When Dana was five years old her brother was born, and her world was torn apart. Those first years of her life were the happiest, her time split between roaming the streets with her peers by day and being the center of attention in her parents’ bar by night. Since the second floor of the bar was their home, Dana became a staple both behind the scenes in the kitchen, and out with the customers. She was enamored with each unknown person she came across, to the point her parents never did establish ‘stranger danger.’ They instead felt strongly that a child needs a village, and in this case the village loved the child.
She really learned the value of community from the C-Zones. A ‘Constitutional Zone’ was a designated area of land within New Soto, which was being operated by the Constituency government. They used the terms ‘rent’ and ‘temporary’ sometimes to describe the arrangement as well, but no C-Zone did anything except expand. Through warped borders and new settlements, the C-Zones would slowly interconnect to each other, creating large districts under the control of the Constituency. A new community began to emerge, and Dana’s village was changed.
The confusion began for the city at large about two years before it came for the Velazquez household. The law was clear in that you could not legally have your home or business taken from you, New Soto is a society after all. But in complete contrast, the government was selling swaths of land, claiming that it owned nearly all of the territory that was deemed ‘non-residential.’ Dana is not sure if this was a brand new assertion, or if there was some basis for this claim, nobody she spoke to knew of one. There were some protests and anger initially from the public, but then the first wave of purchases resulted in the Constituency simply building houses in unused land. This actually alleviated the burden the foreigners put on the local population. So the protests and anger faded, and sadly the practice became solidified.
The second and third waves were decidedly less benign. Dana still can’t believe how easily the language of the law was twisted and bastardized to fit such an awful agenda. The second wave saw the phrase residential heavily pushed, with businesses targeted. There was no outright violence, but it was not exactly peaceful. The Constituency started a practice known as ‘squeezing.’ They would show up to a business, one at a time over many days, with nearly all their soldiers from the area. At that point, those were war starting forces. They would simply enter into the business and ask everyone to leave, including the owners, and they would occupy the building from then on. In many cases, the New Soto guards were present and they would hold back the owners, employees, and local crowds, in an effort to avert a greater tragedy. So they claimed. Every time it happened, the Constituency and New Soto leaders alike would espouse that it was a uniquely hard situation, and would certainly never happen again.
They pushed out every single business except a half-dozen in as many months. The Velazquez household was one of a few particular pains in the second wave. Living where they worked turned out to be a real saving grace, with the threat of losing their bottom floor only lasting a week initially. Her father had been adamant they would remain even if the bottom floor was turned into a barracks for the soldiers. His pride was immense in both scope and stupidity. Their New Soto government stepped in and prevented anything drastic, and assured them that as long as they resided in a building they would never lose it. The third wave would prove their government a liar, but Dana supposes that should have been a given.
With the businesses completely repossessed by The Constituency, the entire community became nothing more than a giant military base. The Velazquez’ tavern became a hotspot for soldiers every night, and eventually they gave in to the requests and began hiring entertainers who came from the Constituency, or catered to their preferred stylings. During this time Dana stayed in the kitchen and behind the bar, her father was a proud man, but he was clearly fearful of the soldiers, so she knew she should be too. Nowadays she does not know if she feels more pride or pity in how long they stayed, with him assuring they would never leave…
Eventually the nearby smithy was converted into a competing bar, and it was run a couple from the Constituency mainland, one of the first foreign civilians to get a foothold in New Soto. The loss of business was instrumental in removing her family, especially as it was combined with new statutes being passed in which they are ordered to pay Constituency taxes, which were astronomical due to ‘protection and processing fees’ that were consistently tacked on. This set the stage for the instrumental third wave of thievery.
Dana sat cross-legged on a high stool in her familiar spot, in the kitchen watching their largest pot come to boil with broth for her mother, who was just over in the dining area of the tavern, cleaning. The pot was their largest, being nearly as tall as Dana, her mother often referred to it as ‘comical but practical.’ There was an open doorway and a large window in the separating wall, so from her vantage Dana could see the entirety of the restaurant’s first floor. Her mother was sweeping the slightly raised performing area when the front doors burst open suddenly.
