About

The Violet Island is speculative fiction piece about a group of black people, called Earth Children, who have been running from an unseen force since they were quite young. They all follow a witch named Mami Wata, who seems to be the only one that can hear their pursuers. This is one moment in a series of dark “magical hijinks.” They escape to an island but through an accident our main character, Mina, is left behind and in despair dissolves into kelp. One day Mina washes ashore the island, half human, half plant, but she is not herself. Now she cares only about pollination…

The work was featured in 2019 in two queer, smut collections: Future Pleasures and Venus Saturn Square by Monk. Future Pleasures was the first book of my smut collective, Ether Erotica! Join my newsletter to learn when our next big project drops!

Only read the story below if you are 18+

Content Warnings: protohuman body horror, death by slugs, mutation, surreal child death, sexual content, organic imagery that may disturb, mentions of trans-affirming self-mutilation

The Violet Island

They were running again. Their sandals were long worn away or outgrown. Some started this journey swaddled in blankets, wrapped around the hips of the few older children. Everyone could run now. There were no infants left. Some were no longer children. 

The eldest, Mina, was strong-willed and well-loved. Few questioned the precocious teenager who told them all to follow the old witch Mami Wata away from their burning town. Mina was a woman now, short with thick, calloused feet and bulging muscle beneath her warm, dark skin from years of climbing sun-drenched mountains. Many little ones spent the first years of their lives in her arms. She was the strongest in the group, even stronger than that young man that all still called “the mayor’s son” or Mayor for short.

Mayor was a son but a bastard, born of violent union between a white mayor and a black housekeeper. The “aborigines,” the whites called them. “Earth Children,” they called themselves. All of the children running were mixed or “full earth,” and this was their salvation. The center of town, with its white inhabitants, was attacked first. Old, coal-black Mami Wata had saved them, and for that, they followed her everywhere. Only Mami Wata could hear the horsemen coming–tracking them. She said they would not stop until all from the town were dead. 

Mami Wata hovered a foot off the ground. She glided around the edge of the cliff, leading the pack. The children clung to Mami Wata and wailed, for they saw no more earth to run on. 

“Eight of your years I lead you now. You still don’t trust me now?” She pushed them from her unfeeling skirts and pulled a charcoal stick from between her large, low breasts. “Mina, you write a number on every chest now. Don’t miss a child now.” There was no reason to disobey. They found no other whose craft matched Mami Wata. They had seen men become horses and broken men again, living quilts shaped as women, minute fungus portals—all memories of when Mami Wata’s power had protected them–most of them. There was no joy in these memories, only survival. 

Mami Wata demanded they strip. The rags that clung to them molted. Mina found the smallest child and labeled her “1,” and so on until she came to the final two, both her own age. Gingi was an oily man mistreated by time. Running all these years did not give space to straighten teeth or spines. He loved Mina and occupied his thoughts with plots to kill the mayor’s son. He saw Mayor as his only rival, and he wasn’t wrong.

Mina’s body numbed as if dipped in a clove oil bath so close to Mayor’s amber skin,  deep like mineral honey transmuted from blueberry flowers. She wrote “23” on his lean shoulder. No sting in her feet. No ache in her bones. She could smell last night’s fire in his hair that grew past his shoulders in bronze feral tuffs. She saw between his legs and knew he was like her. His parts inverted. The mayor’s son stared forward, unmoving. If he held his breath, maybe he could maintain his validity. 

Even naked, he could not be known. He provided consistent acts of service, carrying the tired young and occasionally Mami Wata if she grew weary of gliding. Still, he barely spoke a word, not even to Mina, who doted on him endlessly. 

Mina stood on her toes, kissed his neck, and whispered, “You are a son.” He stared forward until Mina walked away. His eyes followed her steps. 

