Christian scripture dictates that God reigns over his creations from the heavens while the fires of hell rage on beneath the earth. Mere moments under the Monrovian sun, however, could convince any believer otherwise. Here, the sun wraps its fiery fingers around all things visible, convincing Liberians that hell is in their midst.
*
The intern stood in the doorway of Dr. Morlu’s office, awaiting directives from her boss as she chewed gum and twirled thick clusters of hair extensions around her finger. She was dazed by the backdrop of the scorched city visible through the floor-to-ceiling window panels. She observed daytime flares and the smoke clouds they generated in silent awe that in a matter of years, she witnessed her country transform from a tropical oasis to an inferno.
As she peered into the smoggy sky, she resented the scientists who were responsible for this transformation. Years prior, Sweden responded to Earth’s climbing temperatures by developing technology that could redistribute heat from one geographical location to another through an intricate underground air tunnel system. How exactly was unclear, but in doing so, they engineered hope for a healed Earth. Under the Heat Redistribution Plan developed by the United Nations, countries containing large regions with formerly temperate climates could offload excess heat into tropical regions through those pipes, intensifying their heat. The particulars of the project remained elusive to the public, however.
When the plan was initially introduced, Liberian officials regurgitated the flowery language of Western scientists to allay suspicion of potential harm. “Sustainability” and “green consciousness” were some of the terms they deployed to conceal the true cost of the tunnel system’s transmissions on Receiving Nations. When civilians asked how exactly the pipe systems would work, the American contractors tasked with leading construction efforts were stone-faced and tight-lipped.
As a passionate Environmental Studies student, the Intern outlined a number of ramifications this plan would have on nations like Liberia in her thesis to a chorus of sneering advisors and peers.
Western countries lined up to make deals with almost all the African countries (including all 15 ECOWAS members), the Caribbean, and some of Asia. In exchange for aid, Receivers got heat, on those wealthy nations’ terms, as she predicted. The effect was immediate in Liberia: shorter and delayed rainy seasons, longer days, sweltering temperatures, and depleted flora just as her thesis had warned. Instead of feeling vindicated, however, she felt sorrow.
Her fingers grazed over the raised knot on her bicep where a baton broke her skin all those years ago. The scar was a souvenir from the demonstration she attended at 19 against the construction on the tunnel system. Like an island formed in the wake of a volcanic eruption, it served as a reminder of her perseverance through violence. The government’s heavy-handed response and consequent casualties engendered cynicism in the Liberian public. A couple of years later, Dr. Robert Morlu, a former environmental scientist, was appointed Executive Director of the Ministry of Environmental Initiatives. A band-aid solution. The president claimed he was addressing public concerns, but she knew better. She would have to change things from the inside. So, when the opportunity to work in his office presented itself, she jumped at it.
“What are you doing by the doorway? Come inside.”
“Yes, Boss Man,” said the intern, standing at attention.
Interns seldom reported directly to the Executive Director, but she was the exception. She brought youth, ambition, and beauty – all qualities which Dr. Morlu admired, and which had long since faded in his wife, Alice Morlu. Of course, he took a liking to her from the outset of her internship. In no time, she was promoted to his unofficial Executive Assistant and coordinator of the other interns at the Ministry of Environmental Initiatives.
Each time her boss man flirted with her, a chill crawled up her spine. The man belched with abandon and smacked his lips when he ate. In addition to his indolence, Dr. Morlu had the unmistakable essence of an uncle. He reminded her of her twin uncles who were also bald and rather round. On top of it all, he had the nerve to perspire profusely in an office laden with tinted, UV-protected windows and an infantry of panting fans that guzzled half the compound’s energy supply. Blissfully unaware of her disdain, the sight of her hanging in the doorway like an apparition usually brought him unbridled joy. The intern knew she had to persevere a little longer to graduate from lowly intern to manager. She was this close.
Something was different today; Boss Man was reticent, receding into the silhouette of a big man instead of filling in its contours with his typical haughtiness. The tiny beads of sweat that ordinarily crowded his veiny forehead were remarkably absent today.
The intern’s curiosity drew her from the door frame. She strode toward his desk. In her periphery, she perceived – to her fright – a sturdy, matronly figure propped on the couch. Startled, she faltered. Who is this? asked the intern wordlessly with indignant eyes.
The shadow of a man remained silent as he despondently perused the floor.
“I am your replacement, appointed by Alice Morlu,” the sturdy woman spoke sternly. “Boss Man’s wife,” she added.
The intern blinked in disbelief before retreating.