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They normally had a long, slender plank blocking the doors when they were closed, but Dana’s father had gone to the market earlier that morning. The force of the slam indicated that the attacker was expecting more resistance, a cracking sound that surely meant something was broken echoed through the room. The expectation of resistance was confirmed when a dozen silver armored Constituency soldiers rushed through with weapons drawn.
Her mother attempted to sprint across the dining area to get to Dana, but she scared the soldiers and they pinned her to the ground with a horrible thud, she let out a groan and lay still. They saw Dana and barked at her to stay where she was, and to stay completely quiet. She understood she needed to comply, but she could barely contain herself as she watched the stew bubbles faster. She knew it would burn soon, and nothing upset her mom as much as a ruined meal, and it was Dana’s job to watch out for it. The bubbles just grew faster and higher in her silence.
The food starkly left Dana’s mind when her mother was brought up off the floor and held on her knees with her arms behind her back. Her mother’s nose and left eye were swollen melons, colored deep red and already darkening. Her nose was bent to a horrific angle, it had clearly taken the brunt of the fall. Dana can’t remember the heated words that were furiously exchanged from her mother and the soldiers, she can only imagine. The look of her mother is not something Dana will ever forget, the fact she was saying anything was a testament in and of itself. She saw the gash on her mother’s head, and the young girl could no longer hold back her tears.
The sobs began rolling from her, and then were doubled when she looked back and saw the stew begging to overboil and puddle on the floor. The next minutes are clouded by tears and yelling for Dana, but her father arrived to the whole scene not too long after the home invasion. He was forced next to her mother, decidedly less forcefully but no less demeaningly. When he saw her sobbing he began begging to let them go to her, but her mother had already tried that and they flatly refused, they kept repeating they needed to “inform him of new legislation.” Their message it turned out was news of the Constituency’s new interpretation of ‘residency’ which meant it was an area you were actively residing. Since the top floor was their residency, and none of their family was present there at the moment, they found there were grounds to seize the building. A disgraceful sham of justice if there ever was one, but an apparently effective disgraceful sham of justice.
Dana was regaining herself when one of the soldiers pointed out the growing mess in the kitchen, as each large bubble sent broth splattering across the kitchen. Two of them rushed in and grabbed the pot and moved it off the heat. Just as the soldiers went to set the pot down, off the heat, another bubble pop covers one of them with the scalding liquid, eliciting a shriek. The shrill sound is accompanied with the man throwing his hands up with such force he sends his partner and the pot flailing backwards. Brown stew covers the kitchen, and both soldiers.
All of a sudden the kitchen is a scene of flopping screaming Constituency men, slipping and covered in boiling hot stew. Dana hugged her legs to her chest, and stared down in horror from her stool. For what felt like forever they screamed and pulled at their clothes, skin, and hair, trying to escape the heat. They both slowly came to their feet trembling and whimpering, it made Dana want to cry again. Their skin appears warped and darkened brown, with a nauseating smell covering the room. As they slowly pulled themselves together and quelled their tears the best they could they saw their petrified peers staring on from the other room in clear confusion. One of them turned to Dana with embarrassed rage in his eyes, and he growled,
“You!” The next thing she knew she was knocked off the stool, breath gone from her lungs, face first in hot wet ground. They were given next to no time to gather as much as they could carry and leave. They barely were able to take anything, as her father was frantically dealing with her and her mother’s wounds and bruises.
They had already arranged a contingency plan with her mother’s brother in the case of being forced out, they had seen the writing on the wall. He was a cafe farmer who lived further away from the city than Dana had ever even been, but her father had no family to speak of so it was the best they had. She thought she would never forget the gruesome trek from her home to the far countryside, but nowadays she can barely recall it, she thinks her memories are protecting her.
When they finally arrived at the farm, they had arrived at a new type of life entirely. Gone was the community, the people. Here there was the soil, the work, and the fruit. It was not an unfair life, but it certainly was not a forgiving one. The labor did not weigh on her as much as the seclusion. With age, Dana would learn that the community was still out there, in many forms, but for now she was too young to travel to the city proper, and the nearest neighboring farms were even further than away. She learned to embrace the isolation, embrace herself, but she never shook the yearning for what she lost. He will acknowledge what was taken.