Author's Note

Obviously, I don't know how it feels like to be pregnant. I only know the fear of the pain that comes to me frequently in the place where a baby should live and the dark thought that I will never have the choice to have children because my own body won't let me.

Boy, I write really long sentences.

Anyway, I spent an entire day with my lola last weekend, and she talked about the wars that she lived through. Back in Vigan, they had a basement where they hid all the beautiful girls in their family whenever the Japanese would raid their town.

I've also been intrigued by Afrofuturism lately. I've been looking for books by Octavia Butler—if you know where I can get a copy of any of her books or where I can read her short stories online legally, let me know. This one book, Kindred, stuck to me. It's about a time travelling woman who meets her ancestors and is given a choice between allowing violence to happen to her ancestor and live in the future or to stop it and risk never existing at all. Wow.

Anyway, this is one of those stories that won't let me write other things until I put it on paper. It's been keeping me up at night for an entire week. I couldn't read anything else. I can't add new chapters into that other project. I can't even sleep even when I'm sleepy. Stephen King said that a good idea will stick to you no matter what. I wish I knew that it would keep me up at night like a serialized nightmare until I give into what it wanted me to do.

I don't know if I'll keep this story online long. I might take it down after a month or so if I still don't know what to do with it by then.

But at least, finally, it's done, and I can move on to other things. And only Malaya will keep up.

Tell me what you think of this story?