The Invera Project

Chapter I

The sun is your eggplant, little round one.

May you bend with its beams that come to your leaves

Like holographs of holy guidance.

The day was the same as any other day, and the same as any other story. The story was old, the story had been told a thousand times a day in this city and the next city and the next. This was what Nika told herself as she stood at the sink, her hands clutching the rim of the counter, staring herself down in the dusty mirror.

Brains. Brawn. Beauty.

They wanted her simple minded but good at learning so that they could tell her everything about her life and she would bob her head while she listened.

They wanted her strong and healthy so that they could broadcast her on TV, but not too strong that she would fight when they pushed her into the news station's red loveseat.

They wanted her hair straight and her eyes dull and her features simple. It wasn't about what they considered beautiful. No, it was about what they considered perfect.

It was about the inverse of the girl who glared back from the other side of Nika's reflection.

She picked at a flake of dry skin on her chin until it peeled away, making her face red. Shit. She shouldn't have done that. She grabbed the tube of concealer from the sticky plastic organizer at the edge of the countertop.

"Nika?" Sila's voice was distant, but it made Nika's hands shake. She wasn't ready to leave. Not yet. She wasn't ready to get in the car and watch her last moments pass in a blur of dulled colors through tinted windows. She wasn't ready to wait in the examination room or to take deep breaths when the doctor came in to tabulate her.

She wasn't ready to stop waiting.

"Nika? Are you still in the bathroom?"

"Yes, Mom." Nika rubbed the makeup into her skin. It burned. It would burn even more when the nurses pulled out alcohol pads and stripped her face down to its exposed core. But she wouldn't let herself think about that, not now.

Sila pushed open the door to the bathroom. "It's time to go."

Nika stared at her fingertips, held the edge of the counter tighter.

"Look at me," Sila ordered. Nika clenched her jaw and turned her head to look at her mother. Sila groaned. "Fine. You look fine. It's fine." She repeated this a few times, more to herself than Nika. Eventually she turned around, rubbing the wrinkles on her forehead. The margarita she held sploshed around, almost spilling. "Come on. Let's go."

Nika swallowed the tightness in her throat and followed Sila out of the bathroom.

The car was waiting outside the gates, its engine humming slightly. Nika tried the handle on the back door but immediately pulled away, cursing. The metal had heated up under the city's sun, a frying pan for her fingers. She pulled the sleeve of her shirt over her hand and tried again.

Sila slid in next to Nika and the engine buzzed as the driver hit the accelerator.

The gates around their house got blurrier and blurrier, at last disappearing. Their house spread its fat belly over a perfectly kept block of green grass and cleaned sidewalks, but you didn't have to go far before the trash bags sat uncollected at the side of the road.

"Your hands are shaking."

Nika jumped in her seat. The hum of the car's engine had begun to hypnotize her, and Sila's sharp voice brought back the pain in her stomach that had haunted her for days. And, indeed, her hands were shivering even despite the ray of hot sun coming through the window.