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The Walls of Benin City – M. H. Ayinde

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M. H. Ayinde
M. H. Ayinde was born in London’s East End. She is a runner, a chai lover, and a screen time enthusiast. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, FIYAH Literary Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, and elsewhere. She lives in London with three generations of her family and their various feline overlords. Follow her on Twitter @mhayinde

When the last of my water ran out, I knew I’d never reach Benin City.

It was almost a relief to lie down on the parched earth knowing I’d never have to rise again. Never have to worry about food or bandits or infected feet again. At the end, I was almost content. So I curled up, closed my eyes, and gave myself to my death.

            “I have found the survivor,” a voice said, the shadow of its owner falling over me.

            I opened my mouth to explain that I wasn’t a survivor, that I was merely a corpse in waiting, then I felt something cold on my lips, followed by a slow trickle of water.

            “Administering rehydration fluids,” the voice said.

            I opened my eyes. Saw a figure, black against the brightness of the sky. Then I surrendered myself to exhaustion.

#

“… And in the botanical gardens, we have samples of every plant on earth,” the voice said. 

            I drew in a raking breath. Every part of my body hurt, but I felt strangely weightless. I was moving, I realised. Bobbing...

Being carried.

            “Good morning.”

 I found myself looking into a face of living sculpture.

            “Shit!” I croaked, flailing, and the bronze arms that carried me tightened their grip.

            “Please do not be alarmed,” the sculpture said, twisting its face down to look at me. “My name is Eweka. I am a rescue bronze from the City of Benin.”

            I worked my mouth. It was no longer so dry that breathing hurt; still, moving my lips opened the thousand tiny cracks that networked my skin.

            “You’re … an automaton?” I said.

            “Yes,” Eweka replied.

            For a long time, I couldn’t summon the strength to speak, so, I just studied my saviour’s bronze face. Smooth eyes without pupils stared at the distant horizon. A perfect, wide nose tapered down towards a full mouth. A thousand tiny petals formed the sculpted cap of its hair, and as I studied them, I realised they were crafted from even tinier grids of hexagons. Across the bronze’s shoulders lay an intricate mantle of bronze flowers. I saw lilies and hibiscuses and tiny daisies and, as I looked deeper, I realised delicate bronze bees adorned many of the petals. It was like looking into an optical illusion; so dizzyingly perfect that I had to turn away.  

            “We will stop soon,” Eweka said. “And then I would like you to try to eat.”

            Its voice – musical and resonant – issued from somewhere within its chest. Those shapely bronze lips didn’t move, and yet there was nothing sinister in their stillness.

            “You’re … from Benin City,” I whispered.

            “Yes,” Eweka said.

            “Then…” Something in my throat tightened. “I made it?”

Eweka tipped its head to the side and said, “It is not far now.”

I closed my eyes, a thousand thoughts crowding my mind. Was I hallucinating? Perhaps I lay dying back there on the cracked earth, and my mind, in its death throes, had conjured up my salvation in order to soothe me in my passing. The last time I had been certain of where I was, I’d had at least three hundred miles more to cover, and even then I hadn’t been sure I was still heading in the right direction.

I must have dozed, because the next thing I knew, Eweka was shaking me lightly awake.

I lay on the ground, under a sheet of foil, the sun setting in the distance. “This is for you,” Eweka said, holding out a packet. Though the rescue bronze was seated, it looked regal as a king. Dozens of bronze bands encircled its slender biceps, and more bands fell about its neck and throat in widening loops of twisted metal. Its smooth, muscular torso tapered down to a skirt made of more interlocking petals.

I took the packet and tore it open. Shoved the bar into my mouth and chewed. Eweka watched me, and then opened a hatch in its stomach and removed a flask.

“Drink slowly,” it said, handing me the flask.

The bar Eweka had given me was tough, and tasteless, but it felt good to actually eat. I chewed between gulps of gloriously sweet water, and when I had finished the first bar, the bronze handed me a second, its face turned to me all the while.

“What?” I said, chewing.
“I thought you might like to talk,” Eweka said. “I find it helps.”

“Rescued many from the wastes, have you?” 

“Yes,” Eweka said. “You are the seventh person I have saved.”

I looked away. “I don’t feel like talking,” I said.

“Then I shall go first. My name is Eweka. Before the great rescue began, I tended the botanical gardens outside the University of Benin. I like painting, and highlife, and my favourite flower is the night-blooming cereus. Now, you try.”

I stared. What was I going to say? That before the Reapers’ invasion of Earth, I had been a street thief. That while the world fell, I’d hidden. That I’d stood by and watched as the Reapers dragged people I knew into their ships, to take back to their colonies. That afterwards, when I’d emerged into the burned and barren world, I had done whatever it took to reach Benin City. Killed. Stolen. Abandoned the slow in our group. That even that hadn’t been enough to keep my family alive.

And that I didn’t deserve to be the last one standing. 

“Maybe I don’t deserve rescue,” I said, looking away.

Eweka’s face couldn’t move, so how could I say it smiled? But smile it seemed to as it said, “But I was sent for you. Only for you.” 

#

By the next morning, I had regained enough strength to walk, and so I trudged along at Eweka’s side, using its towering bronze body to shelter me from the sun. Even here, so near the heart of the civilisation, all was dust and dirt from horizon to horizon … The Reapers’ final gift to humanity before they fled, leaving behind a ruined world.

In my darkest days, when all the others had died, when I was completely alone and not even sure that I was going in the right direction any more, dreams of Benin City kept me alive. Of course, I had seen it on television – we all had, back in the days when television still existed and Benin City was hailed as the pinnacle of art and artificial intelligence and, of course, of energy wall construction. I used to imagine it shining on the horizon beneath the silvery dome of its walls, an untouched utopia, a Garden of Eden, the last preserve of humanity. But as the weeks and months went on, I found it harder and harder to visualise in my mind. It became a pipe dream; a fantasy. Towards the end, I don’t think I really believed it still stood; I just kept going out of habit.

We had been walking in silence for some time before I turned to Eweka and said, “What were you even doing out here?”

            “Looking for you,” Eweka replied.

            “No, I mean what were you doing out here before you found me?”

            Eweka tipped its head in that way I was beginning to realise was one of its mannerisms. “I was sent to find you. One of our drones spotted you, and I was dispatched to retrieve you.”

            “You don’t even know who I am,” I muttered.

            Eweka straightened. “You are a survivor.”

            As if that explained it all. “Isn’t it …  a waste? I mean, how much are you worth?”

            “How much are you worth?”
            I studied its motionless face, trying to decide if it was joking. “Less than you, I reckon,” I muttered. 

            I slowed as I noticed a shape in the dirt up ahead. A body, I thought. God knows I’d seen enough of those on my journey. So few of us had survived the burning of the planet, and so many of us that had survived had died on the journey to reach Benin City. Sometimes it felt as though I was the only person left alive in the world.

            “It is a warrior bronze,” Eweka said, striding forward.

I approached slowly. I’d never seen one up close before and had not expected it to be so … beautiful. It wore a complex armour of overlapping shells, and a domed, patterned helm. Its face was much like Eweka’s – serene, regal – though the left half had been destroyed, revealing the wires within. I found it hard to imagine a thing of such beauty shooting lasers from its eyes and missiles from its large, square hands.

The Reaper it had fought lay beside it, scarcely a skeleton now, its massive spine and skull lying amidst a nest of rotting flesh and dark blood.

“God,” I said, covering my nose with my hand. “It stinks.” But no flies swarmed the corpse. I hadn’t seen a single insect since the burning of the world. I forced my eyes away from the Reaper, back to the body of the warrior bronze, so glorious even in its shattered state.

“What are all those patterns for?” I asked.

Eweka looked over its shoulder at me. “Likely they were created by this bronze. We are, after all, primarily art.”

“Art?” I said. “A warrior bronze?”

“Yes. In Benin City, artists craft the most beautiful forms and personalities for my kind. Interaction with us is a form of consuming art. What is wrong?”

            “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to rein in my laughter. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious.”

“The sculptor who created me gave me a body and the rudiments of my personality, and I have spent the last decade honing and perfecting all aspects of myself.”

“The last decade. While the world burns, you’ve been honing your art.”

Eweka straightened. “Your tone implies disapproval. You believe art should cease because the world, as you put it, burns.”

“Just seems a waste of everyone’s time,” I said. “And precious resources.”

“Do you know how many warrior bronzes Benin City sent to fight the Reapers?”

“No,” I said, looking away.

“Six million,” Eweka said. “That is how many artificial lifeforms we sent to drive the Reapers back.”

We moved on, walking in silence for a time while I thought about all those warrior bronzes finally repelling the Reapers. How many of them had burned when the Reapers left?

As the sun set, I curled under my foil blanket and watched the horizon. After a time, Eweka leaned towards me and said, “You are not sleeping.”

“I find it hard to sleep these days,” I said.

“Would you like a story, to help settle your thoughts?” Eweka said.

“I’m not a fucking kid,” I replied. Then closed my eyes. I couldn’t see Eweka’s face in the darkness, but somehow I felt I had wounded it. “Just … Just tell me about Benin City,” I said.

“Very well.”  

#

It became a habit… I couldn’t sleep without the sound of Eweka’s voice, and so I had it describe Benin City to me each night as I drifted. It told me of the waterfalls that tumble from invisible energy fields. Of the floating street pedlars selling frozen yogurt and chin-chin. And of the bronzes. Of course, the bronzes, many of them as ancient as Benin City itself; stolen from their homes just as so much of humanity had been stolen by the Reapers, to be paraded as curiosities in their colony worlds. Bronzes stand on every street corner, Eweka told me, and plaques and sculptures adorn every sprawling, white-walled house. I fell asleep to dreams of those wide, beautiful streets. I woke up to the hope of them, just over the horizon. 

Then one morning, I woke to find Eweka standing some distance away from me, facing the rising sun.

“Morning!” I called. Eweka didn’t turn, so I had my usual breakfast of ration bar and condenser-bottle water, and then pushed to my feet.

Eweka started walking as soon as I did, trudging silently ahead. When I caught up, the bronze did not look round.

“Did I annoy you?” I said. I touched the bronze’s arm, but it did not react. I supposed that even walking, talking works of art must have their off days, so I respected Eweka’s silence, but not long after the sun had reached its zenith, the bronze began to slow, and by mid-afternoon, it lifted its leg for a final step that it never took.  

            “Hey!” I said, waving my hands in front of its face. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

            I could hear the soft whirl of the mechanisms within its body, but the thing did not move. “Eweka,” I said. I reached out tentatively. Touched its face. “Eweka. Eweka, please. Come on. You said it’s not far.”

            But it simply stood there, unmoving, unresponsive. Only a sculpture now.

            I wept bitterly all that afternoon. I clung to Eweka’s leg, sobbing like a child. The sun crawled down towards the horizon and I knew that I should move, knew I should carry on, but I couldn’t bear to leave Eweka’s glorious form standing there alone in the wastes.

            When the sun finally set, I wiped my face and pushed to my feet. The wastes are cold at night, and I knew that the longer I delayed, the harder it would be to leave Eweka. I planted a kiss on its bronze cheek, warm from the dying light, and then continued. I did not look back.

#

Days passed. I saw no bandits. No bodies. No life at all. I was alone in all the world. In all of existence.

About a week later, the land fell away up ahead, and my heart soared. This is it, I thought. I’ve made it. I’ve finally arrived.

            I couldn’t help it; I ran the last few metres, but when I reached the edge of the precipice, my stomach turned over.

            Below me lay a city in ruins, its towers fallen, its roads cracked. The remains of its energy wall still flickered on and off, but it was a broken place now, empty and abandoned. So … this was the fate of Benin City.

            I sat down on the edge. Had Eweka been gone so long that its city had fallen? Or had the Reapers returned and done this, determined to stamp out the very last piece of human civilisation? Perhaps Eweka’s programmed mind had erased the fall of Benin City, or perhaps it had always been a fantasy, created within its bronze body. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that there was no haven. There was no final outpost of humanity. There was no being saved.

            I was so lost in my own despair that I did not notice the mechanical whir and thud of footsteps until their owner was nearly upon me.

            “Hello again,” a voice said. I looked up to see a new rescue bronze looming over me. This one was different; though it stood upright, like a human, its head resembled a leopard. An intricate band of tubes encircled its head; like a halo … or a crown.  Its lips were curled upwards in a perpetual smile.

“Shall we continue?” the bronze said. “It is not far now to Benin City.”

            I shook my head, lost for words. Gestured mutely at the ruins in the valley below.

             “That is Akure,” it said. “It fell not long before we drove back the Reapers.”

            When I had collected myself enough to reply, I said, “Is… is that you?”

            “Yes. It is me, Eweka. Do you like this form? It is one of ten I sculpted myself, back home.”

            “I thought you died!” I said.

            “We will retrieve the bronze I call A Confluence of Petals another time.Its most recent backup was sent only two hours before it fell dormant.”

            “You mean … you’re a backup of Eweka?” I laughed. Covered my mouth. Laughed some more. “So what’s this bronze called?”

            “Angelic Feline in Contemplation. Do you like it?”

            “Yes,” I said. I couldn’t stop smiling. “Yes, I love it!”

