Kyle Edwards' 'Tributaries' in The New Yorker

Kyle Edwards' short story 'Tributaries' was published in The New Yorker's Flash Fiction section. The narrative follows a boy known as a 'Freedom Baby'—stateless, without citizenship or a government name—who lives with his mother in the wilderness, moving frequently to evade miners and police who seek the silica sand beneath the land. His mother tells him tales of Lake Agassiz, an ancient lake larger than all the Great Lakes combined, and instructs him to pretend he can breathe underwater. She leaves at night, sometimes with strange men who appear to glow red, and takes pills from an orange bottle to help her breathe. The boy follows her one night, discovering that the ground has become wet and the water coarse, leading to a lake that seems to be Agassiz itself. His mother drains the bottle, cries out, and dives into the lake. The boy follows, letting the water take him, and sees her drifting, her limbs dancing in the hollow water, until he stops trying to swim and floats. The story is a work of fiction, exploring themes of statelessness, environmental degradation, and the bond between mother and child.