‘Scruelcoming’: A Non-Binary Flash by Ashley

   When Sash was twelve, they were told that they would be struck by thunder if they referred and asked others to refer to themself by anything other than he, him or his. Disbelievingly, they hissed, of course. They were far from superstitious, unlike all the adults here in Parentitilla, the most conservative of all the adult-centred countries in the world. And they were right, of course they were – no thunder struck them, at least not in a natural-consequential way, but they were thunderstruck by the collective cruelty of the punishing people around them, through the mobile apps those people used to strike their body into submission. The adults’ laughter was the opposite of drowned out when their body nearly sank, in a metaphorical sense, dragged down by the weight of the artificially-induced rainwater. All the while their head was nearly cracked by the thunderous cracks – those blasts were extremely loud-mouthed, the sounds the cracks produced, but even those could not drown out the laughter of the metaphorically adulterous, betraying adults.

   Blinded by so much light when that happened, they did not know that all those sensations were artificially-induced at the time. Truth did eventually come out, when it was darkest, at night or rather that same night. Today the punishing people’s laughter still rings in their ears – the prolonged laughter they heard twenty-two years ago when those boastful people unwittingly revealed to them, amongst other things, the efficacy of the magic trick, the mobile app – when they came out of their bedroom for a glass of water. Why today of all days they haven’t a clue. Neither has their partner Mash, it seems. Mash is congratulating them non-stop, all thanks to that invitation to go back to their school, or rather scruel (it being a cruel school), to give a so-called transformative speech for their transformation from that scrawny sissy into an internationally renowned film director. It’s been, like, four flighty hours since they received that invitation, one that reopened all their wounds, especially those inflicted by Ms Lash, who is, according to her Facepalm profile which Mash is still scrolling through after finding it two terrible hours ago, very much alive and teaching … in that scruel.

   Back then the bullying Ms Lash had been their Binglish teacher. That blessed bully really had an apt name indeed – oh the memories of how what very few friends they had were continuously lashed when those pals spoke up for them nauseates them even now. It was Ms Lash who managed to persuade their parents, upon persisting for six solid years, to gather their relatives, so that all the assembled adults including the teacher and most of her colleagues could gang-strike them using collective Thunderstruck mobile apps. And not to forget the spit she caked them in; the bouquet of thorns she used to tear their scalp; the way she entered them into a singing competition for females to get as many people as she could to humiliate them when their voice broke; how she tore their scruelniform in front of all their classmates … they could go on and on. But in sheir excitement Mash has forgotten how to listen.

   ‘She’ll have changed her mind about you Sash, now that you’re famous. I bet she’ll even apologise on her hands and knees when she sees you. Don’t worry. Just accept the invitation. Go show her,’ shey suggests, ‘You’re not still afraid of her, are you?’

   ‘come on Para, you know Pary well. Of course they aren’t. In fact, I bet they have never been. They’re my absolute inspiration, one of the bravest souls I know. They’re just avoiding someone toxic,’ Sash and Nash’s sonter, Dash, explains to shis para – Dash who understands that born and raised in an inclusive country and having gone to an international school there, there are things Mash needs to be reminded of about Parentitilla. Sash nods and beams at their perceptive sonter.

   ‘Sorry Sash,’ Mash says.

   ‘Clever sirl,’ Sash and Mash both say to Dash, hugging shim and stroking shis hair, which smiles and shimmers with its bright, black beauty.