February 16, 2025 • 26 mins
Margaret from the future tells you about Mx. Bunny Face Murder's childhood.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media Bronto sours, Bronto sores, Bronto sores. Hello
and welcome to cool Zone Media book Club, the only
book club where you don't have to do the reading
because I do it for you. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy.
And if you couldn't tell by the title or the intro,
(00:23):
or just the fact that this is what I've been
doing for several months now, it's a Dinah Wars episode.
A Dinah Wars episode of book club, imagine that, which
means that we have for you a podcast from the future.
That's right. This is a podcast I recorded in the
year twenty fifty five and then sent back to myself,
(00:44):
which was nice of me to give me this heads up,
to give all of you this heads up. And so
without further ado, here's an episode Hello and welcome to
Cool Zone twenty fifty five, how to Survive the Dinoh Wars.
I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and this week we are
(01:05):
continuing to relay the last podcast script sent to us
by our fearless correspondent Mix bunny Face Murder And if
you're spelling that out, that's just the bunny face emoji
and then the dagger emoji who is currently trapped behind
the Iron curtain on the Iberian Peninsula. Although it goes
(01:25):
without saying, I'm going to say it anyway. The only
way that mixed Bunnyface and the rest of the millions
of people in Catalonia are going to survive the year
is if we are able to fight our way to
them and distract the Iberian failings. I know everyone thinks
we've got our own problems here wherever here is, and
(01:46):
you're right, but we cannot fight this war as a
series of localized skirmishes. The revolution will be worldwide or
it will fail. We've made it this far because of
international Soliday already in coordination, and it will be exactly
those two things, plus bravery, that will see us through
(02:06):
and into the world. We know that we can make
a world in which many worlds are possible, an internationalist world,
an anti capitalist world, an anti authoritarian world. We've made
it this far, and we've got to keep pushing. And
I know you know all of that already. I know
you're already working, you're already putting your queer shoulder to
(02:30):
the wheel. I just want you to know that I'm
proud of you. I'm proud of us, and we've got
to keep going. Whoever you are, dear listener, you have
got to keep going even though you don't feel like
you're useful to the revolution right now, write this moment.
The fascist death machine wants you dead and we don't
(02:50):
want to let it win. Stay alive. If not for today,
then for tomorrow you will have your chance to be useful.
And look, there are thousands of ways to be useful.
The revolution needs bookkeepers and line cooks, and it needs
singers and metalworkers and project managers and engineers and hackers.
(03:11):
It needs party planners and historians. It also needs you know, fighters,
and it needs trained Dino writers. You know where I'm
going to take this. If you want to become one
of the many, the proud, the Dino writers, there is
no better way to get started than to sign up
(03:32):
with Cool Zone Media's biggest and most generous sponsor, Dino Cadence.
That's right, Dino Cadence. From dance troop to elite fighting school.
Dino Cadence is a living example of how all of
us can turn our talents towards the struggle. So apply
today and then tomorrow you can ride a Dino into
(03:54):
war banner streaming battalion screaming. Admission is free, but spots
are limited, So apply to Dino Cadence today. And now
here's from Mixed bunny Face Murder, who where we left
them last time, had scarcely survived in ambush that saw
nearly all of a unit of mighty Dreadnoughts defeated, and
(04:20):
made it most of the way back towards the main
camp before I collapsed in exhaustion and the world drifted
out of focus and my mind drifted out of focus.
They're awake, I heard in Cotalan. My first thought was, Hey,
that's cool that my cottalan is good enough that I
can understand it when I'm half conscious. My second thought
was there is a very handsome woman looking down at me.
(04:43):
My third thought was I appear to be in some
kind of hospital tent. Only then did awareness truly come
over me. My brain refused to incorporate the recent trauma, though,
and it was just a fuzzy oh that didn't go well.
It's strange being a journalist, because I knew that soon
enough I would be writing what happened. I have to
(05:06):
not like because it's my job, but because you know,
it's what I do. It's how I contribute to this
terrifying and glorious world. I let people know what's happening
in my strange corner of that world. I tell people
how I'm feeling in case they can resonate with it.
I entertain people, I hope, which has value to forgive
(05:29):
me these introspective asides. They're only going to get worse.
I am particularly aware of my mortality. Just now, for
some odd reason, I woke up in a hospital tent
in the main camp, and that first face I'd seen
was doctor Abodi, a surgeon from Ohio. Good news, she said,
in an accent that felt like home. I'm not going
(05:50):
to cut off any of your limbs. So I laughed
until it hurt, which didn't take long. Once I moved
my arm by accident, pain coursed through me and I
felt better. Look I am a simple creature. Okay, how
bad is it? I asked? Your wounds are the war either?
