Aimee Levitates
Aimee reads an online article about diamagnetic levitation, in which scientists levitated a frog, fish, mouse, and strawberry using a “very large magnetic field (about 100 to 1000 times larger than a household magnet).” She reads that “all materials are magnetic to some degree.” Inferring, that a ribbon, a glass bottle, and a pancake could all levitate if put through a powerful enough magnetic field. Aimee wonders, unscientifically, how the levitating frog, mouse, and fish felt after returning to their normal states. After the experiments, did the frog, fish, and mouse dream of flying? Aimee wonders, too, if anyone ate the strawberry.
FROG
It is December and Aimee and Liam have been invited to a white elephant party. Aimee is getting ready—her laptop open on the bathroom counter, she is following a makeup tutorial on YouTube, pausing and restarting the video at intervals, she wants to get everything exactly right. The video is tagged “romantic makeup to make him fall in love with you,” followed by a series of heart emojis. The woman in the video applies a rosy pink on her eyelids with a small makeup brush and makes everything look easy. “You’ll make him fall in love,” she says, and blinks seductively at the camera.
Aimee is the only brown woman in the room. She is introduced to a thin blonde woman with features like Grace Kelly; her look is what some might call “classic.” The woman, whose name is Madison, says to Aimee, “Oh my god! Your skin is gorgeous. You’re so lucky! Look at me, I’m so pale in the winter.” Aimee smiles and nods. “What are you, anyway?” asks Madison. In this moment Aimee’s mind is a file cabinet, a means of organization and indexing, like a library cataloging system before the digital. Aimee opens a file folder full of responses to this well-meaning, yet offensive question:
Correct Madison and callout the microaggression; and then spend the next half hour (or more) explaining what a microaggression is to a room full of incredulous white people. Someone will inevitably want to play “Devil’s Advocate” and it most certainly will be a man. Aimee will then have to explain intersectionality. She will provide a reading list.
Give a short answer: “My mom is Chicana and my dad is Asian American.” This will lead to a longer conversation about the word Chicana and a long story about her father’s childhood—how he was raised by his Japanese mother and white American father, Aimee’s grandparents. There will be questions about whether Aimee speaks Spanish or Japanese. She speaks neither. She will recite a statistic she read once: “In the United States, a language is lost in three generations.”
Give a short answer using different words: Instead of Chicana, say Latina. Or instead of Asian American, say Japanese. Say, “My mom’s family is from New Mexico and my paternal grandmother is from Japan.” In response, Madison will, incredibly, say a full sentence containing the words “mutt,” “Hispanic,” and “Anime.”
Aimee can pull out her phone and show Madison the multicolored pie chart on the DNA website from when Aimee spit into a little plastic tube and sent it off to be analyzed. There will then be a conversation about privacy and what will happen to Aimee’s DNA—maybe in the future they will clone her. Madison, although curious about her own ancestry, is “not willing to give anyone her DNA.”
Say “multiracial” or “mixed” or “multiethnic.” This will not be the answer Madison is looking for, and will regrettably, ask a second time, “Yeah…but what are you?”
Aimee could give Madison a history lesson on the movement of people to (and in) the United States, the acquisition of land, the resulting mixing of people, the antimiscegenation laws that sought to uphold white supremacy. She could say, “Do you know about Loving v. Virginia?”
Aimee could tell a seemingly unrelated story about eating variations of rice and beans growing up—the table being set with both chopsticks and forks. Aimee could tell the story about bringing nori in for show-and-tell, before any American company made individually packaged seaweed for children’s snacks, and how no one liked it, except for a kid named Kody, and how it endeared him to Aimee. Aimee could talk about folding origami paper into cranes or how her maternal great grandmother crocheted little sombreros to put on top of empty Tabasco sauce bottles. Aimee could tell the story about how her maternal cousins made fun of her for eating furikake and said, “Aimee eats kaka.” Or she could tell the story about how her maternal grandmother makes the sign of the cross every time she hears a siren. Or how Aimee says Ay yi yi when she is frustrated.
