We See a Different Frontier: A Postcolonial Speculative Fiction Anthology Read Online Free PDF Page B

noise so I raise my head and I see it.
    It’s like a flying jellyfish, though I’ve never seen a jellyfish in real life. Just a picture in a magazine. Well, this is kinda like that, except real big. It ripples with lots of colors and I’m not even sure I know all the colors. It’s hovering there, in the sky, all shiny and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And I think if they’ve come to kill us it’s alright ’cause at least they’ve given us something beautiful.
    The truth is I cry ’cause it’s so pretty.
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    Leonardo has nice hair and he fidgets in front of the small mirror. I don’t really care what I look like. I wouldn’t have even clipped my nails if he hadn’t insisted they looked gross. Gross? When we met I’d already had a shower and been disinfected. Imagine if he had met me before, when I lived in the slums.
    Of course, he would have never met me. That’s what pisses me off about Leonardo. He acts like we are totally partners, should totally engineer some great escape together, but he would’ve never even looked at me if we’d bumped into each other on the street. A piece of bubble gum stuck to his shoe would’ve been more appealing than me. Now we’re supposed to be friends. Now we should get along because we are both slaves.
    See, I don’t know where he gets that shit about slaves. The aliens say “specialized personnel” and I do feel like personnel. I don’t feel like a slave because they ain’t having us do hard labour. They ain’t whipping us or chaining us or starving us. Yeah, maybe it is a bit like a prison, but I get three meals a day. There’s fresh vegetables and meat. There’s the nice bed and there’s the uniform with my red jacket.
    I happen to like the uniform. It’s the first piece of clothing that fits me. I used to wear my sisters’ hand-me-downs. I was the youngest so I got the short end of the stick. Holes in my underwear and rips in my trousers. This uniform is brand new and it fits me.
    Why does he have to be such a downer?
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    Leonardo is smarter than me but sometimes he is stupid. I didn’t finish secondary school, but for all his big words and knowledge of books, sometimes he acts like he’s a little kid.
    He doesn’t like me learning the alien’s language. But the thing is, I’m good at it. I’ve never been good at anything except picking garbage, and that barely counts. But I’m good at learning what they say. I pick it up real fast. Leonardo was a linguistics student and even he can’t do as well as I can. I’m proud of that. I can do stuff.
    Leonardo sours it by saying I’m a Malinche. I didn’t finish secondary school but I know what he means. So I say “Fuck you.”
    How does he get off on saying that? And how does he know what it was like for La Malinche? They sold her off to the Spaniards and she worked for them. What was she supposed to do? Spit in their face? You get into a crappy situation and you cope. So she coped. I don’t see why we’ve got to be all insulted when a woman tries to survive.
    Yeah, I want to learn to speak what the aliens speak. I want to translate for them. ’Cause it’s the smart thing to do. Leonardo looks at me and disapproves. Leonardo is a fool.
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    When we eat in the big hall, Leonardo always wants to sit next to Fabiola and Mario. I don’t like them. They’re always whispering and complaining about the aliens. I know they also whisper about me.
    Leonardo says they’re nice people, but they’re not. Mario called me chola one time (’cause I have the tattoo on my arm) and another time bitch (’cause he’s a scared dickless shit). If I was back in the ravine I could slice the smug smile off his face with a glass bottle. I’m here so I can’t do squat. The aliens don’t like us fighting.
    Today they were sitting together and whispering again. I put on my headphones and listened to my music until they were done. Then we came back to the room and Leonardo was all weird. Something