Equivalencies (redux)

She dances to KOKOKO! because there is nothing else in the world she would rather do.  That is all there is to it, when one’s desires collide with the past. She was a child when the rebels raided her village and hacked her parents to bits. She reveled: for her mother beat her so violently and often, and her father came nightly with unwelcome ministrations. She gladly welcomed her liberation. When the Women’s Liberation Phalanx mounted their counter attack and she was conscripted as their cook and laundress, she claimed a joy she never imagined. Now imagine the promotion. Imagine having a head filled with lightning bolts and AK-47’s. Imagine the retributions. Imagine drifting away in a recurring mushroom cloud of hiss and sulphur smell of spent artillery. Now imagine hearing equivalencies early and often.  Then you can imagine why that pounding din that KOKOKO! has shocked into existence appeals to her so. Come bring the noise, she says. And she abandons all hope on the dance floor.

What I’m Reading:

Life began to scream. At first it screamed into the echo of silence which had first owned the land. Then it screamed to overcome all the other screaming …

— Adrian Tchaikovsky / Shroud