I suppose? Well, they're setbacks, for sure, she said. In
(06:16):
both cases, you're not going to be walking for a while.
Then you're going to be walking on crutches for a while.
If I had to guess, you're a cane user now
long term, at least some days, for the rest of
your life, but I suspect you'll regain full use of
your arm. She reached up and scratched the shaved half
of her head reflexively in thought. As for the war,
(06:40):
they don't tell us civilians too much, but I'll tell
you that it is not looking good, not here, not
for us. We're not cut off, not yet. There's still
soldiers and materiel flowing in from Barcelona. But Barcelona itself
is cut off unless a new front opens up for
the Iberian Phalanx. It's kind of just a matter of time. Unspoken,
(07:05):
we both knew what she meant by that. Maybe, dear listener,
with all the horrors of this war, the fall of
Valencia in twenty fifty three went unremarked upon in your circles.
In different times, the exodus would have been one of
the most important events in human history. When a million
people died, helping a million people flee by boats, When
(07:27):
horrid Nazi sea monsters rip people down into the depths
of the Mediterranean, when Spanish soldiers and angry workers and
art militias. Do you remember the art militias fighting as
a form of expressionist art, the field of battle as
the canvas when all these people with different politics fought
alongside one another against the iron tide of fascism, but
(07:49):
collapsed under its weight. It was the stand of Valencia
that brought me to Iberia in the first place, to
interview refugees who'd made their way to Barcelona. Many of
those people have since joined up. Many of those people
have since died in the fighting. Everyone who didn't make
it out of Valencia was sucked into the Iberian Phalanx's
(08:11):
war machine as conscript labor, as lab rats, as dead
bodies to resurrect as literal food for the terrors they
were designing and growing in the nightmare labs in Madrid.
Imagine having the people eaten by Nazi sea monsters as
the lucky ones. The twenty first century has given total
(08:34):
war a new definition. It's not that if we don't fight,
we fall under occupation. It's not that if we don't fight,
we die. It's that if we don't fight, we will
be transformed into horrors beyond the comprehension of the human mind,
horrors that challenge the cruelty of even the old gods.
(08:55):
So when doctor Abadi said it's kind of just a
matter of time, it was with a weight that would
have seemed almost unknowable to people only a generation or
two back. But do you know what else would have
seemed unknowable to people only a generation or two back,
the sweet sweet deals being offered by our advertisers. This
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podcast is brought to you by the Council for Naming
All the objects that you can see? Are you feeling overwhelmed?
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(11:10):
Our body cleared me from the hospital tent in the
early evening the day after the battle. It turns out,
because I lost a day to pain and drugs, powered
chairs were in short supply, so I let a handsome,
old orderly volunteer to push me around in an old
fashioned wheelchair. His name was Florencio and he'd been born
in the twentieth century. Just barely, and he blushed like
(11:33):
wildfire every time I flirted with him. He'd spent his
whole life in Madrid, and his whole career as an
orderly He'd evacuated during the coup, and he wept openly
and fiercely when he talked about the triage of which
patients they could get out of the city. They'd prioritized
anyone the fascists were most likely to kill, But he
(11:53):
was certain, as certain as he was that the sun
would rise each morning that the remaining patients had been
trans into the demonic labs, into the nightmare factories. I
did what I could do. Signor Senora, he said, using
one of the many outdated non binary honorifics that people
have explored over the decades. I found it quaint and charming.
(12:14):
We were outside in the cooling air, watching the sun
set over the hills. I've been a war correspondent since
this war kicked off, I told him, and I haven't
met many people who've directly physically saved more lives than
you have. You have to focus on what you've accomplished,
on the people you've saved, not the things that you've failed.
(12:35):
War has made an old person of you, he said, smiling,
glad I got to live to be old. Then I
told him, even if I had to speed run the
whole thing. The old books always say that war is
mostly waiting around, bored and miserable, until bad stuff happens.
And certainly it really is mostly waiting around. There'd been
(12:56):
a flurry of excitement when I'd first arrived, sure, but
I spent the next two weeks without much going on.
I wasn't bored and miserable. Though. Morale is a terrain
of struggle, and it's one of the terrains we're winning on.