#

During those final miles, I couldn’t stop talking. I didn’t think there was any hope left in my heart, but I felt such lightness as we crossed the wastes, such joy, that it just came spilling out of me.

            I told Eweka everything. About what I was before the invasion. About what I had become after it. All my shame. All my despair. It poured out of me. I told it the names of my children, and how each of them had died. I told it about the people I had killed over a tin of food. And about how I had watched as the Reapers carried off my neighbour. Eweka listened, nodding sympathetically and offering no comment. And it was right. I did feel better, talking.

            Then came the morning when we crested a hill and utopia lay spread out before me, and for several moments, I couldn’t speak.

I had forgotten what civilisation looked like. But even in the days when I had still known, civilisation had never looked quite as beautiful as this. Benin City filled the land before me, a vast, glittering spread of precious humanity. The city stood within the shimmering dome of its defensive energy wall, a shining oasis of glass towers and lush parks, of broad avenues and bowing palms. From this height, I could see down into its streets, into its gardens and piazzas. 

“I can’t believe how… perfect it is,” I said. “How untouched.”

“This ground knows much about invasion,” Eweka said, and I’m sure I saw pride shining in its bronze eyes. “Once, long ago, the city that stood here was burned by invaders. Now, it is the only thing on earth that still stands.”

I shook my head. How long had I spent imagining this moment? And now it was here, it seemed unreal. Seemed like something from a dream.

“The ancient city that stood here once was also a utopia,” Eweka continued. “No crime. No poverty. A place of art and learning. Its walls were the longest to have ever been built on earth. Now, these energy walls are the earth’s strongest.” Eweka extended its hand. “Come. Let us go home.”

We descended the hill together, me stumbling and tripping as I could not tear my gaze from the city. A network of roads led towards it, radiating outwards like beams of sunlight, like arms extended to every corner of the earth. Calling humanity home.

I noticed a stirring where the energy wall met the dry earth.

“The wall’s moving!” I cried, squinting. Not just moving, I realised. Sowing. Tiny blades of grass sprang to life in the wall’s wake as it slowly ate up the barren land before it.

“Yes,” Eweka replied. “Every day, the walls of Benin City expand. Inch by careful inch, we will reclaim the planet. One day, our walls will embrace the entire earth.”

            I felt a tightness in my throat. Slowly, very slowly, the people of Benin City were terraforming our planet.

            I glimpsed more movement as the wall shimmered, and a number of figures marched out onto one of the roads, in neat formation. It was an army of rescue bronzes, and even from there, I could see that each was as different, each as intricately beautiful, as Eweka’s bronze bodies.

            “More rescues?” I said.

            “Yes,” Eweka said. “Each of them has been sent to rescue a single survivor we have detected.”

            I felt a moment of vertigo. The world had once felt so vast and so empty to me, and yet each of the bronzes I saw now represented a human life. I wondered how far they would walk to bring people home. Eweka had travelled hundreds of miles and sacrificed a whole body to bring me to Benin City. Was the entire earth dotted with abandoned, exquisite bronzes just like Eweka’s Confluence of Petals?

            I followed Eweka down the rubble of the hill, unable to settle my eyes on any single thing, unable to take in the glorious enormity of Benin City, spread out before me. It was only when we had reached the walls and I saw the line of people on the other side, all looking our way, that a sudden fear rooted me to the spot. I looked up at the shimmering expanse, thinking of all those people living peacefully within.

            “What is wrong?” Eweka said, turning.

             “What if they don’t want me?” I said softly, not meeting Eweka’s flat, feline gaze. “After everything I’ve done. What … what if—”

            Eweka placed a bronze hand on my shoulder. Tiny shells decorated each slender finger. “They will want you,” it said. “You are human. You are family.” It turned its hand over. “Would you like to hold my hand?”

            A month ago, I would have laughed at this. But I didn’t this time. Instead, I nodded and took Eweka’s hand, and together we walked through the shimmering walls and into Benin City.

###

The Water Dweller – Lazarus Panashe Nyagwambo

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Lazarus Panashe Nyagwambo
Lazarus Panashe Nyagwambo is a Zimbabwean writer and editor. His short fiction has appeared online in AFREADA, The Kalahari Review, The Shallow Tales Review and Munyori Literary Journal. In print, it has appeared in the anthology, Brilliance of Hope. He has an upcoming short story collection. He writes from Harare, Zimbabwe.

I cannot really say why I did it. Perhaps I have been around for too long. And these days, I have very little to do. Serves me right I suppose. I’ve been around long enough to know not to interfere with the world of men. They’re all so capricious. Fragile things. But it was such a small thing. And this, what we do, gets so repetitive. But there was no malice in my intent. If anything, I was trying to help. Not for any benevolent reasons as that word, help, usually presupposes. I don’t know, I guess after all this time, the urge to participate got the better of me.

***

I knew all of them. I knew them as well as I’ve known any other human. They passed by often on their way to and from school. They came to play in the afternoons while they were herding their cattle. They would throw their dirty, threadbare clothes on the gleaming rocks and their naked bodies would leap into the air. I liked to take a moment then to look at them, their utterly blithe indifference to the plights of life, limps splayed out wildly, the backdrop of a clear blue sky framing their frail silhouettes. Then they would come down, landing in the cold water with grimaces that seamlessly transformed into laughter. I would feel them. Touch them. Caress their scarred skins and listen to their hearts beat against the infinite symphony of the river. I would cling almost tenderly to them and marvel at the impudence of their youth.

This world does not have a name for me. Only a ritual. Chenura in this part of the world. An acquittal ceremony for the souls of the deceased. It is less common nowadays ever since that Jesu decided to take on a physical form and walk among men. And then they went on to write about him in that book. Oral tradition cannot compete with a book. Nowadays, very few people make the request to their children that they want the Chenura ritual to be done after they die. And even when they do, some of the children refuse, citing conversion to their newfound faith, the one that Jesu started. Nowadays there is only the funeral and then the Nyaradzo, the remembrance. It used to be that sending someone forth; to the realm beyond, to elevate them to the status of mudzimu, was requisitely paramount. Joining one’s ancestors was the highest form of transcendence. Now they call the ritual heathen. Dark. Unclean. I have to give it to him, Jesu was clever. But just as well. Maybe once I’m no longer needed, I can, to use a human term, retire. I will join the others that have been denounced.

I like the water. I like rivers to be specific. I like to listen to them and to watch them. I am intrigued by their continuous state of perpetual transformation. Always changing, never the same. Whether they are a trickle during the heart of the dry season, parched and emaciated and reduced almost to a whisper, or full and violent after the rains, roaring their might and making the banks quake in abasement. That is why I mostly dwell in the water until I am called to do my job. I am no longer as busy as I used to be.

There were four of them, all boys. I learned their names as they called out to each other while they dived and splashed and swam in the waters of the Mumvumira, one of the rivers I call home. Learnmore, Kudzanai, Tawanda and Decision. I learned their histories when I ripped their spirits from this realm. Kudzanai and Decision are – were brothers. They were inseparable. The villagers, the few still left who believe the things of the old world, said that it was because they had been born only one year apart and had drunk the same milk from their mother’s breast. All four of them went to Bemba primary school, Decision in the fifth grade and the other three in the seventh even though there was a four-year gap between the oldest and youngest of them. They lived in Nezambe, an otherwise insignificant village were it not for the fact that my river is etched into its valley. I only dwell in the ones that never dry up and Mumvumira is one of them. Even when the drought of `92 came and all the streams became no more than dry, cracked, skeletal appendages, Mumvumira’s waters continued to flow from the crest of Nyamhemba.

There is a quiet spot along her course. Hauntingly serene. The villagers call it Birira. Some of them believe it is sacred. Others that it is cursed. Whatever the case, I have nothing to do with it. Mine is not to curse or bless. Over the years, I’ve discerned that the superstition surrounding it stems from the several bodies that have been found caught between the rocks that are scattered all over that particular site. Eyes rolled backwards, skin wrinkled and grey, their facial expressions cemented by death and stomachs bloated with water. Broken things. Dead things. I watch idly when their relatives and neighbours forlornly uproot their bodies from the water and I wonder what emotion must be burning a hole in their chests. Anger? Grief? Musikavanhu forbid, joy? You never know with these creatures. But whatever it is they feel as individuals, I can always detect a communal feeling lurking underneath everything else. I smell it. Fear. Acutely pungent and suffocating. As if at any moment, they too might drown like their dead neighbour or cousin or brother or mother-in-law. The body movers always do their best to be graceful, but for all their efforts at sacralisation, I have been doing this long enough to know that there is no grace in death. And they are frequently too eager to leave, too rushed and unsettled to be delicate. On normal days, very few dared to venture anywhere in the vicinity of Birira. Except stupid children. Yes, stupid, for I cannot bring myself to believe that they were brave.

It was cold that morning. A ghostly layer of mist floated ominously above the icy water. The mukute trees that lined the river bank howled against the chilly wind and the reeds frantically shook the cold dew off their leaves. The sun was still shying behind Nyamhemba. What little of its light shone through was veiled by thick grey clouds that sat malignly in the sky, relishing the view of the shadows they cast on the world below.

It was Decision’s voice that drew me. It was close. Too close. The boys often crossed the river on the makeshift footbridge that was several meters upstream. I usually went there to watch them cross over the tree trunk that had been precariously laid across the span of the river. Sometimes they crossed silently, sleep still clinging stubbornly to their swollen faces. Other mornings they called out and teased as they went along.

“Iwe mhani, give me back my pen.” He sounded distressed.

There was a brief pause and then raucous laughter. The kind whose fringes are slimy with hostility. The laughter of a bully.

“I told you what you have to do mufana. Respect your elder.” It was not unusual for Kudzanai to tease his younger brother, but that morning, something in his tone made me think of the dark clouds above as their footfalls edged closer.

“I’m going to tell on you. I’m going to tell Baba.”

“Do that and see what will happen.”

Rightly noting that his threat failed to have the desired effect, the younger boy once again resorted to pleading with his brother who had become even more incensed by the attempt to coerce him.

Kudzanai was the first to appear through the reeds that flanked the riverbank. He wore their school’s khaki uniform underneath an oversized maroon jersey that had holes at the elbows. His twiggy legs rose out of undersized brown school shoes that had been to the cobbler a few times too many. A bag of Gloria flour and a length of string liaised to form an improvised satchel and hung from his shoulder, empty save for a pen, half of which had been chewed off, a pencil cut in half, the other with the younger brother and a lunchbox containing their shared break-time meal of cornmeal bread. He planted himself on a rock and waited for his brother to catch up. In his left hand he held a white pen, the words EVERSHARP 15M printed on its side in shiny gold. He held it out over the water.

Seconds later, Decision burst through the shrubbery and nearly tumbled into the river.

No one could mistake the two for anything other than siblings. They shared the same mango coloured skin for which their friends often taunted them, calling them masope. Their hair was a dirty reddish-brown with a sickly soft and curly texture as if they had kwashiorkor. The colour matched their eyes which discoloured almost to hazel when the sun shone directly on them. The only apparent difference between them was their heights. And their noses. Kudzanai’s was flat and wide like a frog ready to prance while Decision’s was more rounded.  

Learnmore and Tawanda, their faces rigid, followed immediately after. I smelt the fear on them. Tawanda, the eldest of the quartet, looked around restlessly.

“Machinda we are going to be late for school. Stop playing around.”

“I am not playing.” Kudzanai’s resoluteness resounded in his chillingly calm tone. I was intrigued. I seldom got visitors and usually when I did, the occasion was always tainted by the morbid ambience. This was new. Perhaps that’s why I did what did.

“All he needs to do is say that I am the boss and I will give him his ballpoint back. Isn’t that right mufana?”

Decision faced a dilemma. Submit to his brother, get his new pen back and go to school, getting there in time to avoid incurring the wrath of their headmaster. Or…or call his brother dog shit and spit in his face.

Like I said, stupidity, not courage.

The pen landed in the water with a plonk. It had hardly begun floating away before I heard Decision yelp and then land in the shallow end of the river on his back. His brother stood over him menacingly, daring him to challenge him. Seeing the fire in his elder brother’s eyes, Decision opted not to provoke him any further in the absence of their father who could rescue him if Kudzanai started to overpower him. He also knew their two friends would either watch or leave them and continue to school. In the end, all he managed to do to salvage his wounded pride was mutter obscenities under his breath which he refused to repeat when his brother dared him to do so.

That should have been all. That should have been the end of it. A little spit, some wet clothes, a few heated but inaudible vulgarities, some wounded pride and a lost pen. But then they came back.

It was afternoon when I saw Decision again. An endless sheet of grey watched him along with me from above. I was unsurprised that he had opted to walk alone on the way back home, understandably unwilling to travel with his aggressor while the bruises to his ego were still so raw. Fragile things. I was a little amazed though, that he had dared to come back to a place that so many dreaded, on his own.

He stood hesitantly at the edge of the water, his face a stony mask, his lower lip quivering, oblivious to my presence, my captivated observation. After some time, he began to take off his clothes. His haste conveyed his intention to leave as soon as possible.

