Coup d’Etat Math

[ambient music] SPEAKER 1: Have you ever participated in any of the following?

58.a.

Acts involving torture or genocide.

58.b.

Killing any person.

58.c.

Engaging in any kind of sexual contact or relations with any person-- [distorted voice] Explain what occurred, including the date and location of the circumstances in the space provided in Part 14.

[quiet suspenseful music] SPEAKER 2: I emerged from my mother's womb on a Wednesday night during a coup d' tat.

The classic brouhaha of race, class, and religion were at the heart of it all.

A strict curfew blanketed the city.

Any pedestrian or moving vehicle on the street became an enemy of the state without question.

[gunshot] Like clockwork, my mother's water broke.

No doctor dared making a house call.

My father's hands were tied.

Broken water meant broken curfew.

His only advantage-- they lived on a big hill.

He got my mother into their powder blue Beetle, popped the clutch in neutral, and coasted.

The streets hold an eerie silence in the still of night.

Early morning writers know the feel.

I can only imagine the scene as they glided through the streets with a baby desperately fighting to get out.

Risking two lives to save one-- that's coup d' tat math.

[quiet suspenseful music] SPEAKER 3: As the tallest girl in the refugee camp, it gave me an almost documentary filmmaker's perspective.

My thoughts were wrapped in my grandparents, who were pushed at a brisk pace to our assigned tents.

I guided them the best I could.

Food materialized once a day.

A truck pulled up, and the aid workers scooped two spoons of parched rice into each hand.

[dramatic music] Orderly lines are reserved for the Western hemisphere.

We all fought our way up.

My height and broad shoulders helped me as I stretched over the huddled masses and got my palms to the Red Cross workers.

Once I got two small scoops of rice, I curled my fingers into fists to protect the rice.

My grandparents ate the rice out of my hands with their hands.

My thoughts drifted as I laid down every night, licking the husky residue of my palms.

Some nights, my tongue found a single rice grain wedged into my crack palms, and that's how I marked the good days.

My grandparents never lived to see the outside of that refugee camp.

I still lick my palms when I get nervous and afraid.

Sometimes, it's the only thing that can calm me down.

[quiet contemplative music] SPEAKER 4: They called my mother a holy terror on the table tennis circuit.

As a national champion, she collected many a front page story of her conquests.

The country worshipped her.

Someone in parliament found out she didn't own a trophy case and gifted one to her.

Every night, I stood in front of that trophy case trying to catch my reflection in the metal of the trophies.

That was as close to perfection as I could get.

With every win, my mother kept cramming trophy after trophy into that case almost to suffocation.

When the government fell and the mobs went door to door looting and raping, we used that trophy case to barricade the door from all hell.

As they finally pushed through, it wasn't the trophies that broke, but rather my mom's fate.

As I looked away from one of the men dragging my mother away, I caught my reflection in one of the fallen trophies.

It was my face, but I couldn't recognize the girl looking back at me.

[dramatic music] [quiet contemplative music] SPEAKER 5: [speaking spanish] [sad music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