Status Updates From Sötvatten

‘There are rules. But these are gods and they move like heated water, so the rules are softened and stretched. The gods do not care. It is not them, after all, that will pay the cost.’

‘They meant to punish her: they took her children, they filled her mouth with sand. But it is only a fool who does not know that freedom is paid for in old clotted blood, in fresh readings of it, in renewed scarifications.’

‘…she was always a little uncertain when it came to her first daughter, what exactly to do with her, how to soothe such a force.’

‘They could not make us return because they were too far away, but they could do other things in the name of claiming our head. There is a method to this. First, harvest the heart and weaken the neck.’

‘That night was black as velvet tamarind, thick in a way that made people walk closer to each other, pressing in a pack that moved down to the village square.’

‘All water is connected. All freshwater comes out of the mouth of a python.’