The pen was gone. I had watched it float away. It was currently bobbing in a small puddle some ways downstream. But he had come all this way. At the very least I found his effort amusing. That was all. I did not intend for any of the things that followed to happen. So, I fashioned him a new pen.

After Jesu, a few more of us did interact with the physical realm. It was always possible, only frowned upon. But he had taken so many believers that it necessitated a few physical manifestations to even salvage what little faith was left in us. Like letting the living see their deceased loved ones. Or granting their wishes. Even those that believed that it was us, the divinities of the old world, that had granted these things chose to hide it for fear of being castigated, being labelled as charlatans of evil. Our efforts only strengthened the belief in him. I personally had never done such a thing. Not until that day. If I had, I would have known that humans cannot handle the things of our world, I would have understood why interfering was frowned upon.

Decision waded out of the water, holding my gift in his hand, oblivious of its origins. He knelt in the sand and held it up to his face. I wondered whether in some small way, he knew that what he held was sub-natural. Or if the frozen grin on his face was simply joy. If the glazed eyes with which he glared at it was gratitude.

He remained that way for two hours. Completely naked and seemingly unaffected by the cold. Even when he heard his brother shouting his name he did not flinch. I must admit that I was more curious than concerned. I rose from the water, my interest piqued, thrilled by the anticipation of something looming on the edges of eventuality.

Kudzanai appeared first, no longer in his school uniform. Learnmore and Tawanda followed on his heels. All three of them halted immediately when they saw Decision’s motionless body, now huddled over, the pen gripped tightly in his hand.

Even though Kudzanai tried his best to sound intimidating, his voice trembled ever so slightly and the worry that suffused it was apparent. “Mufana, what are you doing here? People are looking for you at home and you are playing around here. Get up!” He took a step forward and placed his hand on Decision’s shoulder.

Nothing.

“Iwe…”This time he made no attempt to veil the concern that was beginning to prickle at him. It was not for the wellbeing of his brother. He did not want his father to find out about the morning’s events. The image of his head locked between his father’s thighs and the phantom sting of his sjambok landing on his bared bottom settled in his throat, refusing to go away even when he swallowed. He grabbed Decision’s arm.

In the amount of time it would take to hold your breath, Kudzanai was on his back, an anguished scream gushing from his gaping mouth. His hands clasped the right side of his face and blood oozed freely through his fingers. Decision was sitting astride him, pinning his shoulders down with his knees. He swiftly pulled the pen out of his brother’s eye and jammed it into his throat. I was transfixed by the crazed look on his face, the madness shadowed in venomous loathing.

Learnmore and Tawanda exchanged glances. In a brief silent debate, they argued over which of them would intervene first and eventually agreed that a simultaneous approach was the preferable choice. They approached hesitantly at first but threw all caution to the wind as the pen sunk into their friend’s throat once again, reducing his cries to gurgles. They both jumped on to Decision at the same time. The trio landed in the sand and for a few minutes were a mangled mix of groans, swinging fists, scratching fingers and kicking legs.

Tawanda eventually managed to extricate himself from the scuffle, leaving the now subdued Decision pinned to the ground by the physically superior Learnmore. Panting and caressing a gash on his left cheek, he walked towards Kudzanai, each step feeling heavier as he approached his friend’s twitching body.

The sand around Kudzanai’s head spread outwardly in a halo of blood. Tawanda’s heart thundered in his ears. He bent forward slowly and pulled the pen from Kudzanai’s neck with trembling hands.

“Kudzanai.” His voice caught in his throat, only managing to come out as a laboured croak. “Kudzanai, wake up.” He placed his hand on his friend’s shoulder and shook the body gently. Its head rolled limply to the side.

Decision, who had been struggling frenziedly to free himself, stopped suddenly. He raised his head and looked over at his brother. The surge of emotion that erupted inside him was punctuated by a sudden stiffening of his face. Not a gradual shifting of expressions but a concise and abrupt absence of them. Learnmore relaxed his hold on him warily.

When he spoke, the callousness in his voice had dangerously sharp edges. “Give me back my pen.”

Tawanda’s gaze fell slowly on the pen and then traversed the space between himself and Decision. He looked once again at it. “It’s…it’s mine. It’s my pen.”

Learnmore stuttered, “Tawaz, what are you doing?”

He was only momentarily distracted, but a moment was all it took. Decision twisted under him and succeeded in knocking him onto his haunches. He threw a fistful of sand into his face before he dashed towards Tawanda.

For the few minutes during which he hastily tried to wash the sand out of his eyes, all Learnmore heard were screams and splashes. By the time he was finally able to see again, Tawanda was already holding Decision’s head down in the water. The younger boy’s struggles were steadily waning.

Learnmore scrambled to his feet and started running towards them. In his haste and partial blindness, he tripped over Kudzanai’s body.  

As I said before, humans are fragile things. Something inside the boy caved then, refused to comprehend the scene around him. He just sat down. He raised his knees to his chin and wrapped his arms around his legs. And he watched the river run by.

Decision solemnised his exit with a final weak jolt of his leg.

Tawanda stood over him, triumphant.

Above us, the dark clouds watched silently.

Lazarus Panashe Nyagwambo
Lazarus Panashe Nyagwambo is a Zimbabwean writer and editor. His short fiction has appeared online in AFREADA, The Kalahari Review, The Shallow Tales Review and Munyori Literary Journal. In print, it has appeared in the anthology, Brilliance of Hope. He has an upcoming short story collection. He writes from Harare, Zimbabwe.

Time Says No – Praise Osawaru

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praise-osawaru
Praise Osawaru (he/him) is a writer of Bini descent. A Best of the Net nominee, his work appears or is forthcoming in Agbowó, FIYAH, Frontier Poetry, Down River Road, The Maine Review, and The Lit Quarterly, among others. An NF2W Poetry scholar, he's the second-place winner of the Nigerian NewsDirect Poetry Prize 2020 and a finalist for the 2021 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize & the 2020 Awele Creative Trust Award. He's a Contributing Editor for Barren Magazine and a reader for Chestnut Review. Find him on Instagram & Twitter: @wordsmithpraise.

The sky rumbled, drops of rain descending. A number of people—mostly residents of Ijoro—dressed in black, gathered around a brown coffin, black umbrellas shielding them from the rain. A man in black, wearing a white collar, stood inches away from the coffin. He held a bible in his left hand, his other hand swept the air as he spoke. A few seconds later, he shut his bible and bowed his head. Then a feminine voice emerged from the gathering, airing Amazing Grace.

Nadoese stood before the coffin, lowered into the ground. He kissed the flower in his right hand, and threw it atop the coffin. He turned around and walked away, his face boiling with a blend of anger and sadness. His mother watched, exhaling. Somewhere in her mind, she understood that he left to cry elsewhere. Her tears weren’t shy, they streamed freely. Her daughter had only breathed for a little less than a score before Ogiuwu uprooted her from the living.

Nadoese sat down, reclining on the bark of a tree, his knees drawn up. He took slow, deep breaths.  Three days ago, his sister walked the earth. They talked and laughed about how Nigerians are quick to talk about racism when tribalism is buried deep in the country. Tears trickled down his face. In his right palm, a purple pendant necklace sat gracefully. It had belonged to his sister. He gripped it, closing his eyes, as he fell into a memory.

Finding Efe by Johnny Drille played from the Bluetooth speakers perched on the table in Eghe’s room. She sat before a mirror, while Nadoese stood behind her, his hands loosing her braids. White light bulbs hung from the ceiling, and the window was open, permitting the sound of birds and air to breeze in.

“Ekinadoese, be careful. Don’t cut my hair.”

“It’s not my fault I don’t know how to do this,” Nadoese responded, with a chuckle.

“Now, you’re learning.”

Eghe’s phone chimed, putting a warm smile on her face. She grabbed her phone with her right hand from the surface of the table. 

“Who’s this person who keeps beeping you every five minutes like this?”

“Hey, mind your own business. Oya, go get a lover,” Eghe shot him a look through the mirror. 

“Oh, okay, I’m won’t loose your hair again,” Nadoese responded, discharging a half-loosed braid.

“Wait. Can’t someone play with you again?”

He laughed out loud.

The tears trickling down his face brought him back to reality. He breathed out slowly, and wiped his face with his left hand. 

“Ekinadoese?” A masculine voice emerged from behind him.

Nadoese’s heart throbbed, taken aback by the sudden intrusion. 

“Sorry to bother you,” The man uttered, walking around until he stood before Nadoese. He appeared in a different kind of attire, unlike others who came for the burial. He looked to be in his late forties. And he wore a white shirt, brown pants, and a long, black coat. A loose Adire fabric-tie hung from his neck, and his hair was so low, he could be mistaken for a bald man. 

“Um, I’m not in the right mood for a chat right now. This isn’t the time.” Nadoese stood up, tucked the necklace in his pocket, and dusted his pants. 

“Believe me, this is the right time.” The man pulled out a black pocket watch, and opened it.  Light blue clock hands ticked in the watch and a map of Africa floated above in blue lining. 

“Whoa!” Nadoese staggered, nearly stumbling over a tree root. 

“Easy there, Ekinadoese.”

“Who are you? And how do you know my name?”

“My name is Pamilerin, and I’m here to help you rewrite a past.”

“What do you mean rewrite?”

“Eghosa, your eighteen-year-old sister, was raped and murdered, and her body was found three nights ago. Time says no. According to Lira, there’s still a window to go back and save her without entirely altering the timeline.”

“What? Are you talking about time travel?”

“Yes.”

“Are you crazy or something?”

“I perfectly understand your lack of belief. You see, this here is African Time,” he paused, raising his pocket watch in the air, “with this device, I can visit any time period in the whole of Africa. I can read the time stream, and in very few cases, alter the timeline without making waves.”

“Okay. These all sounds like something from a movie. I don’t know if you know, but my sister actually died. She was raped and murdered, her body dropped by the fucking roadside!” Nadoese’s voice went a few decibels higher.

“Ekinadoese?”

“Get the hell away from me,” Nadoese waved him off, walking back to the gathering. 

#

It was midnight. The stars peered out, and a half-moon hung in the dreary sky. The night breeze swayed, compelling Nadoese to wrap himself in a blanket. He laid in bed for almost an hour, unable to sleep. The words from Pamilerin were on replay in his head. He closed his eyes, hoping to purge his body of insomnia. 

A few minutes later, he had dozed off, or so he thought.

“Leave me alone!” His sister’s voice reverberated. 

Nadoese opened his eyes and found himself in a lit room, his sister held down by two dark-skinned boys. The first one smacked her in response to her scream. The other boy pinned her, parting her legs. 

“No! No! No!”

“Shut up!” The boy who parted her legs yelled. “Gag her now,” he added, facing the other boy. Then he unzipped his denim pants, yanked out his penis, and slipped between Eghe’s legs without a second to waste. 

She shrieked. 

“No!” Nadoese roared, jumping up in bed, panting. His room was unlit. He felt his pajamas moist, a sign his body, too, mourned. He leaped out of his bed, walking towards the window to open it and receive copious air from the night. 

“What the hell?” He saw a man standing, gazing at him. It was the same man from the burial, the one who sounded like an asylum escapee. 

The man raised his pocket watch in the air, yelling, “Clock is ticking. The window will close soon. It’s now or never.”

Nadoese glanced around as if he was expecting a response from his room. He didn’t hear a sound. His parents were still asleep. He walked over to his closet, and grabbed a cardigan. Then he exited his room, creeping slowly to the front door. 

Their home was a three-bedroom flat with his room situated in the middle, and he had his keys, so it was uncomplicated to sneak out. On opening the front door, he saw Pamilerin standing, waiting for him. He closed the door and stepped onto the porch. 

“What do you want from me?” Nadoese snapped.

“I just want to help you. The window closes in an hour. If you want to save your sister, now is your chance.”

“S-s-so, like, you are a time traveler, and that pocket watch allows you to travel through time?”

“Yes.”

“Come on! And I’m supposed to believe that?” Nadoese chuckled.

“Well, maybe after you’ve seen it in action.”

Pamilerin waved his fisted right hand in the air and opened it. The pocket watch, laid in his palm, opened. For a few seconds, he stared at the blue clock hands. Nadoese wondered what he hoped to achieve until the map of Africa floating above the watch began to swirl. The hands of the clock ticked backward, then spun hastily as if about to unravel. 

Blinding blue lights emanated from the watch, enveloping Pamilerin and Nadoese. Pamilerin snapped his finger, and the lights dissolved. Nadoese turned around, gasping. They were back at the cemetery. 

“What the hell?” He uttered, as he gaped at himself, from across the field, speaking with Pamilerin by the tree. 

“Do you believe me now?”

#

Two hours past midnight, Nadoese and Pamilerin stood at the backyard of Nadoese’s home, under the blanketing sky. Nadoese had changed his outfit. He wore a white shirt, black pants, shoes, and Pamilerin’s long coat and Adire fabric-tie. Pamilerin disclosed to him that it was necessary for the job, for the time travel. It was the attire for any traveler. 

Pamilerin placed the pocket watch in Nadoese’s hand. A pin ejected from the side, piercing his thumb. It retracted with a drip of Nadoese’s blood, then it opened. The clock hands glowed blue, and a map of Africa appeared, hovering. 

