men in their lives that they must be punished for the wandering male gaze. They’re shamed for the way others could perceive them, and blamed when they’re assaulted by men who couldn’t keep it in their pants. And Y’all Quaeda in the US fights every day to remove women’s bodily autonomy. And not just women, but children! Little girls are forced to have their rapists’ babies, and for what? For God? What god would subject a child to that? What god would want a woman to suffer the horrors of delivering a baby that is already dead? Or that will die within moments of being born? And how many of these women have died because these fucking men decided they needed more control over their lives under the guise of “Christ?”” Ari made the apostrophe sign with her fingers for emphasis.
“Think of how many women, brilliant women, have been lost in history to a male dominated society. Brilliant minds, engineers, poets, scientists, artists, stamped down by the boot of men who presume to be above them, but hardly hold a candle to their intellect. Women subjugated to the roll of silent wife, while he flourishes and she loses her perceived value every day she ages, rather than being allowed the grace that men allow themselves. Grace to be seen as a worthy human even when you’re going gray, getting a little chubby, and starting to sag. That women could have any less value than a man at any age is fucking bullshit.
And look at transphobia! It’s basically the fear of someone not conforming to a standardized idea of feminine or masculine. But what is feminine and masculine? I wear pants all the time instead of dresses, does that make me less of a woman? Should I repent before God, and wear skirts for the rest of my life? I don’t bother applying makeup most days. Some would consider that unfeminine. People are so scared when someone who used to present as male is suddenly presenting as feminine. Now she is seen as lesser. Women are meant to be something to obtain, a hot body to fuck and make children. If a woman used to be a man, well, how can she truly be a woman? Even if the evidence is staring you in the face of what she is, of what she always wanted to be, there are so many that will cry out aghast that this person would dare to not conform to society’s myopic standards.
And homophobia is similar. It’s just a man being scared that another man will treat him the way he treats women. And how does he treat women? Like sex objects. The pretty little thing to stick his dick into, to be dominated by him. Of course he’d be scared of another man thinking the same way about him. He doesn’t want to be a possession. He doesn’t want to be a conquest. He’s a human being, see? He deserves autonomy and independence, and to be appreciated for what he has to offer the world, even if he grossly overestimates his own value.
The number of men who threatened me for being asexual and aromantic would shock you. They would insist that their dick would fix the problem, then call me every creepy name in the book to shame me for not wanting anything to do with them. I’m too fat, too ugly, too frigid, or too fucked in the head if I don’t want to sleep with him.
I mean, look at school shooters, serial killers, so many of them murder out of a misguided hatred of women. These aren’t people to them, these are objects, possessions, lesser beings, and when they perceive rejection, their fragile little egos can’t handle it. They lash out on the vulnerable, on the repressed, and so much of the time, their victims get the blame. Everyone else gets to suffer because some jackass was pissed off that he didn’t get to dominate the women he thought he deserved.”
Rene was nodding along, in awe. It was clear that Ari had given this a great deal of thought.
“But could you imagine the possibilities if more women were in charge? If they were seen as equal to their male counterparts? And I don’t mean those that use their power to pull the rug out from under their fellow gals like that gremlin in the Supreme Court, I mean those that stand strong and proud and genuinely try to make the world a better place for everyone. Just look at how well women did in power when it came to Covid-19! Countries run by women did statistically far better than those run by men when it came to communication, response, and policy, saving countless lives. The US has an excess of hundreds of thousands that didn’t need to die, but were casualties of one fat old man’s vanity.
Imagine Emory growing up and being treated equally by the men in her life. None of them looking down on her as too emotional, as though anger from masculine frustration isn’t an emotion. As though punching holes in walls when you don’t get your way is totally logical. Imagine her playing chess and poker and other intellectual sports with men that don’t treat her like she’s delicate or simple or just a baby making machine. Picture a world where she isn’t shamed for wearing a tank top because someone else has a sexual thought about her bare shoulder, and is making it her problem.
No more honor killings. No more women forced to marry their rapists to preserve a family’s good name, whatever that means. No more mothers taken for granted as their husbands force them to do all the physical and emotional labor in the household, and still shame them for not having the energy or will to pleasure his crusty dick, while often still bringing in half of the income if not more. Like we were born to be slaves?
Imagine Emory growing up, treated like a human being, like an equal.
Just…imagine.”
“… you’ve given me an awful lot to think about.” Said Rene, his mind buzzing at the possibilities laid out before him. He winced as his tongue throbbed again, and his body ached. Ari started to get up, mumbling about grabbing some painkillers. Rene caught her hand, standing up himself.
“It’s okay, I’ve got it.” He said, squeezing her hand appreciatively as he headed to the kitchen for some Tylenol.
*****
Khal walked down the road, holding Emory’s hand. His mind kept flitting back to the look on Rene’s face as he’d gone into the seizure. It had been a horrible moment. Khal knew what to do, but he had been so taken aback that Ari walking in right then and taking over had been a life saver.
He cursed himself for hitting Rene with that tea kettle. It seemed the damage was permanent. Khal just had to hope that Rene came around soon, that the turquoise eyes returned, and that he said yes to immortality. He would be healed then, unable to die…for long anyway. Everything would be okay.
“Do you love daddy?” Emory asked. Khal was caught offguard by the question. He stopped and looked at her thoughtfully.
“I love your daddy more than any person has ever loved another person in the whole world.” Khal said, and he genuinely believed that.
“Then why did you hurt him?” Emory asked.
Khal was shocked by the question, “What do you mean?”
“Aset showed me. In a dream. She said you were scared to lose him, so you did something stupid. She wanted me to tell you to be more careful.” Said Emory.
Why wouldn’t she tell him directly? Khal felt his stomach twisting in knots.
“I didn’t…” He started.
“You hit him with the kettle. It’s why he has the seizures. Why would you do that to someone you love?” Emory asked.
“I…I…” Khal didn’t know what to say.
“Aset said that you can fix him, but you have to be smart about it. You have to be a good person. She also said he can never find out about what you did, or you’ll never be able to save him. What did she mean by that?”
Misha.
She had to mean Misha.
Rene had never brought it up, so it was clear he didn’t know yet. Khal had wondered if he would figure it out, but so far so good.
Aset was right though.
If Rene did figure it out, that would likely be the end for their relationship. None of them could know.
“It’s something that happened a very long time ago.” Khal lied.
Emory looked at him skeptically, but said nothing. She started walking again. When Khal tried to take her hand, she shook him off, putting space between them. Khal bit his bottom lip in anxious frustration.
*****
They spent about two months laying out their plans. Day by day, making sure all of their bases were covered. Khal knew how vulnerable this was going to make him. Every day he had to trust that Rene was going to do the right thing. That Rene would protect him when he was exhausted from dipping into so many minds at once.
For his part, Rene seemed ready and willing. He brought up what he had spoken with Ari about, in terms of changes. They would be making an effort to enforce equality across the globe. Equality for women, for minorities, for animals. The last one was very important to Emory, of course. They had led Ari and Emory to believe that they were about to go on a work trip for the library, though Khal wasn’t sure if Emory actually believed them. Who knows what their goddess was telling her these days.
This was it.
“Tomorrow, we fly to Washington DC.” Said Khal, taking Rene’s hand in his as he sat next to him on the couch. Rene looked a little surprised by the gesture, but didn’t pull away. “I need to know that you have my back in all of this, or it won’t work. We won’t be able to change the future for the better. For Emory.”
“I’m with you.” Said Rene, looking him in the eyes. “Whatever it takes.”
Khal believed him.
Stories From Montana 