Gingi shook as Mina wrote “24” on his chest. He, too, saw Mayor’s inverted parts and small fleshy chest and knew this would only make Mina love him more. Before the running time, as children, Gingi and Mina would bathe in the streams with the mothers, young women, and tender ones. Mina would whisper to Gingi about which older girl she wanted to kiss or tackle into the water and get tangled in her arms. She would scoop up freshwater clams and let them snap slowly over her finger–the muscle tongue squirming desperately for the sands below and say, This is how I want to be in a woman, and Gingi would be silent, afraid.

“The horsemen are coming now! Get in the water now!” 

The small ones clutched each other and followed her into the sea. All watched as Mami Wata’s form expanded and became a white sperm whale, complete with scars from ships and Kraken. Mami Wata had transformed before, but not like this, never so completely or so massive. The children were unphased by their growing gills, dorsels, and elongating or shrinking spines. Survival can necessitate transformation, but transformation does not necessitate survival. 

Most became remora, some angelfish, others eels, like the mayor’s son, who was an electric eel. They started to swim away, but Mina was left onshore. She had not written a number on herself. With the nub of the charcoal, she wrote “25” all over her body till she broke skin. It was no use. They were gone. She collapsed into the breaking waves and waited for the silent horsemen to take her. 

As an electric eel, the mayor’s son counted the school as they swam beneath Mami Wata’s great belly–one missing. He knew it was Mina who was left onshore. Each fish was printed with a characteristic reminiscent of its child self. None held the prowess of Mina, who surely would’ve been a great octopus, using her many tentacles to keep them all together. He tried to turn around. Mami Wata bellowed vibrations into the water. Their vertebrae rattled. Every organ was deafened in the sound. An older child, who had transformed into a porpoise calf, translated that they couldn’t leave Mami Wata’s belly or they’d stay fish forever. Reluctantly, the mayor's son stayed, but this was a very good thing. 

A boy who became a grouper swallowed some of the smaller minnow children. When Mayor saw this, he electrocuted the grouper until he spat one of the minnows out. There was a struggle. The grouper separated from the group and swam to the white coral below. He did not forget he was human but remembered he was a fish. There he remains.

The children panicked. Bulging eyes stared at one another, reflected light, assessed survival. Many swam away from their porpoise friend. She clicked and cried. The mayor’s son gurgled a chant to keep the focus and spirit of the children. 

“We are human. We are human. We are human,” and the whole school joined the chant. They fed off each other’s energy. For the duration of the journey, there was no concept of predator and prey.  

When they arrived on the island, there were 22. On shore, they returned to human form, except for a pair of twin girls who maintained fully functioning gills and lungs. Mami Wata did not change back but rather slid from a slit she had cut from the inside of the whale that released a foul stench of unwilling compost. They all saw pale bodies with gaping mouths and hollow eyes compressed together to make the flesh beneath the whale’s skin. They asked who the people were.

Mami Wata snapped, “Come, we must burn it now. Before they awake now.” They gathered drying palm fronds from the edge of the island. The beached whale burned in a gulp of scarlet flame and violet smoke. It howled as it burned. All the children wept for the lost. 

The mayor’s son taught himself and the children how to build shelters in the trees and underground food stores. By Mami Wata’s instruction, they never ate animal flesh. The flying iguanas and dik-diks were too swift for the children to catch. One day an older boy broke, killed a shrew and ate it raw. He was never seen again. There were 21. 

Mami Wata assured them they would be safe on the island for many years. It would take the horsemen a long time to learn how to cross the waters. Still, the younger children insisted on a patrol. They marched back and forth on the water’s edge. Listening for sounds they couldn’t hear—sights they couldn’t see. 

A large clump of seaweed washed ashore, and a child on patrol began to poke it in search of treasure. The seaweed reformed until it became a beautiful being lying naked, curling around itself in a fetal spiral. It was Mina. The child raced to camp to get the others. Mayor scooped up her body and took her to his shelter. There was cheering and dancing, and even Gingi emerged from the dark of the forest. He was living alone, mourning the lost Mina. Mayor hushed them all so Mami Wata could examine the body. Mina was not quite the same. 