I think that the complex stew of ideologies and frameworks
and nationalities and just types of people and ways of
(13:17):
looking at the world has made even a poorly fed
camp on the losing side of a campaign into a
place that is vibrant and exciting. We had enough fanatic
nihilism to accept our dire situation, enough diehard old and
archosyndicalus to remind us of the glory and legacy that
we were part of. We had enough religious sorts to
keep us arguing over theology, and enough political sorts to
(13:38):
keep us arguing about politics. The semi democratic nature of
the command meant that everyone kept up with planning and
strategy and felt invested in our decisions. There was music
from around the world. I took my turn telling stories
around the fire, and I kept busy talking to dino
handlers and medics and messengers and scouts. By the end
(13:59):
of the second week, I could get around on crutches
and even manage to be able to type a little again.
But there's no getting around it. The Iberian Phalanx could
attack at any moment, and the odds are not going
to be in our favor if they do. I've been
compiling this missive, this podcast script. What would I write
(14:20):
if it were the last thing I would ever say
in public? Some days, especially first thing in the morning,
with a lover's arm draped over my chest and a
little bit of a drool on my shoulder, the immediatism
of many of the soldiers around me appeals to me.
Maybe it's better to be forgotten. But after the midday meal,
hardtack and tea, lately not something to write home about.
(14:44):
I sit down to write, and there are so many
things I want to say, so many things that I
don't want lost forever. If you'll forgive me the self indulgence.
I want to tell you about well. Me born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
in twenty twenty eight. Back then Pennsylvania was a state,
(15:06):
but I don't remember it as a state. I was
in elementary school when our statehood was revoked and our
teacher was replaced by someone quote less woke, who informed
us that in the state's rights era of the Republican government,
only states that understood core American values could be trusted.
With such a high degree of independence, Pennsylvania joined Rhode Island, Maryland,
(15:27):
and Massachusetts as an fat a federally administered territory. At first,
this didn't change too much. I was still a second
generation non binary kid and a third generation anarchist, so
what the government said we should do didn't change my
life too much. By middle school, though, my family started
(15:49):
a home school co op because too many of my
generation of kids was getting suspended or even sent a
juvie or being trans and or non binary. I remember
really loving my childhood. We were poor as hell, but
so was the whole city, and we shared. We lived
with my grandmother, missus Jones. She insisted that everyone call her,
(16:10):
even though she had never been married. She just thought
it sounded classy. She'd bought a cheap house in the
mid auts, and there was always a rotating cast of
folks passing through or extra families living with us. Sometimes
there was drama, and more than once my grandma ran
people out at gunpoint if they couldn't act right, if
they weren't safe around us kids. But I had a
(16:32):
lot of friends, and when adults in our lives told
stories about the bullies and the homophobia that they'd faced
us kids, it felt almost exactly the same as when
they told ghost stories about murderers and demons. These were
just imaginary tales to scare kids. All three of my
immediate parents worked full time, and missus Jones. She let
(16:55):
me call her another name, but she swore me to
never mention it in print. Zones was the closest adult
in my life. The federal administration rescinded our co ops
homeschooling license when I was thirteen, and they sent us
back to public school. My peers were mostly good, but
the stuff they taught us was pure Christian nationalist propaganda.
(17:16):
I used to get sent to the principal's office almost
every day. The principle, though he was secretly on our side,
so he'd say, when you walk out here, you'd better
look like I scolded you, or they'll take me away
and disappear me. What's worse, he he meant it that
whole situation didn't last. When I was sixteen, the war
(17:38):
came and it shattered well everything. My whole family and
our whole extended network fled the city and crowded into
a land project out in the mountains of the still
a state because it was full of boot liquors West Virginia,
and we were sheltered in our way by being in
a place that just no one gives a single shit about.
(18:00):
We were also sheltered by these goods and services the
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to Brother tim Sandwich Palace. We've got sandwiches, we've got heroes,
we've got tacos, we've got French fruit fried potatoes in
long string four and we're back. I lost missus Jones
(19:42):
and two of my three parents in the six months
of the war. We could have stayed out of it.
Probably certainly us kids managed to. There's one moment that
will stay with me, haunt me forever. My dad's name
was Erico. He wasn't Italian, he was fourth generally Polish,
but he was a history nerd, so he named himself Rico.
