ValerieKinsey

Part 1. November, Year 27 of Restored Nation Chapter 1. “Chosen” “Congratulations. You have been Chosen.” The doctor bowed his head, genuflecting, but not before a look of panic marred his smooth, plump face. He explained about the microchip. Because you had been growing for twelve weeks inside me, I could be tattooed and tracked. This development could only be celebrated, and yet the doctor would not meet my eyes. Or maybe I could not meet his eyes? Cold air circulated within the room where I sat. The fact that it was cold was supposed to mean that it was clean—free of toxic fog that muddied the November sky outside. I resented the doctor’s heat and fear. He sweat and I shivered. Still, I understood that we were joined in terror of my pregnancy. I asked for the black and white photos of you he’d taken using an ultrasound machine. If I could see you, I thought, you might feel like a material problem — not an abstract one. “Of course,” he said, then frowned. “Actually, I’m not sure. The photos go in your file. Perhaps…” his voice trailed off. Mine was the first pregnancy he’d seen to make it to twelve weeks. In fact, you were beyond that. His voice had a slight tremble. He’d only been a doctor a short time, of course, but procedures now would be scrutinized to the utmost. And I could help him by following the rules. “You’ll have to stop all work outside the home,” he said, “You’re not allowed in the office henceforth.” Rest. Avoid nonessential travel. Attend church, for prayer could only help. Walking was okay, but only short distances in Very Good air. Watch the reports to decide when it was okay to venture outside. We had a purifier and humidifier, right? Iron rich foods. “Ask your husband to shoot a deer,” he suggested, brightening. Plinth loved to hunt animals and our freezer was full of their dismembered bodies. “Venison with turnips makes a good meal for a growing baby.” He doled out scattershot advice he promised would be covered in The Pamphlet. “Red or pink ink? For the rose.” “Does it have to be a rose?” If I was to be permanently marked, I wanted a peony or a dahlia or a tiger lily — the less prosaic flowers of fantasy. He huffed. “I am a doctor. We only learned the rose. We practiced on a pig. And only once.” “Was she pregnant?” I asked. He blinked, uncomprehending. “The pig?” He gave me a strange look. “It was dead,” he said and called the nurse. She was an Auntie, dressed in a pressed white blouse, full chambray skirt, and a long apron with double snake —medical insignia. Her hair was in a French braid that fell between her shoulder blades, as was the custom for Aunties and married women, like me. I fingered the frizzy tail of my own braid and brushed its tip across my lips. The nurse whose name happened to be Sister Rosa scrubbed my right cheekbone with alcohol as she said, “Congratulations, you have been Chosen.” She disapproved of me. I thought it was the unexpected freckles on my not-brown-not-white skin, but then she frowned at the doctor who wrung his hands despondently. She selected the color of the ink and the needle buzzed to life. “Red will be better for her coloring,” she said to the doctor. The first prick contained the microchip, he said. She swabbed gently at the viscous blood, a bloom of red. Then petals seared my flesh. Tears formed. She swabbed at those, too, catching them almost before they crested my eyelid. Together they intoned over the buzzing sound of the tattoo pen: “Hail Mary, Full of Grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.” While they spoke, I clenched my teeth together to keep from screaming. “You must be strong if you are to have a child,” she admonished. I noticed she did not have the tattoo. Still, she could have a child. Mother did not have the tattoo, after all. The tattoo was not required until after I was born. Some women who had reached the necessary milestone—a fetus of twelve weeks—before the Territorial Mandate asked their doctors for the honor. I wondered about Sister Rosa, but did not ask because my cheek throbbed. After he was done, the doctor, who’d regained control of his limbs, put the oil on my forehead in blessing — these medics would appease the Catholics and the Angels both — and the nurse covered my cheek with a clean bandage. “It will take 24 hours to initialize the tracking device,” she said after he’d gone. “Then you will always be within reach.” “Whose reach?” I asked Sister Rosa. The question escaped injudiciously. “The father, first and foremost.” “Our Father?” I asked, wondering why God would need to track me. She glared. “The father of the baby.” I blinked. My own father had never known my whereabouts. Mother told me we concealed this information for his own well-being and ours. But Sister Rosa seemed unreceptive to the hearsay of disobedience. I wanted to say that I did not want to be within her grasp — or my husband’s. In fact, I’d been trying to escape it since I discovered — all on my own — I was carrying you. But this was the wrong attitude for a young wife bestowed with the greatest blessing. “The baby’s father,” she repeated as though waiting for me to agree out loud. “Your husband. He has the right