FROM "THE ORPHANS"

IMAGE TK

Tom Rubnitz, Undercover Me!, 1988. Image copyright of the artist, courtesy of Video Data Bank, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. All screenshots, after the screening event Tom Rubnitz, collected video works 1981 - 1992, January 11th 2020, courtesy Goswell Road, Paris.

ed to call and clear up the whole rocking horse fiasco. Okay. So. That rocking horse either never existed on the physical plane or my grandma sold it at an estate sale in 1977. I am truly sorry I can’t help you locate this mythical, wooden creature. Wait, actually, Aunt Gladys, it’s time for me to come clean. I did steal your rocking horse and I just can’t stop riding it. I am riding your prelude to an aneurysm, I mean rocking horse, day in day out and it feels so damn good. I actually gave my dad cancer just so I could ride your strictly figurative rocking horse off into the sunset. Just kidding, I ride it in the closet right next to your pile of skeletons, Aunt Gladys.

Lily and I had been planning this heist for years. We thought, “Hahaha, no one is gonna see this coming. Nothin’ to see here, folks, just a couple of grown-up granddaughters holding their grandmother’s hands because she just lost a son.” But then she forgot she lost him. She forgot she even had him, and there was a mercy in that. But there was no mercy in her hands, which shook with knowing. Our hands were suddenly speaking a language I had never spoken before. A language without words.

She wrapped her fingers around my wrist like a tangled umbilical cord. She looked at me and I experienced firsthand the heart superseding the brain. Her telepathic grief coursing through her body — a result of the love transfusion that had infected her blood since his birth. To love and grieve and die. You hardly need a brain for any of it. It was then that I leaned over and whispered into my grandmother’s ear, “Hey, Grandma? Can you let go of my wrist now? There’s this rocking horse … thing me and Lily have to get to and we’re kind of on a time crunch. I know you’re not remembering much these days but does Ocean’s Eleven ring a bell? With Sticklegs Sinatra! Yes! Oh my god, you’re such a delight. We’re doing an Ocean’s Eleven with Aunt Gladys’s rocking horse. Yes, the one you sold in 1977.”

I was in the room when Lily shot my nephew out of her body. He flew like an arrow, but he landed limp, slick, and purple. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice like a snake. A nurse rushed to Lily’s side. “Your baby just needs a little help breathing.” Kevin, my brother -in-law, buried his face in his hands as three nurses transferred his baby to what looked like a hotplate from the future and vigorously rubbed his tiny chest with their fingers. The world ended and began in the span of 50 seconds. After 50 seconds, the baby cried and we leapt to the ceiling of the hospital. My mother and I threw our arms around Kevin and there was that unspoken language again. His body shook with the knowledge it was now suddenly made of glass. He stood frozen, struck by Love’s quiver, the arrow sticking out of his chest. I pulled the arrow out of his chest so he could hold his son. I yanked it out the only way a sexy aunt could — with my teeth. He asked Lily what their son’s name was. She said, “His name is Matteo and he has the sexiest aunt in Sherman Oaks.” I spit the arrow out of my mouth and held my nephew to my pumping heart. I cradled him like I cradled the cherub who shot his father. The cherub who shot us all. We worshipped the arrow Lily had launched from her body with the precision and triumph of Artemis. There we all were. Struck. Shattered. New. Our sexy mugs runneth over.

from "THE ORPHANS"

DON MEE CHOI

Orphan Kim Gyeong-nam (age 16)

My little brother came home barefoot covered in blood. He got out alive from the mass grave. He said, I stepped on dead bodies. The grave filled with blood. I asked, Did our parents run away without us? No they are all dead. He screamed and screamed. I didn’t believe him. No they’ll come back alive. Our big sister hid my brother under her skirt and sat on him to keep him alive. He screamed and screamed. I could only grab a clump of Mother’s hair. I couldn’t put out the flames. Father sizzled and crackled. My brother screamed and screamed. In a dream I chew and chew Mother’s hair.

Orphan Jeong Jeong-ja (age 8)