“So, what do I do now?”

“Regular people use ten percent of their brains. But people like you and me, we can push further. To use Lira, you have to picture the time and place perfectly in your mind. Stare at the clock hands and move it with your mind. And time will unfold before your eyes.”

“You say it like it’s simple. Are you sure you can’t do this or come with me?”

“He who wields Lira must go alone.”

“But you took me along the other time.”

“Quiet. Focus,” Pamilerin hushed him, instantly. 

Nadoese raised the pocket watch, staring at the clock hands. He knew when he was going to—the moment after Eghosa left home to see her boyfriend without informing their parents. He stared for a few seconds, but nothing happened. 

“I don’t think you want to save your sister. Or maybe you’re happy she’s gone. Maybe this is what you wanted, to be the only child. Then your parents’’ love would be focused on you alone.”

Nadoese fumed from Pamilerin’s utterances. He gripped the watch and stared; a fiery look stamped on his face. He exhaled. Eghe’s voice resounded in his head, and the clock hands ticked backward. He sighed softly. 

“I did it,” he uttered, looking at Pamilerin who gave him a thumbs up.

Blue light emanated from the watch, engulfing him in a bubble of light. The light grew intense, causing Nadoese to shut his eyes. When he opened them, it was daytime. 

“I’ll be back before Mum and Dad, okay?!” Eghe yelled as she boarded an Uber in front of their house. 

Nadoese hid behind the tree, watching his past self, shut the front door. He exhaled slowly, flapping his coat. A white paper flew out, courageously, from the inside pocket. He paused. Then bent down to pick it up. 

“Hi, Ekinadoese. Sorry to throw Lira on you, but I had to. For a thousand years, I’ve been the bearer, travelling through time, helping Africans. It’s been a long ride; one I can finally rest from. When Akello, the previous beholder, handed Lira over to me, I took it up, knowing at some point in time, I, too, would eventually pass the torch to someone else: you. Your journey begins with saving your sister, but after that, you can never live a normal life. You cannot spend over three hours in a time period. Eventually, you’ll have to forfeit your life. Like I said before, I’m sorry to throw Lira on you, but I had to. Save your sister. After a thousand years, you too will be able to hand it over. Sincerely, Pamilerin.” “Bloody Hell!” 

praise-osawaru
Praise Osawaru (he/him) is a writer of Bini descent. A Best of the Net nominee, his work appears or is forthcoming in Agbowó, FIYAH, Frontier Poetry, Down River Road, The Maine Review, and The Lit Quarterly, among others. An NF2W Poetry scholar, he’s the second-place winner of the Nigerian NewsDirect Poetry Prize 2020 and a finalist for the 2021 Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize & the 2020 Awele Creative Trust Award. He’s a Contributing Editor for Barren Magazine and a reader for Chestnut Review. Find him on Instagram & Twitter: @wordsmithpraise.

Dust by Kwasi Adi-Dako

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Kwesi
Kwasi is a writer and learning experience designer from Accra, Ghana. He is most curious about connections between African histories and imagined futures, and explores these ideas by reading and writing science fiction, and building worlds in role-playing games. He has worked in education design leadership in South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Mauritius, and Ghana, focusing on curriculum design, teacher training, and student experience management. He hopes that both his students and his readers connect with their inner children through his work. Kwasi holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University in Psychology and you can find him on Twitter @ Tri_Solarian.

Alpha Smart Assistant online. The date is July 15, 2049. The location is Badu, Brong Ahafo Region, Ghana. Interview with Paa Kwesi Owusu, 80, is about to start. Please get ready to begin. Start recording in 3, 2, 1…

Good morning Mr. Owusu, thanks for having me in your home.

You are welcome. I don’t get many visitors.

Your place was a bit hard to find, it’s pretty far off the main road.

I value my privacy.

Right…well I appreciate you agreeing to talk to me. As I mentioned on the phone, I just want to ask you a few questions about your life growing up.

Alright. Go ahead.

Okay. Yes. Let’s start with your childhood. What was that like?

I grew up here in Badu in the 1970’s just a few minutes that way. It was an even smaller town than it is now. My parents were farmers just like all our neighbours and we mostly grew yam. As children, my brother and I spent most of our time either doing chores or playing outside. We weren’t that different from the other kids in the area.

And the weather? Seasons came and went?

They did, yes. We were used to Harmattan winds covering everything in dust from about late November to early March. There were only a few small houses in this area at the time so we knew all the other neighbourhood children. We all dreaded Harmattan because there were always so many chores. Once, my mother made us clean all the leaves in the garden because she didn’t like seeing them brown. Of course, by the time we got to the end of the bushes, the beginning was dirty again. It was exhausting, but I suppose I don’t need to tell you that.

That’s okay, please keep going.

Right. Rains would come in April and be pretty predictable until November. Then it would all begin again. We always looked forward to those months because we could play a whole new set of games. Avoiding puddles and things like that.

A lot has changed in 80 years.

And a lot has stayed the same.

[loud beeping noise]

Excuse me, I need to change the filters on my recycle tank.

Let me help you with that. You keep sitting, I can change it while we talk.

Fine.Thank you.

So… When did you start working as a community organizer?

[chuckles] In some ways I was one my whole life. My parents didn’t have much, but our farm was fruitful so we had more than some others. They always taught me to share as much as I could with those around me. I remember asking my mother if we could start packaging meals for some of my friends as a child, and I kept doing that into adulthood for other members of the community. There were already farmer collectives around and they sometimes organized community feeding programs. They also provided food for festivals and events. When there came a time for new leadership they reached out to me. This was around the early 2020’s.

When the Dust began.

Yes.

What was it like in the beginning?

Anyone you ask will give you a different date for when it truly started. For me, there was a Monday in May ‘24, when my brother was sitting where you are now, in tears. The Harmattan still hadn’t ended, and the crops he planted were all dying in the ground. The rains were so late. I assured him that they would be back, as I had done for months. After he left, I remember looking around this room and feeling the weight of the dust. I noticed how dry my throat was and the itch in my eye became oppressive all of a sudden. That was the first time I wasn’t sure that the Harmattan would end. For me it started that day.

That must have been scary. How did the people in your community react?

It was a difficult time. Everyone was confused. You have to understand that our town is in the Brong Ahafo region, which at the time was the nation’s breadbasket. Cultivating the land was a way of life that supported so many Ghanaians. People were desperate. At first the government stepped in with subsidies to support us but their money soon dried up. Then the international organizations came for a while and they forgot about us as well. We had to fend for ourselves. Many people did things that they were not proud of, but we survived.

What did people have to do to survive?

[silence]

Let’s take a break, young man. I’m tired.

Sure, no problem. Can I get you a hydropack?

No, they’re disgusting. Just go and open the window.

[Grunting noises]

You have to unlock the dust seal on the side there. The lever is under the orange flap on the left. The left. Yes there.

Oh yes, I see it, thank you. I haven’t seen one of these kinds of seals since I was a kid.  Airlock tech is really taking over in Accra.

The seal works well enough for me. It’s simple.

Same for this recycle tank. How old is it?

I’ve had it for many years. The water tastes a bit metallic but it’s better than that gel. At least it’s water.

Right. You don’t mind the dust blowing in through the open window?

There’s air blowing in as well isn’t there? It’s too stuffy in here.

[laughs] I guess I’ve gotten used to breathing through filters.

Hmm.

[silence]

Young man, let me ask you a question. Why are you here? I have been here my whole life, even after many others left, and no one has ever taken an interest. I didn’t believe you would actually come after we spoke on the phone, honestly. Why come all this way?

[clears throat] I guess I’m interested in what life was like before The Dust. There aren’t that many people around today who went through that transition as leaders in their communities, and who are still around to talk about it. The Dust is all I’ve ever known but I watch movies and read books about life before it started. Your world was full of rolling green hills and dense forests; you could pick fresh fruits off trees and water fell straight from the sky. It seems like such a magical time.

[scoffs] A magical time?

Yes. I have lived in Accra my whole life and have only seen rain twice. I can’t even imagine having it fall as much as it did back then.

You think because we had rain, our lives were good?

I… I don’t know. I suppose.

[silence]

What did you mean when you said a lot has stayed the same?

What?

Earlier I said that a lot has changed, and you said a lot has stayed the same. What did you mean?

Oh. People are still suffering. It looks different now, but let me not pretend that life was easy.  It was hard work, staying alive and taking care of the people around us. In the cities, you had more comfort, but here we have been exposed to the elements for a long time. There was panic for a while when the Dust began, but people got used to it eventually and are now surviving the best way they know how to. They wear masks and drink hydro packs and keep on living. It all looks the same to me.

[silence]

I’m sorry. I know that growing up in these times must be hard too.

It is.

At least you don’t have to deal with mosquitoes. Have you ever had malaria?

No, I haven’t.

Oh, it was horrible. You would feel too cold and too hot at the same time. Shaking and barely able to move. A pounding headache. Nausea.

That does sound horrible.

I once sat in front of a delicious bowl of light soup and cried for hours because I didn’t have any appetite. My body wanted it but my mouth was refusing.

[both laugh]

My whole family teased me about that for years. It was hard but we learned to live with it, as people do. The problems are different today but we keep trying to figure them out. We have learned how to conserve our water and plant crops differently. What else can we do? Of course, my heart breaks when I look around Badu today and see dry brown where there was once lush green. I dream about swimming in the river that used to flow just outside town. Now it’s just a ditch full of sand.

Not everyone decided to stay though, many people travelled as far as they could to search for new opportunities. Why did you stay?

Badu is my home. I worked my whole life to make it better and I did not want to leave it. It’s nowhere near what I remember growing up, but it’s here. We are back to fending for ourselves, but we are used to that. We aren’t going anywhere.

[Mr. Owusu coughs]

May I close that window?

Alright. Thank you.

Are you feeling okay, Mr. Owusu?

You can call me Papa K.

Papa K. How are you feeling, can we keep going?

I think I need to lie down. One day you will be an old man, and understand the meaning of that phrase.

Okay, I should start heading back then. Thank you…

I have some newspapers from the ‘20’s that you can look through while I rest. If you want.

Really? Oh, that would be incredible!

Just do it quietly.

Of course, Papa K. You won’t even know I’m here.

Alpha Smart Assistant has now ended the recording. If you wish for the recording to be stored to the public cloud as well as your private profile, please indicate by saying “store all”. If you are happy with the default settings, goodbye for now.

Kwasi is a writer and learning experience designer from Accra, Ghana. He is most curious about connections between African histories and imagined futures, and explores these ideas by reading and writing science fiction, and building worlds in role-playing games. He has worked in education design leadership in South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Mauritius, and Ghana, focusing on curriculum design, teacher training, and student experience management. He hopes that both his students and his readers connect with their inner children through his work. 
Kwasi holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University in Psychology and you can find him on Twitter @ Tri_Solarian.

Omenana Speculative Fiction Magazine, Issue 19

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Issue 19 editorial

English stories:

A CLOAK – Ubong Johnson

BAARTMAN – Nick Wood

BODIES – Chisom Umeh

THE INHERITANCE – Virgilia Ferrao

ODUDU’S GAMBIT – Albert Nkereuwem

Warrior Mine – Masimba Musodza

INHABITERS – Kingsley Okpii

French stories:

AUX PORTES DE LANVIL Lanvil – Michael Roch

NOIRE MATIÉRE – Rachid Ouadah

A CLOAK – Ubong Johnson

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Ubong Johnson
Ubong Johnson is writes when he isn't playing the piano. He is a student doctor and editor of Fiction Niche Literary Magazine. His works have appeared or are forthcoming on The Kalahari Review, the Shallow Tales Review, Eboquils, and others.

The man in brightly colored clothes, clutching a satellite phone in his hands, is Obi. It shouldn’t be he who chairs this meeting, but he chairs it anyway; speaking at length with such authority, such assertiveness only a male above fifty years in Udimili is expected to possess.

The men seated around him, all of whom are far older than he is, only sit and listen to Obi, admiration—or maybe child-like wonder—, stamped across their faces. They all seem to be afraid of this formally schooled too-young-to-be-elder (but elder anyway), who is one of the only two humans in this clan to have ever flown like a bird in the sky, on wings made of glimmering steel, that snapped out of his arms and back, propelling him into the skies the minute he made that jump above the ground. And this is why they don’t throw in their suggestions like they should or bark nays, in objection to Obi’s suggestions where it seems as though Obi has gone too far.

To them, Obi’s words are words of truth. The very words which will bring freedom to this clan in the years to come, like the crone that delivered the letter of the enemy’s surrender two generations ago at a battle parents don’t stop telling their children about. He cannot go too far—Obi. He is enlightened, of course, filled with wisdom. And so, they are wrong and he is right; whatever he says is. ‘Them’ includes even the clan head; the bald man whose dull eyes give him the look of an owl. It is he who should be chairing this meeting, who should object the most to Obi’s suggestions; who should reprimand Obi just as an elder reprimands a child who has been spotted playing in a puddle of mud swarming with worms. But he does not utter a word; he only nods, staring closely at the amber lights flickering on and on from the shackle-like thing over Obi’s neck, and spreading his lips in a wry smile that does a poor job hiding his inner disagreement with some of the things the younger man has been saying. The clan head shouldn’t be the one found disagreeing with the saviour.