Her skin had become the black-green translucence of an ancient kelp forest. The children stared. They could see her lungs inhaling, exhaling–her organs puckering. Mina’s body inched closer to the sunlight, heaving a sigh of relief. Her skin became a luminous opaque, matching the banana leaves around her. She coughed up seawater and tiny pearls. Mina’s eyes opened. The sclera and iris had become bright magenta, yet the pupil remained as a black seed. Her locs grew into smooth, fleshy vines. Gingi was the first to speak to her as he threw himself to her feet and dripped oil on her thighs. Her vines grew and appeared to sniff the boy who, once full-cheeked, had become gaunt, and his rich ochre skin had become an ashen grey. 

She pushed him off and walked to a nearby jutting rock that benefited from full sunlight. She hummed, eyes closed, cross-legged in the sunshine. All her vines floated upwards toward the sun. The mayor’s son grabbed Mami Wata’s shoulder, about to protest, but she silenced him with her raised hand. 

“Say not a word now. Let her be and carry on now. You too now,” she addressed the children and shooed them from Mayor’s camp. Mayor stood at the base of the rock, staring up at Mina, hand shielding his eyes from the sun. 

The next day, Mina was moaning. Pink tumors had burst open into large, fleshy blossoms, thick and spotted like rafflesia. All manner of insects swarmed these blooms, grinding their abdomens, desperate for her nectar held deep within the flowers. Mina’s moaning made the children cover their ears, but it bewitched the reclusive jungle beasts. Deer would stagger, and tapirs would wobble away, drunk on nectar with a face full of magenta pollen. The effects would subside when the pollen was washed off. It temporarily turned water blood red.

Mayor watched daily from afar. He tucked his knees into his chest, buried his face in the warm dark of his bodily cave, and prayed. Would the children be frightened of him if he transformed his body like in his dreams? Would they throw rocks at him if he could cut off his breasts and declare, look, I am myself! He prayed to Mina. A prayer with a rhythm his mother taught him but with words all his own. He leaped and ran to her rock. He was ready to do—anything, but Mina was gone. 

Mina crept through the deep jungle. The insects were not enough. The animals–useless. They could take her nectar but couldn’t give her what she needed. This compulsion was deeper than hunger or thirst. She needed to germinate, and for all her flowers’ pining for honey bees and black moths, she knew only one that could help her bear fruit. 

She found Gingi whimpering on a bed of moss beneath the shade of many Empress paulownias, sister trees. The blossoms were screaming in full violet bloom, lighting the ground below them in a deep amethyst hue. Gingi had retreated into the trees after Mina’s cold rejection. He looked fuller, but his skin remained a yellowed grey. His eyes were sunken from weeping. 

“Gingi,” Mina whispered, almost sounding like herself before the running time. He looked up and wiped his nose, but that did nothing. He was quietly oozing from every pore. His skin reflected the purple glow of the Empress trees. He looked like a jewel. Mina dropped to her knees and gripped his shoulders. His oil gathered over her fingers. “Gingi, Mina needs you…” her voice trailed off. She spoke the “please” into his mouth. He pulled away, slime trailing between their lips. 

“I...don’t understand…” but she interrupted as she stood over him. 

Gingi wanted to be afraid of what happened next. He wanted to grab a sharp stick to defend himself. He wanted to curse her or beg her to bring his Mina back. He wanted to simply think of her as grotesque, but he could not. For what Mina did next was not a horror; it was nature. Gingi was of the jungle now. He had watched the boa unhinge its jaw to swallow the capybara whole. He held the dangling pitcher plant in his hand as the fly slipped in carelessly to dance in the vulgar digestive juices. He stared when he felt he shouldn’t at the mating servals who sank tender fangs in each other's throats, screaming and inseminating. His body relaxed against the moss, welcoming Mina as the subdued antelope neck in the leopard’s jaw. He knew if Mina were any other animal besides the forsaken human being, no one would call her a monster. Not for her body. Not for her desires. Not for what she was about to do to him.

