Season 04 - Episode 04

‘acceptance not when’

The group watches Ny stride from the room, off to handle some important Resistance business. As the door closes behind him, they return to their discussion about which projectors to put where.

“I was thinking...” says Ko but Si cuts him off with a snarl.

“Who cares what you were thinking!” Si snaps. “You might have conned the old man into trusting you but we know what you are!”

“I don't know what you mean,” Ko says, frowning and shifting in his chair.

“Oh come on,” says Es sternly. “You were one of them. A Disciple. You killed people for goodness sake! How do you expect us to trust you?”

“But I wasn't!” Ko cries. “One of them. Not really. It all just... kind of... happened.”

“Cold blooded murder,” sneers Si. “Just happened did it?”

“I only ever killed EnFo's,” Ko says, lowering his stinging eyes to the table, unable to hold their gaze. “And they would have killed me if I didn't. I never killed a civilian.”

“You were with them when they did though,” says Clo. “And you didn't stop them. You didn't stop them cutting off Ny's hand either. You were one of them, through and through.”

“I was never going to go through with the initiation,” Ko mumbles, a quickfire slideshow of terrible images flashing before his mind's eye. “I was trapped with them, trying to find a way out. I was pretending.”

“Yeah,” says Si. “Because that's what you do, isn't it? You were pretending to be a Disciple then, just like you're pretending to be one of us now, just like you pretend to be a man. Maybe if you stopped pretending to be something you're not all the time people might trust you more, you freak!”

An awful silence descends on the room, filling up the space with horrible, itchy nothing. Ko keeps staring at the table as Si eyeballs him, daring him to look up. Meanwhile Es and the others are all frowning at Si or staring at the table, shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

“Perhaps you'd better just go, Ko,” says Es eventually.

Face burning, shaking with shame, Ko stands awkwardly and heads for the door. He can feel their eyes on him and it's as if he's forgotten how to walk. Somehow he manages to leave without stumbling and then hurries back to his room, holding back the tears.

Once inside however, the tears flow freely and will not stop. Memories assail him, dragging out the sobs. The misery of his first life as a woman and a box pusher, forced to live their lie, a pointless cog in a pointless machine. The endless tedium stretching out before him.

Then his next life piles in, a man among men, belonging at last but belonging to what? They were right, he was a killer and it hadn't always been self defence, not really. He remembers the feeling, the complete loss of all control, plunging the knife in over and over. The memories make him feel sick, most of all when he remembers enjoying it.

Movement across the room catches Ko's eye and he turns to look. A snotty mess of a slender man looks back from the mirror. He has allowed his hair to grow back but has kept it short. He no longer binds his breasts but wears baggy men's clothes that make them harder to notice.

He had allowed himself to hope. He had thought that this latest life, this new life in The Resistance, was going to be so much better. The elderly leader had forgiven him his past crimes and welcomed him, given him a place where he could finally be himself.

But the others wouldn't have it.

He'd known from the start that they all still hated him for his time in the cult and then with The Church but hadn't realised until today how they felt about his body. He disgusted them. He was a freak. It was everything he'd ever feared about people knowing his truth.

It wasn't enough, Ny's forgiveness, Ny's acceptance, not when everyone else despised him. It was always going to be like this. Wherever he went, whatever role he tried to fulfil. It wasn't them, it was him. He just wasn't made to belong.

Ko isn't crying now, as he stares at the man in the mirror. He is empty and still and quiet. He has decided what he is going to do.

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