ZEKE

Bernice looked down at the two bodies that laid at her feet. They were covered in shrouds made from the kitchen table and the sheet from her bed. Correction-her and husband’s bed.

The faces of her dead could be seen and she made sure that she could see them when she performed “The Shrouding '' that she learned from her 89-year old aged Mother.

Bernice looked down. She cried tiny tears and not because she wasn’t sad. She was all cried out and had nothing left. She bent down easily and pulled the heart-shaped locket out of the shrouds.

She struggled with pulling them out for a minute. This frustrated her because she didn’t think that she had wrapped the bodies that tightly. Clara, her deceased Mother would have been proud. This made Bernice smile but only for a moment. Eventually she was able to pull the lockets from the two bodies in front of her.

She studied them for a while and then, suddenly she snatched them off the bodies. An anger rose up and she decided to try to throw them away. She couldn't do it. This would make her third attempt since, well you know.

Bernice couldn't do it because she realized that she was as much as part of the problem than she wanted to be. She softly held the two heart-shaped lockets when put together to make one bigger locket. She looked down at her boys, that really weren't her boys anymore.

Her twin sons, Zion and Zach, were actually no longer twin boys but twin girls Zara (aka Zion) and Zoe (aka Zach).

She didn’t want to remember why her heart felt so bad. The images flooded her psyche. Tears flowed easily for the first time since, well you know. That’s what Bernice called it. It’s the way her husband of 22 years said it. He would say “Well, it’s time for ‘You Know’” and he’d be off to conduct business.

As much as she tried to shake the feeling, she couldn’t. This caused her anger to rise again. She was mad at the U.S. Government. If only the Politicians took the date that set things off seriously. The country of her birth and her Mother’s birth and her children’s birth had turned against them. It all happened in one day.

“The Party of Lincoln...”, she laughed out loud at that thought.

“Fuckin’ Crazies”. There it felt better this time.

She just remembered that on January 6th 2021, the insurrection happened. On January 6th 2024, another insurrection happened. Again, on January 6th, 2028.

On February 8th 2034, “the Crazies” won. Now, the America that she and her family had immigrated to from Syria didn't look like America anymore.

Bernice realized why she was sad. After the 2024 election, Marjorie Taylor Greene won with Ted Cruz as her President. She and her “Party of Q’ won and all sorts of legislation were passed against trans people. Her “boys” were immediately affected because by then they had told her that they always wanted to be girls.

Her boys-now her girls- just didn't feel comfortable being in boy's bodies anymore. They talked to her and her husband. It looked like they would just navigate this new “Family Crisis”.

All that was behind her because she didn't remember anything after that because shortly after that January 6th 2021 day, life became a blur. A blur of the Post-COVID crawl, Delta Variant re-surge and finally the Golf/Hotel variant.

By 2034, “The Party of Q” had a grip on America’s heart and soul. There was no reasoning with the mind of Q. So when they said that if you were the father of a trans person (Boy to Girl) then you were legally authorized to reinsert your DNA back into your children to “cleanse” them .

“The Cleansing” would begin a regeneration process. That ritual allowed a Father's DNA to be re-inserted into the trans-boy; first orally and then anally. The Law stated that however many sessions it took to bring your boy back was legally authorized. So, Fathers all across America did just that.

Bernice remembered that the ritual started out and her husband Joey was disgusted. Joey realized that he just had to bring his sons back. He knew that since the government gave him the authority to administer the ritual then it must be “Divinely Inspired”. He had to trust the plan.

Joey also knew that Bernice had to allow it to happen or she would end up going to jail. The jail sentence was just a precursor for a firing squad if she didn’t accept “Q” as the true Faith of America and denounce her own.

Bernice was scared. She did not want to face a firing squad. She did not want to denounce her Catholic faith. She did not want to leave her children with Joey so she allowed him to perform the ritual as often as he pleased.

“Hey, it’s time for well, you know...so don’t wait up.”

She’d hear him say this every morning and every night. It was more consistent than the rising and setting of the sun.

One morning after hearing the screams and the sounds of her husband and her girls, she couldn't take it any longer.

Bernice decided to go downstairs to get a knife. After grabbing the knife, she climbed the stairs and stabbed Joey in the back. When he rolled off of her “son”, she stabbed Joey in the chest. She continued stabbing him until she couldn't anymore.

Subsequently, she cut Joey up in several pieces, ground them in the meat grinder and fed them to Zeke, her beloved German Shepherd.

“Joey, what are you doing?” She remembered asking him once when she saw Zeke chained up next to their pool.

“I’m drowning her puppies! What the fuck does it look like?”

“Why are you doing that?” It was all she could stomach to say.

“I always hated this fucking dog!” It was a simple statement that once said produced a crack that the Jan 2024 insurrection flung wide open.

After she grounded Joey’s body in the meat grinder, she grabbed the bodies of Zara and Zoe and wrapped them up in sheets. They begged her to kill them after the stabbing incident. They couldn’t bear to stay in their violated bodies. As she suffocated them, one after the other, she sat on the floor next to their shrouded bodies.

After what seemed like an eternity, Bernice put her girls in her Jeep and decided to just drive for a while. When she could no longer drive, she took the bodies out of the Jeep and laid them on the ground before her.

As she looked at the two heart-shaped lockets that interlocked in her hands trying, she again tried to throw them away. Finally, she realized that she couldn't do it.

Bernice took a moment for her to gather and shape her thoughts.

“Huh”

She took the heart-shaped lockets and opened the mouths of her children. She put them in. She returned to the car and retrieved a gasoline can. Dousing the two bodies with the gas, Bernice set them ablaze.

Somewhere midway in the burning smell of flesh of her own children, Bernice put Zeke back in the Jeep and drove away.

-Fini-