I’m no god. Not by a long shot. But I suppose I’m not exactly human either. At least, not anymore. It isn’t everyday one chooses to dissociate and sever all ties with their own kind, is it? Some would think me the worst kind of traitor, others, a mad scientist of sorts. But they all speak because they are ignorant. They’ve not seen the monsters that I’ve seen; that I still see. People don’t know that if monsters are only found in hell, then the earth is hell. But I have enough experience to know that monsters don’t have horns on their heads or dribble fire and brimstone from their mouths.
Devils walk amongst us, live inside of each of us. They wear clothes like us and talk like us. Maybe even love like us. Look in the mirror and tell me truly.
What do you see?
*
The place reeks of trauma, sorrow and despondency. The internally displaced persons’ camp is less of a camp and more of an open air gathering and this particular one boasts of more than two thousand people. I see only a handful of men here; most of them are probably dead from the insurgence that forced their wives and children here in the first place. I walk among them; unseen, unheard, unfelt. As you know, the things you see exist in three dimensions which by Cartesian coordinates are in the x, y and z directions. What you don’t know however and probably never will for decades, is that things can also exist in the negatives of these directions. In other words, there are actually six dimensions of existence: three positive and three negative. I now exist in the negative dimensions or as some people have termed it in ignorance, the astral plane. Have you never heard people of science talk about matter popping out of nothing in deep space? Where do you think that matter comes from or rather, crosses over from?
I exist in the true negatives, not the flawed gibberish you were taught in Cartesian algebra, and so I am unable to interact directly with the normal plane anymore. You think this is sad? No. I think it is a blessing.
I drift through the camp, a ghost in the machine of physical existence. Some of the people seem to shamble about aimlessly, others are talking in hushed tones. But the majority simply sit and stare at nothing, into nothing. These are the ones who realize the extent of their situation. The ones who know that their lives are changed forever. For the worst. They are the ones who know fate has shattered the pane of their lives with a sledgehammer and left them to try and reassemble the shards of the remnants.
Few of the children play, though even the manner in which they do so speaks of something hampered and possibly mangled within. Most of them don’t bother anymore, though. You can see them huddled with their mothers, trying to cover their eyes and faces from the dark, dark spectrum of life that fate has chosen to show them a bit too early.
My eyes rest on one child in particular. Bushy hair speckled with sand, he runs up and down, chasing his plastic ball with all the vigour and innocence of childhood. Maybe he’s one of those children who choose to stubbornly hold on to their youth, regardless of circumstance. Or maybe this child didn’t have to see gunmen butcher his father with a machete or watch them restrain his mother and take turns desecrating her womanhood with their twice-cursed manhoods. Maybe the child didn’t have his raped and battered mother pick herself up after, and, taking his hands, run through kilometres of shrubbery and grasslands to one of the many IDP camps in the state while their village lit up the night in flames.
Or just maybe the boy is as oblivious as stone.
Scrawny and bare-chested in tattered khaki shorts, I watch him play with his little ball. He smiles as he runs and for a moment, I feel the stirrings of something akin to brotherly affection for this child. The relief trucks haven’t arrived yet and I wonder what will happen to these people when their hope is finally trampled like dry leaves underfoot. I suppose it is hope that fills the boy’s belly, not food and for now, I guess that should provide him enough energy to play.
Silly little boy. Save your hopes for the coming days. It will be all you have.
I see it in many faces here too; that tiny glow called hope. These people hope their government stands by them, the light in their darkness.
They hope because they do not know that someone has already been contracted to send the relief trucks to the camp. Eleven trucks of relief items are supposed to be headed their way at that very moment. They hope because they do not know that the contractor has diverted all the trucks, to sell the goods off and make eight figures, just like that.
They hope because they do not know that no one cares about what they do not see.
Evening descends and the people lay mats and spread wrappers across the red earth Thick forests frame the horizon and the moon begins to crawl up in what promises to be a cloudless night. The beauty of nature isn’t selective of place or circumstance at all, apparently. At times like this I wish I could light a pipe, take a nice drag, and blow smoke into the ether. I would fancy the smoke going up and up, long after it dissipates, to kiss the surface of the moon. I do miss some things.
I used to be a physicist. I suppose I still am, though obviously I don’t practice anymore. What is the point in helping humanity if we are just destined to be a scourge to ourselves? I don’t regret denouncing my humanity, not one bit, but sometimes I wonder if I could have at least tried to change something about the world rather than cut myself off. I don’t know. Maybe I am at fault too.
I suppose you’re still wondering how I got here. Pay close attention. The human body vibrates at a certain frequency and I’d long hypothesized the existence of the astral plane as a negative region of current space, long before I got disillusioned with human beings and their ills. So, when I invented the machine that could reset my natural frequency to safely vibrate in its negative, there was no hesitation, no second thoughts. That’s how I ended here.