(20:04):
He wasn't my birth father, but he had gone through
the endless legal ordeal to adopt me and marry my
birth parents, so that there was a registered cisgender caretaker
to protect me legally. During those anti trans years, he
was fighting in the anti war movement. And it's funny
to say fighting in the anti war movement, and by
that mean he carried a rifle and he trained in
(20:25):
a militia because they were delivering EMP devices to communities
across Appalachia and they were regularly involved in firefights in
the process. I was sixteen and I wanted to go
with him. We got in this massive blow up fight,
just screaming and yelling. I started the yelling, but he
(20:46):
yelled right back, which he wasn't allowed to do, and
I told him as much while I threw things. And
the reason we were fighting is because I wanted to
go with him. One of my best friends from the
Land Project had gone off to fight already. They're seventeen,
you're sixteen. Erico yelled at me. What kind of anarchist
are you? I yelled back, I'm your father first and
(21:09):
an anarchist second. He yelled, I would disgrace my ancestors
before I'd put you in danger. And look, I yelled
the thing that everyone in my position has yelled at
some point or another. I told him, you're not my
real dad, and I stormed up to my room on
the second floor of the old barn, and I slammed
(21:29):
the door and the whole building shook, and outside my
room in the common space, I heard Riko crying talking
to my other parents, and I knew they were arguing
about whether or not to let me come with them.
And then and then they left. My seventeen year old friend,
ginger Erico, Missus Jones, and my other father, Tomas, my
(21:54):
real dad, which wasn't something I ever believed in. They
went out that night on a mission, and they never
came back. We never found their bodies. Probably, almost certainly,
they were killed by a drone strike outside of Martinsburg,
West Virginia that night. Of the seventy people killed in
that strike, only fifty four were successfully identified. For a
(22:18):
long time, I like to think that they were still
out there. I don't know what I like to think anymore.
The last thing I told Erico was you're not my
real dad, and I'm going to be sitting on that
in sorrow for the rest of my life. I forgive
myself because I know that not only would he have
forgiven me, he would have told me there was nothing
(22:40):
to forgive that I hadn't done anything wrong. After they disappeared,
I fell into a dark place for a while. After that,
I barely left my room. I definitely never left the
land until after the war. I did, though, start writing
a job, which I suppose got me into the mess
(23:03):
I'm in now. But when I say mess, I will
also say that I am surrounded by passionate people successfully
holding back fascism against incredible odds. I'm talking every night
with so many wonderful people. I'm sleeping next to or
with so many wonderful people. And I don't know if
(23:23):
Erico was right or wrong ethically or ideologically to stop
his sixteen year old kid from fighting in a war,
but I know that I'm glad he did it. I'm
glad he was willing to risk his own ethical purity
to save my life. So thank you eric O Schpora,
and I miss you Ginger, I miss you Tomas, I
(23:44):
miss you, missus Jones. Maybe I'll see you soon. I
sort of hope not, but maybe. Margaret here again. Thanks
for listening to Cool Zone twenty fifty five How to
Survive the Dinah War. We still have a little bit
more from Mixed Money Face Murder before well I feel
(24:07):
like I'm dragging it out because I'm really hoping we'll
get another missive tied to a pigeon, or even better,
maybe we'll all march in there. Maybe we'll free Catalonia.
That'd be nice. I hope it happens. And plugs at
the end of a podcast. Well, if you like the
(24:28):
work that I do, you should go back and read
one of the first series that I ever did, Danielle
Kane series. The first book is called The Lamb Will
Slaughter the Lion. If you go back far enough in
Cool Zone Media history, you can hear me read it
on Cool Zone Media Book Club to Robert Evans. And
(24:48):
the third book in that series was called The Immortal
Choir Will Send. Nope, that's not the name of it.
That's a maybe mixing up the first two books. The
second book is called The Barrow We'll Send what it may,
and the third book is called The Immortal Choir Holds
Every Voice. And it came out because I remember in
summer of twenty twenty five, but more importantly than that,
it was kickstarted in March. Yeah, it was March twenty
(25:11):
twenty five that it was kickstarted, and so people back
then they could have even as far back as February
signed up for updates about that kickstarter, and then once
the kickstarter went live, they could have gotten all kinds
of stuff, including audiobook versions of all three of the books.
It was a good time to get into that series,
That's what I remember. But take care of yourself, take
(25:36):
care of each other. Where all we got, but where
all we need. It could happen here as a production
of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us
out on the Iheard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it
could happen here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.
(25:58):
Thanks for listening.
Cool Zone Media Bronto sours, Bronto sores, Bronto sores. Hello
and welcome to cool Zone Media book Club, the only
book club where you don't have to do the reading
because I do it for you. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy.