If someone should ask the clan head, why he is silent — like his wife might when she hears about this, why he relinquishes the respect due him and gladly watches his subordinates clothe another in it, he’d say it is because Obi has somehow attained the closest-to-a-god status a man can attain.

“He dey fly o.” He’d say with a shrug, the stench of tobacco following his words, two rows of teeth blackened by overuse of the drug made visible. “This young man wey you see so, he dey fly like bird.”

The meeting comes to an end when the sun is just beginning its descent into the horizon. After Obi has taken everyone’s hands in a handshake, bowing in reverence, a “Thank you, Mazi,” leaving his lips when he shakes each hand.

He shakes the clan head last, and adds, “By tomorrow, we’ll gather here and watch.”

He steps aside, snaps out his metallic wings, and flies home.

As he glides smoothly across the sky, he can spot the kids looking up at him from down there, their naked, bulging tummies covered in dust.

*

“How did it go?” Obi’s wife, Uchechi, asks when Obi returns, rising from the edge of the seat which she has been sitting gingerly on, waiting for her husband to return from his all-men meeting. Obi walks into the room, shoulders low, and places the satellite phone on the table by the window.

There is no response to her question, and so Uchechi follows her husband, hugging him from behind and resting her head on his upper back.

“How did it go, my love?” She asks again. “Answer me this time.”

Obi pulls her around. Looking into her eyes, he smiles. But his smile soon becomes a grimace as he runs a finger along the shackle on his wife’s neck.

“They have agreed.” He says, his finger still on her neck, “We will be free.”

“They agreed!?” She brightens. “Then why is your face still this dull? You don’t want to be free anymore? You want to remain watched? Saddled with the fear of being taken back up there?”

“I don’t know.” He takes his face away, “I feel what is about to happen is not right.”

Silence.

Uchechi has always known Obi to be somewhat soft, unlike the woman she has since become; the woman whom years of painful service to those pathetic pale-skinned men hammered her into. She scoffs at this weakness from her husband. She spots the empathy in his eyes before he takes his gaze away, as if flinching at the disgust in her eyes. It is the same dull flame she saw years before, on the day of their release from the Sky Keeps, when he was first asked to sign a number of documents to secure their release.

“I can’t sign this.” He had said when a pen was offered him, backpedaling away from the table. “I can’t.”

Jaws had dropped as the humming AC swept wonder into the room.

“You will, alright.” Baltimore, the Sky Keep director jeered after a moment. “You don’t seem to understand what’s at stake here. But it seems your lover does,” He cast a glance at Uchechi, “and she should do a good job explaining it to you.”

“How many girls have the elders agreed to lease?” Uchechi pulls her mind to the present and breaks the silence.

“Six.”

“You told them the girls will be trained, right?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And taught how to fly?”

“Yes.”

“I told you it’ll work.” Uchechi pulls at Obi’s cheeks. “Smile. We’ll be free. Remember all we have had to go through? Remember what it was like up there? Smile. These things will finally be taken off our necks, and we’ll have a new life: we’ll no longer be observed, slaves, scared of being taken again. We’ll go to Lagos and live like normal human beings again.

Obi barely grunted in response.

“Don’t think about the girls. Consider them an exchange we have to make. I am a woman, like them, but I understand that what has to be done must be done. When it gets to their turn, they’ll find their own path to freedom.”

A kiss.

“Now, go have a bath. Sleep, too. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

She ambles off. “We will eat. Drink something, even.”

*

Obi is surprised that Uchechi manages to sleep. Unable to sleep, he has instead spent the past hour turning this way and that way on the bed. He wonders, how does a woman carry such strength in her? Such ambition. How does she glue her eyes on a goal this way, never taking them off until the goal is achieved? Maybe she really isn’t sleeping. He heaves a sigh as he raises himself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, staring down at his wife. Perhaps she is just lying there, drowning herself in a pool of thoughts like he has been doing. That must be the case, as it is almost impossible for one to find sleep on a night like this.

He climbs to his feet, walks over to the wall, and switches the lights on. The dull blue lights do not disturb sleep much. His gaze turns to the wall clock, and when he notes that the time reads 11:30 p.m. a sigh escapes his throat. A good thing he wasn’t able to fall asleep when he tried to. In thirty minutes, as is the usual scheduled check, the buds stuck deep in his ears will begin to blare. Baltimore’s voice will then demand: “Hey, 1211. Obi of Nigeria. You there? Say something. Anything. Hey?? Tap the buzzer on your neck and say something or we will come over there and get you. Know this: if we do get you, you are never going to be free again. Also, do not forget the bargain. Obi!?”

Obi hates that he and his wife have had to live this way since they were released from the Sky Keeps two months prior; he hates that their sleep is never complete. If they somehow manage to sleep through the blaring earbuds, they would surely be thrown awake when the battery-powered shackle begins to squeeze their necks. He casts Uchechi another glance as he slumps into the chair beside the bed, noting the contour of her butt. He returns from the kitchen with a cup of coffee wrapped in his hand. He downs the coffee in one gulp. Setting the cup on the floor, he leans back into the chair to place his right foot atop the bed.

He remembers the day they were taken — he and Uchechi. They were both thirteen years old, top of their small class in the Canyon Space Exploration Basic Science Examination. His mother could not attend the ceremony because she had been sent back to her village, which was several miles away. His father, who is now dead, had accused the woman of sleeping with another man, stripping her of wifehood before putting her away in an apparel of shame. Obi’s father was there at the ceremony. Tall and lanky, it was he who had adorned Obi in a chieftaincy attire, arming the teenage boy with verbal instructions as they both stood within the old village square just before a strange white man came to announce that it was time to leave.

“You are a great one.” He had told Obi, “Do not feel sad that your mother chose to bring shame upon us both by doing what she did. That’s how women are. They never know that their shame claims their relatives, too. They like to think this world is all about them.” He then turned to Uchechi, the orphaned girl who had now flanked them to the right. Her parents passed away when she was six, and so she had been raised by a white man and his wife, both of who relocated to Lagos City a week before, children following their old Mercedes-Benz as it zoomed down the red muddy road, screaming bye bye Principal Frankfurt. The missionary family, taking all their workers with them, left due to some land dispute that ended in a fat Igbo woman spitting thick phlegm on the white lady’s face, going on to lash out a hand and slap her.

“This land na my husband land. Comot here. We no need your stupid school. We no fit plant yams on top school. Carry your school comot here. Give us awa land.”

Their girl was in safe hands, Mr and Mrs Frankfurt believed; even though it was hard to say goodbye to Udimili; hard to, in Mr Frankfurt’s words, ‘turn their backs on an entire village which could do better with formal education’. They would leave, positive that they’d see their girl again. Baltimore was their trusted friend, who loved Nigeria as much as they did—or probably even more. He owned the Canyon Space Exploration and could be trusted. Baltimore used to be a missionary, too, when they were all still teenagers back in England, long before his parents insisted that he fly to Russia, to go study robotic engineering. He returned a changed person — more motivated, with a dream of changing the world.

Baltimore would always talk about what it’d feel like to live in the air, away from all the noise and pollution on the ground. One thing about him, however, didn’t change through the years: his love for Africa and its people. When a score years after the establishment of Canyon Space Exploration, the Frankfurts, who were now full-time missionaries in Nigeria, sought support, he did not only support them, he promised to train as many children as he could.

Like Obi, Uchechi was dressed in fancy, ceremonial clothing. Hers was a flowing white gown, a symbol that she was pure. “You, you are my daughter too. Go there knowing that Obi is your brother. I have told him to look after you. I know he will. Let him look after you, my girl.” Obi’s father pronounced the last two words as if he tasted them, a metallic-sweet taste. Or as if what he meant to say was, “My weak girl.”

An irony, it turned out Obi seldom looked after Uchechi. Instead, the girl looked after the boy.

Four years after arriving the sky keeps, it became clearer and clearer that this massive wonder of a facility situated on some aircraft deep in the skies wasn’t meant to be a place where African teenagers train to become better scientists, as had been touted. The organization had stopped admitting more ‘students’. They said the ship was running out of oxygen supplies. A lie, of course. The ship up there isn’t built solely like a spacecraft and does not have to depend on oxygen from a source positioned inside it. Built like a plane, though far larger, it is fed oxygen from the surrounding air through valves.

Too many teenagers were dying unexplained deaths up there, many more returning to the hostels with bleeding arms and legs, metals jutting from their bodies as if they had just fought some kind of war. No one asked questions.   

Obi cowered when Uchechi told him what was really going on: they were using black people as experimental rats, attempting to create human-robot hybrids from them. And if anyone spoke about his or her experience, such a person would be killed.

“They’ll soon come and take you.” Uchechi said one evening. She was covered in sweat and smelled of sex. “But, you don’t worry. Nothing will happen. They want to make us fly.”

“How do you know this?”

“I am a woman. We know things.”

True to Uchechi’s words, Obi was taken the next day. Two officers walked into the classroom, where science and technology was being taught, and called out Obi’s code number: 1211. When the young man stood up and ambled forward, they carefully assessed his arms and legs with their eyes before whispering: “Okay, this one might work. Big arms here.”

Obi would have surely died that night after the operation, after steel bars were pushed into his arms, if it wasn’t for Uchechi. She hadn’t only managed to get a doctor down here, to Obi’s room, she also donated blood to keep Obi from dying of shock when the doctor suggested it. The doctor, a bald white man, after he was done tending to Obi, winked at Uchechi before leaving the room. “Be glad I came around.” She knew exactly what he meant by that gesture: he needed more sex. Sex had been necessary to draw him here, and another round of it was his required payment for his service. Uchechi would not wink back, however. “I know, I am coming.”

Obi turned out to be the breakthrough; the first one to really fly. And so, he spent the following months away from the main facility that was technically some kind of prison disguised as a school, where over a hundred black students were confined, away from everyone else, under the keen observation of scientists and robotists. He spent those months learning how to fly, how to snap out his wings and push the air back as he glided in the air. Uchechi, too, soon turned out to be a success and so was introduced into the chamber that housed Obi.

“It seems it’s the Nigerians who are working at this. Who knows why, maybe it’s their unwillingness to die.” Baltimore said, jeering as he unlocked the door, his eyes on Uchechi’s waist. He knew he had just sounded stupid and so avoided every pair of eyes around him.

One night, after what passed as an awkward kiss which did not feel as good as the first, Uchechi suggested something that made Obi flinch back.

“I think we can go home.”

“What?”

“We can go back home, down to the earth. Back home. You can see your mother and father, and I can see the Frankfurts.”

He had stared at her face, amused at the foolish boldness plastered across it. Perhaps this foolishness is a thing girls get as they grow older, as their breasts form into bulging flesh that a man’s hands cup and squeeze gently, as their buttocks take shape, swaying when they walk.

Silence.

“We can, I am telling you. We can just strike a deal. There’s someone here who thinks it’s best to help us. He has been talking to Baltimore.”

It seemed foolish at first, Uchechi’s suggestion. But things happened just the way she said they would. Baltimore welcomed the idea when it was told to him, twisting his moustache with his fingers as he listened to his subordinate.

“Hmmmm. Maybe we do need more people up here. And these Nigerians seem to be doing well here. They’re smart. We could use them to man the drones, even. Okay. Okay. Bring them in.”

Baltimore would agree to let Uchechi and Obi go after a number of years. But as prisoners, however. Rich prisoners who would go on to build stone houses and woo their tribesmen with robotic abilities. It was important that they return as rich folks, so as to ignite admiration in their tribesmen’s hearts; this way, the plan would play out perfectly.

*

Down at Chief Orji’s house, no one has fallen asleep. The argument between the clan head and his wife has died down, but there are still mutters escaping his house loud enough to be heard by neighbours. The woman is bent on not letting their daughter go up there with the whites.

“Those whites built us schools,” Orji tries to persuade her. “They took our children and changed their lives. Did your father not tell you how they helped push the sea back when a flood threatened to swallow us?”

“Right. I don’t trust them. I have had dreams. Nothing feels good about this.”

Silence.

“You don’t trust them. That’s why they left. How much good has that done us?

“Even if you do not trust them, you must trust our brother, Obi, the wise one. You must trust Uchechi, too. The elders never take a decision that’ll hurt the people. In the end, this will bring us a lot of good.”

“Whatever. My daughter isn’t going.” She stumps off.

*

The sun overhead is failing against the clouds attempting to encircle it. A small crowd has gathered within the village square. It consists of the six elders, each one accompanied by his wife, the parents of the girls who are about to be taken away, the girls themselves, and a few other people who never let an astonishing sight pass them by.

Everyone can spot the embarrassment on Chief Orji’s face. His wife is not here, neither is his daughter.

The girls are all dressed in their favorite clothes, and all look happy.

“Mummy,” One looks up at her mother. This one is barely eight. “When I come back, I will be able to fly too. I’ll become like aunty Uchechi, and I’ll build us stone houses.”

The mother’s face beams in a smile as she pats her daughter’s head. “Yes, yes, yes.”

When Obi arrives, dressed in his chieftaincy attire, his slender dark wife is dressed in glistening clothes, flanking him in her splendour.