Mina slid her hands down between her legs. She hooked her thumbs in the mouth and yanked, hard at first, then smooth like ripe lychee. She split herself–thumbs deep inside, pushing the flesh apart up to her throat. Mina released her hands and spread them in display at her side. Her body followed as five distinct petals peeled back from her core. She was open. Her core was a glistening, squirming compact cluster of deep magenta tendrils. She was an inflorescence. A yellow egg-like sphere tipped each slippery tentacle. The peeled-open petals of her body dripped the electric pink of ripe dragon fruit. She was panting. Her eyes dripped a magenta syrup. Her hair extended and wrapped around him to lift his body to face her.  Her sharpened smile was stark white against the ruby fluid squelching from her gums. The hot fluid dripped on Gingi’s face and chest.

Mina plunged the boy deep into her body’s cavity. His arms were pinned to his side, and his legs clenched to each other. His mouth grunted within her, the vibrations adding to her buried heartbeat.

Here, all time was illusion. All space and form impractical and useless—only eclipsing heat, infinite and fleeting. Mina roared for her mothers, for her mother’s mothers. It shook the birds from the trees and could be heard from camp. Mayor sprung to his feet and ran into the forest. In fear-soaked delight, the children ran after him, a drove of squealing, hunted pigs. 

All five petals had snapped shut hard over Gingi–only visible by feet and calves that dangled from the bottom opening of Mina’s body. The sharp snap of elastic skin on his body released every drop of semen from him. He breathed heavy, slow. He was limp and surrendered to her, but Mina wasn’t finished. She crushed Gingi tighter and tighter, creating a vacuum seal around his body that sucked the rest of his legs into her petals.

She squeezed until a small black, and yellow slug slid out from the seams of her petals. And then another, and another until dozens, hundreds, slid from her opening petals like a murky creek. When a slug hit the ground, it instantly found a mate. They curled around each other, forming an opalescent pool in the center. They shot fertilized darts and belched creamy tentacles into each other’s orifices, completing the other’s form. Mina sealed herself up and could not step without mucus or mating slugs splaying between her toes. Before she was out of the grove, Mayor burst through the purple bloom, frightening her with his urgency. The children gathered around him, and soon, Mami Wata glided to the front to inspect the scene. 

She pressed her lips together and sighed, “Gingi’s happier now.” The children stared at the slugs and wiped drool from their dirt-streaked faces. Mami Wata waved her hand as if shooing away a fly. “You may eat now.”

 The children dove into the pile of mucus and started slurping the slugs or mashing them between their hands to lick feverishly. The flowers began to shrivel and drop from Mina’s body, satisfied with the completion of their service. Her vines shrunk and were now sleeping on her shoulders. Mina and the mayor’s son stared at one another. Her pupils dilated. 

Mayor walked to her, lacing their fingers together, “Let me take you home.” 

In nine months, Mina was swollen and ready to give birth. There was no privacy in the shack. As Mayor held her hand, the children clambered in to watch, lips smacking on cinnamon twigs or slugs. As Mami Wata feared, she had to cut out the baby. Mami Wata drew an obsidian knife from between her breasts. She held her hand on the knife over Mina’s womb and spoke an enchantment. The blade glowed with a brilliant royal blue flame before cooling on Mina’s skin. Mami Wata cut a cross into Mina’s stomach and peeled the skin back like an orange. A large, gnarled walnut-like pit was inside, which Mami Wata carefully removed. Mina’s skin curled back and resealed on its own. Mami Wata took the pit and broke it over a rock. The pit split in two, and the cries of a new babe echoed into the forest. Mina and Mayor wept with joy but mostly relief. The baby was alive. Mami Wata washed the magenta fluid from the baby’s scrunched form. She swaddled using strips of her own skirt before placing the baby in Mina’s arms. The children began to sniff the open pit, poking at its pink inner flesh. 

“Go on now,” Mami Wata said, eyes closed in contentment. The children barked and snarled over the delicious pit meat. Mayor held Mina and the baby close. Mina hummed over the magenta child as it glistened in the sun, slurping milk and solar energy. Now, at least for a while, all were well-fed.