She stood there, her eyes crystal clear. The reflection of the ocean could be seen in her pupils. The waves kept coming in. It seemed like there might be a storm coming.

Her eyes were on the distant horizon which was just a black line where the earth ended and you fell over if you could make it to that borderline, between both what is seen and believed and what is perceived and believed.

Slowly her feet reached the shoreline. A chill went up her legs and all her Cuban little hairs on her legs stood straight up. She wasn’t much for shaving these days.

She looked down and saw her tacky colored toenails; black with gold diagonal lines of glitter paint.

“You know” she thought, “that’s what rich women do”. She wanted to be one of those women.

She looked down again and could see the dirt between her toenails.

She took another step in.The water wasn’t really that cold.

The sun had suddenly disappeared.

3

She was tired. She was sick of her life.

She felt there was nothing left.

What does it mean to feel nothing left?

She felt  a pit in her stomach  and pictured roots  growing out  and attaching themselves to her uterus. She felt the roots grab hold ripping pieces of her uterus out.

Perhaps it was the violent scene that had occurred, just a few hours ago, with a man she had trusted.

The pain was unbearable.

But it wan’t a physical pain.

It ws a different kind of pain.

It was a pain of too many struggles.

It was a paint that left her numb.

She walked further into the ocean.

The water caressed her nipples. They sprung up spritely like two fountains ready for a suckling.

She could almost still feel Rey her spiritual leader, nawing at her nipples with his teeth, as if he was going to chew them off. For a moment, it was exciting. He bit hard. He wanted to consume her.

Yemaya would wash her clean. The ocean would cleanse her of everything she had endured.

All her memories would be washed away. She would be free.

She floated on her back and looked towards the sun.

She couldn’t see a thing. She closed her eyes, not caring which way the currents carried her.

She decided she wouldldn’t open her eyes again and would float until the weight of her body forced her to bend and sink into deep waters.

The ocean swaddled and swayed her like a baby as it carried her further away from the shore.

The waves ripled and trembled. At first, it felt like a cool breeze on her back as it moved her body to and fro. It was as if she was being rocked to sleep by a force she could not control.

Lola felt a growing vibration on her back side as if something was reaching from below and trying to suck her body down. A swirling mass of water quickly began to encircle her body, and before she could turn around to face the bottom of the ocean, the current sucked her in and under the water like a straw in a child’s mouth sipping fiercely the most flavorful mango juice in Cuba.

Suddenly her whole body started bending forward until her face was parallel with her toes and that tacky nail polish, that glistened in a heavenly foreseeing manner.

The current began to drag her by the waistline in and out of the water.

She started taking in water through her nose. She could feel the salt  as if she had just done a netty pot for her sinuses.

She tried to breathe when she was pushed out of the water for a split second before being dragged down under again.

“This must be it. I must be dying”, she thought.

At one point her body was plunged down deep towards the ocean floor where she saw several bodies, mothers, babies, fathers, broken rafts, deflated tubes all in a frozen stasis as if time had stopped.

She saw a ray of light shoot through the water suddenly. She didn’t know what it was.

THe beam of light started moving rapidly like a flashlight in search of a cockroach in your bed.

The light shot right through her. She tumbled splashing in and out of the ocean and at a sudden moment she saw a vision of herself. another woman just like her, being dragged the opposite way of her gravity force

lola; aguantame la mano, espera, quien eres? She screamed through the water.

Her vibration was felt by Penelope.

Penelope: “Hey that’s me! Am I dying, is that my reincarnation coming to surface?. Wait I see you.

Penelope swam against the current, against the vacuum to slow down and try to reach out her hand and grab her before they crossed each other.

they looked at each other for a moment in amazement wondering who are you and what are you doing here

they both reached out and tried to grab each others hands as they crossed each other

 a shot of light sprang from Lola’s hand and reached the hand of Penolope as she was being pushed in the opposite direction

Her hair was in front of her face flapping in the water like the fins of fish blocking her view. All she could feel was the force dragging her, pulling her against the mass of the water

A hollow vacuum sound was heard as if inside a turbine when she was suddenly thrust out of the water into the air landing on the ground the shore

She saw a spirit of a woman dressed in white smile at her and look the other way

4

the experiment started with three people

the two intellectuals of american josephine and mario

and Tula in Cuba who was your average cuban woman highly educated but not doing anything with her life as she saw no reason for a career that would pay her 8 dollars a month

so instead she was a dula. she helped those few mothers in Cuba who actually still wanted to have children, have a healthy delivery.

