Worldly People at Bay
Words By Vanja Čečen, Art By Hailey Renee Brown
My family likes to sit at the coast of the bay and make grand plans for the future. We drink wine, and we smoke. We talk about the multibillion-dollar inheritance we’ll someday get when an attorney informs us the last member of my great-great grandfather’s secret, second family has died, and my father is their closest relative.
We’ve unanimously decided when that happens, we’ll buy the entire bay. No more tourists, we say, looking at one of the two monstrosities anchored in our tiny bay. Each city-ship that comes in daily has more passengers than the bay’s biggest town has residents.
We’ll sink one right outside the bay entrance, and leave its corpse as a warning to all the others.
We will only allow water travel by sail within our borders. No more waiting for hours, trying to pass the single road in town when the foreigners pour out of their gigantic metal tubs. We conclude outsiders will have access to the bay exclusively on weekends.
Suddenly, the lights on the opposite coast go out. This is a somewhat frequent occurrence, but it earns a standing ovation from our corner of the bay nonetheless. “That’s another thing,” says my mother. “We will enforce a curfew on certain days. Only candlelight will be allowed, so we can watch the stars without all this light pollution.”
She’s got a point I think as I shield my eyes from the neighbor’s floodlight.
“But on other, rarer days,” Mom continues. “We will have a festival of light. Think about it, fireworks and holograms in the sky!”
“Drones,” My brother chimes in.
“Projections on the water,” I say.
Dad’s best friend perks up, “And movies you can watch from the sea!” he sweeps a hand to indicate the mountains rising all around us.
“We should instate new religious holidays,” my adopted aunt contemplates. “We’ll introduce the cult of Machina Abramovich. The matron saint of clean dishes and soft hands.”
“Oh yes,” Dad agrees. “We’ll build her a grand cathedral, halfway up the mountain. People will make pilgrimages just to get a glimpse of her.” My brother and I can’t help but laugh.
I have my own suggestion, “I think Conchetina also deserves her own holiday.”
“Absolutely,” my aunt approves, adjusting her companion’s chubby plastic legs to sit more securely on her little handmade beach chair. “She’s a worldly woman! My daughter’s birthday deserves to be celebrated by the masses!”
“I’ll drink to that!” Dad cheers, and we all raise our glasses in Conchetina’s name.