I’m done with stories of oppression — Twelve Years of a Slave, The Piano, The Handmaid’s Tale…
I need no more evidence of our ugliness. I know it’s there. It’s so there.
And I don’t need what comes after that either: vengeful violence of a hero, a bloody and sinister vindication wrapped around triumph.
Violence is used like a Vegas sign to draw us in and justify the second violent act, and there is always a second violent act.
But I am already justified. I am already motivated. I have my weighted bag of hard-earned ghost stories.
So show me a different ending, the one after the last episode: sun shining into an open window, a circle of people standing patiently aware of their own failings, watching a birth, a new growth, fingers unfurling, soft and unlike their own.
Hands far from shackles.
Mind unbounded.
New eyes opening, using the light differently, writing the sequel so easily, before uttering a word or taking a step.