They came from everywhere. Wyoming and Brisbane, Stockport and Stellenbosch. They brought just the clothes on their backs, tearing off swastikas as they went. They staggered like men lost in the desert, no salt left for tears, soundlessly wailing.
We started with just one unit in Colorado, but soon had to build them everywhere. We took over McDonalds’ and Burger Kings – they were the easiest to convert – one on every corner, sturdily built, industrial kitchens surprisingly similar to treatment rooms.
At triage, they were asked questions like, Where were you turned? When did you attend your first MAGA rally? Were you violent? Was it physical or just verbal? Does your soul also hurt, or just your heart?
We had a fairly standard protocol. A bath, a fluffy onesie, a diet of wholesome, inclusive shows like We Are Lady Parts and Abbot Elementary. The TV would reflect dull in their lifeless eyes, their chatroom skin. We kept them in double rooms, for the company. We hugged them a lot, called them sayang and cariño and ya habibi.
Sometimes, they were so consumed by their own shame that they would cry for days, or write lengthy apology letters. One even symbolically egged himself for every hateful thing he’d said. They went into a soft wipe-down room for that kind of situation. When they came out of it, they simply got a repeat of the treatment. Bath, onesie, food.
We talked in our own accents, used our own language, told them our creation stories, fed them laksa and posole and bamya. The coated smell of frying from the fast-food walls layered itself with sweet cardamom, earthy cinnamon, pungent cumin. We showed them how to bubble love in a pot.
Usually, after a month or so, they would turn. It was subtle, a sort of amber light in their skin, their eyes glistering. They would say things like, Hate was never going to fix anything, and We’re all just people, trying our best.
We never told them when to leave. We said, The only walls are in your head. You will always have a home here.
Sumitra Singam is a Malaysian-Indian-Australian coconut who writes in Naarm/Melbourne. She travelled through many spaces, both beautiful and traumatic to get there and writes to make sense of her experiences. Her work has been published widely, nominated for a number of Best Of anthologies, and was selected for Best Microfictions 2024. She works as a psychiatrist and trauma therapist and runs workshops on how to write trauma safely, and the Yeah Nah reading series. She’ll be the one in the kitchen making chai (where’s your cardamom?). You can find her and her other publication credits on Bluesky: @pleomorphic2 & sumitrasingam.squarespace.com