Inside the Outskirts | An Excerpt from EVENT HORIZON by Balsam Karam
From the author of The Singularity, a saga of one girl's resistance and exile in the stars and soil of galactic empire. Event Horizon is an exquisite existential novel, dark as deep space, woven with reflection on oppression, solidarity, trauma, and loss. With a completely unique voice, Balsam Karam writes about the swirl of hope and despair in the lives of the marginalized and a young woman’s unwavering belief in a better world. Available March 31st!
Later the greengrocer would write that the departure for the black hole the Mass took place on a day that was said to be empty of all else; born to be significant, the day’s date went on to grow awesome in size, and unrecognizable to its surroundings, the date took the month by storm and rose to its feet. Year after year it drew the people of the Outskirts to its slope, sitting there, the mothers on blankets and pillows and the children on their feet eager to get closer to the sky, as if standing up would help, as if Milde would then descend and from her black hole reach out a hand to the children and gently caress their cheeks cold with the mist resting upon the Outskirts’ mountainside.
The mothers and children turned off the lamps in the Outskirts and, carrying sugared tea in bowls and pots, took their seats on the slope. The lanterns that Milde had demanded the city place there, those they turned off too—as well as every little light in every home and along every bush around the ditch of the Outskirts, leaving the Outskirts in darkness.
The mothers and children then sat on the slope, looking up.
The darkness of night elevated the Outskirts and helped them look for Milde there, in the boundless sky, in that which recalled her and brought her to life again and again. The darkness of night made the mothers and the children forget and remember their bodies, and at once gave them all and no form in the world to call their own.
They were delighted, smiled.
They were delighted and said: Somewhere in the sky is there a deeper darkness than usual?
A spot, a line?
Something drawn along the sky like a scar deeper than other scars or a furrow softer than other furrows?
If so, that’s where Milde is.
There she hides from our gazes without deliberately staying away—from there it is possible for her to exist without actually having to exist.
Wave, speak to her.
Wave, smile and remember her—she remembers and misses us back; love, write and speak to her—she exists and loves us back.