The downside: I can’t crossover to the normal plane anymore. It’s impossible to operate the machine from here. I do not really mind being stuck here. It’s worth it, I guess
I survey the IDP camp; a community brought together and unified by chaos. Some people are quietly sobbing now as the reality of sleeping without a roof hits them hard. Now, they’re convinced it’s all real. No warm bed to sleep in. No warm bed to make love in. No warm bed to tuck your children in. It’s just red earth and your mat or wrapper. Those with mats have been here much longer than those with wrappers. Quite a number are still getting intimate with the hardness of the bare, red earth. These are the ones who fled when the trouble had already fallen.
The playing child I saw earlier is with his mother now and fortunately for them, her wrapper is long enough to comfortably cover them both as they make a bed of the bare ground.
An MRI scan, or any brain scan basically, will not show you the presence of thoughts or dreams. That’s because these two things manifest here in the astral plane and not the usual physical dimension. Well, technically, thoughts manifest in the abstract plane, but that is another thing for another day. If I walk close to a person, I can make out the swirling smoke-like mass of their dreams as it radiates outwards from their brains. Having practiced enough, I can call dreams to me, alter them if I so wish and send them back or I can simply dissipate them if inclined to do so. But I can do this for dreams only. It’s one of the few queer abilities I’ve come to discover here in this plane.
The boy isn’t smiling anymore now, the pangs of hunger beginning to set in. For a moment, I think to give him and the other children good dreams of plenty; of food, exquisite merriment and happiness to last a lifetime. I decide against that, however. I figure it would be most inhumane of me if I let them experience all of that and then return to their current world of strife, anguish and wretchedness. I couldn’t do that to anyone, much less children.
When night falls proper and the half moon is at its apex, I take away the dreams of all the sleeping children. And I give them nothing. For come morning, instead of food, blankets and other things, all these people would have…
Is nothing.
*
“Your daughter is beautiful, wallahi.”
“Can’t you see my face? Why wouldn’t she be beautiful?” the father of the girl laughs. He and his guest are in his garden, seated on a tasselled, indigo rug under the mango tree in the backyard. It is a windy evening and I imagine the place to be filled with the heady scent of the vividly colourful wildflowers speckled at the edges of the surrounding hedges, with some dotting the grounds here and there. Everywhere must smell wonderful, I suppose, since I am unable to perceive it anymore. I can’t actually hear them; their thoughts precede their mouths and sync with it as they form words and thus, I can get completely accurate conversations without actually relying on my now defunct sense of physical hearing. I’m still unable to fathom why I retained my physical sight. Perhaps it’s one of those mysteries I am unable to solve now.
I float toward the sitting pair. The mango fruits hanging overhead are still small, green. I think it odd, how I had seen numerous mango trees during my time on the physical plane and yet I never saw one bearing ripe fruit before. I saw ripe ones only at the market or roadside makeshift fruit stalls. I drift over their heads and follow their eyes to the object of their discussion.
A few metres away picking at one of the wildflowers, a young girl, no more than thirteen years old, in an amethyst-purple full-length hijab is faced away from both men. On pulling out the flower; a lovely thing with petals of a soft orange hue, she turns towards them and approaches with her face all smiles, highlighting the dainty gap between her upper incisors.
“Baba, I brought it for you,” she says, holding it out to her father like an offering.
“Thank you, Amina.” The girl’s father takes it, lifts it to his nose to inhale its scent .“The flower is as fine and sweet as you.”
The girl’s grin threatens to split her face in two. She bows her head slightly at her father, then at her father’s guest. I see a light form in the other man’s eyes: a twinkle a girl that young should not be able to spark in one so old.
“Amina, you didn’t bring one for me,” the man speaks.
“Hmm, sorry Alhaji,” Amina replies, her little brows furrowed. “I didn’t know you like flowers.”
“Who doesn’t like flowers? Especially beautiful ones?” the Alhaji laughs and his full greying beard quivers with the force of his mirth.
“Amina, go and get one for Alhaji,” her father says, laughing softly. The girl flashes a smile and runs to a corner of the backyard, apparently seeking a flower that would render her father’s guest speechless.
“Your daughter would make a fine woman, Yusuf. A very fine woman.” The Alhaji runs a finger through his thick beard, his eyes never leaving the little figure in purple.
The girl’s father nods his head as he looks at the flower his daughter gave him. I see his thoughts swirl around his head, a maelstrom of dull and vibrant colours and I imagine him likening his daughter to the quaint flower between his fingers. “She will be, Ibrahim.”
“Yusuf.” The man leans in closer to his companion. “I want to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.”
What? I sharply turn my head to stare at the Alhaji. I’d heard that marriages like this happen in the northern part of the country and I had heard it was quite common with adherents of their religion around the world. The girl’s father does not share my look of complete shock nor register my growing revulsion. His eyebrows are merely lifted in mild surprise. “You, Ibrahim?”
“Yes. Me,” the Alhaji continues. “I’m willing to wed your daughter. A girl this young should be protected from the wolves in the form of young boys who are only there to dim the light of someone so bright.”
In this moment, I wish I had retained my sense of touch. I want to slap the teeth off the crazy man, the fire of whose loins could be stoked by a child who has barely attained puberty. I want to slap the girl’s father for not slapping the man himself. But all I can do is fume and watch in silence.
