Seneca Rebel

WEDGED BETWEEN TWO civilian dressed S.O.I.L. officers on my flight back to LA, I sweated buckets and fidgeted the whole time, unable to find any sort of comfort as the searing heat in my feet radiated up my legs. People think I’m a chill person. I do a good job of radiating that vibe on the outside, but I have the tendency to be high strung. They, on the other hand, were as static as a dial tone the whole time.

We landed at LAX. As we made our way into baggage claim, we were welcomed by a chauffeur holding a “Dorothy Campbell” sign. He was a middle-aged, Iranian gentleman with a thinning hairline and deep wrinkles in his weathered skin. He quietly offered to get my bags, but I had nothing and was unsure of what had happened to the case of belongings I’d had at Seneca. I just kept the hope alive that one day, some way, somehow, my vinyl and I would come back together.

As we moved with the crowd across the dull cream and gray speckled tile, I soaked in the airport arrival atmosphere: people calling out to one another, kids on the loose, business travelers looking distracted, elderly folks being pushed in wheelchairs, lovers hugging, laughter, tears, sneezes, teases, happiness, frustration, tattered and bourgeois luggage side by side on squeaky conveyer belts, the buzz of outdated, unflattering lights, the faint smell of cigarette smoke and exhaust fumes wafting in from outside the automated sliding glass doors.

Ah, the airport. On this late afternoon at LAX, it all made me feel somber. Saddened by the naïveté of everyone around me. My heart palpitated, conflicted. Joyous and excited to see my mom and Killer, troubled in the realization that all these people who surrounded me would not be afforded the same opportunities as those in Seneca. I saw a man in a wheelchair missing his leg from the knee down. Shouldn’t everyone have access to regenerative medicine? A Senecan education? Clean air? The duality disgusted me. I felt helpless. I hated that feeling.

It was a relief to be back in a car. I hadn’t been in one since I had left LA, months before. Traffic on the 405 had never felt so good. Northbound, amidst an ocean of road-raged Los

Angelenos, I finally felt content. The setting sun bathed my left cheek from the west. No matter how chill I tried to be, there was a hint of nervousness underneath, but dang, it felt good to be back in my city– The City of Angels.

A twenty-minute ride and we pulled up to my building. Everything felt right. S.O.I.L. shadowed me up to my apartment. When we got to the front door, there it was, music to my ears. Killer’s yappy bark. I crouched down in anticipation of his

Seneca Rebel

welcome. The muffled sound of the 405 and my mom’s hurried footsteps. What a precious symphony. And then she opened the door. Like a jack-in-the-box, Killer sprang into my arms. His tiny, wet tongue pelted my arm like a cyclone as he squealed with happiness.

“Killer! My baby, my love, I missed you so much. I’m so sorry I left you for so long.” Finally. I squeezed him against my heart.

My hands disappeared into his soft black fur.

Tears of happiness streamed down my mom’s cheekbones. I stood up, cradling Killer with one arm, and threw the other around her, burying my face into the nook between her shoulder and neck. She held the back of my head. “Doro,” she whispered. I never wanted to let go, never again. Neither did she. I clenched my eyes shut, letting the aroma of roasted coffee in her hair bring me back. There’s no place like home. But it didn’t matter where we were. It was all about how we were. Together. The S.O.I.L. officers stood silently by, erect like metal flagpoles, but it didn’t matter to us. Nobody else was there.

We stayed like that for a long time before they interrupted us.

“Ma’am, we’re going to need you to sign here, acknowledging your daughter’s arrival, and then we’ll be on our way.”

My mom didn’t want to let go of me, but she did, reluctantly, when they handed her a tablet. She glanced at it, signed with her finger, and with that, S.O.I.L. was gone.

I was back in the Aboves with my mother. When you live in Seneca’s idyllic halls it’s easy to think of the Aboves as a disease-ridden, dismal place. In that moment, though, it was everything I wanted and more, and it won the applause of my heart.

Sadly, that bliss didn’t last long. The pressures of reality tiptoed back in. Dom was in a different world, my mom and I were destined to a life on a planet devoid of hope, while a wicked bunch known as S.O.I.L. destroyed the great hope of the Seneca Society and would alter human history with the ultimate manipulation of all time. I was seeing things more clear than ever as I slowed to the end of this roller coaster ride. One minute I felt trapped and manipulated in Seneca, the next I was fueled by the opportunity there. I realized that it was S.O.I.L. that kept me on that wicked ride. But the truth is that what Seneca has to offer is mine for the taking and not S.O.I.L.’s to take away from me. The pressure for me to turn things around loomed as ominously as an offshore hurricane.