to track his own child.” The sneer, though faint, made me wonder how she knew the baby’s father — your father — was not my husband. Chapter 2. “Triangles” Mother used to carry around a figurine from a place far across the ocean called the Ivory Coast. It was a statuette of a pregnant woman, belly protruding, nipples erect, face impassive in the face of her ferocious fertility. Fertility, my mother told me, is the most powerful force on earth, and, at times, the cruelest. In fact, many of Mother’s lessons began with our contemplation of the little idol. “See that triangle?” Mother asked. She pointed to one nipple, then connected it by invisible horizontal line to its sister, and from there, moved down to the dark triangle where the woman’s legs met. “This is the original holy trinity. Life, human life, is contained within.” Triangles abound. I was the third point on the triangle between Mother and Father, even though I did not know my father then. Somehow, he and Mother were as connected as one breast is to the other, as right hand to the left. You are the point between me and your biological father; on that day you became the point between me and Plinth. Triangles are everywhere. Triangles hold us all in unresolvable tension. Your conception was the direct result of a strange love triangle. I desired a man whom I met at a Gathering as a teenager. His name was Boswell. I fell in love with his ideas, his bravery, his smooth chest. His strange, ancient face which looked like a mask. You might say that I betrayed my husband with my fantasy of Boswell. But while I loved Boswell, he loved his own freedom, his grandiose ideas, and women of all sorts. I transferred my desire for Boswell onto a different body, one who was available to me for reasons of his own. See? Another triangle. Falling pregnant was a terrible shock for the obvious reasons. Our country remains in a state of crisis. After decades of falling birthrates by human choice, birthrates plummeted at the hand of Nature after the Plagues. You are old enough to know that only a small fraction of women in childbearing age will conceive and give birth. When I went to the Specialist for confirmation that I was carrying you, I became Chosen. That is why the doctor and nurse both said to me: “Congratulations, You have been Chosen.” (You will learn all of this soon enough.) Plinth could not have children. His seed had no wings. They could not fly. Only sink. He knew this. He told me. So I knew it, too. The rose tattoo on my cheek marked me as Chosen, but also as Adulteress. My face burned. The rose was the sign of your existence and my betrayal. Chapter 3. “Angel’s Trumpet” Before Mother was exiled to the Far West, she’d taught me how to send an urgent help message using a newsletter called Angel's Trumpet: Where Women of Conscience Meet in Community. Who would help? How would the help arrive? Mother said I would find out if the need arose. I did not sound the alarm after Mother was exiled. I considered doing so, but struggled over whether I faced danger or loneliness. I decided, instead, to accept my fate as a Territorial Ward. At age twenty, I did need help — or I would, when Plinth discovered my pregnancy. In an emergency, I was to write the following in a letter addressed to Angel's Trumpet, Attn: Scripture Reconsidered, “Dear Friends, In your upcoming issue, please print Chapter 19:15-19: It is out of this fossilized shell of time that we emerge as whole creatures, vulnerable in our naiveté, ignorant of the violence which brought us, unprepared, to this emergence…. Sincerely, Your Child of God.” This passage of Angel Scripture came during a dialogue between an angel named Monchalis and a mortal named Yoni. When quizzed on the meaning of this letter, Mother was vague. She reminded me to include the chapter and verses because, she explained, it’s a sign of respect for the text. It shows you are to be taken seriously. For my part, I liked the way the words sounded, even if I did not understand what they meant. I memorized it for Mother’s sake. Throughout my childhood, Mother received messages through this newsletter, which was mostly written by and for Archangel women — members of the conservative religious minority that lived in the northern part of the Territory. The Archangels rejected electronic communication on the grounds that their founder was martyred over a printing press (his death was generally considered an accident although a printing press was involved), and that information should remain in the material world. In fact, their stance on print is said to be one of the Three Ruptures with the Angels. To decode the messages in Angel's Trumpet, Mother referred to her copy of The Fifth Book, the Angel scripture. I watched her working at times, although she did not teach me how to do it before she was exiled. On the September day I finally accepted that I was pregnant, I wrote the letter. I printed using my neatest handwriting. As I came to the numbers which indicated chapter and verse, I was gripped by an idea. Using a basic alphabetic code, I discovered the chapter and verse corresponded to the letters “S.O.S.” I had been too focused on the literal