Tula wanted a child of her own, but she didn’t have the money. She couldn’t afford it. And she surely did not want a husband. Who would want a husband, a man who can’t bring any money home, a man who is going to cheat on you as soon as he’s had you.

“What’s the point? Cuban macho pigs. I hate them all.”

Mario and Josephine of course had the money, had the means.

They were both transgender and wanted a child of their own.

But they didn’t want a regular child. They wanted an experiment.

They wanted to have a clone made from their cells and from Tula to create two embryos.

Inseminate  Tula wth the embryos to give birth to two identical clones.

They would keep one and let Tula have the other.

They would pay Tula a monthly remittances to help her and the child, and to watch from afar  if indeed  nature is stronger than nurture.

Two children growing up on separate lands, infected by their country’s politics, environment, relationships, culture, food. Rice and beans or tofu and eggplant.

Their children would be the experiment and the proof that we can biohack( do it yourself biology)everything.

We can change our beings.

These two children of course,  did not know that the other existed.

For as soon as they were born, Josephine and Mario took the one child, Penelope, from Cuba back to the United states

Tula raised the other child, Lola, alone in Cuba.

These clones grew up to be two young beautiful women; professional in their own rights.

One, a lefty intellectual, the other a doctor who made no money but helped to save many lives.

Penelope a hinduist, Lola a Santera.

They both had faith in something that was better than what they had in front of them.

They both were taken;  taken by men, taken by their religion, and taken by their country.

They both had no choice then to let themselves be taken by the ocean.

Yemaya and Kali had other plans for these two women.

 

scene 2 

Lola is carried back to the retreat by a man dressed in white pants and a white tunic who keeps whispering in he ear as he runs “I’m so sorry Penolope. I did not mean to hurt you.We are one. 

“Quien carajo es Penelope?, why are you speaking to me in English and where are you taking me?” she wondered to herself unable to speak as she tried to come to her senses.

Rey brought her to the camp and laid her down on the air mattress covered in white sheets with white wedding lights surrounding it. This mattress, the one that he had made love to Penelope in the night before for the first time. Of course his version of lovemaking at Penelope’s differed as would Lola and Changos back on the island she had tried to depart from forever.

Lola thought, some tourist must have dragged her out of the water and was now proclaiming his love for her as so many tourists did in the past in order to try and bed a hot cuban momma for the price of a $20 dinner. Lola knew the game and played the cards without ever giving up her hand. She would rather work in the clinic, helping as many as she could, taking home her measly pay of $25 a month than sleep with a yuma.

“Coño que hambre tengo. Un bistec con cebollas seria fantastico but a piece of bread and butter would suit me fine.”

Rey heard these words and ran to cook Penelope a steak on the grill, her favorite food that she always forbade herself to eat, because animals would suffer, and she was determined to fight for methane reduction in the environment. She was that justice warrior who would save the world from itself.

Ten minutes after Lola’s thoughts of savoring a juicy steak had passed, she woke, sat up, and noticed her mouth was watering. She looked on the floor to the right of her and there sat a fine cut of meat waiting for her to clench her teath into. It made no sense, and she didn’t care. SHe just wanted to eat the steak. She cut a tiny piece and put it into her mouth thinking it was a joke and it would be cat meat as the cuban government had made it virtually impossible for locals to get their hands on any meat. Even if you owened a cow you could land in jail for five years if you slaughtered it for your own consumption.

“Hay que rico, dios mio” she cried after slowly chewing her meat 25 times before swallowing.

“Penelope, you deserve it, responded Rey as he entered into ther camp to see her awake and devouring the sacred cow they had only yesterday sacrificed to the gods.

“ I’m not Penelope, my name is Lola and who are you?”

Rey cautiously approached her and grabbed her arms, “Penelope I’m sorry for last night, I love you, I don’t know what happened out there in the ocean to you after you ran off. I found you lying on the beach naked believing you were dead. I brought you back here. Do you not remember who I am, who you are?

Lola continued eating her steak thinking perhaps this was heaven. Fabulous steak and a man waiting at your feet. What a difference from yesterday.