THE OMEN GIRL | Wattys 2020 Winner

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞

Against the canvas of the night sky, people turn into stars.

The city below is dim. Its citizens are hushed. Streaking above us and through the air are stars shaped like people, tearing past like fighter jets, hurling away like a scream. Their skin is living liquid light, and stardust trails in their wake. The dust settles gold over my skin, and itches.

Father's hand is warm on my ankle, and I am sitting on that someone's shoulders. I am small enough for it.

Look, he says. Look, Sozo.

I look, but the people are gone. They've dipped away into the dense geometry of the cityscape, and all is dark again.

Sozo, Mother says. She leans close to whisper. The Decade-Races are the race of dreams. Fly fast enough, and strong enough, and better than everyone else, and you win a wish, any wish.

You win the right to anything you desire.

Do you understand, Sozo?

"Yes," I lie, because I'm only four during this race, and all I understand is the height of the world from my father's shoulders, and the warmth of my mother's hand on my back.

Why should I understand races and wishes when I already have everything I need?

*

Against the canvas of a white white wall, I am told to take off my clothes.

I'm lined up with other kids around my age, six or seven years old. All our clothes are too big. All our shoes are too worn. Standing to my left is a girl, half a head taller with round blue eyes, and we look at each other. We are standing too far apart to hold hands, so all we can do is look at each other.

Clumped before us are men and women in blue police gear, and they go down our line one by one, to turn us and to check us, to look at us all over.

Listen up, they say. There's been reports of an Omen here.

They're charged with burglary, assault, vandalism, theft. It's young, and likely a girl. Black hair, black eyes, pale skin. There's an omen stain somewhere on her body, possibly on her back.

They are talking about me. I swallow. I have broken into many places. I have stolen many things. The lie I tell myself is that I have to. No one else in the world is looking out for me after all, not anymore.

It's my turn to be looked over. The police eye me and wait.

I retract my arms from my airy shirt and pull it up over my head. And then I do what I always do – I hide my omen stain.

Hiding it is not something the others can do. I don't know why. All I know is that it is a simple thing, like holding my breath, where the black spill of my omen sinks back underneath my skin. But like holding my breath, I can't hide it for long, just long enough to get away with things like this.

The men and women turn me around and look over my skin, and I know they see nothing but the bumps of my spine, the bumps of my ribcage, the pinprick bumps over my white skin from the cold. They find no omen stain there, though it's there.

It will always be there.

The police move on. I slip on my clothes. They look at the girl next to me and she shrinks back against the wall. She shakes her head, no, no. She doesn't want to bare herself like this.

One of them, a woman, glove thick and squeaking, clamps her hand around the girl's arm and yanks. The girl yelps. The girl struggles. She paws at the unfeeling glove and says, Please, please.