Melting Pot

by Adam Mayes, Copenhagen, Denmark

"BANGLADESHI?!!?" Rajah screamed.

The other gang-members flinched and edged closer to the fire. They'd not seen him his angry in months.

He stabbed his stubby fingers at the paper. "Do you see what they're writing about us? Do You!? We're not Bangladeshi! We're American! I'm fourth generation!"

"But Raj." A foot soldier who spoke up. Raja thought it was Abdul, but, really it didn’t matter. "We're proud of our heritage. We keep talking about the Motherland and…stuff."

Raja glared at him. "That doesn't matter! It's bad enough that they call us midgets! We're LITTLE PEOPLE! They're profiling us! Trying to set us apart. It's Racist."

Raja stomped across the yard. The paper he was carrying was a broadsheet, and his feet caught the trailing edge. He stumbled, and the paper ripped in his hands. He screamed in frustration, pulled a box over to a set of palettes and scrambled up. "Look at us - we're American's. We're not an invading army. Americans! We're as American as meatballs, as...as Bagels. Hell - we're as American as The Statue of Liberty!" He pointed a small finger at where he assumed it was.

One of the gang looked confused and drew a breath as if to say something, but another nudged him and shook his head.

"That bastard wants it like that, does he? We'll give him profiling."

***

Lacey stood in the old neighbourhood. It was a risk coming back to The Bronx, but she couldn't come without seeing where she escaped from.

She took a deep breath, coughed at the stench until her eyes watered and she thought she was going to be sick, then fitted her nose filters and tried again.

She looked up at the smog cloud - the blackouts had stolen the dull orange glow of her childhood. She looked at the broken rooftops, trying to make out landmarks from her youth but she didn't recognize a thing.

It was a waste of time. The Bronx had been taken from the girl as much as the girl was taken from The Bronx. She turned to go and collided with something. Looking down she saw a midget.

She started to apologize when another barrelled into the from behind, taking her legs out and pitching her backwards. Her head hit the ground with an alarming crack. She kicked out - her heel catching something soft that screamed. She rolled onto her hands and knees, and felt her head spin. She must have landed harder than she thought.

Someone hit her, then another. A third climbed on her back. She felt short, fat fingers press into her ears, another into her nose snapping her filters, which sliced both the invading hand and the lining of her nose. She heard someone cuss; slip the fingers away allowing her to
blow the bloody shards out. Then the hands were on her again.

She gasped for breath; she tried to stand.

But they were on her like rats. The combined weight of the gang forced her down.

There was a crack across the back of her already injured head and everything went black.

When she woke she was tied and gagged. She didn't know what was in her mouth - and she didn't like how it tasted.

She couldn't feel her legs, in fact, nothing below the knee. She tried to turn and see why but her hair was also tied and any movement was agony.

One of the midgets came up to her, grabber her hair and forced her head back. The gag stole her scream, but she coughed and choked.

He looked into her eyes and screamed. "You listen. You listen and remember this. Tell Ranjitsinhji that we're fucking American. Not Bangladeshi - American." He sprayed flecks of spit into her face.

Raja waddled over to a low table and picked up something sharp and metal. In another place she’d have laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation.

But when she saw how the implement was barbed she suddenly couldn't see the humor.

The midget came back. "You're lucky.” He said, scarier now for the calm in his voice. “You get to deliver the message personally."

For the next 3 hours, Lacey couldn't tell why she was lucky at all.

***

Captain Ranjitsinhji stood inside the private ward. He hadn't appreciated this call.

It came as he was about to shoot up and a late night run to the hospital was not on the cards. He didn't care if it was police business. Actually, he cared even less. The bastards had driven him to sticking dirty needles in his veins; let them work out their own shit. His missing wife stared at him from her photo. He put the needle down and grabbed his car keys.

The 50th Precinct had a monopoly on freaks. On his way over, Ranjitsinhji had wagered who was responsible tonight. He hoped it wasn't Cannibals.