She lingered outside of Mr Morlu’s office in an attempt to collect her thoughts. She had been betrayed; her efforts to barter her soul for employment were in vain. His wife must have felt threatened. In all fairness, she had good reason to be – only her resentment was misplaced. The intern was not part of the slew of young girls Dr. Morlu slept with, she was merely an overworked assistant who doubled as workplace eye candy. Anger arrived right behind the realization that his cowardice prevented him from safeguarding her position. She was ready to unleash months’ worth of grievances on the powerful man-turned-puppet.
Woeful, her mind raced with uncertainties. What would she do for money? How would she make a difference for her people? When she inhaled, the smell of smoke invaded her nostrils. The intoxicating odor derailed her train of thought. Surely, she thought, I’m not the only one who can smell this smoke, but the shameful look on Dr. Morlu’s face and the stern one on the woman’s did not falter. She concluded it was a fabrication of her flustered mind. Words sitting on the tip of her tongue only moments ago receded to her throat, where they dissolved. Her replacement handed her a small box to put her items in. At the bottom of the box lay her termination letter, signed by Dr. Morlu. The insult was so strong she could not focus on anything else, not even the smoke that had wafted into the office moments before.
She left to collect her belongings from the meager room where the Ministry of Environmental Initiatives crammed her and seven other interns she supervised. It was barely a secret that she was on the precipice of a substantial promotion. But those plans disintegrated to ash because, after nearly two years of dedication, she was fired. She furiously shoved her things into the box as she blinked away tears of sadness and rage.
Timothy, her fellow intern and closest friend at the Ministry, noticed her hurriedly packing her things and sprang from the desk he shared with two other interns.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She had been fired, she told him.
“But who will replace you?”
She sighed, grudgingly describing the older woman who ousted her.
His face was wrought with confusion, but he couldn’t muster another question.
She pulled him outside the room and into the custodial closet across the hallway.
“These people are wickeder than you know, Timothy,” she whispered. She paused, weighing if now was the appropriate time to disclose the information she’d been sitting on. “You know how everyone has been saying it’s been even hotter than usual lately?”
“Define lately,” Timothy scoffed.
Disregarding his ill-timed joke she continued, “That’s because Morlu has been accepting bribes to receive more heat.”
Timothy’s eyes grew wide.
“We hardly could manage with the heat we had, how will we survive with more heat?”
“I don’t know. But the fifth nation has already begun to trial run their air tunnel.”
“What? Only four nations are allowed to distribute heat per receiving country.”
“Yes, and warming rate, population density, and pollution levels were used to apportion heat to receiving countries. Who is going to take our excess heat?” Her question was rhetorical, yet she still desperately wished for it to be answered.
“America, England, China, and Lebanon,” Timothy counted with the fingers of his right hand.
“… and now Japan.”
“But how do you know this?”
“They disguised the construction of the fifth tunnel system as repairs on the Chinese pipes.” She paused, distressed. “You know more lands in my lap than is supposed to… I was planning on exposing Morlu once I got my promotion because who would listen to small geh like me? Not even employee, just an intern,” she despaired.
Getting Dr. Morlu would mean ousting the entire administration which was a tall order. Liberian officials were in an unspoken boys’ club, committed to lining their pockets even at the expense of their constituents, their countrymen. A case with the UN would be hard to build because they would deem the practice unlawful and do little else to end it. Plus, it was no secret that Dr. Morlu was President Barkley’s brother-in-law and one of his closest friends—they were even groomsmen in each other’s weddings over twenty-five years ago. She felt powerless.
“But now I’m an ex-intern, totally powerless and of no use.”
“That’s not true; without you, this place will go up in flames.”
She smiled. After feeling so disposable at the news of her dismissal, she was reminded of her value.
“You’re right. If it wasn’t for me, this place would not even function…”
She fell silent.
“What is it?”
“It’s just that this place clearly does more harm than good. Yes, I’m useful, but that means I’m a useful part of the problem. I interned here straight out of college because I wanted to make a positive change. I’ve caused harm to my people, and I don’t even have a job to show for it.”
“It’s not all in vain. You have more than enough information on Morlu now. You can still do something with all that.”
She set her box on the dusty floor of the closet and gave him a farewell hug. An air of finality mingled with the mixture of mould and chemical fumes that clung to the closet’s stuffy atmosphere.
*
With her box of belongings atop her head, she walked roadside where she waited every day at seven in the evening for a taxi home to Duazon. It was barely three p.m., the sun was intense though wan behind thick clouds of smog, and, by virtue of that, few taxis skidded down Tubman Boulevard at this scorching off-peak hour. It was a ghost town. Everyone who could avoid daytime activity did—including taxi drivers whose windshields did little to protect them from the elements. When she was little, Tubman Boulevard bustled with traffic. Taxis, buses, and kekehs teemed with passengers at all hours.