And if you couldn't tell by the title or the intro,
(00:23):
or just the fact that this is what I've been
doing for several months now, it's a Dinah Wars episode.
A Dinah Wars episode of book club, imagine that, which
means that we have for you a podcast from the future.
That's right. This is a podcast I recorded in the
year twenty fifty five and then sent back to myself,
(00:44):
which was nice of me to give me this heads up,
to give all of you this heads up. And so
without further ado, here's an episode Hello and welcome to
Cool Zone twenty fifty five, how to Survive the Dinoh Wars.
I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and this week we are
(01:05):
continuing to relay the last podcast script sent to us
by our fearless correspondent Mix bunny Face Murder And if
you're spelling that out, that's just the bunny face emoji
and then the dagger emoji who is currently trapped behind
the Iron curtain on the Iberian Peninsula. Although it goes
(01:25):
without saying, I'm going to say it anyway. The only
way that mixed Bunnyface and the rest of the millions
of people in Catalonia are going to survive the year
is if we are able to fight our way to
them and distract the Iberian failings. I know everyone thinks
we've got our own problems here wherever here is, and
(01:46):
you're right, but we cannot fight this war as a
series of localized skirmishes. The revolution will be worldwide or
it will fail. We've made it this far because of
international Soliday already in coordination, and it will be exactly
those two things, plus bravery, that will see us through
(02:06):
and into the world. We know that we can make
a world in which many worlds are possible, an internationalist world,
an anti capitalist world, an anti authoritarian world. We've made
it this far, and we've got to keep pushing. And
I know you know all of that already. I know
you're already working, you're already putting your queer shoulder to
(02:30):
the wheel. I just want you to know that I'm
proud of you. I'm proud of us, and we've got
to keep going. Whoever you are, dear listener, you have
got to keep going even though you don't feel like
you're useful to the revolution right now, write this moment.
The fascist death machine wants you dead and we don't
(02:50):
want to let it win. Stay alive. If not for today,
then for tomorrow you will have your chance to be useful.
And look, there are thousands of ways to be useful.
The revolution needs bookkeepers and line cooks, and it needs
singers and metalworkers and project managers and engineers and hackers.
(03:11):
It needs party planners and historians. It also needs you know, fighters,
and it needs trained Dino writers. You know where I'm
going to take this. If you want to become one
of the many, the proud, the Dino writers, there is
no better way to get started than to sign up
(03:32):
with Cool Zone Media's biggest and most generous sponsor, Dino Cadence.
That's right, Dino Cadence. From dance troop to elite fighting school.
Dino Cadence is a living example of how all of
us can turn our talents towards the struggle. So apply
today and then tomorrow you can ride a Dino into
(03:54):
war banner streaming battalion screaming. Admission is free, but spots
are limited, So apply to Dino Cadence today. And now
here's from Mixed bunny Face Murder, who where we left
them last time, had scarcely survived in ambush that saw
nearly all of a unit of mighty Dreadnoughts defeated, and
(04:20):
made it most of the way back towards the main
camp before I collapsed in exhaustion and the world drifted
out of focus and my mind drifted out of focus.
They're awake, I heard in Cotalan. My first thought was, Hey,
that's cool that my cottalan is good enough that I
can understand it when I'm half conscious. My second thought
was there is a very handsome woman looking down at me.
(04:43):
My third thought was I appear to be in some
kind of hospital tent. Only then did awareness truly come
over me. My brain refused to incorporate the recent trauma, though,
and it was just a fuzzy oh that didn't go well.
It's strange being a journalist, because I knew that soon
enough I would be writing what happened. I have to
(05:06):
not like because it's my job, but because you know,
it's what I do. It's how I contribute to this
terrifying and glorious world. I let people know what's happening
in my strange corner of that world. I tell people
how I'm feeling in case they can resonate with it.
I entertain people, I hope, which has value to forgive
(05:29):
me these introspective asides. They're only going to get worse.
I am particularly aware of my mortality. Just now, for
some odd reason, I woke up in a hospital tent
in the main camp, and that first face I'd seen
was doctor Abodi, a surgeon from Ohio. Good news, she said,
in an accent that felt like home. I'm not going
(05:50):
to cut off any of your limbs. So I laughed
until it hurt, which didn't take long. Once I moved
my arm by accident, pain coursed through me and I
felt better. Look I am a simple creature. Okay, how
bad is it? I asked? Your wounds are the war either?
I suppose? Well, they're setbacks, for sure, she said. In
(06:16):
both cases, you're not going to be walking for a while.
