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Thank you for the opportunity to submit to the Golden Records anthology to be encoded and shot into space with the Sojourner Space Probe of November 2059. I am specifically responding to the call for applications from Illegal Aliens residing in the New South Territories but seeking asylum. As such, I respectfully request that if any part of this statement is accepted and included, it will be done so anonymously.
Below, please find the following required materials: an excerpt—not exceeding two hundred words—from materials submitted to support my request for asylum because of political opinion, the submission to be considered and, lastly, a short autobiographical statement.
Along with the digitally encrypted submission process, I appreciate having a non-governmental international agency review submissions.
Sincerely,
Illegal Alien of the Territorial Republic of Panamá, #321-557-DLM-98xx
EXCERPT:
From my article, ‘Update from the MASW,’ which started the threats against me:
At the start of the water crisis, the Middle American Southwest (MASW) and the Upper American Middle West (UAMW) instituted color-coded labels for commercial water based on fire warning levels. Red=Danger/Poor quality. Yellow=Caution. Green=Decent. Blue=water from ‘certifiably’ uncontaminated mountain or desert springs. Though Green Water is typically associated with water from the Great Lakes, some of this water has turned up in ski resort towns overrun with wealthy visitors, where a number of shops sell nothing other than exorbitantly priced Blue Water. Security at these shops and their shipping facilities is tight, possibly
supported by the feds. However, someone blew the whistle on large shipments of water coming from the UAMW and the story is being buried.
People in the MASW are starting to invoke Stand Your Ground Laws, in hopes of protecting water flowing through private lands and reservations. El Movimiento Atzlán purportedly threatened to take over resorts in the MASW quadrants within the Pre-Guadalupe Hidalgo borders. Though the claim is disputed, the wealthy have started fleeing to resorts outside the Pre-Guadalupe Hidalgo borders and, every day, more Atzlán flags billow against the reddening sky…
SUBMISSION STATEMENT:
A wine stain spreads across the sky above Panamá as storms and melted ice continue to splash onto the coasts and people continue to drown. The exact death toll is unreported. Super algae spreads, darkening the sea and people’s trust in the availability of potable water.
For the last month, non-governmental posts concerning water quality—posted in English or Spanish—on the free, dark or under web have been systematically removed. Before that, we all got a good look at pictures of the nation’s cloudy tap water accompanied by descriptions of smells and tastes ranging from: rotten, moldy and metallic to sewage-like. Some claimed to be experiencing gastrointestinal issues and others said they couldn’t ingest tap water without retching. Almost overnight, bottled water skyrocketed and fancy filters, UV purifiers as well as pricey cleaning chemicals appeared on the black market.
Now, while the world scrambles to develop viable and affordable desalination programs, the U.S. feds chip away at state and territorial jurisdiction. In the territories, commercial water is being priced like meat. Just as leaner meat has historically been pricier, the more ‘impurities’ in water, the less it costs. To distinguish, Panamanian distributors are forced to apply A, B and C labels previously used for U.S. restaurants, where consumers could choose between various eateries and consume at their own risk. Not everyone can afford to buy water and many who can don’t trust the USDA labels, believing standards to be bogus (or, at least more complex than what three categories allow) and water shipped to the Territories already inferior. Insensitive politicians and those famous for being rich flaunt the ability to afford A-water, joking that they wish they would’ve invested in Extreme Filters instead of Amazon5, which, in all subsidiaries, is banned from selling government-regulated water. These types of posts aren’t considered ‘incendiary comments on water quality’ and, therefore, aren’t deleted.
In Panamá, the poorest barrios only sell C-Water and, as their supplies are often low, they are referred to as ‘desiertos de agua,’ water deserts. Lawsuits seeking to grant localities sole access to municipal water systems are tied up in courts, but the town counsel here—Americans, all—goes to great lengths to try and assure everyone C-Water is both local and safe. Aside from this assurance, there is no information about how such water is filtered and processed.
Widely publicized is the fact that people are promptly arrested for attempting to switch labels on water containers. It’s also being reported that some blacks and browns receive life sentences for water tampering while non-colored convicted people get fines, taps on the chin or are required to attend seminars on rapidly diminishing glaciers and similarly paced changes in federal water laws. They also receive handouts about drinking from bigger streams as opposed to smaller rivulets whenever possible.
Throughout the Territories people are starting to die from giardia, dysentery and diarrhea-causing parasites, as people in places like India have always done. Territorial death rates, and the usual accompanying statistics, aren’t always accurate, so some pueblos use chalkboards where daily menus are normally displayed to make lists of residents who have perished. Sometimes, the names of the dead are scrawled in a column next to prices for bread, coffee and sandwiches. A theory persists that black and brown people the world over have developed strong immune systems—partially from drinking what is now called Yellow/C-level water—making them able to adapt to the earth’s changing water quality more easily than those with less immunity or more ‘delicate systems.’ In Panamá, people of color sardonically say: in addition to the sea and the sky, the world’s colors are indeed changing.
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT:
I am the great-granddaughter of a political prisoner, one of a handful of women who eventually wrote under the same pseudonym and whose early writings warned of permanent changes in the heavenly hue.* Six months before the U.S.’s New South Territories expanded to include Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panamá, my daughter and I moved from the Middle American Southwest, where we were both born and raised, to Panamá, where my paternal grandparents were born. We are living under assumed names and, while our paperwork is being processed, we are considered illegal aliens, something that may prevent my daughter from attending school. After the First Major Flood, when water levels had settled long enough to be measured, children started drawing different maps of the continents than their grandparents did—and not all teachers appreciated or accepted them. My daughter’s former teacher was among those who called the pollution-sickened sky and new shorelines ‘temporary adjustments.’
I was working as an investigative journalist and wrote a piece about the issue. Then, when states started to overturn the protective bans limiting public school enrollment to ‘gender at birth’ and U.S./Territory-born only, I began investigating parents in protest groups who were suspected of going missing. And that’s what I was threatened with if I didn’t quit my job and related probings. Soon thereafter we fled to Panamá, where we are seeking asylum in La République du Québec. I’m currently working part-time as a translator and though I’m writing, I’ve not sought publication while in the Territories, until now.
There is so much more I could include. I can still rattle off lists of publications and accolades that normally accompany applications. But to stay within the word count/20 kb constraints of this submission, I feel most compelled to end by saying that, like all parents, I am in a constant state of worry over my child’s access to water, food and education. And, as a writer who is unable to write freely, I feel less able to do anything about these worries. Whether or not my submission is officially accepted among the array of contemporary sounds, images and information, it is a small comfort to know that at least there is some sort of documentation of the plight of aliens and others here on earth.
*click on the hyperlink to hear a recording of the 2017 publication, Pantone ®213U. Originally mocked for premature warnings about the pollution-ridden sky, it is now referred to as ‘early romantic speculative prose.’
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Marcy Rae Henry es una latina de Los Borderlands. While living in Europe she hitchhiked across France, Spain and Portugal. In the Himalayas she cooked by fire and wrote while panthers prowled around in the dawn. Her writing has been longlisted, shortlisted, honorably mentioned and nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appears or is forthcoming in The Columbia Review, Epiphany, Hobart, The Southern Review and The Brooklyn Review, among others.