Over the past ten years, the government used declining conditions to manufacture consent for extending corporate operating hours from 9-5 to 7-7. If workers spent the sun’s most grueling hours laboring, they would be protected from heat-related illnesses or being engulfed by the flares. Increased productivity was just a byproduct. In the last few years of her parents’ lives, she saw them less and less as their hours at the factory increased.
Now, most taxi drivers made their living during rush hours in the morning and evening, trying to altogether avoid those unbearable in-between hours. She would be lucky to see a straggling taxi in under an hour.
Within moments of stepping outside, she’d already become dizzy. The last time she stood idly in the sun she was preparing for Dr. Morlu’s commencement address to Cuttington University’s class of 2045. The intern had been tasked with picking Boss Man’s robe from the dry cleaners. He refused her request for a lift from his driver, and she made the mistake of standing by the roadside to hail a taxi. In less than ten minutes heat rashes had germinated on her left shoulder and bicep and bubbled for hours thereafter. Sap from the aloe vera plant in the office helped but the discomfort persisted for a fortnight. She shuddered at the memory, heading to 13th Street Beach where she would wait while allowing the sun’s rays to mellow. From experience, the sun is more merciful to objects in motion.
Her train of thought was disrupted by a putrid combination of smoke fumes, shit, and… Animal entrails? She looked to her left where flames leapt from a beat-up trash can in front of Stop & Shop. She released a series of hoarse belly coughs. Human entrails? Her stomach churned. She wanted to stop but she knew if she did, she might heave up a pool of vomit and perhaps her lungs. She continued walking at a steady pace, battling the heat outside and the smoke in her chest.
At the beach lounge, she sat in the shade and peered wistfully at the ocean she dreamed of swimming in since she was a little girl. Before her parents died in the factory fire, they handed down stories of joyful afternoons in the water. Now, just a few decades later, the waters were a cocktail of toxic chemicals and trash. Grazing the water’s surface with her fingertips was a distant dream.
The emphatic break of a wave on the shore ejected her from her daze. She pulled her laptop out of its sleeve and pored over the evidence she’d accumulated over the past year and a half. Once she felt she had sufficient ammunition, she got to work, and words flowed from her with ease.
To the Liberian People,
For nearly two years, I worked as Executive Director Dr. Robert Morlu’s assistant at the Ministry of Environmental Initiatives. As of today, I am no longer an Environmental Impact Intern.
I initially joined the Ministry out of university to make a difference. As a child, I heard stories about Africa before fires consumed its once beautiful nations. By the time I was seventeen, both of my parents had died in a factory fire. Like many young Liberians, I have only known a world of ruin and strife. I thought the Ministry was where I could change that for us and future generations. I was naive to believe this.
Working closely with Dr. Morlu exposed me to his corruption. The Ministry of Environmental Initiatives isn’t about making a difference; it’s about making political and personal gains. For that reason, I can no longer remain silent.
Dr. Morlu has accepted bribes—perhaps too many to succinctly list in this letter—from foreign heads of state, at the cost of this country’s welfare. The latest, most egregious offense was accepting a first-class World Cup experience from the 2050 hosts, Japan, in exchange for their heat to be pumped into Liberia.
It is common knowledge that we are at our Heat Reception Limit of four distributing nations. The addition of Japan makes a total of five nations. This agreement was clandestine and intel on the matter was reserved for close staffers of Dr. Morlu.
When the Heat Redistribution Plan was introduced, the UN assured us that receiving the Global North’s heat would not drastically impact our quality of life. The heat would rise to conditions not far from our natural climate. This was a lie. After our first dose of heat, there were barely two months of rain the whole year. Every year since then, our rainy seasons have become more and more sporadic, some years not even coming at all.
As one of the three nations at its limit, Liberia faces wildfires and chronic flares, severe pollution, and a steadily increasing number of heat-related diseases. If our own people will not protect us, what chance do we stand against an indifferent world?
With great concern,
A former champion of the Ministry of Environmental Initiatives.
She shared the draft with Timothy. With a sigh of relief, she closed her laptop.
She could not fathom why the Japanese or the British or the Americans deserved cool climates and clean air, but her people did not. As she headed home by taxi under a reasonably weakened sun, she felt both pride and fear in taking her country’s dignity into her own hands.
*
That night the former intern nodded off into a contented slumber. Sometime in the middle of the night, the smell of smoke returned. Figuring the strong scent was part of her nocturnal illusions, she drifted back to sleep.
When the smoke beckoned again, it was harder to ignore. She strained to open her sleep-stricken eyes as flames danced before her. She wasn’t dreaming.