Then you're going to be walking on crutches for a while.
If I had to guess, you're a cane user now
long term, at least some days, for the rest of
your life, but I suspect you'll regain full use of
your arm. She reached up and scratched the shaved half
of her head reflexively in thought. As for the war,
(06:40):
they don't tell us civilians too much, but I'll tell
you that it is not looking good, not here, not
for us. We're not cut off, not yet. There's still
soldiers and materiel flowing in from Barcelona. But Barcelona itself
is cut off unless a new front opens up for
the Iberian Phalanx. It's kind of just a matter of time. Unspoken,
(07:05):
we both knew what she meant by that. Maybe, dear listener,
with all the horrors of this war, the fall of
Valencia in twenty fifty three went unremarked upon in your circles.
In different times, the exodus would have been one of
the most important events in human history. When a million
people died, helping a million people flee by boats, When
(07:27):
horrid Nazi sea monsters rip people down into the depths
of the Mediterranean, when Spanish soldiers and angry workers and
art militias. Do you remember the art militias fighting as
a form of expressionist art, the field of battle as
the canvas when all these people with different politics fought
alongside one another against the iron tide of fascism, but
(07:49):
collapsed under its weight. It was the stand of Valencia
that brought me to Iberia in the first place, to
interview refugees who'd made their way to Barcelona. Many of
those people have since joined up. Many of those people
have since died in the fighting. Everyone who didn't make
it out of Valencia was sucked into the Iberian Phalanx's
(08:11):
war machine as conscript labor, as lab rats, as dead
bodies to resurrect as literal food for the terrors they
were designing and growing in the nightmare labs in Madrid.
Imagine having the people eaten by Nazi sea monsters as
the lucky ones. The twenty first century has given total
(08:34):
war a new definition. It's not that if we don't fight,
we fall under occupation. It's not that if we don't fight,
we die. It's that if we don't fight, we will
be transformed into horrors beyond the comprehension of the human mind,
horrors that challenge the cruelty of even the old gods.
(08:55):
So when doctor Abadi said it's kind of just a
matter of time, it was with a weight that would
have seemed almost unknowable to people only a generation or
two back. But do you know what else would have
seemed unknowable to people only a generation or two back,
the sweet sweet deals being offered by our advertisers. This
(09:19):
podcast is brought to you by the Council for Naming
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a routine part of your life, consult with a therapist
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still theme parks, Okay. Sometimes you just want to experience
a mild simulation of danger in a low key environment,
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(10:42):
percent discount on all ride tickets. So come on down
to Wimpy Wobble's wizard World today and we're back. Doctor.
(11:10):
Our body cleared me from the hospital tent in the
early evening the day after the battle. It turns out,
because I lost a day to pain and drugs, powered
chairs were in short supply, so I let a handsome,
old orderly volunteer to push me around in an old
fashioned wheelchair. His name was Florencio and he'd been born
in the twentieth century. Just barely, and he blushed like
(11:33):
wildfire every time I flirted with him. He'd spent his
whole life in Madrid, and his whole career as an
orderly He'd evacuated during the coup, and he wept openly
and fiercely when he talked about the triage of which
patients they could get out of the city. They'd prioritized
anyone the fascists were most likely to kill, But he
(11:53):
was certain, as certain as he was that the sun
would rise each morning that the remaining patients had been
trans into the demonic labs, into the nightmare factories. I
did what I could do. Signor Senora, he said, using
one of the many outdated non binary honorifics that people
have explored over the decades. I found it quaint and charming.
(12:14):
We were outside in the cooling air, watching the sun
set over the hills. I've been a war correspondent since
this war kicked off, I told him, and I haven't
met many people who've directly physically saved more lives than
you have. You have to focus on what you've accomplished,
on the people you've saved, not the things that you've failed.
(12:35):
War has made an old person of you, he said, smiling,
glad I got to live to be old. Then I
told him, even if I had to speed run the
whole thing. The old books always say that war is
mostly waiting around, bored and miserable, until bad stuff happens.
And certainly it really is mostly waiting around. There'd been
(12:56):
a flurry of excitement when I'd first arrived, sure, but
I spent the next two weeks without much going on.
I wasn't bored and miserable. Though. Morale is a terrain
of struggle, and it's one of the terrains we're winning on.
