Our Infinite Fates

by Laura Steven

We’d caught coral trout and groupers, lobsters and giant clams. We’d sat on the bow with our legs dangling over the edge, eating mangoes and pawpaws with juice running down our chins. We’d watched every sunset, taking turns to swig at the bottle of sour toddy made from fermented coconut flowers.

“As I gazed upon the first blossom, I thought of how the world reinvents itself year after year, century after century.”

“I don’t feel like any of them,” I said slowly. “I don’t feel, in my heart, that I’m a boy. But neither do I feel like I am inherently a girl. My soul isn’t rooted to any of them. I’m just me. No particular body feels more ‘right’ than the other, nor more wrong. They’re just vessels.

NONBINARY REP OK

Ya’aburnee was a favourite. It means ‘may you bury me.’ It’s the idea that one person in a pairing longs to die before the other, because living without them would be too excruciating.