Aimee could tell Madison about every racist interaction she has had.
Aimee could say “human” or “tired” or “Ready for this white elephant party to start!” Madison will tell Liam, “Your girlfriend is pretty, but kinda rude.”
During the white elephant exchange, Aimee and Liam win a bottle of whiskey. It’s a close call, however, and they almost leave with a muscle print apron and metal colander. On the drive home, Aimee opens the whiskey and takes a big swig. “What’s wrong?” asks Liam. Aimee says nothing, looks out the car window, it is snowing.
FISH
There is a doorbell and a camera for security at the front door of the woman’s clinic, and Aimee has to be buzzed in. The woman at the front desk gives Aimee some paperwork to fill out and a pen with a plastic daisy taped to it. Light rock music plays. A little boy builds with blocks.
The last time Aimee had a pap smear, they found abnormal cells and “preceding on the side of caution” her doctor wants to perform a colposcopy. The procedure, while sounding similar to a colonoscopy, has nothing to do with Aimee’s ass. The doctors want to know if the abnormal cells are cancerous. Of course, the word “cancerous” stirs up many emotions in Aimee and she has more than a few sleepless nights and one really good cry.
The doctor asks what Aimee uses for birth control. She says condoms, even though, most of the time, Liam pulls out and ejaculates on her lower abdomen, in her mouth, or occasionally, on her breasts. Aimee doesn’t want the doctor to think she’s irresponsible and tells the doctor she’s tried the pill, a vaginal ring, and an IUD—this is true. She experienced negative side effects with every method—this is also true. The doctor asks what happened with the IUD. Aimee tells the doctor how her body rejected the tiny T-shaped plastic device, how it fell out—again, true. The doctor says with one eyebrow raised, “That’s very rare.”
Lying on the examining table in a paper gown, Aimee thinks of a line from The Vagina Monologues: “Why the scary paper dress that scratches your tits and crunches when you lie down so you feel like a wad of paper someone threw away.” Aimee performed in The Vagina Monologues in college. She closes her eyes, thinks of the stage with the relentlessly bright lights—it is miles and years away. Not too long ago, she read about a university canceling its annual performance, not surprisingly, because the play’s script lacked inclusivity. With her bottom edged to the end of the table, her feet in stirrups, her knees up, and her legs spread, Aimee ponders why people are so surprised by change—what was once considered groundbreaking and revolutionary, eventually becomes outdated and irrelevant. Isn’t that the inevitability of life? Aimee is distracted by her thoughts for only a moment—the doctor says she is going to insert the speculum. The doctor tells Aimee to breathe, “You’re going to feel a slight pressure.” Aimee puts her hand on her lower abdomen, closes her eyes.
The doctor applies a vinegar smelling solution to Aimee’s cervix; it burns a little. Aimee thinks of the grade school baking soda and vinegar experiment—a foaming eruption bubbling over a cardboard model of a volcano. Aimee is not a volcano. The acetic acid is used to clear mucus and will turn abnormalities white. The doctor uses a colposcope to magnify Aimee’s cervix. The colposcope reminds Aimee of a handheld scanning gun used at grocery stores. The doctor positions it just outside of Aimee’s vagina, without inserting it, and looks at Aimee’s insides on a screen. Aimee is glad she cannot see the screen—she does not want to see the pink and fleshy insides of herself.
The doctor cuts a tiny tissue sample from Aimee’s cervix after applying a local anesthetic. It hurts and Aimee is sure she will never birth children. The cramps, her vulnerable state, and the possibility of cancer cause tears to form in Aimee’s eyes. She is embarrassed and wonders why she is not stronger. She grips the paper underneath her.
MOUSE
Aimee has not told her parents she is bisexual. She has only dated men, so they assume she is straight. Most people assume Aimee is heterosexual, unless she tells them otherwise. On National Coming Out Day, Aimee posts on all of her social media accounts that she identifies as bi. And even though her mother is on Facebook, she does not mention it to Aimee, even in passing.