I think that the complex stew of ideologies and frameworks
and nationalities and just types of people and ways of
(13:17):
looking at the world has made even a poorly fed
camp on the losing side of a campaign into a
place that is vibrant and exciting. We had enough fanatic
nihilism to accept our dire situation, enough diehard old and
archosyndicalus to remind us of the glory and legacy that
we were part of. We had enough religious sorts to
keep us arguing over theology, and enough political sorts to
(13:38):
keep us arguing about politics. The semi democratic nature of
the command meant that everyone kept up with planning and
strategy and felt invested in our decisions. There was music
from around the world. I took my turn telling stories
around the fire, and I kept busy talking to dino
handlers and medics and messengers and scouts. By the end
(13:59):
of the second week, I could get around on crutches
and even manage to be able to type a little again.
But there's no getting around it. The Iberian Phalanx could
attack at any moment, and the odds are not going
to be in our favor if they do. I've been
compiling this missive, this podcast script. What would I write
(14:20):
if it were the last thing I would ever say
in public? Some days, especially first thing in the morning,
with a lover's arm draped over my chest and a
little bit of a drool on my shoulder, the immediatism
of many of the soldiers around me appeals to me.
Maybe it's better to be forgotten. But after the midday meal,
hardtack and tea, lately not something to write home about.
(14:44):
I sit down to write, and there are so many
things I want to say, so many things that I
don't want lost forever. If you'll forgive me the self indulgence.
I want to tell you about well. Me born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
in twenty twenty eight. Back then Pennsylvania was a state,
(15:06):
but I don't remember it as a state. I was
in elementary school when our statehood was revoked and our
teacher was replaced by someone quote less woke, who informed
us that in the state's rights era of the Republican government,
only states that understood core American values could be trusted.
With such a high degree of independence, Pennsylvania joined Rhode Island, Maryland,
(15:27):
and Massachusetts as an fat a federally administered territory. At first,
this didn't change too much. I was still a second
generation non binary kid and a third generation anarchist, so
what the government said we should do didn't change my
life too much. By middle school, though, my family started
(15:49):
a home school co op because too many of my
generation of kids was getting suspended or even sent a
juvie or being trans and or non binary. I remember
really loving my childhood. We were poor as hell, but
so was the whole city, and we shared. We lived
with my grandmother, missus Jones. She insisted that everyone call her,
(16:10):
even though she had never been married. She just thought
it sounded classy. She'd bought a cheap house in the
mid auts, and there was always a rotating cast of
folks passing through or extra families living with us. Sometimes
there was drama, and more than once my grandma ran
people out at gunpoint if they couldn't act right, if
they weren't safe around us kids. But I had a
(16:32):
lot of friends, and when adults in our lives told
stories about the bullies and the homophobia that they'd faced
us kids, it felt almost exactly the same as when
they told ghost stories about murderers and demons. These were
just imaginary tales to scare kids. All three of my
immediate parents worked full time, and missus Jones. She let
(16:55):
me call her another name, but she swore me to
never mention it in print. Zones was the closest adult
in my life. The federal administration rescinded our co ops
homeschooling license when I was thirteen, and they sent us
back to public school. My peers were mostly good, but
the stuff they taught us was pure Christian nationalist propaganda.
(17:16):
I used to get sent to the principal's office almost
every day. The principle, though he was secretly on our side,
so he'd say, when you walk out here, you'd better
look like I scolded you, or they'll take me away
and disappear me. What's worse, he he meant it that
whole situation didn't last. When I was sixteen, the war
(17:38):
came and it shattered well everything. My whole family and
our whole extended network fled the city and crowded into
a land project out in the mountains of the still
a state because it was full of boot liquors West Virginia,
and we were sheltered in our way by being in
a place that just no one gives a single shit about.
(18:00):
We were also sheltered by these goods and services the
sponsors that support our show. I don't know is something
here's ads. Hey there, old fashioned Look at you still
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(18:23):
where hard hitting reporters track down the solicious details about
the sexiest murders and history. This podcast is brought to
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(18:45):
your house beautiful and your life slightly worse. This podcast
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(19:06):
to Brother tim Sandwich Palace. We've got sandwiches, we've got heroes,
we've got tacos, we've got French fruit fried potatoes in
long string four and we're back. I lost missus Jones
(19:42):
and two of my three parents in the six months
of the war. We could have stayed out of it.
Probably certainly us kids managed to. There's one moment that
will stay with me, haunt me forever. My dad's name
was Erico. He wasn't Italian, he was fourth generally Polish,
but he was a history nerd, so he named himself Rico.
