Zurra
One assumed Zurra’s birth had been auspicious. It must have been. She had entered the world just before a clear dawn when the unblinking eye of Venus burned in the east. Whether something about the birth itself generated the propitious feeling, or the propitious feeling was only waiting for the birth, we will probably never know. The family, and the wider clan, into which she was born, were known for their discretion. Nothing leaked from that circle. Whatever the source, the girl was marked as special from her first breath.
The process by which newly-minted humans discern a sense of individuality from the teeming ocean of sensations where they find themselves happened very slowly—and imperfectly—in Zurra. In her case, it was an added challenge to distinguish between the world where those strange creatures called “other people” lived, and her own, in which the instant indulgence of not only her needs and desires, but her most ephemeral whims, had been constant from the start.
Among “other” children—perhaps an unfortunate, but certainly an inarguable situation—she always got the first and best piece of this, the grand prize in that, the cherry on top of everything. The largesse that flowed her way, unchallenged, became a quiet background spiked with micro-flashes of dopamine, as the goods stacked up, meaningless to her but safely out of the reach of anyone else, in her palatial room.
She was perfect—no easy state to reach or maintain—unless, of course, it’s just a matter of being yourself.
Which is to say, she took her status for granted, and learned very early in life how to use it. What else could she have done? She had no experience of anyone of any position or age not being in awe of her. She did well in school. She studied, but wasted no energy on anything that didn’t draw the approval of the controlling class, or the awe and envy of those fish who swam behind her in her sea. She could hardly have failed to develop a vision of reality fueled by a thorough knowledge of codes and an impeccable aptitude for manipulation. She studied music, dance, archery, and other pursuits carefully chosen for her, in every case drawing a fan base of enviers and imitators, even if none of it really meant anything to her at all.
No one knew her well. Actually, no one knew her at all. Anyone who tried to bridge that gulf collided with an enigmatic vacuum.
As a teenager Zurra was allowed to socialize, and even date—but only the best boys, of course. The “best” being those vetted by her mother, who made clear that none of them were good enough for her. As with her “friends,” being seen with her was their reward. Those boys bold enough to try for a greater reward only met a cold unbreachable wall, and were dismissed.
As she navigated adolescence, it was inevitable that Zurra would become an Influencer of the first rank, and acquire a horde of followers hanging on her every pronouncement concerning taste in clothes, cosmetics, dating, and the cultivation of a strong sense of self-worth. Her father, along with his right hand, Pastor Bunche, handled the business side, and her mother fed her her opinions.
Indeed, the heart of her dating advice—“find someone who cherishes you”—was for Zurra just another series of words to say. First, the absurdity of going out and “finding someone who cherishes you,” as though it was like finding a nice handbag—and secondly, she couldn’t really say—could she?—what being cherished felt like. The charm and kindness and indulgence she experienced from her parents, Pastor Bunche, and all their arcane circle: was that being cherished? Or could she go so far as to say the worship she felt from them was—love? Love. She, the expert, could tell you exactly what love was—but if it was the longed-for, transformative, and sustaining emotion she had learned it to be—where was it?
Though all the experiences of her life, the conditioning, the reinforcement, the rewards, were a mighty force preventing it, as she approached twenty she began to be aware of an uneasiness long buried within her, and now trying to peck through its shell: a sense of a disconnect between what things claimed to be, and what they really were. Something in the expressions of her parents and their associates often lagged just a fraction of a second in returning from something else to their habitual adoration. What did that mean? What something else? Why had she never studied or been coached on something else’s? And how was it she had never really felt any of the things she was so good at singing the praises of? And what about that glimpse into something hollow in her mother, hollower in her father, hollower still in Pastor Bunche—so fleeting you could persuade yourself you hadn’t seen it, though you had? Knowing something and not saying it. The feeling terrified her because of the suggestion of another person she might have been but didn’t have the courage to try to be.
Only once, briefly, had an impulse surged up within her, thrilling and terrifying, with the question “what do I do now?”—but her refusal to face it killed her Siddhartha moment, the madness of flight from perfect and special to whatever perfect and special weren’t. It was like being at the mouth of some dreadful cave. She had no way to deal with such things! She would not go down there! Positive self-image!
Not long after, she began to feel the pull of the approach of her twenty-first birthday.
She knew something special was planned—beyond special—she had sensed it in a thousand ways—an excited anticipation which in a lifetime of sensations she had never felt before. Curiosity wins the day.
As always, paparazzi and starstruck lookers-on lined the streets as her mother took her out to be fitted with the gown she would wear to the whispered-about Big Event. When the woman in the small shop, closed to other clientele, brought it out, Zurra gave herself over to the dopamine hit at the sight of the stunning garment. She slipped it on, cut exactly for her shape, and shimmering with a quality that could only be described as celestial, and she knew she had no way to be anything else.
“You look beautiful,” said her mother. “Perfect.”
* * *
A week later, a restless throng buzzing like a hive outside the temple and a formal retinue lining the long hallway within, Zurra moved like a vision, in but not of, their midst, toward the double doors, fully absorbed in the anticipation of what awaited her beyond.
As the doors opened and with a nod from her father she stepped into the room, she had no way to interpret the looks on the faces of the people standing there, nor to understand the elegant robe of Pastor Bunche, standing behind a table covered with a white linen ceremonial cloth.
And, above all, she had no way to interpret the strangeness in his unsmiling eyes as he spread his arms and said, “Behold the perfect one, who atones for the sins of all.”
January 24, 2024