Your Home Town

by Patricia Q. Bidar

During pregnancy, cells from the fetus cross the placenta and enter the mother's body, where they can become part of her tissues.

Rounded hills overlook the low town that birthed you. Daytime is the crack of little league bats. The Wednesday “fish wrapper” delivered by a towheaded neighbor. The discount bakery and the smell of hot white bread. Your father works long hours as a butcher. From the bedroom window, you and your sisters can see the green-blue Vincent Thomas Bridge, leading to the Terminal Island canneries and the women's prison. Your aunt leaves her spinster’s studio to supervise you girls, while your mother does her time.

This cellular invasion means that mothers carry unique genetic material from their children’s bodies, creating what biologists call a microchimera, named for a monster from Greek mythology that was part lion, goat, and dragon.

Eastward squat the pumpkin-like tanks of the Los Angeles refinery. At night, its spires are magic, emitting dragonbreath plumes. The scene is gold-lit at night.

A whale skeleton is discovered embedded within the refinery grounds. Dubbed Raquel, because her bones are “well-stacked.” Your aunt drags you sisters to the excavation site. She sells cans of Bubble Up and Dr Pepper from a folding chair, exchanging raunchy jokes with the diggers and their assistants. You and your sisters climb spiraling metal stairs with boys from Wilmington and Harbor City. Your mother stays gone.

Chimera: a fire-breathing monster, which, according to the Homeric poems, was of divine origin. She was brought up by Amisodarus, king of Caria, and afterward made great havoc in all the country around and among men. 

In the night’s soul womb, foghorns and the train spread their sonic balm. You sisters have scattered across the land. Been loved by a hundred men. Part of you remains, embedded in the town’s tissue, adrift in its petroleum perfume.

*Original version published in In Defence of Pseudoscience: Reflex Fiction Volume Five.

BIO: Patricia Quintana Bidar is a western writer from the Port of Los Angeles area, with family roots in Santa Fe, the Sonora Desert, and the Great Salt Lake. Her work has been included in Flash Fiction America (W.W. Norton), Best Small Fictions 2023 and 2024 (Alternating Current), Best Microfiction 2023 (Pelekinesis Press) and nominated six times for the Pushcart Prize. Patricia’s book of short works, Pardon Me For Moonwalking, is coming from Unsolicited Press. She lives with her family and unusual dog outside of Oakland, California. Twitter is @patriciabidar. See more at patriciaqbidar.com