(20:04):
He wasn't my birth father, but he had gone through
the endless legal ordeal to adopt me and marry my
birth parents, so that there was a registered cisgender caretaker
to protect me legally. During those anti trans years, he
was fighting in the anti war movement. And it's funny
to say fighting in the anti war movement, and by
that mean he carried a rifle and he trained in
(20:25):
a militia because they were delivering EMP devices to communities
across Appalachia and they were regularly involved in firefights in
the process. I was sixteen and I wanted to go
with him. We got in this massive blow up fight,
just screaming and yelling. I started the yelling, but he
(20:46):
yelled right back, which he wasn't allowed to do, and
I told him as much while I threw things. And
the reason we were fighting is because I wanted to
go with him. One of my best friends from the
Land Project had gone off to fight already. They're seventeen,
you're sixteen. Erico yelled at me. What kind of anarchist
are you? I yelled back, I'm your father first and
(21:09):
an anarchist second. He yelled, I would disgrace my ancestors
before I'd put you in danger. And look, I yelled
the thing that everyone in my position has yelled at
some point or another. I told him, you're not my
real dad, and I stormed up to my room on
the second floor of the old barn, and I slammed
(21:29):
the door and the whole building shook, and outside my
room in the common space, I heard Riko crying talking
to my other parents, and I knew they were arguing
about whether or not to let me come with them.
And then and then they left. My seventeen year old friend,
ginger Erico, Missus Jones, and my other father, Tomas, my
(21:54):
real dad, which wasn't something I ever believed in. They
went out that night on a mission, and they never
came back. We never found their bodies. Probably, almost certainly,
they were killed by a drone strike outside of Martinsburg,
West Virginia that night. Of the seventy people killed in
that strike, only fifty four were successfully identified. For a
(22:18):
long time, I like to think that they were still
out there. I don't know what I like to think anymore.
The last thing I told Erico was you're not my
real dad, and I'm going to be sitting on that
in sorrow for the rest of my life. I forgive
myself because I know that not only would he have
forgiven me, he would have told me there was nothing
(22:40):
to forgive that I hadn't done anything wrong. After they disappeared,
I fell into a dark place for a while. After that,
I barely left my room. I definitely never left the
land until after the war. I did, though, start writing
a job, which I suppose got me into the mess
(23:03):
I'm in now. But when I say mess, I will
also say that I am surrounded by passionate people successfully
holding back fascism against incredible odds. I'm talking every night
with so many wonderful people. I'm sleeping next to or
with so many wonderful people. And I don't know if
(23:23):
Erico was right or wrong ethically or ideologically to stop
his sixteen year old kid from fighting in a war,
but I know that I'm glad he did it. I'm
glad he was willing to risk his own ethical purity
to save my life. So thank you eric O Schpora,
and I miss you Ginger, I miss you Tomas, I
(23:44):
miss you, missus Jones. Maybe I'll see you soon. I
sort of hope not, but maybe. Margaret here again. Thanks
for listening to Cool Zone twenty fifty five How to
Survive the Dinah War. We still have a little bit
more from Mixed Money Face Murder before well I feel
(24:07):
like I'm dragging it out because I'm really hoping we'll
get another missive tied to a pigeon, or even better,
maybe we'll all march in there. Maybe we'll free Catalonia.
That'd be nice. I hope it happens. And plugs at
the end of a podcast. Well, if you like the
(24:28):
work that I do, you should go back and read
one of the first series that I ever did, Danielle
Kane series. The first book is called The Lamb Will
Slaughter the Lion. If you go back far enough in
Cool Zone Media history, you can hear me read it
on Cool Zone Media Book Club to Robert Evans. And
(24:48):
the third book in that series was called The Immortal
Choir Will Send. Nope, that's not the name of it.
That's a maybe mixing up the first two books. The
second book is called The Barrow We'll Send what it may,
and the third book is called The Immortal Choir Holds
Every Voice. And it came out because I remember in
summer of twenty twenty five, but more importantly than that,
it was kickstarted in March. Yeah, it was March twenty
(25:11):
twenty five that it was kickstarted, and so people back
then they could have even as far back as February
signed up for updates about that kickstarter, and then once
the kickstarter went live, they could have gotten all kinds
of stuff, including audiobook versions of all three of the books.
It was a good time to get into that series,
That's what I remember. But take care of yourself, take
(25:36):
care of each other. Where all we got, but where
all we need. It could happen here as a production
of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us
out on the Iheard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it
could happen here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources.
(25:58):
Thanks for listening.
Host
Margaret Killjoy
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