Cheering rises into the air.

“Saviour.” A man jabs his right fist into the air.

“Obi! The number one!” another joins.

Waving a hand, Obi quietens the crowd on reaching them. He walks amongst them like a king, taking a careful look at each girl about to be sent into the sky, nodding in affirmation.

“You girls are going to be amazing people soon!” he echoes.

He steps away after a while, pressing a knob on his neck. A beep, lights flickering more rapidly. Two minutes after, the distant humming of an aircraft begins. They’re here. In fact, they’ve been here since last night, waiting for the signal.

Dust fills the air when the small space shuttle lands paces away from the crowd, hissing as it is turned off. Whispers rise here and there.

“Oyinbo don return.” One woman raises a squeal, jumping into the air in excitement.

“Oyinbo don come back.”

“God bless Obi.”

Clapping and dancing erupts in the village square.

Obi and Uchechi step forward, a bewildered crowd of chattering villagers now behind them.

Clanking pierces into the roaring air as the door of the shuttle is pushed open. Baltimore steps out in a suit, and a woman in a similar suit follows after him, and stands beside him when he halts.

“Obi.” The man in a suit says, stretching his hand for a handshake. “We meet again.” Obi does not take his hand, and so he turns to Uchechi. “Uchechi. Looking pretty as ever.”

Uchechi, too, does not take his hand nor move as if wanting to hug him.

Awkward silence.

“Ahem.” Obi barks a cough. “The girls are here.”

“They are? By all means, bring them!”

“Not yet. The directorate made a promise. My wife and I for six girls. You’d have to unlock these things on our necks.”

A laugh. “I am not one to play tricks. You served us well. Bring the girls, and freedom is yours as agreed.”

Obi waves a hand, and the girls and their parents advance, carefully, as if stepping on glass. A villager makes a step, as if to follow, but withdraws into the crowd.

“That is more like it.” Baltimore says.

He opens the palm of his hand to his lady companion, standing to the right. A new employee, it seems, as neither Obi nor Uchechi recognize her. She puts a small device into Baltimore’s hand. He points this device to Obi’s neck. At once, the shackle unbuckles. The same thing happens when he points it to Uchechi’s neck.

Obi and Uchechi both backpedal, a gasp of relief escaping their throats.

“I’ll break it off completely when the girls have boarded.”

The girls reach the space shuttle in a few seconds. Obi watches as the littlest one hugs her mother one last time, his heart hammers within his chest. What has he just done? He watches everything, a sharp shiver slithering up his bones. He watches the lady in a suit guide the girls into the shuttle, to be taken away from home, never to return the same; but as slaves who will be expected to buy their freedom by selling others into slavery.

Obi wonders: Who knows what they’ll be doing up there, in the skies; what they’ll be forced to do. Maybe theirs will be worse. Maybe they’ll not only be used as lab rats for human-hybrid experiments. Maybe they’ll be sliced open and their organs harvested. Maybe tortured. Uchechi walks to stand by him. There is an exchange of glances. “They’ll find their way. Let’s be on our way to Lagos. Let’s go find the Frankfurts, I miss them.”

Ubong Johnson is writes when he isn’t playing the piano. He is a student doctor and editor of Fiction Niche Literary Magazine. His works have appeared or are forthcoming on The Kalahari Review, the Shallow Tales Review, Eboquils, and others.

BODIES – Chisom Umeh

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Admin
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Chisom Umeh
Chisom is a Nigerian fiction writer and poet. He holds a degree in English and literature. When he's not watching movies or writing about fantastical things, he's tweeting about movies and fantastical things at izom_chisom. His short story is forthcoming in Second Skin Mag.

My name is Suleiman Kanu and I never sleep. Or, rather, I’m always asleep. I’m not even sure. I just know that when the drowsiness comes and my heavy eyelids shut, they jerk open again in another place and in another body. And I become Jeremy. Jeremy Obong.

Suleiman and Jeremy never meet each other. They are several states apart in fact. The former is a cashier at a popular bank in Lagos. The latter is a writer in a small apartment in Anambra. When I earn my salary from the bank, I use it to fund my writing career and book buying habits. Because someone needs to work and earn money. And someone needs to document all this shit that goes on with me. The headache I always woke up with after every transition when I was younger; and the seamless psychic movement from Lagos to Anambra as I grew older. All need to be in black and white.

Maybe I’d even make a novel or non-fiction piece out of it someday. Someday when I’m bold enough to reveal my dual identity. Maybe.

But for now, I’m still trying my best to keep this under the radar, because here, they’d call me a wizard if I don’t. But it gets harder by the day. And I feel them closing in on me with bibles and holy water. It has happened before. And trust me, you don’t want to know what it feels like.

*

I’m Suleiman right now. Suleiman takes the morning /day shift while Jeremy does evening/ night. The bank is extra chilly this afternoon. As if the air conditioner is a portal to Antarctica. My teeth are chattering as I stamp someone’s teller. A tall man with glasses propped on his afro.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks.

“I’m… fine,” I say.

“You might want to take the rest of the day off.”

I come back home earlier than I’m used to. The sun is still bathing my apartment and Danny is looking at me weirdly. He cocks his head and spends a full minute before rushing to line my face with spittle. Dogs are the only friends I keep. They are the only people who don’t bother me when I tell them I’m not interested in game night or don’t want to go to the club.

I feel the strong urge to sleep. It isn’t time yet. The couch is a little softer and Danny’s body is a little warmer. Provigil’s effect is waning fast. I blink each time I get to the edge, but nature wins and my eyelids eventually glide over my irises.

*

I wake in a place that is not Jeremy’s one-room apartment in Awka. The ceiling is way too high and the walls way too far. And there are voices. Plenty voices.

“Jeremy shall be freed in Jesus’ name,” someone says. “Jeremy shall be freed in Jesus’ name.”

I sit up and notice oil cascading down my cheeks. I find my grandmother amongst the mix of faces gathered around me. Her eyes aren’t closed shut and unlike others, her wrinkles are from old age, rather than solemn prayers.

Even though Suleiman and I shot out of our mothers’ uterus at the same time, I first awakened in his body before moving to Jeremy’s. Jeremy’s mother thought she had a still-birth. The people on this side had formed a semicircle like this one, too, that day. My mother said she cried. My father couldn’t watch. Grandma’s face was as it is now. When Suleiman slept, I coughed and joined my mother in her cry. My awakening removed the sadness from her tears and replaced them with all the joys I brought from the Kanus.

It had been a cycle of sleep and wake since then. I close my eye as Jeremy and my dreams are in Suleiman. I go to school on Monday as the former, and resume on Tuesday in the latter’s body.

Some said I was possessed, others said it was a medical condition. I didn’t blame them. They mostly always knew only one part of my story.

“Now that you’re here, we’re going to seal your spirit in this body,” a man says. His dreads drape to his shoulders, and his red robe does the same to his toes. He’s holding a silver metal that looks like an upside-down cross. The others except my grandma are wearing white garments. They’re shoeless, too.

Wait, I thought this was a church?

They seem to have learnt. Pastors have so far been unable to do more than quote scriptures and bathe me with spittle. This man looks more aggressive. More daring. Like he can actually do what he claims.

I stand and try to walk, but the group closes around me. Their voices come together in a chant that makes me dizzy. The red-robed man grabs my shoulder and tries to wrestle me to the ground. I come down easily, even though I want to resist.

There’s a bell tolling somewhere. Plenty bells. They reverberate in the architecture of my brain. It goes on for an hour. Maybe two. I feel something pull against the insides of my skin. Like my bones have suddenly grown hands. I’m turning on the floor, and I instantly fear for Suleiman, my other self. What would become of him if they seal me in Jeremy?

No. No.

I remember a trick I usually use to put myself to sleep. I have to close my eyes, block everything out, and count to twenty.

I lie there, still as a statue.

1.2.3.

“He’s trying to go,” the man shouts.

10.11.12

“Increase your voices. Don’t let him go!!”

18.

“Increase…”

silence. 20.

*

Danny’s body is still warm. He’s licking the sides of my face. I guess it’s his way of saying welcome back.

Like a man who never knows he snores, I never know what happens to one body, when I inhabit the other.

Chisom is a Nigerian fiction writer and poet. He holds a degree in English and literature. When he’s not watching movies or writing about fantastical things, he’s tweeting about movies and fantastical things at izom_chisom. His short story is forthcoming in Second Skin Mag. 

THE INHERITANCE – Virgilia Ferrao

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Virgília Ferrão
Virgília Ferrão is a Mozambican author. She has published “O Romeu é Xingondo e Julieta Machangane”, 2005; “O Inspector de Xindzimila”, 2016 and has two novels in print. She also runs the blog “Diário de uma Qawwi”, for literature review and short stories on speculative fiction. Virgilia was awarded the Literary Prize 10 de Novembro, 2019, by the Maputo City Council, being the first woman to win this prize. She is editing the anthology “Quantum Spirits: a journey through stories from Africa in Speculative Fiction” scheduled for publication by Diário de Uma Qawwi, in 2022.

Oblivious to my anxiety and to my gloomy pallor, Kitwara ignores the silence and opens the door. She stands on the threshold, her long pink boots and silky brown braids glistening through my hut, under the ice of the nervous haze that reflects in the windows. The fog clouds my brain. It even clouds the cookie in my mouth, which crumbles, tasteless, down my throat.

I tuck my head into the pillow. The girl is speaking, but I’d rather remain evasive, slithering in the cold bed, through these slick sheets, like a river of lard.

“Hey, why aren’t you dressed yet?”

“I’m sorry, Kitwara. It’s cold. And tonight, I just want to hide my face from the world!”

“Hide? What are you running away from?”

“My destiny, obviously! I can’t stop thinking about the manifest!”

“Well, we all have this senseless clock ticking, don’t we? What’s the point of ruminating about it?”

“I can’t think of anything else”

And I grasp, again, in my mind, the old world.

They say that the old world was big. And then we decided to break it into pieces and sell the bits. When it got too small, we tried to rebuild it. But it was too late. We had spent it all on carbon dioxide credits, artificial water, and oxygen. There was nothing left for the rest of us, in the new world.

“Eish, how depressing ehh! Get up and get dressed, because the party is going to be a blast! There are good heaters there, and plenty of alcohol!”

“But Kitwara! What if the manifest gets me today? Which alcohol will cheer me up?”

Kitwara stares at me, serene.

“As far as I know, the manifest can catch you today, as it can catch you in five, ten, or fifteen years from now. Or never!”

I rise and stand by the ledge. It is amazing how the technology of the city can break through this forest. I can see the little metal bees flying over the leaves of the apple trees. I wonder if they are wise. If they have heard Kitwara’s determined “never!”. Escaping the manifest is almost impossible. Just as it is impossible for me to imagine such a thing as “cars”, circling the streets of the old world.

“Think this way”, Kitwara says, “If the manifest gets you now, even better”.

I quickly turn to her, wide-eyed.

“Better? Better for whom?”

“For you. Don’t you want to stay young for eternity? And then, imagine what it will be like to live in the Plain? They say it’s paradise!”

“No one has ever come back from there to tell what it’s like”

For an instant, it seems that the serenity in my friend’s beautiful pair of brown eyes, will succumb and swallow my soul.

“Enough, already! You know very well that the both of us have good inheritances. When the manifest happens to us, it will be glorious”.

“Will it, now? Do I really have a good inheritance? Is that the reason why I am alone in the world?”

“That is the reason, yes sir,” she assures me, “Our ancestors were generous. And I’ll tell you more: Cossa, Michael, Zuleca, Nhantumbo, they all are in the Plain”.

“What if they did not find their inheritance?”

“I hate your pessimism. You have nothing to worry about, trust me. Just get dressed and come with me to the party!”

I excuse myself. Not that my friend isn’t worthy of my company. Or that I don’t value her. I have known Kitwara since I was a child. I grew up in the dark of the woods, she was raised in the lights of city, but we are like sides of the same coin. I know by heart the scent of her hair, the path of her ideals. She is the only one capable of guiding me when it gets so shadowy. But today it’s hard to follow her sun. It’s hard to accept that “I have nothing to worry about”. What do I know about this life? Waterfalls, birds, fresh air. What do I know about it? Other than what I have been imagining?

Someone said I should try write about these anxieties. But the more I insist on sliding my fingers across the pen, the more the ink dries, my inability to communicate becomes evident. As if one could expect much from an indigenous person like myself, who took shelter in the woods and didn’t even have a proper education. The kind of education I heard about, that happened more than two or three centuries ago. In the generation of my great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. My ancestors. Where schools and universities existed as institutions. Before the old world had ended.

By the way, I was raving in dreams about the old-world times, when the manifest, obviously inexorable, came. It broke through me in the middle of the night. Some will wish you congratulations on the manifest. Others, the condolences. Who cares. I was alone, there was not a single syllable of consolation for me.

Some people have described the manifest as the feeling of having a saw ripping your skin off. Others have said, it’s like liquid mint coursing through your veins. I don’t know if it hurts. I just feel the cracking into my arteries. I see the blood clots staining the sheets and pillowcases, pouring uninterruptedly from my nostrils and ears. I feel a burn in my bones, barks in my head.