meaning of the passage. With renewed faith that my call would be answered, I addressed the envelope using the address on the old copy of Angel's Trumpet pressed between the pages of Mother’s copy of The Fifth Book and placed it in the mail. Five long weeks after I’d sent the scripture to the address on Angel's Trumpet, I was tattooed. I’d run out of time for rescue. Plinth would soon know of the pregnancy. He would soon be able to track my every movement. I felt little cause for hope. Mother’s plan — my letter — had not worked. As I left the Specialist’s office with bandaged cheek, I held onto one glimmer of light. A new issue of Angel's Trumpet had been released. I found a copy under a church circular on a stand by the Old Cathedral. I guessed that the newsletter had gone to press and been distributed, hand to hand, or by whatever meandering and haphazard channels women’s religious pamphlets are passed, before my own letter arrived. I seized the issue, even though I doubted it contained any secret instructions for me. Just seeing it gave me succor. I scoured the pages for letter and number combinations that I could translate using my code, even as my appointment approached. The simple code did not work. But then, I found one possible lead. That issue’s “Delectable Recipe” called “Cottonwood Cookies,” were “inspired by many fall afternoons spent with dear friends under the golden leaves of my favorite Cottonwood tree,” submitted by a Whitney Thwaite, who shared my same postal code. This coincidence gave me pause. The majority of Archangels lived well to the north. This was not the only element that tugged at me. No one — not even my husband — could procure butter in quantity. There was flour only for gravy and the occasional loaf of bread. The only cookies people made were biscochitos, and only on holidays. There was no practical reason to print something no one could make. I studied the recipe intently over a period of days. Several times in memory, Mother and I had attended Gatherings at the home of a rather notorious man with the initials W.T. W.T. lived on the Bosque not far from my current home, although I had not been there in years — not since I’d landed in Albuquerque, a Ward of the Territory. Not since Mother’s Exile. In the evenings, friends came together beneath an enormous cottonwood tree in his front yard, set well back from the street. I reread the description. The first line of the recipe called for 1 1/4 cups of flour. Could this mean a Gathering at his home on the fourth day of the eleventh month — in short, on November 4th?

Valerie Kinsey Write to Pitch Conference June 20-24 2024 First Seven Assignments Story Statement Tesor’s struggle to raise her daughter free of her grandfather’s control Sketch the Antagonist(s) - 200 words Primary: Archangel Levi The patriarch of an orthodox religious tradition, Archangel Levi seeks to accumulate power, wealth, and ultimately control over his legacy by finding and trapping his granddaughter, who may have the power to give him a male heir. Levi is charismatic, patient, manipulative, and convinced of his god-sanctioned right to dictate his granddaughter’s reproductive choices. He uses every tool at his disposal – bribery, murder, spiritual blackmail – to get what he wants: a great -grandson. Secondary: Plinth Plinth - Tesor’s nickname for her husband - is described as a large, cold and unmovable object. He is co-founder and co-owner of Fuerte Construction and seeks to maximize profits and build the biggest and strongest infrastructure projects in the Territory. Unhindered by false hopes of a legitimate heir, Plinth sets his sights on being a tycoon, ascending to the top of the economic hierarchy of the Territory. He is pragmatic and dogged in his affairs, and choses Tesor to be a helpmeet in building his enterprise as she is an orphan and will be forever unencumbered by family obligations. He is also drawn to her unusual looks and amber eyes. Breakout Title The Angel’s Trumpet Girl with Golden Eyes You Have Been Chosen Develop Two Smart Comparables Literary /Dystopian The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood): dystopian, female-centric novel set against an ultraconservative religious government The Blue Ticket (Sophie Mackintosh) dystopian, female-centric novel with a pregnant woman on the run Write Your Own Logline (Conflict and Core Wound) Unexpectedly pregnant and trapped in an orthodox religious tradition, a young woman must re-enact her own mother's flight from a religious patriarch and would-be suitor to raise her child on her own terms. Conflict (Primary Conflict, Inner Conflict, Social Conflict) Tesor’s Inner Conflict: Tesor believes her impulsive action – specifically her desire to meet her lover at a Gathering, or meet-up of subversives, artists and other counter-Territory types – has led to her mother’s permanent exile. Given that her mother raised her alone, Tesor feels a bond of love and debt to her mother, and cannot forgive herself for going against her mother’s prohibition and betraying her mother’s trust. Complicating matters further is the fact that her mother never shared some important elements of her life with