tinker bell

We were watching television when it happened. I think my mother had a soap opera on, maybe Days of Our Lives. That was always her favorite. I have a picture of June Cleaver seated on her sofa: hair smooth and glossy with hair spray, a pencil skirted dress on a pencil thin body, cigarette held between the index and middle fingers of her left hand and a cup of coffee on the coffee table, a dollop of sweet cream floating on the surface of the hot, black liquid.

Walter Cronkite broke into the show and she sat forward, the back edge of her butt perched on the front edge of the couch, her knees locked together over three inch heels. Her bracelet caught the light when she lifted her hand to wipe away tears.

Someone killed King Arthur. Camelot destroyed on a sunny day, on a sunny drive through the badlands of Texas.

Lee Harvey Oswald inspired me to become the woman I am today. His supposed act was the first time I heard the word assassination and it struck a chord in my four year old heart. I wanted to be that person poking my rifle muzzle out of a twelve story window and anonymously taking out my target. And that's how I know he didn't do it. No self-respecting assassin gets caught.

He was a patsy, plain and simple.

All you have to do is think about it to know I'm right. I mean, I don't really know all of the facts but I'm pretty sure it wasn't LHO. I blame Castro and Jimmy Hoffa. They got together to get rid of the guy messing about their girl, Marilyn. Jimmy was especially upset over the way John cheated on Jackie all of the time and Marilyn was too innocent to know better. When John's handlers killed Marilyn to get her out of the way of their plans (John wanted to give it all up to run away to Cuba with her) Jimmy just couldn't take it anymore. He lost his mind with jealousy. He met with Castro and they decided to make some permanent changes.

One night when they were out together at a Salsa club, slow dancing after they had about ten margaritas each, Castro had an epiphany. He knew people. Jimmy knew people. They'd compare notes. If they found any people they had in common it would be a sign that God wanted them to clean up the mess made by a bunch of people who only had self interest as their guiding rule.

Upon sober reflection the next morning over tomato juice laced with lemon, creamy horseradish sauce, and two fingers of vodka, they still thought the idea a good one. They pooled their pocket change ($4,579.18,) called The Maggot (isn't that a great name for an assassin? I wish my code name was as good but somehow I got the moniker, Tinker Bell. I ask you, is that a proper name for an assassin? I think not but it stuck. ~ I digress,) and blamed it all on LHO.

you're too Jong-un to know better

You would think this took place in North Korea but you'd be wrong.

Yes, I was born in North Korea, in the reeducation camp in Tanchon, in 1991. Both of my parents were scientists: my mother a biologist, my father a physicist. They both died in Tanchon.

We spent twenty years together as a family and as scientists in the camp. They raised me with their ideals and they taught me to question, to search, to quest. They got me out of the camp, out of Tanchon, out of North Korea and then ran out of time. A message caught up with me three years after the fact. They were each shot in the head while kneeling in the exercise yard, holding hands, looking into each other's eyes.

They never shed a tear. I cried for weeks. I still cry, in the stillness of the night, but once morning comes, I pull it together. I've got things to do.

I'm testing out my PhD. My parents taught me so well, that I rarely took a class. I've been tested by a long line of professors in a variety of subjects to see where I should be placed in the American educational system. I'm a genius. I speak several languages, math being one of them. I'm an expert in practical and theoretical sciences. The government is supporting me while I acclimate.

No one really knows what to do with me: female, twenty-five, no family, North Korean, Genius, no formal education, anti-social, penniless, atheist.

My handler is making me go to a New Year's Eve party at the home of a congressman. I spent the day at an exclusive spa being pampered, primped and primed to be pimped out as an example of resources to be stolen out from under the little nose of Kim Jong-un. I was the poster child for a special new kind of secret program that wanted undermine other governments with double and triple agents. Even I no longer knew which side I was on.

People assumed my English wasn't very good, so I got away with being quiet. I watched. I smiled. I listened. I heard all kinds of things I'd use later as bargaining chips with my handler for things like time alone in a lab or a park, two of my favorite places. I had no qualms about passing on gossip about romantic liaisons, drug use, or illegal nannies. None of these things really mattered in the grand scheme of things. Not while people were forced to raise their children in prisons, forced to endure years of torture and agony.

I had more important things to thwart. Like that guy over in the corner, dressed as a waiter. He held a tray of champagne flutes filled with golden, bubbling liquid. He pulled a small white packet out of his pants' pocket, ripped it open with his teeth and poured a white powder into all five glasses on his tray.

He moved into the room, deftly keeping his tray from several people reaching for a glass. He was searching for specific people. I extracted myself from my group (no one noticed) and followed the waiter. He found a target and surged forward. I bumped into his arm carrying the tray. He tried to steady it but the glasses tumbled down to the floor, shattering on the slick wooden floor. The liquid foamed and ate through the Polyurethane.