I have little time left to continue breathing normally.

Just enough to leave behind the tired and grey walls of this hut. After all the years of living in fear, like a rabbit out in the wind, I must focus on one thing only: the inheritance. The damn inheritance. I wonder if the light of my ancestors will now illuminate my path.

Stumbling, I drag myself across the dripping rug and lift my trembling fingers to the refrigerated safe. I grab the blue ampoule stored inside. Every citizen has the right to one. At least the Government assures us this. I have been guarding the ampoule like one guards his heart.

Statistics. Why doesn’t the Government share the statistics of those who entered, and those who stayed? Some things are better left unknown; I assume.

Anyway, I don’t want to get into any statistics, other than of those who lived.

I inject the medicine through my thigh. Single dose.

A distant uncle, officer at the central power, told me that my mother activated the manifest when I was just born. My father, a hunter, followed her three years later. I had no one left. In Kitwara’s family, the first and only one to have gone through, so far, was her father. The manifest caught Mr. Antonio, at the age of 55. Not at 18, as it turns out to happen to me.

Under the effect of the ampoule, the bleeding slows down and my lungs slowly open, allowing me to breathe calmly again. I must rush to the Center to reclaim my inheritance, immediately.

It is unbearably cold. I curl up in my fuzzy coat. Use my dry fingers to stretch my long dreads.

During the trajectory through the ice of the night, I try to call Kitwara, but her cell phone is off. I don’t want to leave without saying goodbye to my best friend, but under the circumstances, there aren’t many options. We will meet again on the other side, in the Plain.

I’m waiting for the train to the Build Center, downtown. There are more people waiting. Sick people like me, who have also activated the manifest. While we cross on the train, at the speed of death, I can’t help but imagine the old world. Not that I don’t like my world. I love the new world, all its technology and extravagance. It’s just that, my body doesn’t respond to the new world. My body was made to survive in the conditions of the old world. Where humans did not suffer from the manifest. My ancestors, certainly, did not suffer from the manifest.

It is not known, for sure, what caused the present generation to develop this condition. The most accepted theory is that severe climate changes are to blame. The old world by then, collapsed, and the effects are now felt in our bodies.

When the manifest gets us, it activates something in our blood, and eventually we stop breathing the oxygen of the new world. It is not a death sentence. Over the years, with the help of the best scientists, the government has managed to find a cure. In Africa, the cure is called mawa.

Mawa is implanted in us to clean and renew the blood, suppressing all the abnormalities. They say that mawa not only stops the manifest, but it also stops aging. In other words, it is a new chance. After we are implanted with mawa, we cross to the Plain, a place resembling the old world, created especially for all those who activated the manifest. There, we can continue to live, for many long years, breathing normally.

Through the coach window I can see the building that houses the Center. My legs tremble as I jump straight onto the cold concrete.

Shit! The manifest is indeed a death sentence. Forgive me if I said otherwise.

He who has no inheritance, gets no mawa. Period.

No soul has ever returned from the Center to report on the experience. We are not told who gets the inheritance and who doesn’t. My parents, my family, may have crossed over to the Plain or they may have simply passed away in some corridor of this vast building. I wonder what they do with the bodies. If this is a mystery, the government’s reasons have always been very clear: the resources for mawa development and for the sustainability of the Plain are limited. Because of that, they only allocate mawa to those who have the inheritance. This is how the system has worked ever since I can remember.

The inheritance is gauged by the database controlled exclusively by the government, a database that contains information about each of us, each of our ancestors, and our activities. Everything counts. Not only my behavior. Theirs, mainly. The care they took with the old world, with the environment, the water, the air. Each of these actions counts towards the points, negative or positive, compiled by the government. It is the positive points that determine our inheritance.

My life depends now on my ancestors.

“Ma’am, may I ask why are you laughing?”

The woman in the white uniform, reading my file, my history, and certainly studying my inheritance, continues to smile.

“Ma’am?”

She moves away through the luminous silver of the floor, and rummages through several rows of silver drawers. When she returns, she brings a small box with her.

“Rejoice, young man, you are a lucky fellow! You come from a line of exemplary people. Your relatives were true janitors for the environment. Yay, you can celebrate, as you are about to cross over into the Plain! Young man: today you are reborn! You just have to sign the form… and that’s it!”

A warmth runs through my chest, at the exact moment when she folds up the sleeve of my shirt, to insert mawa into my arm. I end up making a sudden movement, awakened by an insistent screaming. There is something horrible going on behind the glazed door.

The technician releases the metal syringe, which slides to the floor.

“What is this?”, I ask, choking as the screams hit the flank of my heart, “What’s happening?”

The technician places a hand on my shoulder. Visibly shaken, she mumbles:

“Oh, it hurts so much. It’s a reality that I never get used to. It’s always sad when someone doesn’t get their inheritance… hey! Come back here, young man! There’s nothing you can do for them…!”

Something stronger inside me keeps me from remaining still. I open the door, and I see her. Dragged by her arms and feet. Everyone ignores her pleas.

No. Not my life. Not her. How could her ancestors have forsaken her?

“Kitwara…!”

Virgília Ferrão is a Mozambican author. She has published “O Romeu é Xingondo e Julieta Machangane”, 2005; “O Inspector de Xindzimila”, 2016 and has two novels in print. She also runs the blog “Diário de uma Qawwi”, for literature review and short stories on speculative fiction. Virgilia was awarded the Literary Prize 10 de Novembro, 2019, by the Maputo City Council, being the first woman to win this prize. She is editing the anthology “Quantum Spirits: a journey through stories from Africa in Speculative Fiction” scheduled for publication by Diário de Uma Qawwi, in 2022.

Baartman – Nick Wood

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Nick Wood
Nick Wood is a Zambian born, disabled South African (naturalised) clinical psychologist and SF writer with over two dozen short stories published variously (Collected in LEARNING MONKEY AND CROCODILE, 2019), as well as a novella in South Africa (Young Africa Series): THE STONE CHAMELEON (2004). His debut SF novel is AZANIAN BRIDGES (2016) and his follow-up is the African SolarPunk novel WATER MUST FALL (2020).

VryGrond, Cape Town, November 2053

‘Halt!’ shouted a voice from the sky.

So, we stopped; all remaining sixty or so of us from our two thousand mile march from Lusaka south to here, down to the end of Africa.  

Saartjie Baartman reined in her hover-frame and swivelled around to face those of us following behind, as she floated inches above the desolate sands of the Cape Flats.

Behind her, we could all see – and most of us could hear – the pounding surf of the great Southern Ocean. A wind rose off the sea, bringing with it a stench of kelp weed, sharp and pungent, stirring old memories of sand and play. In between us and the ocean lay a bright, but ominous looking, yellow building.

To our right, the irregular spine of Table Mountain loomed, hanging above the small white washed scatter of houses, where my parents had died. A place that was named after the Portuguese explorer, Da Gama.

Do not look that way.

Immediately in front of us, the big yellow building straddled the arid landscape, alongside a field of green vegetation, all securely surrounded by razor-wire.

     Fola and I, standing just behind the hovering Saartjie, exchanged glances. The building looks heavily armed. It will not be easy to get inside. Initial resistance in Harare had cost us five lives. Saartjie had been distraught.  

     “Fellow Earth and Water Keepers, we are near the end of our mission, the cleansing of colonial Africa. Do not look up at the sky in fear, for the Gods do not speak English. Our enemies, as usual, are right here on our earth.”

     Saartjie’s eyes were hidden behind sun-darkened smart specs, so she gestured at Fola, who leaned her long body on her knobkierie. Over the months and miles, we had both learned to read well, the old woman’s looks and gestures. 

     Fola nodded, stood up straight and spun her knobkierie around, so that the heavier bulbous side faced downwards. She slammed the head of the wooden shaft three times on the ground, raising dust.

     Mechanical dragonflies poured from vents within the wooden shaft, funnelling upwards into the sky, in a colourful stream of whirring micro-drones. 

     All emitting electrical interference.  

     Those newer recruits who had joined us after Harare gasped in awe, as the seemingly vacant blue sky was infested with a dozen or so larger grey drones – marked FuelCorps on their undercarriages. 

     “The voice has come from camouflaged surveillance machines,” shouted Saartjie. “Nothing more, nothing less. Rest up here, while we Three confer.”

     The Three. Saartjie, Fola and I, Graham.

      Saartjie brought her hover-frame to earth, with some difficulty, on the small sandy rise on which Fola and I stood. Saartjie’s aged and wrinkled face was dripping – whether from the mental effort of steering the frame with her neural implant, or the gathering heat of the day, I couldn’t tell. Fola helped wrestle the anti-grav frame down safely, given the growing wind, which, as an early summer South Easter, I had known in younger years as the Cape Doctor. The wind’s clutches were cold, however, as if it carried ghosts, all the way up from Antarctica.  

     I don’t believe in ghosts. No, don’t look right!

Fola had twisted the head of her knobkierie, and her colourful drone-flies filed back into the nearby discarded shaft, as the FuelCorps crafts moved to hover en masse, directly overhead.  

They spoke from above, again. “This is private property. You are loitering with intent. You have five minutes to disperse – or you will be shot. This is your last and fair warning.”

Nervous glances went upwards from many – including me – despite our selves. The Chinese drones in Harare had been unarmed; but we could not be sure, that the same held for FuelCorps. 

 FuelCorps – a Western multinational corporation, dealing in military grade biofuels and with deep coffers, sufficient to compensate states endlessly for any collateral corpses, in pursuit of their market gains.

     Market gains, market stains. African slaves had been massive fodder for early colonial capitalism.

     Now, these companies flaunted their green credentials.

     And spoke from African skies.

I helped Saartjie step and stand, holding her arm as briefly as I could, while she tottered a moment. Saartjie’s solar H-F had been an expensive gift from the Afrixan Union, to assist her eighty-year-old body to cope with our mission from Lusaka south. But the journey had still extracted a heavy toll on her – and everyone. 

Saartjie allowed her hover-frame to drop onto the sand, with an inner command from her neural Rig, Hottentotsgod. 

“Right,” she said, wiping her brow-sweat away with a sleeve, “Let’s cut to the chase, we have very little time. Can you reconfirm that none of the biofuels they produce is for Africa, Graham?”

I did not need to consult my own Rig, Wormwood aka Cyril, to answer. “Not one ear of corn, Saartjie. All for the American-Sino War effort.  And we have offered them more than the legal minimum compensation required, as decreed by the Land Reclamation Act of Afrixa, 2049.”

Saartjie cued her smart specs translucent again. “There’s just one person inside that building, but they have enough armament, to hold off a regular army.”

“We can still fight!” Fola picked up her knobkierie and lifted it high above her head, flexing her biceps under her grey T-shirt.

“Four minutes!” boomed the drones.

Saartjie shook her head as she looked behind us, to the residue of our ‘Keeper army’, broken by the arduous journey of clearing African land and water. “It looks like we will all need fucking hover-frames, if we want to move again. I will pray for reinforcements. I will call on some Real Big Fuckers for help.”

Her swearing had become louder and longer, with the gathering miles.

Saartjie closed her eyes and clutched at the ostrich shell necklace around her neck; her long grey locks hanging over her shoulders. She muttered a string of clicks, low, under her breath.

/Xam San. I have no idea what she is whispering. So few people know the old languages anymore. But what good is a prayer, in the face of a fucking bullet? Is she losing it?

I kept my face straight, though, although my own feet were rough and raw in brown battered boots. I had at times opted for private taxis along the way. But I am getting on too, after all.

Fola joined the rest of the brigade, as if trying to rally the troops, gesticulating furiously. Now, we were mostly women, many seated with backs against small and sparse supply sacks; just a few in solar-powered wheelchairs. A tired and frenzied hum of conversation grew louder, in languages both colonial and indigenous, from the disappeared states of the Congo, Burundi, Kenya, and Zambia, amongst others.

“Three minutes!”

The Keepers stirred anxiously, and many started getting back to their feet.

Saartjie opened her eyes and sighed deeply, again, “This land was stolen from we, the /Xam San and First People, by the invading Dutch, more than four hundred years ago. Now is the time for The Great Reclamation. I want to take this building without bloodshed. Do you want to try and negotiate a rapid online deal with FuelCorps one last time, Diplomat?” 

     That’s me, for what I’m worth.

     I shook my head, fear rising sharply inside. No blood? Is she crazy? We are exposed here. I don’t want to die now.  “No! They’re based in Texas and have a White Brotherhood leadership structure. They’ve seen me on video and said ’No!’ even more loudly. One official even called me a – a – fucking race traitor.”

     Saartjie tossed her head back to laugh, a hearty guffaw that shook her broad shoulders and belly, ruffling her green and grey camouflage shirt and coat. “Because you’re white? Race, the enduring lie.”

     “Two minutes!”

     How can she laugh, as time runs out on us? Has she truly gone mad? Sudden onset dementia? We need to get out of here.

     Fola strode back to where we stood; on a small rise of detritus that smelt of stale shit and buzzed with flies. An old waste midden, no doubt left by the VryGrond squatters who had been forcibly evicted by FuelCorps.

Fola swatted a fly, homing in on the sweat around her lips. “Shall we attack, Saartjie?”

