Dune wanted to say no, to lie, to deny this unreasonable request. She glared away from the doctor for a full minute. Then she told Dr. Rogers to come with her and wait on the porch. Dune removed two of her mother’s finger bones from the bed altar. She wrapped them in one of Kama’s endless bonnets and brought this offering to science outside. Dr. Rogers didn’t ask any questions, but looked at Dune with more respect, more sadness. When they said goodbye, Dune was sure it was the last time.

Song for Vivian. (Sung at pace of a dirge, with lots of mournful melisma.)

Where is the silent place

The silence so full it cannot stop

It’s under us all when down we drop

Its under every face

What is the freedom road

When all the warriors have gone home

When all the healers sleep alone

Who else will bear this load

How does the galaxy

Hold all this pain and not knowing

Hold all this pain and keep glowing

Who am I meant to be

chapter twelve: The Syndrome and the Model

After the disappointment of learning Dr. Rogers didn’t really know more than anyone else about H-8, Dune’s expectations dropped for the others left behind by the sick. They were all as ignorant and sad as her, and she didn’t need heartbroken conjecture. She also started to pay more attention to those who were sick.

At first it had been too much, pulling her right back to Kama. But she began to see these other sick people as part of a community that included Kama. These people, rocking in the middle of the street, had perhaps seen something that her mother had seen and Dune had not.

What was it?

At first it was hard to tell the sick from every other affliction or coping mechanism. Public intoxication and highness had increased in the face of H-8.

But Dune noticed that when folks were high, drunk, even having a moment of madness, there was often a look of comfort on their faces. She understood it, often looking at them through the gentle haze of her own high. Pain was real and life was suffering, but they had found a moment’s respite, a warm belly, a sense of belonging, a blurring of the sharp edges of a world that rejected them for being who they were—Black, veteran, poor, rebellious, spiritual, pregnant too early, loving too hard, wounded by the world.

There was medicinal peace and they could dose themselves with it.