***

He stared a mess of a woman.

It wasn't Cannibals.

Her legs were completely hacked up. It was their M.O. But the rest of her…he had to look away. He'd never seen them do anything like this.

She rasped something. He wasn't going to be able to hear from across the room. He was going to have to get up close and personal. He leant in and listened.

"American. He told me...they are American."

Ranjitsinhji stood up. He had no idea what she was talking about. Crazy talk from a Death Midget victim. And they pulled him away from his fix of sprocket for this?

"We'll do all we can, miss," he said, full of mock sympathy and concern. 'Which is absolutely nothing! Damn fool woman walking around The Bronx like a tourist,' he thought, driving home again.

It was about the time the fifth body turned up on White Plains Road - each with the words "We're American" carved on them - that the Captain realized he was in the middle of a public relations war.

And that he was losing.

Meditations of Jimmy Chu, Pt I

by Rabbi Benjamin Newman, the Bronx, NY, USA

Reeking of expensive nameless liquor, hashish, and perfumed boys, the Mayor of New York City stumbled into his dim office just as dawn crept across Manhattan's delicate crystalline skyline. At this hour, his office was lit only by tea candles scattered haphazardly on the desks and ledges. Brushing cocaine from his lapel, he collapsed in front of his statue of the emaciated Buddha and lit a stick of jasmine incense. The statue of Shakyamuni seated in meditation was originally from the Sikri Stupa, bought from the Lahore Museum for a hefty price. Rather than the well-known fat Buddha, this representation was almost skeletal, the Enlightened One's reduced to a frame of bones, skin tautly stretched over it, veins and sinew exposed like a spiderweb. It showed the ascetic extremes the Enlightened One went to before discovering the Middle Path of moderation. As a creature of extremes, Jimmy Chu appreciated the statue, but the suffering prince's trials toward enlightenment taunted him.

"Temptation cannot touch the man who is awake, strong and humble,"he muttered, "who masters himself and minds the law." Chu had long ago decided Self was the problem. 'Eliminate the Self, eliminate the suffering. Eliminate desire, eliminate the Self...' This was one of his favorite mantras. He knelt in front of the statue and repeated the words for his third and last time of the day, until the gong of his interoffice connection sounded, interrupting his reverie. Although he was proud that he was among the few people without a bio-implant, his office was consequently littered with vintage tech.

"What is it, Sophi?" the mayor snarped at his secretary.

Sophi, or Sophisticated Operating Program of Heuristic Intelligence, was a prototype next-generation compiled intelligence he had received as an inaugural gift from Integrated Heuristic Systems, one of his major corporate donors. Their offices spotted downtown NYC, flagship factory and corporate headquarters centered on 9/11/01 St., site of the old World Trade Center. He brought them state money, they brought him fine rewards, including but not limited to Sophi. That's how it worked for Mayor Chu. What was governance without a little pork?

He put out the incense, and gazed toward the screen housing Sophi's child-like icon.

"How easily the wind overturns a frail tree, " Sophi said tonelessly. "Seek happiness in the senses, indulge in food and sleep, and you too will be uprooted. The wind cannot overturn a mountain. Temptation cannot touch the man who is awake, strong and humble, who masters himself and minds the law. If a man's thoughts are muddy, if he is reckless and full of deceit, how can he wear the yellow robe? Only whoever is master of his own nature, bright, clear, and true, can merit to wear the yellow robe." The computer's soprano floated out of the speaker on his desk.

Chu couldn't muster much more than a few faltered curses under his breath. Is she mocking me, or reproving me? he thought. His resentment lingered, in that he realized he'd started quoting her of late upon return from his late night binges.

"Was your evening satisfying?" Sophi asked.

Chu bit his lip. How do you combat that? She's impervious to sarcasm, and I can't just smack her in the mouth. I can have political activists imprisoned without bail or legal representation for days at a stretch and have Union leaders' legs broken. Why can't I just order this stupid machine to shut the fuck up?

