#ibpocfutures

◆What are the futures we want, need and breathe?

◆What new worlds could we create beyond the limits of dominant science, society and power structures?

◆What would the world look like if we centered the knowledge systems from our own communities, spiritualities, and ancestries?

◆What if liberation had already been achieved?

◆What would this world, where we have achieved liberation by and for our people, look, taste, smell and feel like?

◆What are the steps to getting us there?

All of them around the table ten. Staring at her, as if she had betrayed them. “We are taking your son.”’ they said icily looking everywhere but her eyes. They went on but all she heard was her heart beat, all she saw was her heart leap, out of her chest As she recalled the months she had spent fighting. Stressed. To keep food in his belly and Clothes on his back.

Where they there?! Whenever he was sick,’ dehydrated,’ seizing. Did they watch as she skipped 10  15  30  meals in a row So he could have his 3 squares and then some? Skin and bones she had become so that he could have the belly of kings. Her prince.

She focused back to the room, regained composure, and above the dull roar of irrelevant voices she asks “where will the boy go?” “To the father.” Her heart stops. Her mind races. That man won’t love him like she does. That man can’t teach him what she can. That man, was barely there now.

She excused herself and raced back to the hospital bed. Packed all the toys, clothes, books that she had brought For him. Tears springing out of her eyes like a persistent leak The boy awakens and utters an excited’ “Mama!” She stops. His eyes so curious, so wide, so innocent. His cheeks so full and soft. His understanding of the world goes no further than knowing the warmth of her breast, the softness of her skin, and the unconditional love in her voice. She is his home.

They were too quick! Those sombdf faces returned, having added more to their ranks. Dr.’s nurses, security, and the Judas that was, no. Is the boys’ father. So pious is he to accuse her of an act so callous, so disgusting that any human would cringe at the thought? So self-righteous of he to lie and present as the better half. Where was he before now? How could they not see through such a ruse?! She grabs her son and bags and heads for the door They try to grab her. She threatens to call the police. They counter with the same fate./ Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth they joust using only their words. Their objective was to get her to lose control. How cruel some humans can be when they sense weakness and desperation in another.

The boys’ father watches her with a perverse calm… Pressed Armani suit, smirk on his face, eyes Dead. He watches as she fights like a wounded animal Disorientated. Hurt. Scared. Trying to protect her one and only treasure. Pleading to him to make the nightmare end.

Silence.

He watches as she is surrounded Watches as they pin her down. Watches as they rip’ the screaming child from her bony, unpolished fingers. Watches as they joyously hand the child to him to be consoled He continues to watch her as they drag her to her feet. Listens to her woeful laments And counts the tears as they stream down her face

Then, with a final smirk’ As if bored by such an emotional display,’ He turns on the pretentious heel of his well polished Louis Vuittons’ and calmly/ Walks/ Away/…

The air is thick with acrid fumes and floating dust. Breathing shallow, Zee continues to fly as the particles collect in the corner of their eyes. They don’t flinch. At this altitude, this is considered clean air. Beneath them, a family walks along the river. From where Zee is, the family looks like black crumbs crawling across red earth. Zee shakes their head. They won’t last more than five minutes. Zee winces, feeling a pang in their chest. Distracted, they fly full speed towards an exhaust tower of a klinda factory. Taking a sharp left turn, Zee avoids the collision by centimetres. Zee furrows their brow at the thought of walking along the Fraser River with their father. They scoff at the image of their younger self laughing and running in and out of the cool river. Their father used to watch them and let out a hearty chuckle. Zee shakes their head to rid the thought. There is no use for nostalgia in Villordo. The family is no longer moving along the river. Zee peers below to find a pile of pale bodies on the ground, a mere white stain on the red earth. Called it. Geez, when did I become so cold?

Landscape, strange, alien evoking longing home, remembered before the poison lush, green, full of life home, poisoned waters spawning frankenfish home, poisoned air devoid of birds IBPOC banishment water apartheid declared IBPOCs respond, federate.

Home, leaving home! Federation scientists predict, dream, escape taking the leap into space taking the leap with us children, elders the sick, the forgotten Red Rock World People welcome IBPOC Federation

On Red Rock World a new life for us begins Sharing, knowledge, stories, art, feasts, dances cement reciprocity, interdependence for tw0 peoples now on Red Rock World a question bombards my mind, What qualities, talents have I to share? Red Rock Grandmother smiles, answers

Outside the private disaster of modern day progress, surely something else still existed. Wasn’t burned away by those of us who bit the hand that fed them.

If there was any saving grace, it was this, those with less melanin, less colour, less shit, dusk and night sky in their skin and eyes, have been most affected. They are burning in the fires of their own hates, greeds and exploitation. It’s — an effected, poetic, terrifying kind of justice, this.

We have always known. We have always known how unstable, how precarious existence has been for us called other. Pushed to the edges. And then pushed even farther. Despite this, we have survived. All of it. We have never let the hell that existed around us destroy us so completely, so viciously, with so little effective resistance.

For those of us left, we are not together but we are not alone either. In the madness that followed that day, some of us found each other, found those we had already started calling sister and brother, not out of blood but out of the necessity of love. The necessity of survival. In preparation for what we knew was coming. An end that could be a beginning.