Yusuf exhales deeply and turns his face in his daughter’s direction. The men are silent for several moments still and the wind picks up, blowing through the yard and once again I think of how pleasant it would be to sit in this place, surrounded by the tangy scent of unripe mangoes and the blissful smell of wildflowers. Amina is still metres away, searching for the perfect flower to present to the one apparently intent on deflowering her.
“Ibrahim,” Yusuf speaks up now, eyes still on his daughter. “You have two lovely wives already. Why would you still want my daughter?”
“Your daughter, Amina, is special, unique.” The Alhaji turns to Yusuf. “We have been friends for more than twenty years, Yusuf. Someone as precious as your daughter should be protected from the avoidable tragedies of life, while also still being able to enjoy its pleasure and fullness. I can offer her all that and more. You know so.”
Yusuf is silent for a few more moments before he speaks. “I know.” He exhales again. A few minutes pass before he turns to look at his friend. “You have my blessings, Ibrahim.”
And just like that, the flame of a young girl is dimmed by a pair of elderly men, one of who is her own father. I watch, appalled, as the decision is made to thrust a child into the forays of womanhood while the child, in perfect blissful ignorance, unknowingly seeks out a floral gift for her impending husband.
Ϫ
Two of them hold down the thrashing woman on the grassy earth while a third undoes his belt buckle and a fourth stands a few feet away, a smartphone in his hands recording the proceedings on video. We are in the hours of deep night, behind an uncompleted building, the borders of each individual cement block starkly visible. This far behind the building, we’re into deep bushes that run for kilometres behind the building in this godforsaken fringe of the urban settlement.
I am a few feet from the group, an incipient witness to a horrifying wrong. One of the two holding her down has a hand clamped over her mouth. It isn’t her muted screams or the wild way she struggles against the men that chills my bones and roots me to the spot; it is the laughter and jeers from her attackers as they nonchalantly pry her legs apart, ripping parts of her short skirt in the process.
The choked screams of the young woman increase in pitch and intensity as the first one begins defiling her. I stand through it all, unmoving; I can’t bring myself to stir. The hirsute man currently on her, thrusting away like an epileptic animal, is smiling and speaking words at her that my stunned mind is unable to understand. He ends, then getting up, he spits on the woman and takes the place of one of the men holding her down. Like this they take turns, the fourth man recording faithfully. When the lady can scream no more and resignation bleeds from her eyes, she lets her head roll to the side as the men have their way.
Then her eyes come to rest on me.
At least, that is what I think. I gaze into her eyes, into that vast sea of brown, while my heart hammers, and I feel corresponding throbs near my ears, accentuating a sense of guilt slowly bringing its tendrils around me. Why do I feel like that?
When the last man is through, he gets up, lightly kicks the woman on the leg once and laughs. The fourth man stops recording; he didn’t participate as his companions did, yet in my revulsion, I am assailed by an inexplicable curiosity as to why he did not. They laugh and talk about how ‘nice’ the woman was for a short while before they turn and jog in the direction of the far-off street lights, leaving behind a damaged woman and a ghost.
Her eyes are still on me, seeing or not seeing me. I float rooted to my position, riveted by the enigmatic essence radiating from her staring, brown eyes. I suddenly feel utterly soiled; tainted in a way so profound I can’t help the feelings and dark thoughts that crawl into my mind. In that moment, I feel like an accomplice to the crime those men had just committed and I try to work my mouth, if only to convey how sorry I am for her; how I would have stopped it if I could. But my thoughts and mouth are not in sync this time and my maw keeps opening and closing in soundless stutters.
“I… I am… I am so sorry.” My own voice sounds like a light breeze to me; weak and muted. The woman’s eyes don’t leave me and the feeling of guilt within me augments so drastically that I can’t take it anymore. I turn and rapidly drift away from the scene, as fast as I can.
I told you I was no god. Gods do not shed tears.
I flee deeper into bushes until I come upon a large hill. I hover here and cry like a child. Do I have anything to be ashamed of? Can you hear a crying shadow? No. You can’t. I let myself weep until even my eyes tire of me. Who knows, maybe my guilt will run with my tears and leave me.
I look to the moon as the tears run silently down. It is full tonight. And bright. It sits there, high in the sky, above humanity; above all the darkness beneath and suddenly I long for that. I long to be up there with that moon, far from all the pain; far from all the guilt.
I move over the hill slowly, until it drops away and I am hovering hundreds of feet above the land. The sight of the kilometres of bush and grasslands below is majestic, more so with the gray light of the planetary sentry above washing over the land. I turn my eyes up to it, that majestic orb of light. It looks back down at me like a god, a real god. I spread out my arms and tilt my entire body back at an angle, reclining on empty air. Then I close my eyes and force myself to drift upward.
Do you believe in ghosts, I wonder? I don’t.
I feel myself slowly rise further above the land, above the tallest trees and above the highest hills and mountains. I feel the moon call out to me and embrace me with its light. I rise above the men and women living down below, rising also above the monsters. I feel myself rising above the murky emotions that come with being human and the ills and joys of life. I feel myself rise.
Rising above it all.
END.
