These Dreams of You

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For Jasmine, mercy lies in the first blow from the six young men with shaved heads coming through her door, knocking most of the life from her and making the other blows superfluous.

After that, her last moments slow down and take on an altitude. Shock and pain fall away from her. Life fades fast from what it is about the woman that her assailants most despise, which is not her black skin: It’s those white woman’s gray eyes to which they believe she has no right. If she had the time to be surprised, she might be surprised that she doesn’t think of Bob at all. She doesn’t think of the night of the three mad fathers. If she had even more time to consider this surprise, she would realize it’s not a surprise in the least: She thinks of her daughter. She prays, in the moment that she has to utter a prayer, not for herself but that her daughter doesn’t return too soon.

It’s all Jasmine thinks about, because this is the radio signal sent from maternity’s ethiopia: We think of our children. If you believe in no god then you accept that we’re so programmed by nature to think of our children in our last moments; if you believe in a God then you know She/He/It wrote the program in the first place. Jasmine hopes in the last moments for a blast of divine foresight, another radio signal from the future that tells her that her daughter will be all right. She doesn’t get this. Probably nobody gets this. Probably like countries, all people get is hope, and odds no better than even.