She bargained with her limbs to make a run for it, only to find herself paralyzed. When she attempted to scream for help, feeble coughs escaped. Smoke filled her airways and seized all her senses.
In an instant, the flames grew from flickers to a conflagration. It was too late. She lay powerless in bed as the flames crept forward. First licking the soles of her feet before engulfing her calves, thighs, and torso.
She was swallowed whole, feeling nothing as the world faded to ash.
*
She woke up feeling brand new but discombobulated. Instead of her childhood bedroom stood a disbelieving crowd who could afford to loiter as the sun was still partly asleep. The small bungalow that formerly belonged to her father was now a pile of rubble. The former intern made her way over to a sympathetic Ol’ Ma but once they were face to face, the old lady whipped her head away in disgust. Next to her was a father holding his two children by the hand, one of whom cried as she passed by. Person after person turned away as she sought their help, beginning to cough or choke whenever she lingered too long.
The bitter taste of repudiation brought with it the knowledge something was awry. She took a break from vying for help, drifting towards a pickup truck parked at the curb. She noticed she wasn’t reflected in any of its windows and this further disoriented her. Peering in its rearview mirror, she saw nothing but an amorphous, dark grey cloud.
No, it couldn’t be. She backed away to look again at other reflective surfaces. In the car’s dark windows and gleaming silver doors, she was nearly transparent. She moved right, left, up, and down to test her supposed reflection and wouldn’t have believed her eyes if she wasn’t witnessing a cloud of smoke mimic her every gesture.
*
She struggled to accept her new gaseous state. How does this work anyhow?
She attempted to find the bright side of the dull situation. No longer bound by a flesh-covered, organ-infused body, she moved fluidly. The sun’s intensity didn’t plague her anymore either; she felt like magic when it awoke, and its rays permeated her particles. She had a host of vanity-related perks, she was free of blemishes. She’d never have to gather money to style her hair or buy clothes again. She was virtually weightless. She was unencumbered and wanted all women to feel the ease with which she floated through the world.
The former intern was gone forever and all that she left in her wake was Smoke.
*
How will I eat? Do I eat?
Smoke was soon pulled from such trivial thoughts like a magnet to steel. Oblivious to the source of the pull and the direction it was sending her, she drifted on a current above the houses, the streets, and the people who animated them.
This path wasn’t one she’d ever traversed in a body, and she quickly became lost. High above, she observed her beloved Monrovia, with its fires and fellow smoke clouds spouting from them. This view is even better than the one from Morlu’s office. Once she streamed into the windows of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital, her bearings returned.
Somewhere in the building, a fire was underway. As a collection of toxic particles, Smoke was powerless to extinguish it; all she could do to save lives was spread her foreboding clouds as a warning to those inside. To do that, she would first need to locate the fire’s origin. Until then, she would remain transparent and innocuous – and thus useless – to the humans inside.
Searching an extensive corridor in the hospital’s West Wing, she was stopped mid-flight by a broadcast on the TV in the waiting room.
“We are reporting to you live on the story of a young woman in Duazon who lost her life due to a fire. While the cause of the fire is yet unknown, first responders suspect it may have originated from a generator.”
It was her. Though the report did not include any information about the victim’s identity, she knew, without a doubt, that it was her they were talking about.
Grainy cell-phone footage of her charred house confirmed her fears. She did everything not to disintegrate at the sight. Smoke continued down the corridor, recognizing that if she didn’t get a move on, the fire would spare no one.
After an intent search, she found herself being pulled in the direction of a door left ajar. Behind it was a room full of control panels that teemed with flames and charred cables. Even in its infant stages, the fire was fierce.
Now that Smoke had identified the source of the fire, she could warn those in the hospital. She expanded her clouds to cover as much surface area as possible, drifting into hospital rooms, bathrooms, the cafeteria, waiting rooms, offices, and every corner she could find. As a novice smoke cloud, she still took offence at the way her presence caused people to scatter like red ants. This was a good thing, she reminded herself.
Of the numerous harrowing sights Smoke witnessed, she would not forget what she encountered in the room of patients receiving IVs. When Smoke manifested, the nurses rushed to detach their patients from the infusion pumps and scrambled to find wheelchairs for those too sickly to walk. Then, the fire alarm resounded, its shrill cry adding to the cacophony of wailing newborns, clashing machinery, and frenzied footfalls. Hospital personnel slung children and the elderly over their shoulders attempting to save as many lives as possible. Those who managed to escape the blaze were left to stand outside the hospital in the harsh heat of the day. Luckily, the evening was approaching, offering minimal relief to the unfortunate situation. Though many were able to evacuate, not everyone escaped the inferno.
