by Coryna Pido
“Home” is an honorable mention in Southern New Hampshire University’s 2024 Fall Fiction Contest.
She stalks away from the store, a bundle of Cempasúchil being promptly watered by a river of tears streaming down her face.
She remembers every Sunday being dragged to service where she learned she could fall asleep of boredom while sitting, kneeling, and even standing straight up.
She recalls learning old prayers said with no feeling, like a robotic chorus of outdated words echoing in big buildings.
She has no memories of softly laying down flowers on an ofrenda, the same way she sobbingly did on her mother’s coffin while they lowered her into the earth.
She can’t remember even talking to her mother about carefully crafting an alter for her ancestors. That medicine was forgotten long before her.
Now, all she can remember is learning how to do so on her own—making an ofrenda—by asking Grandmother Google and Tía TikTok.
Now, her ancestors are gone, and her mother is too.
No connections are left to the world of her indigenous bloodlines.
Just new ones, built from colonized hands meant to erase what came before.
But she can’t be erased. She still stands.
Placing photos on her ofrenda of her childhood memories; her family—her mother smiling—while they gather around the Christmas tree.
Because that is what she is really mourning, her family. Her mother was the glue, without her, pieces slowly began to pull apart.
She mourns her connection to her family and her ancestors. That is why she comes to her ofrenda each night, made of plastic flowers and candles with a Virgin on them.
Symbols she doesn’t always understand, but she grasps onto as if they can somehow prove that she is indigenous too.
That at one time, she belonged somewhere.
With her native tongue still stumbling from her mouth como un borracho caminando por las calles en la media noche.
She knows now that learning Spanish is just like learning about Jesus. It’s another dark part of her history. The part where her people’s language was stolen and forgotten.
Squashed down like their gods, dances, stories: their identities.
She wonders if she can be like one of those plant trimmings, the ones that start clipped with no roots, but left in enough water they can grow their own root system.
She sits at her ofrenda on November Second alone, her father and her brothers across the globe. They never searched for a connection like she did anyway.
Why would they, they identify with the colonizer more than with the indigenous.
With the invasive species more than the endemic flowers.
Suddenly, she feels a deep sense of loss. Kneeling on the ground. Her bare knees begin to bruise.
She wishes she had photos of her ancestors, the ones whose names she never knew.
She imagines who they were, what they were like. Would they be proud of her now? Would they be sad that all they had done in their lives has led to her being alone in a room as cold as a casket, wondering if she’ll ever know who she really is, and where she comes from?
She daydreams of her feet, burying themselves into the dirt of the land her ancestor’s bones were born from, where they rest now.
She dreams of not having to think before she speaks in Spanish, the language flowing out naturally like the Atoyac river of Michoacán.
She wonders if she’ll ever be surrounded by other Mexican people on Dia De Muertos, filled with laughter and heartache, all of them looking at her like she is one of them, like she finally fits in somewhere in the world (because she definitely doesn’t with her white family, blonde and blue eyed, saying hola with an emphasis on the H, looking at her like an anomaly).
Or will they see her skin slightly lighter than the rest and know she has colonizer blood in her too.
Will they notice her tongue stumbling on words she learned on an app on her phone and laugh at her like her cousins do. Will they whisper with words her high school Spanish teacher never taught her?
Alone in a new depth of darkness, more parts of her begin to shatter.
The sun is setting outside of her small apartment window.
Deep reds like blood and oranges like her flowers light up the room.
The fragrant smell floats toward her, filling her with remembrance;
The Cempasúchil scent is said to guide her ancestors back.
Tonight is when the veil is the thinnest between this realm and the spirit realm; if she could talk to her mom ever again, it would be now.
She had been planning this for weeks, her first Dia De Muertos with fresh flowers and everything.
So, she lays her head down on the floor in front of her in an attempt to calm herself. She knows if she is too upset, she won’t be able to hear the spirits’ messages (Tía TikTok wisdom).
Colors are suddenly splayed out, orange geometric shapes scatter across the triangle shaped mountain tops in the distance. Everything is glowing, light, spinning, darkness.
She struggles to open her eyes, still kneeling, she blinks them open to find herself at the bottom of a great set of stairs of a Yácatapyramid. She isn’t scared or even confused. She is just there, like she has always been there
Everyone is speaking in a language she has never heard, but she understands fully with her heart. They are praying to Curicaueri, the Sun God.
There are flowers, wind, bronze, offerings, just like her ofrenda but massive.
Smiling, her people surround her in ceremony she never learned but understands exactly. She turns to her left and sees a woman who feels like a grandmother to her, this woman is not surprised to see her. Strangely, she seems expectant; excited—yet calm—like the lake they now sit upon.
The girl puts her hand on either side of the canoe, surrounded by lush mountains, she understands why her people call this a gateway to heaven. The grandmother looks deep into her eyes, bringing her forehead close, breathing the same breath together they inhale. She says, “Remember, like our people you too are a warrior, and no one can defeat you. Just as no one will ever defeat our people.”
The words sing around her, calling the girl into the green specs of her grandmother’s eyes, falling, floating, sinking.
All she sees is green and white. Fluffy and wet, the clouds circle above, a sheep comes to lick her face. Sitting straight up, another woman grabs her hand and pulls her up. Standing, she sees she is surrounded by hills of green grass, crisp air, salty breeze. This woman looks at her with the same intentness of the grandmother.
Actually, if she tilts her head, they could be the same person. Even though this woman has pale skin and bushy red hair, they somehow feel identical. This woman hands her some twigs that radiate in her palms. “This is white willow bark,” she says. “Remember that plants are your medicine, child.” She locks eyes with the woman and is sucked into the intensity once again, transported, when she looks back down she is standing in a sea of snow, yet she is somehow filled with warmth.
When she gazes up once more, the eyes are that of a wolf, piercing brown and yellow. The beast is almost as white as the snow, looking at her knowingly. She tells the girl to remember her strength and her resilience, like that of a wolf. Without fear, the girl grabs the wolf’s fur; gazing into its eyes, she has let go of all resistance now.
When their gaze releases, she steps back, realizing her hands are full of her mother’s hair. The river of tears returns as her mother smiles at her, giving her a knowing look that all of her guides have given her tonight. But this face is different, it is the one she has ached to see for too long. The one from the photo on her ofrenda.
All at once, they are back in her room. Her mom lays her down like she did when the girl was young. She holds her face, gazing into her eyes, speaking the language of her heart. She tells the girl “When you think you are alone, I am with you. Each step you take, my footsteps are beside yours. When there is only one pair of footprints, that is when I am carrying you.” The girl laughs, did you steal that from the poster you had in the bathroom about Jesus?” Her mother giggles with her, smiles once more, and the girl feels held for the first time in a long time. She slowly begins to blink her eyes shut. A calm washes over her. With her mom here, she is home.
She wakes up to the red and orange of sunrise pouring into her room, knowing she is always Home.
Category: Competition, Featured, Short Story