Tesor, leading Tesor to question her origins, her mother’s motives, and the purpose of their constant wandering across the Territory. Tesor’s Secondary Conflicts: Tesor has made a terrible mistake marrying Plinth, a man she thought would grant her legitimacy and tranquility. Instead of finding peace, she finds she is lonely and begins an affair with Plinth’s business partner and childhood friend, Christopher Maddox, which, shockingly (due to the catastrophically low birth rates) results in a pregnancy. Because Plinth knows the child cannot be his, he vows to have Tesor exiled after the baby is born. However, the Territory would grant him paternity and enable him to keep the child. Although Plinth originally plans to have his mother help him with this task, he later deduces the identity of the baby’s father,and conspires with Maddox’s wife to wrestle the newborn from Tesor as revenge. Tesor’s biological grandfather (Levi) and step-mother (Grandma Joan) contrive to marry her to the new Visitor, a glorified sperm donor, at the Blue Sage Settlement. Although Tesor has little choice but to submit to the union on paper, she refuses to consummate her marriage, ultimately leading to the final confrontation with Levi. The Visitor, called Stadler Nash, is a far kinder man than Plinth and through duty and inclination, wants his arranged marriage to Tesor to evolve into a true marriage after his turn as Visitor ends, with potential for more children and a stable lifestyle with his family Tesor will not consent to consummating her marriage with Stadler Nash for two reasons: first, because she rejects his orthodox faith; second, because she has fallen in love with a different man, the one who helped her escape from Plinth. Jamie has also fallen for Tesor, but is reluctant to get involved with her due to his participation in an illicit secret society, the Misericordia, which seeks the peaceful end of humankind on planet earth. Aside from keeping him occupied, Jamie knows these actions run afoul of the law in the Territory and may result in exile– a fate he has accepted, but doesn’t want to impose upon Tesor and her daughter. Social Conflict: The ultra-religious world portrayed in this novel divides women into categories based upon their likely ability to bear children and is organized – at least on the surface – to promote the perpetuation of humankind through social and financial incentives for marrying and bearing children. The novel follows five different women, Tesor, Grandma Joan, Aunt Maybee, Esther Weaver, Freya as they work both separately and collectively to affirm women’s custody of their own bodies and lives. All of these women face multiple conflicts as a result of the society, although each makes separate, different choices about which actions are morally permissible in the circumstances. Setting Years before, a series of calamitous events collectively called “The Plagues” transformed the land, politics and people of North America. Although no part of the country formerly known as the United States of America was immune, the coasts suffered the greatest impact, spurring the Inward Migration as surviving populations moved toward the center of the landmass. The oceans rose. Pestilence descended. Millions died. Great cities were abandoned. The novel takes place on the western frontier of the Restored Nation, in what is now called the Fraternal Territory of New Mexico. Tesor and her mother visited nearly every part of the Territory as permanent wanderers seeking Guests for the Blue Sage Settlement, a one-time Northern New Mexico motel that’s been converted to a women’s shelter. The present plotline takes place primarily in a reimagined Albuquerque and Taos. From the novel: The Wall is a great, disemboweled stone snake that crawls through the desert from Mexico up to Colorado, west of the Rio Grande. At the moment, its stone head and tail are joined together in spots by metal fences of chain link and barbed wire. Plinth planned to replace that metal lattice with rock, erecting a section from the border of the Vulcan sub-development in the south around the ancient volcano to the far north of the city. This was, oddly, the oldest portion of the Wall in our Territory, but also the last to be replaced with stone and steel. I crossed the river and drove west to where The Wall would be. At that moment, it was a series of concrete pylons, wide as a man and tall as a fortress, stacks of stone and bags of sand. The earth-moving tools were lined up in a row beside the trailer Plinth used as an office. In spite of the fiery orange sun and its dull light— the last of the day—the site was quiet. I knew, from Plinth’s griping, his crew were waiting on more fuel. Fuel drove The Wall. Beyond the construction site were the formidable wire fences, the desert plain, and the darkened highway, a thin, undulating line I could only imagine, which once connected the east and west of the continent. The highway was still lined with rows of abandoned cars, pressing eastward in their unmoving even rows. Their fuel had been siphoned years ago; their engines requisitioned for parts. They were shells, now, cast out of the sea to bake on the sand.