A woman at work, says how nice it was to see everyone’s coming out pictures posted on social media—"pictures with partners and exes, gay pictures, lesbian pictures, queer pictures, photographs from Pride.” Her coworker calls National Coming Out Day “trendy.” Aimee doesn’t have any ex-partners who are women and Aimee did not post any pictures. Even though the co-worker does not explicitly say it, she wants proof. Aimee could tell her about the people she has slept with who are not men, the time she fell in love with a woman after reading her tarot at a party. Aimee could tell the coworker how the woman smelt like vanilla and baby powder, she could tell her about the woman’s soft brown curls, fake eyelashes, buried angst. Aimee could tell the coworker about the purple strapon she keeps in her underwear drawer. She doesn’t. Aimee says, “Yes, it was nice.”
Aimee talks to her mother on the phone. Her mother is religious and traditional. She is worried Aimee will never get married. Aimee’s mother saw her Facebook post and is worried—she wrongly, and dangerously, equates queerness with mental illness; she is worried Aimee is unstable. If only Aimee would marry Liam! Her mother says, “It’s been four years,” as if it is a revelation. “Why hasn’t he proposed?”
Liam asks Aimee if she’s ever cheated on him. It is the fourteenth time in four years that he has asked, and the answer—the truth—is always no. He doesn’t believe her. He says you flirt with everyone. He says everyone is competition. He says what if I’m not enough for you? She says you are…you are.
STRAWBERRY
Aimee starts going for walks by herself around a lake near her and Liam’s apartment. She goes early in the morning. Sometimes the moon and sun are both visible—the colors shift from night blue and early gray to vibrant pinks, blazing oranges, and blossoming purples. She wants to take a bite out of the sky, peel the sun like a citrus fruit.
There is a playground and a large grassy field where people picnic and play games of pick-up soccer and ultimate frisbee. It is a warm spring day and Aimee is pulled to the grassy field. She is lying on the grass, on her back, looking up into the branches of a giant cottonwood tree. Her mother used to take her to this park when she was a child. She wonders how old this particular tree is, she is certain it will outlive her, she wonders how deep the roots go. She doesn’t know why she thinks of it, but she remembers that her name means beloved. She watches the clouds shift and smiles.
As Aimee rests under the cottonwood tree, she listens to a guided meditation on her phone. The instructor’s voice is quiet and calm. Aimee feels a little silly, she has tried meditation a handful of times, and every time she thinks she might burst out laughing. This time, she decides she’s going to finish the full fifteen minutes—what is fifteen minutes in the grand scheme of things anyway? She lets her body relax. It is not easy. With her eyes closed, Aimee sees static. The sunlight shines through her eyelids and everything is bright yellow. Piano music plays in the background and reminds Aimee of water rippling on a lake, she imagines each concentric circle. Aimee can feel every atom in her body…each electron spinning. She is her own small universe. Aimee’s body lifts off the ground—
an impossibility; but say, Aimee was somehow in a strong magnetic field. Say, there happened to be a very powerful electric current under the cottonwood tree on this particular warm spring day. Say, hypothetically, Aimee really has levitated—imagine her black hair cascading down, a dazzling waterfall, her body lifted several feet above the ground. Eventually she’d have to come down, wouldn’t she? Eventually someone or something would pull her down, force her back down to Earth—gravity would ultimately triumph. Of course, Aimee hasn’t really levitated, of course she hasn’t, not really—but what if she did? What then?
Liza Sparks
Liza Sparks (she/her) has work forthcoming or published with Honey Literary, Powders Press, Alebrijes Review—Voz, Cosmonauts Avenue, Split This Rock’s social justice database—The Quarry, and many others. Her work will be included in Nonwhite and Woman Anthology published by Woodhall Press in 2022. Her debut short story collection, All of the Ghosts in the Room, is forthcoming with Trouble Department in fall 2022. Her work is informed by her intersecting identities as a brown-multiracial-queer-woman. Liza works and lives in Colorado. You can find more of her work or connect with Liza on IG@sparksliza534, TW@lizathepoet, or on her website, lizasparks.com.