"Your heartrate is recognizably spiking," she said. "Perhaps from pharmocological modification you indulged this evening. Equally as likely is personal agitation. Am I bothering you, Mayor Chu?"

'Just tell her to shut up, Jimmy,' he thought. It's easy. 'SHUT UP, YOU STUPID DAMNED TOY! SHUT UP BEFORE I HAVE YOU DECOMPILED!'

"An excellent way to reduce your heartrate is breath control, Mayor. Steady, even breathing. In through your nose, held for a bit in your abdomen, then released through your mouth."

'For the love of God, man, just SAY it! Tell her to shut up! Reduce her to binary numbers! Something!'

Instead, he bowed before the Buddha, repeated his mantra, and very slowly began breathing in through his nose, and out through his mouth.

23rd Street SmokeZone

by Rabbi Ben Newman, the Bronx, NY, USA

I woke up to the buzzing of a skillsaw on Wednesday afternoon. It cut through the soft flesh of my brain just as it cut through the brick that the Iranian workers outside my window were replacing. Shut Up! Another 30- 90 days - my doorman told me. By then my summer of freedom will be gone. I got most of my information from Ron, the doorman who worked between four o'clock and midnight. I made it a habit of trying to sleep during the racket, so I went to bed at sunrise, and usually awoke when Ron's shift began and my somatic impulse had faded enough to let in the skillsaws. I learned on Wednesday night that Ron was a vet of the Arab-American Wars. A news story was finally released about some of the senseless killing that went on there, and I brought it up in casual conversation.

"Did you hear the news about The A-A Wars?" I asked

"No, what news?" He said. Ron's grey hair and austere lifelong New Yorker attitude matched his uniform. We stood on the stone steps outside the building. He lit a Marlboro, I followed suit with a Natural American Spirit. Though smoking cigarettes was, for the most part, illegal, there were specially designated "smoker's areas" on every block. Luckily for Ron and I, the "smoker's area" on 23rd street was directly in front of my apartment building.

I held out my arm and showed him the wireless tattoo on my fore-arm.

He threw my forearm a squinty look and said, "Can't read a thing without my glasses, and they're inside... why don't you just tell me, Simon?"

"Ok," I said, "Some top government official who was in the Middle East had a press conference and said that his unit killed and raped a whole village of innocent Iraqi women and children." I took a drag off of my cigarette.

"Yeah?" He said, "Well, then thats not news to me. Shit like that happened all the time out there. In that hellish sandtrap, you could barely tell the difference between you and your fellow soldiers, let alone between you and the rag-heads."

"You were in Iraq?"

"I did a two year tour," he said. Ron started eyeing a middle aged well-to-do woman walking to the garbage can with a bag. Did he think she looked suspicious?

"Anyways," He continued, "I'd been studying at school non-Matriculated when the draft came, and I didn't have time to matriculate before they pulled my number." The woman Ron was eyeing stuffed the bag into the overflowing street trash can, Ron continued to eye her.
"You can't dump that here!" He yelled.

"What?!" The woman retorted. She marched over to us, bag in hand.

"I said you can't dump that here, lady, it's illegal. You people keep dumping your trash here, because your buildings are too cheap to pick up your trash. Well, you mess up the street, and its illegal anyway!" He spurted raspily. He inhaled on his cigarette, and furious smoke flew from his mouth.

"You wanna see whats in here!" she started to open the bag and shove it in Ron's face. Ron shrank back.

"No thanks, Lady, just find somewhere else to dump it."

She shoved the bag in his face,

"It's SHIT!" She screamed, "I just wanna throw away my goddamn dog shit!" She stormed off down the street, shoving her dog shit bag amid the empty Doritos bags and broken glass. I looked at Ron, my eyes dilated like saucers.

END FRAGMENT. COLLABORATIVE EFFORT. OTHER CREATORS CAN PICK UP HERE.