the flickering of white blonde eyelashes

by Danila Botha

He had hair the colour of champagne-soaked strawberries. He always hated the way people described red hair, Ginger, Coppertone. He snorted when people called him Carrot Top when we were young, “Don’t they know carrot tops are green? Don’t they know anything?”

I shook my head. I always thought he was really smart. Someone told him he looked like Ed Sheeran once, a few years ago, and I saw his lip curl, like he wanted to say something mean about pop stars who look like lawn gnomes instead of looking like Harry Styles, who can even make pink frilly dresses look sexy, but he didn’t.

That’s the thing people don’t know about him, that you’d never know if you only heard his name now from skimming the news cycle and social media. He always had a lot of restraint. When I heard the news, I think my mom called to me, I thought she had it wrong, then I was sure, it had to be someone else.

I started frantically looking it up on my phone, I saw the articles. I saw people’s hot takes, hero or unhinged, rest in power or no respect for human life, I even saw part of the video on Reddit before someone took it off. I saw his shaved head covered by his camouflage hat, his frantic, darting eyes, I saw the pain in the flickering of his white blonde eyelashes, I him douse himself, I saw the yellow and orange flames start to lick his feet and legs, up to his shoulders and face, his seashell pink freckled skin, I couldn’t hear what he was shouting, the sound was off but I saw where he was, saw the blue and white flags, could guess what he was yelling…

She said, “After he left us, he started calling himself an anarchist,” as if that explained anything at all.

“I left too,” I said quietly. “So did Nancy. I work in community development. I help people. Nancy writes grants for schools. You remember James, mom. He was a gentle guy. He had a cat, and he loved her, this can’t be…”

I could hear my mother sighing on the other end of the phone. I knew what was coming; she’d tell me how she was trying to stretch herself, stretch her heart and soul big enough to accept me for who I was, to still be in touch with me though we mostly spoke when my dad and brothers weren’t home.

“His poor parents,” she sighed heavily before hanging up.

I sat down heavily in my desk chair. I promised myself I’d stop reading about it, I didn’t know what was true and what wasn’t, but I spent hours at my computer, reading and quietly crying and pretending to work before I eventually gave up and went home.

I was flooded with memories of James as I walked to my car. When one of the kids was being publicly disciplined and he stood there, with a bunch of other kids, shaking and eventually crying because he wanted to stand up for her so badly, but he couldn’t. Then he got into trouble for being too soft.

I knew I had to call Nancy, but I didn’t know what to say, and texting felt bizarre, so I just showed up at her apartment.

We sat side by side on her black leather couch. How are you doing, I asked her eventually.

She shrugged. “Oh, you know,” she said, “just thinking about my brother who literally lit himself on fire.”

I raised my eyebrows just a little and put a hand on her shoulder.

“You know there’s an actual term for it,” she said slowly. “Self immolation,” she stretched out the syllables like it was anthropologically interesting to learn a new fact, like when we were in grade four and one of our dads taught us about cumulonimbus clouds.

She got up to make us coffee, then changed her mind and boiled water for hot cocoa. “It was his favourite when he came over,” she said. “Even as an adult. If we didn’t have marshmallows, we used sprinkles and once I even used chocolate chips.” She started to cry now.

“He was really devasted about the kids in Rafah and Gaza. When he saw the footage, I mean we all saw it, the carnage, the dead babies, and kids, the bombing of hospitals, he just couldn’t, you know? He left all his money to them.”

I put my arms around her. “I know,” I said. “No one would ever think he didn’t care.”

What if he’d been more like us? I wanted to ask. What if instead of joining the army he’d decided to help some community instead? The question hung in the air as I left.

I sent a couple of texts over the next couple of days, just checking in with her.

She called me at 2:00 am a couple of nights later. I could feel Amy’s heart pounding as I reached over her chest to grab my phone, which was charging on her bedside table. She had an unearthly beauty. Her long dark hair spread out on the pillow around her like a mermaid’s.

“It’s okay, babe,” I murmured. “It’s just Nancy.”

“Remember that young pastor who used to love the symbol of the phoenix? You know, the guy with the long ponytail who left after a couple of years? James always liked him.”

I groaned. “Not really.”

Remembering the details was like pushing together parts of an ancient, dusty puzzle. Most of the time, I actively tried not to remember.

“He used to compare Jesus to a phoenix, remember? It anticipated its own death, so it burned and then three days later, it was reborn as a new bird. I think he talked about it around Easter.”

I didn’t say anything, and we sat in silence until I quietly heard her say, “Do you think he’ll come back? It’s been three days almost. I just, I don’t know what to do with myself anymore.”

I wanted to say something comforting, something that felt like hot soup and a soft blanket tucked around her, but I just blurted out that I didn’t know and I told her that I’d call her the next day and that she could call me or text me anytime.

After that, she stopped talking to me. Her Instagram feed was full of keffiyehs and watermelon emojis, signs for events and fundraisers to raise money for Palestinian kids. I donated, and I texted her to tell her but she didn’t answer me.

Then one day, a few weeks later, I had a dream that Amy and I were on a date, going to see a movie in a theatre with plush red seats, arm sized cups of Pepsi drowning in ice and huge bags of buttery popcorn. Nancy was sitting in the row in front where we were standing, so we sat down beside her.

What’s the movie about? We asked her, and she shrugged.

“I don’t know. Some stupid comedy.”

I nodded. “Sounds like what we all need right now.”

In the opening scene, kids were running around outside, in a field. The camera panned in close to a small group, it was Nancy and James, and me and a few others, and we were running cross country. When James was down, he lay down on a brown patch and picked up a handful of dandelions. Make a wish, on screen Nancy, said, and he closed his eyes.

“This isn’t stupid,” I said quietly, but she didn’t hear me.

A few moments later, we were all teenagers, standing in the clearing we told our parents were hiking in, but as always, we were smoking.

James and Nancy said they were cold, and started rubbing the light, downy hair on their arms. Sparks flew from their cigarettes, and it happened to James first, bright red pricks of blood started sprouting on his soft pink skin, then black hairs started poking through, then little feathers. Before long, they were sprouting feathers on their necks, on their shoulders and arms, on their legs.

They stood in front of me, crows the size of human beings, terrifying in their intensity, except for their pale, blue green eyes and their soft eyelashes.

I felt small punctures of my arm, as little pieces of my flesh tore, and sharp tiny pieces started to poke out. I try to shake it off, push the pieces back in, and I push until it stops, until the feathers stop breaking through.

She shook her head at me.

“Don’t forget us,” she squawked as they flew away.

The next morning, she’d posted a new video on her Instagram and TikTok.

“I quit my job today,” she said, “because I felt embarrassed. I’ve been helping this college to gain access to funding for the last two years, a college whose funding supports weapons manufacturing, in corporations that uphold apartheid, occupation, and war crimes, and murder of hundreds of thousands of people.” She held up her pink lighter. “So I’m burning all these grants I’ve been working so hard on.”

I watched, as the pile of papers she was holding burned, as the room filled with smoke and her fingers were covered in ash. I watched as the likes added up, the fire emojis and compliments, you’re badass, and ur so iconic for that.

It’s not that I don’t care, I wanted to tell her. It’s not that I don’t feel it deeply or that I don’t desperately want to do something. It’s just that I’m so used to feeling powerless, I don’t know how to start.

Photo of Danila Botha

BIO: Danila Botha is the author of three critically acclaimed short story collections, Got No Secrets, For All the Men (and Some of the Women I’ve Known) and Things that Cause Inappropriate Happiness. Her novels include Too Much on the Inside and A Place for People Like Us. Her first graphic novel, Vidal, will be published in 2026.