…in the Order in Which a Female Refugee Read It and Filled It Out
by F. B. Hughes
| BEFORE YOU BEGIN: 1. This reconfigurable document registers responses and provides the appropriate worksheet pathway. Please use blue or black ink. 2. This GREEN workbook (in BOOK ENGLISH) is for Anglophones who departed North America from the years CE 2206-2250 and arrived on the planet Avunculus, one of the “Fifteen Colonized Worlds.” Please see a white-suited ERA worker if you prefer a post-2250 NA English dialect. |
A warm welcome to Earth’s refugees!
We are the Earth Refugees Authority (ERA), a government authority whose mandate is to provide food and water, temporary shelter, medical care, and security for refugees from Earth to this world of Avunculus.
At the time you left Earth, Avunculus was a nascent colony, one of 15. As your intake counselor likely informed you, 512 years have passed between the time you entered the copula on Earth and disembarked on Avunculus.
Effectively, your civilization is long dead to you. If you have not already been assigned a grief counselor, one will be appointed to you during your stay. We are experiencing a shortage of trained personnel in this area; the current wait time is 301 days.
The copulae gates that brought you here were damaged when Earth attempted to shut them down. The gates now only transmit matter and light one way—from Earth to these Fifteen Worlds. Because we cannot send messages to Earth, there is no way to stop this refugee-producing situation. You can neither return to Earth nor enter Avunculus proper. Strict laws governing citizenship and residency restrict entry to holders of certain service roles.
The ERA is committed to peaceful, local solutions to this ancient multiplanetary migrant crisis. For 70 years, we have administered camps on Avunculus. This one is called the Armstrong Temporary Camp for Earth Refugees (ATCER). You are now a legal resident of ATCER and must remain inside it unless authorized to travel elsewhere. Because you are stateless, we provide your legal representation in courts of local, planetary, and inter-planet jurisdiction.
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If you are traveling with minor children, and they are currently under your care, see section 15.
(from Section 15e) Children 10-14 (age determined by follicle analysis) are entitled to a food ration equaling 6500 kilojoules per day. Rations are nutritionally maximized for growth and health.
(from Section 15i) The Armstrong Temporary Camp for Earth Refugees operates two schools for children 7-18. Enrollment is mandatory for all children 7-15.
| Point of pride! Despite resource scarcity, ATCER students have steadily narrowed the score gap with native-born Avunculan children on standardized academic examinations. Many of our teachers were once pupils in the same schools. |
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For brief explanations of chronological displacement effects that you have experienced, see Section 2.
| Important to know! This planet, like each of the Fifteen Worlds, contains an autonomous terraforming actant (locally called godplanet) that exerts will through systems of non-living and living things. The actant grants select humans (approximately 1 in 1,000,000) various abilities of input (“permissions”) into its matter and energy transforming systems. Sensitives provide our governments an avenue of communication and influence with the actant. For unknown reasons, Earthborn experience a slightly higher rate of sensitivity. See Form 201B for a checklist of signs that you may have permissions. |
(From Section 2) In CE 2206, Earth disabled all traffic from the Fifteen Worlds to Earth, while leaving intact the ability to send traffic here. We call this the De-Coupling. As you may be aware, Earth authorities disabled the copulae out of concern that the terraformers would use them to access Earth.
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The De-Coupling resulted in chronological effects. Since CE 2206, Earth-originating travelers have been dispersed across the past five centuries. Millions of travelers who entered the copulae together found themselves separated by great expanses of time.
If you have experienced family or party separation, please invoke Section 99.
If you wish to report missing children, please invoke Form 99B.
(from Form 99B) How many dependents/children do you wish to report missing? 2
Please enter your dependents’ names, ages, and description below.
Conrad Tyler, 10, male
Olivia Tyler, 8, female
Unfortunately, because of the De-Coupling, persons sought may have disembarked at an earlier point in time. Where records do not exist, this may indicate that persons sought arrived at a time downstream (the future). In such cases, records of your arrival here will be provided to them upon their arrival, assuming record keeping and refugee-recovery infrastructure remain intact.
Research teams are understaffed and records continue to accrue. This causes considerable delay. The current wait time to return complete record searches to people inside the camps is 164 months.
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(Section 200: Methods of Normalizing Status) Refugees are not permitted to exit the camp without authorization. Refugees who leave the camp without permission face arrest and prosecution under local planetary law. Camp residents also face a heightened risk of robbery and assault. Unfortunately, the ERA has limited security capability outside the camp.
If you think you may be eligible for a special status that will allow travel outside the camp, such as temporary residency or asylum, please see Section 201.
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(Section 201) If you wish to apply for temporary residency status as someone who can “hear” the godplanet, please request Form 201P.
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(Form 201P) This form tells our intake personnel that you have some facility to perceive semantic manifestations of the godplanet.
(Excerpts from checklist)
Name: Daria Tyler
Camp ID: 2291-094344-701
Age (at time of departure, rounded up: 35
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Symptoms Checklist:
yes no
[x] [ ] At night or while sleeping, I hear someone not present giving me clear directives.
[x] [ ] I sometimes see places I have never been.
[x] [ ] I can hear the conversations of people who are not there.
[ ] [x] I would like to make a mountain.
[…]
[x] [ ] I often wake up feeling like I spent the night working out an important problem.
[ ] [x] I wish I were a tree.
Health Conditions:
yes no
[x] [ ] Asthma:
[ ] [x] Heart Condition
[ ] [x] Cancer or history of cancer
[…]
[x] [ ] Currently pregnant; if yes, how many weeks, if known: 27
Refugees determined to have matter and energy altering permissions gain access to a pathway to permanent residency on Avunculus. Any sensitivity to the godplanet must be verified through potentially invasive medical testing and long periods of quarantine. Positive results will obligate you to a period of state service currently set by statute as lifetime.
Signature: DARIA TYLER
Date (use Earth standard): 23 Sept CE 2744
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(From Section 834, Signature and submission) Initial each statement to indicate understanding.
You have not completed Form 15, Care of minor child(ren). _DT
You have completed Form 99B, Missing child(ren). _DT
- You have completed Waiver of Liability/Form 201P, Terraformer Permissions Testing. Positive selection may open a pathway to permanent residency and freedom of movement, including leave to search for missing persons. _DT
- You have indicated that you have a medical condition ofcurrently pregnant. Warning: Testing procedures involve teratogenic substances, high doses of ionizing radiation, and quantum cotermination, in which the actant may align physically with your body; all of these are contraindicated in pregnancy. While prophylactic measures to protect your body and future health will be taken, your fetus may be damaged beyond current capabilities of medical intervention.
Termination of pregnancy is requested. _________
Termination of pregnancy is NOT requested. _________
Please submit this completed workbook to any white-suited intake personnel.
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Bio:
Frank Baird Hughes is an anthropologist and educator. His writing appears in Radon Journal and Gavagai. You may find him in a Philadelphia cafe drafting something new or online at frankbairdhughes.com or cultureworrier.bsky.social.
Philosophy Note:
This story takes place on the world Avunculus, the setting of my earlier story The Oneiromantic Sheep. I’ve written several pieces in this universe that explore Bruno Latour’s ideas about the agency of non-human and inanimate actants (see Bruno Latour (1996): On Interobjectivity, Mind, Culture, and Activity, 3:4, 228-245). In writing this story in the format of a workbook, I was also thinking of Foucault’s notions of control through measurement and examination and recommend Khiara Bridges’ Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization as a work that applies Foucault to the management of birth and anxieties about class.