After the tragedy that was the burning of Monrovia’s preeminent hospital, the city fell into a morose stupor, the casualty count rising by the minute. The air was laced with depression and debris. Smoke was distraught. How much more death and destruction would she witness?
Her mourning was interrupted by another pull. Her next destination beckoned. She was drifting from the hospital’s vicinity in Sinkor toward the Capitol in town, it seemed. The sun’s beams were abating. She hoped this was a sign of a minor fire, a garbage or a car fire at most.
She approached the Ministry of Environmental Initiatives, expecting to pass it en route her final destination. Disbelief overcame her when she found herself being tugged into one of its open windows. Smoke drifted into the conference room to find bottles of beer, a bottle of Japanese whiskey, glassware—all empty—and cigarette butts decorating the broad center table. The room reeked of over-indulgence and malfeasance.
After assessing the scene, it did not take Smoke long to spot the source of the fire. It appeared that one of the cigarette butts that did not make it into the trashcan had not been properly extinguished. She felt a sense of pride in her accuracy, she already showed great improvement. Now she could spread through the building to warn whoever remained.
When Smoke spilled into the hallway, she witnessed Dr. Morlu and his new assistant at his side like a shadow, along with some unfamiliar faces heading toward the elevator at the end of the corridor. She spread herself thin to avoid detection. The congenial group wore matching grins, nodding in unison as Dr. Morlu profusely shook his visitors’ hands. Whatever occurred in that conference room was mutually pleasing. In his jovial mood, Dr. Morlu dismissed his shadow for the evening. Smoke deduced that the strangers must have been representatives of the Japanese government based on their after-hours visit and the bows they exchanged before parting ways.
Smoke went on to examine the rest of the building. It was vacant; the junior staff had deserted the office for the evening. The only people still idling were some senior staff and the custodians who’d begun their nightly cleaning. Smoke filled the building with her clouds avoiding the smoke detectors and Dr. Morlu. Everyone else scrambled in fits of intense coughing, surprised to find that they were not the last to exit. They thanked the heavens for their safe evacuation as the fire was now raging inside.
Smoke had one last appearance to make. Dr. Morlu had gone to his office to collect his briefcase. He took a seat at his desk, chuckling in drunken satisfaction as he bent over to retrieve the case from the floor. Smoke waited outside his office, her clouds contracted and out of view as ferocious flames engulfed the office building room by room, floor by floor, completely unbeknownst to her former boss. She drifted in plain sight of Dr. Morlu, now lingering in the door frame for old times’ sake. She hovered there until the life suddenly drained from his aged face at the realization of who was visiting him. All the moisture evaporated from his face. It was the second time she had ever seen him so parched. Smoke began to expand until he was surrounded by her toxic fog. First, she filled his mouth and nostrils, then headed down his oesophagus, into his right lung then his left. She stung his eyes, which he yearned to shut but instead bulged from his large head due to asphyxiation.
*
In the days following his death, the city mourned Dr. Morlu, erecting memorials and painting murals in town to honour his work. It was only until an anonymous citizen published an open letter that the truth of his crimes became known. The citizens changed their tune accordingly. Dr. Robert Morlu went from beloved environmental activist to a victim of his own avarice. The memorials were desecrated, and his mural was defaced with devil horns and words like CORRUPT and GREEDY. Smoke was vindicated.
Maybe, all along, Smoke was meant for this. She was clearly not cut out to perform business as usual with the humans while the world was aflame. Their world was burning and they did not so much as flinch at the sun as it seared all beneath it. Having caused the light to drain from Dr. Morlu’s eyes and watching him struggle in those final moments made it all feel worth it. The unwelcome advances, the abuses, the corruption — all of it.
As a human, she always yearned to rip those damned pipes out of the ground but of course, she had no way to locate them. As smoke, she was unconstrained by these limitations.
If I were a tunnel system created by evil scientists, where would my entrance be? She spread her particles and hovered closely above ground. If she could cover as much of Monrovia’s surface area as possible, she was bound to encounter the opening of one of these pipes.
She continued to expand until she felt a strong, hot force. It was the mouth of a pipe. She wondered if she could counter its push. It didn’t take much of her might to propel against the stream of heat. Before she knew it, she was zooming inside the tube. She would race until she reached the heat’s origin. Whether America, Japan, or wherever else greeted her on the other end of the tunnels didn’t concern her – retribution did. Once Smoke made it out, she would expand until she covered her destination in a blanket of poison, returning the toxicity to its sender.
On her journey, Smoke thought of the African proverb: those who can’t hear, will feel.
