Identity Academy
"Please welcome this year's class valedictorian, Tyler Smith!"
Applause swept through the audience like a wave, flowing to the first row and lifting Tyler to his feet.
The new name didn't sit quite right, yet. Tyler Smith. His professors at the Academy assured him that it would, eventually; he would be freed from his past. Four years prior, at orientation, four dozen freshmen had raised their heads to read an antique, green-tinged bronze plaque nailed into the wall above the grand double doors. In mutatio libertas. Two seniors told them the translation: Freedom in transformation.
Everton Identity Academy was quite young, as institutions go.
“It’s only thirty years old,” a professor had explained during his first week of classes, “but it presents as respectably as a three-hundred-year-old school. The founders bought this colonial building, enclosed it with a wrought-iron fence, hung a chemically oxidized plaque, and voila! A transformation”.
“But isn't it a lie?” asked one student.
“The result of change is not a lie,” the professor replied. “The result of change, when embraced and assimilated, is the most profound truth. You will soon learn the freedom of transformation.”
It was with these words that Tyler opened his speech.
"The result of change, when embraced and assimilated, is the most profound truth."
As applause resounded once more, Tyler scanned the audience of guests and graduates. Not everyone was clapping, he noted with a start.
As Tyler recited his speech into the microphone, he stole glances at the unmoving figure. Long, colorful dress, short haircut, resisting the communal potency of applause: this was definitely not an IA student.
No. At the Academy students were guided, gently but firmly, away from displays of individuality. In Introduction to Sociology, they were instructed to study the markers of normalcy in their society. In Introduction to Psychology, they were shown how humans fundamentally needed to be accepted and loved. The evidence was clear: children who were given inadequate care suffered later in life. Indeed many of the students could attest to the sense of alienation and displacement that childhood neglect wreaked. When he was reminded of his own childhood, Tyler always saw a small body, huddled in a corner, desperate for comfort. On these occasions, his professors’ words rose to his consciousness, soothing. In order to be loved, humans must belong to a group; belonging demands similarity to, and therefore emulation of, other members of the group.
The defiance of the short-haired woman watching his speech drenched him with discomfort. He let his own words soothe him:
“IA afforded me opportunities I’d never dreamt of. Thanks to the Academy, I was able to leave my old life behind. I overcame my stutter. I was even fortunate enough to tour the country on behalf of IA, giving speeches and running conferences. I am proud to say I lit the way for hundreds of tethered souls who are now fellows of the Identity Movement. Today I pledge to walk the Path of Identity for the rest of my life. I hereby invite you all to take the pledge with me.” Cheers erupted.
Suddenly, Tyler recognized the woman.
The dam of his past broke and sweat flooded his brow.
Her name was Valentine. They had met four years ago at IA orientation, and dated during the five or six months that followed.. Valentine had made a last-minute decision to attend community college instead. She was a junior reporter at the Everton Nugget: a regional weekly paper that published hair-salon advertisements and announcements about local events like festivals and weddings; she was probably here to cover the graduation. He was proud of himself; he’d filed her away effectively, just as he’d learned — and taught others — to do.
A bubble of pride rose within him as he examined her. He’d made the right choice, coming here; he was valedictorian, and where was she? Still treading water writing those trifling little articles. Still looking, and certainly feeling, different than others.
She'd been bad for him: bad for his acclimation at school and bad for his identity journey.
They did have chemistry. He’d even been close to pronouncing it love. But increasingly he saw that the things she liked about him were those that made him most uncomfortable about himself. She made respectful conversation with his father, a slow-witted factory worker; she joked around with his brother, who screamed bad words at passersby. She seemed fond of his stutter and the odd slope of his head, from a condition called plagiocephaly. When he revealed how badly he was mocked as a child (kids used to taunt him, saying his mother had dropped him on his head and then ditched him), her eyes held only kindness. She wasn’t shocked that he couldn’t read until he was twelve. You did the best you could with the tools you had; and now look at your language skills.
She didn’t even mind his smelly job at the slaughterhouse. He was elated when the Academy gave him a job answering calls at the IA community outreach office. But Valentine was upset.
“You're having nightmares about files leaping out of cabinets and suffocating you, like you never did about murdered chickens. And I can tell you’re not comfortable around your classmates.”
“Change is never easy,” he said. “Quit naysaying and come to an Identity Workshop. You’ll understand.”
“I like my identity just fine. And yours.”
“You’re holding me back,” he accused.
“I’m keeping you real,” she retorted. “All of this is just not you. This desk job. Sleeping at my apartment to avoid your family. You're running away.”
“I'm running toward. And this is me, I'm doing it, see.” He clapped his chest. “It's me and nobody else.”
When he’d made enough money, he moved out of his dad’s house to the dorms at IA. That was the end of them. “Don't you want to know my name, at least?” He called as she walked away.
“I already know your name,” she said.
"To freedom!" He finished his speech. The applause bent his spine in a bow that felt more like a convulsion.
*
Tyler spent the afterparty yearning for and dreading a run-in with Valentine. He remembered how meticulous she used to be with her articles. She would be sure to hold interviews and who better to question than the valedictorian? Conversing with a classmate, he watched her approach the Academy president, ask questions and scribble notes. As though pulled by his gaze, she turned her head toward him several times, but on these occasions, he buried himself deep in conversation. She can’t recognize me, he assured himself. Since they'd last met, he'd taken to wearing trendy, slim-fitting, expensive clothes; he'd grown facial hair and gotten a stylized haircut so that his skull appeared evenly-shaped. And there was the matter of his name. Everybody here accepted him, no, lauded him, for the progress he’d made; but would she?
Valentine was helping herself to the fruit punch when he approached from behind.
She turned, her cup full of punch, and then they collided —
"Oh!" Valentine yelped, and jumped back with her arm extended so the punch wouldn't splash her dress. The red liquid sloshed on her arm instead.
Tyler jumped back too. "I'm so sorry," he frowned.
"Dink?" Valentine's mouth turned up, her face friendly, earnest.
His heart raced. "Excuse me?" Tyler fought to school his expression, apologetic but distant.
At his response, her brow furrowed with confusion. "Dink? Dink Berrybell?"
Cold sweat drenched Tyler's brow. He reached toward the table, fumbled for a napkin and shoved it at her.
Slowly, she looked up and down his dark, slim suit and accepted the napkin. In her eyes he saw a version of himself that was small, weak and helpless: squashed head, shivering, huddled in a corner. He felt the urge to bolt, or attack.She blanched and stepped back.
"I’m sorry.” She said it as though she was sorry for him. “I must have mistaken you for somebody else.”
She spoke so kindly that he relaxed; a dim sadness sank in him. “Don’t worry about it.”
Tyler turned around and walked away from the table. He cast his gaze at the faculty, families, and the happy graduates. All of these people accept and admire me. The Academy president caught his eye. “Tyler!” she waved him over. The sound of his name was a balm. Tyler grinned and approached. He could file his past away for good.
For good. He could feel the sweat evaporating already into the warm air. As he walked away, leaving Valentine wiping punch from her hand, Tyler felt weightless. Floating, almost. Freedom in transformation, he thought. Freedom in transformation.
Photograph by Ashlyn Vickery
Meirav Seifert is a queer storyteller, English teacher, and writer-translator-editor based out of Tel Aviv-Yafo. Seifert writes short stories and collaborates on graphic works on polyamory, queerness, feminism, emotions, and mental and physical health. They graduated from Tel Aviv University with a degree in English Literature and American Studies.