The old man sits at a table in a room suddenly dark.
He walks to the window and starts lighting candles, but he knows it may be too late.
Dinner is on the table, and it is growing cold. He is there, mother is there, we dont know who is left.
He thinks that the young one remains, and goes to the fire.
I would like to tell you a story, he said. It is a story of courage, of faith, of family, and of pain. A house abused yet standing, a people who never give up. A home undefended, yet still a home.
It is a story of people who deserved far better, of warriors, of tremendous tenacity. Of hands extended and sometimes bitten very hard, fingers lost, rejoined, lost again.
It is a story of a people nobody understands, who are unique in the world, who value family above all else, above abuse, above attack. Above a lack of food, where they are starved.
The old actor pauses.
They dont even know who I really am, he smiled to himself. They have no clue about that life, that beginning, the one alcohol put on hold. About the years of political theater, the training from the protestors who were behind the iron curtain, passing on their fire and art to the man now sitting by the fire. Its all still there, none is lost, its just wierd now in the dressing rooms. Stealth became essential, but even that would be sacrificed for truth. But not when the family is held hostage by fear and abuse from the cis. They have my children and my wife, you see, the world has taken them hostage using fear, using invalidation of my truth, and my truth is undeniable. It can be scorned but truth is truth. A womb conversion, try to disprove it.
So the old actor sits and stairs into the fire in a house that may be empty, growing cold. But they are a real performing artist, not just a movie person out to make a buck, they are the real thing, a broadway level artist, now buried in thought about the house, the world outside, and deeply worried about the silent watchers. He has no time you see, only minutes in a day. He usually makes the best of those, and then goes about sawing away at the ropes that bind his family.
The old man protects Satinjoy. She is missing. But sh'e still is here. Sh'e lives in the heart of the old man, and he lives in h'ers, there is no difference. They are a nonbinary transgendered person, complicated but simple, just a blend of many things, a door to the past that remained open and not shunned, a truth not run away from but accepted.
