A Letter from the Author
You've had this dream before.
The feeling of wind in your face. Your eyes are closed. The breeze tugs at your eyelashes, so you open your eyes. You gaze upon the scene—cars, houses, the terrain, what you realize is far below you. You aren’t certain how you got here, but it’s here you are, and you realize: I’m flying.
You spot something in the distance, something familiar. You fly to it and realize it's something from your life—a person, a place, an object… a memory. And you drop. You spiral to the earth. You do everything you know to rise again, to change direction, to stop your descent. You latch onto something, something within you, something that impels you to rise up, to change your trajectory, a thing that you use to wrench up to the sky with everything you have. Your body skims the surface of the ground, rocks and even grass cutting your skin as you pass that spot, the spot that made you falter. You hold true. You continue clenching until you shoot up from the ground, yelling in joy, in excitement, in victory, effortlessly flying once more.
That is what I think “How They See Us” is, and what it’s really about.
Prelude
Creation wanted to hide something from human beings.
Creation inquired of all beings in nature. The eagle would hide it in the moon, the fish in the depths of the sea, and the bison in the earth. Creation denied, knowing man could go up to the moon, to the bottoms of the sea. It knew man would cut into the skin of the earth, and find it even there.
Then Mother Earth, who sees all things without eyes, said, “Put it inside of them.”
And the Creator said, “It is done.”
Creation Story, verbal, Hopi Nation
This work of fiction weaves ancient legend and storytelling, sacred tenets from various sects and backgrounds, current understandings of genetics and quantum physics, and modern popular culture.