Saartjie laughed again, just a short bark this time, as she looked up at the tall woman. “We are clearly outgunned here, Fola. The threat of violence from our stun sticks and taser bolts does not deter them at all. Look.”

She pointed.

The yellow building had titanium buffers at the base, anchored with a slab of finality. The high surrounding fences crackled with deadly electricity, and steel turrets on the four main post heads glinted with swivelling smart-guns.

The fenced field of green had a small metal container near the gate, festooned with anchored robots, all with rough ground tracks and gun pivots.

“We are no match for mobile warbots. No one is even bothering to come out to try and mollify us.” She swiped a fly away from her own brow. “To them, we are just fucking flies.”

“One minute!” The drones overhead began to hum loudly, as if rising towards a deadly crescendo.

“What else can we do? No time left!” said Fola, tersely.

We can run – or surrender and retreat? I didn’t sign up for death.

“We do what we’ve always done with our enemies,” Saartjie said, “we talk… and in this new age, we make sure we don’t fucking pay for it later!”

“But their bosses have said no,” I said, battling to stop myself from running.

“Graham, for a sixty-year-old man, you can be so fucking naïve. Let’s go talk to the one person they’ve left on the ground, to oversee their weaponised garden…Let’s go talk to their gardener.”

And she stepped backwards onto her reactivated hover-frame and waved me to follow, pivoting to glide towards the building. She raised her arms and palms high in the air, in passive supplication and surrender. “Don’t shoot. We two are unarmed. We would talk, that’s all.”

Gun turrets spun, to track her approach.

“You have ten minutes to talk.” One of the drones peeled away to track her.

“Shit!” I said, and followed, with stiff and reluctant legs.

Saartjie Baartman was that sort of person. We’d followed her into so many predicaments before… and we had survived and overcome.

But what if she’s now suddenly and completely dementing?

Still, I followed, with my bladder and bowels clenched.

Thankfully, the grey drones had all become silent again, as if their imminent death threat was held in abeyance.

The wind wafted in off the sea, chilling the bake of the sun on our skins. A dark shadow was growing on the horizon – not rain, surely, in this parched land?

It’s as if I am walking back in time.

I remembered, from younger years living here, that this was called a black South Easter.

Again, I shivered.

Was it the guns blinking down on us from the sharp, buzzing fence?

Or a sense that Something Big was coming.

A storm?

Another shiver – no, surely, surely not ghosts.

I really don’t believe in ghosts.

But those dark clouds were coming, fast.

***

A short stone path led to the front door of the building, which, on closer inspection, was a drab bureaucratic brown. Large signpost on the wall in red: FuelCorps. Private Property. Friendly Fuel for Families. Approach, On Pain of Death. 

     “Any sign of a doorbell?” Saartjie gave me a wry smile, gesturing at the buzzing electrified gate, with its massive electric lock and two steel cameras at the top swivelled in our direction.

I shrugged – and then jumped, as the brown metal door cranked open, with a grinding scrape.

A smooth-shaven middle-aged man stepped out, clumsily, encased as he was in a combat straitjacket, riddled with weaponry. Even his legs were stiffened, inside Kevlar strappings.

My heart sank.

Not at his weaponry, which was intimidating, but at his tanned whiteness.

“What do you want?”

English, not Afrikaans speaking.  

Saartjie bowed, a slight, subtle bend – respect, but only so much. The rest had to be earned. “I am Saartjie Baartman of the San, First People. This is our land and I claim the right to occupy this building. May I ask: who are you, and where are you from?”

The man could not bow in return, locked rigid in his suit-weapon. Instead, he opened his empty palms. “I am Colin van Deventer, caretaker of this property, owned legally by FuelCorps. I come from here, born and bred. I’m afraid I cannot let you in – my employers will not agree. Take it up with them.”

“We have,” I said, “They were not reasonable. We hope you will be more so.” Shit. My legs below my shorts stung, from wind building to a sand blaster, and raising dust devils. 

The man clattered closer, peering at us through the bars of the gate. “Howzit, my china. Who the fuck are you, broer, and where are you from?”

“I’m Graham Mason, and I’m not your brother. I’m here to help you consider letting us in.”

 “Bottom line is, you know what we want,” Saartjie smiled, “Our journey, and those of our northern Earth and Water Keeper brothers and sisters, is well known. We want our land back, which was first ours and then stolen from us. This land is us.”

Colin shook his head, protecting his face from a burst of sand, with a raised and armoured right fist. “I have important crops to protect, for which I am well paid.”

“Blood corn. Join us and we will look after you well – we are building a new system together, where money has no meaning, as we share and protect all, with each other and the Earth.”

The man laughed, struggling to get his metalled right arm up to his face, in an apparent attempt to hide his laughter too. “Sweet words, gogo, but will they feed and clothe me and my family right now, up until I die? Can you guarantee me that?”

Saartjie sighed and looked at me, “I may be old, but I’m no grandmother, my boy. But no, there are no guarantees for anything. Things happen beyond our control, many times. But plans for a UBI are well advanced now. You will no longer be a wage slave.”

“And what about the Chinese? Don’t tell me you have been able to throw them out of Africa completely?”

“No,” I said, “But we have forced them to renegotiate terms and agree rentals not ownership, all of which favours Africans now: Afrixa is owned by no one – and everyone. Your bosses have not been open to any reasonable or fair negotiations.”

“Fair is funny, coming from another white man… you haven’t been here for a long time, though, have you? Tell me, where comfortably else are you from – Britain, Australia, New Zealand? You’re nothing but a fucking soutie.”

Ha – respect is not due to me, I guess, but I haven’t been called that in a long time. Derogatory Afrikaans term for a white male English settler – short for soutpiel, or salty penis. One foot in Africa, the other in Britain – with your penis dangling in the Atlantic Ocean in-between.

I did not get angry. I’ve learned not to rise to the bait, in sensitive negotiations. I was uneasy, though. Sun gone. Dark? Clouds racing above us, as sand blisters us.

Yes, I have always felt in-between. I guess that’s why Saartjie picked me as Chief Negotiator in those heady Lusakan days, when I was newly off the volunteer plane from Aotearoa, carrying a ton of experience in organisational conflict management – having sorted out an agreement on water rights between FreeFlow and Maori activists.

“Aotearoa,” I said, “It’s not called New Zealand anymore.”

“Whatever you want to fucking call it. It’s still a bolt hole, on your rabbit run from here.”

Ouch.

“For fuck’s sake, both of you!” Saartjie looked furious, her wrinkled brow crumpled with rage. “Enough of your white male shit! Why do you think we’re here in the first place? Do either of you know which one factor has mitigated the climate catastrophe the most, within our world?”

“Of course, I do, it’s the education and empowerment of females,” snapped Colin.

“No it’s not,” I said, “It’s the wealth curbs, taxes and redistributions, to decrease global inequalities.”

“You’re both wrong!” Saartjie rose into the air, but rocking, as the wind howled and buffeted her frame. “It’s many countries following the United Nations Directive for the world to respect and learn, from the colonised First Peoples. Colin van Deventer, as an Elder of the First People of this land, I command you to open up this facility.”

 “No!” The man spat, and the gate sizzled with his spittle.

Saartjie rose over the fence.

Colin shrugged his arms and pencil thin casings in his battle corset – and along his wrists – locked and loaded small, but no doubt deadly projectiles, with a series of clicking hisses.

“Remember Marikana,” Colin said, “Remember Harare. This bloodbath is your doing, not mine.”

Oh, shit…

“No!” Saartjie shouted, pointing at the darkened sky above. “Who is this, riding in on the Wind-Storm? !ke e: /xarra //ke…” The rest of her ancient words blew away in the wind, as the old woman bobbed and tilted, battling the brutal storm bursts.

Saartjie has indeed fucking lost it.

“Alert. Invasion imminent. Aggressive defences activated.” The drone overhead began its loud hum again.

<Incoming,> warned Wormwood, in my ear.

Oh shit.

Fola was leading an advancing pincer of people – but they were bent and struggling, against the rapidly rising, almost gale like wind. But they’re not sixty anymore…there’s now at least six hundred, or so?

“Foreigners! Foreigners!” blared the sky-drone; hum ratcheting up to an electronic scream.

Warbots crawled off the base of the wall, whirring tracks whining their menace. Small exit hatches creaked open along the fence.

<Not foreigners – Local volunteers, just arrived, from nearby shacks. Evictees from here. We’ve got lots more casualties coming then…>

Wormwood can be so fucking dispassionate! It’s all going to hell, fast as fuck…

I ran away.

The sky split open with a lightning flash, a peal of thunder, and a burst of rain.

The cold rain made me gasp and stopped my staggering run. Something’s shifted.

I turned and stared at the FuelCorps building, through a dizzying hail of rain. ‘Magnify optics, Cyril.’

Colin had fallen to his knees, head tilted back as he blinked into the storm above him, screaming repeatedly: “Nongqawuse! Nongqawuse! Nonggawuse!”

I knew that name from school. The fifteen-year-old umXhosa prophetess who led the Cattle Killing Rebellion against British settlers in the mid-eighteen hundred.  

The dead will arise – and decolonise Africa.

Instead, the amaXhosa nation paid their price in sacrificed cattle – and mass starvation.

So, I looked up too, into the heart of the storm.

Racing grey-black clouds, sheet lightning flash – a boiling cloud at the storm’s epi-centre – was that a human, for the barest of moments; swirling into focus, then gone, as rain sleeted down from her belly?

FuelCorps drones dropped like stunned flies from the sky.

Warbots pouring through exit holes stopped in their tracks.

Dead.

Slowly, the building gate clanked open, its’ lock disarmed.

Rain poured, like drops of cold lead, as Colin stood and staggered to the gate, waving us in with a drenched and defeated air.

The storm thundered its way north.

<Hottentotsgod sent me a message. Two words: No blood.>

I had not trusted Saartjie. Instead, I had broken – and run.

I stepped aside to let Fola lead the others in, to embrace Saartjie, who had landed safely on reclaimed Afrixan soil.

***

Saartjie dropped to the wet sand and wiggled her bum into a small sunken spot, digging her palms with obvious delight into the sand, to let the damp grains trickle messily between her splayed fingers.

She gave a little squeal of delight and patted the ground next to her.

“Sit, Mister Mason.”

I sat down carefully next to her, cross-legged, but with slow and stiff difficulty.

She gave me a faintly disapproving look. “Come on Graham, take your battered boots off for God’s sake and feel the sand between your toes.”

So I did.

My toes were bruised blue, with blood crusted from a heel blister on my left foot. The sand soothed them, as I shuffled them deeper into the soil.

And then I cried.

And cried.

And cried.

“…Sorry,” I managed eventually.

She patted my knee. “You’ve been on this beach before, haven’t you?”

Dumbly, I nodded. Walking the dogs, with mom and dad, every Sunday, for many years, growing up here. Then they died, while I was away earning foreign wealth, unable to come home to bury them, in the Pandemic of ’43.

“So have I,” she said. “Well, my ancestors actually, for thousands of years, before the Dutch arrived and hunted us. They called us the Strandlopers, the Beach Walkers, as if that were all we did.”

“A journey full circle,” I said.

She smiled – seemingly a little slowly and sadly? – as she played with the sand between her fingers again. “I see both of your feet are firmly planted here and where they belong, soutie.”

I laughed, but the laughter racked my chest painfully.

Some of the Keepers frolicked happily in the shallows. The tide was coming in and I caught a bracing stench of fresh seaweed.

“Do you know why I accepted you for this mission?” 

“I think so,” I said. “I’m mostly a decent conflict negotiator – when I’m not thinking of running away.”

“No,” she smiled, “Your ex-wife Lizzie recommended you to me. She told me you’re rough around the edges, but still willing to learn and help. You know what she spent years learning, of course, so that she could speak with so many more of us?”

I nodded, “isiZulu.” It had looked too hard, so I had let Lizette get on with it, alone, alongside her online class.   

“Yebo. If you cannot understand our languages, you cannot hear us… What is that mountain over there?” 

“Table Mountain,” I said, without thinking.

She shook her head. “The Hoerikwaggo. The Mountains of the Sea. As for me, I am tired of swearing and shouting, just to be heard by others. Now, I would just speak the language of my birth, quietly, with my family.”

She gave a hand signal and Fola stood next to us, her knobkierie trailing in the sand.

I am dismissed.

Saartjie kicked the nearby hover-frame gently, with her left foot.

“This machine has carried me far, but it has killed me too. I am too old to manage such a thing, for so long, with my brain-friend, Hottentotsgod. I have nothing left in me. My work is done. I sit where I will be buried, for this is the beach I would walk — soon, along with my ancestors and with much lighter legs, at last.”

Saartjie kissed her fingers and touched my forehead. 

“Goodbye Mister Mason. Keep learning. You’re still a young man.”

Stunned, I staggered up to standing, battered boots in hand.

Saartjie signalled Fola to sit, whilst still fanning sand between her fingers. 

This time, my tears were quiet.

I bowed and left.

***

So they buried Saartjie Baartman on Muizenberg Beach.

Here, in time, she will walk.

Saartjie Baartman: the so-called Hottentot Venus.

Saartjie Baartman: Earth-Keeper, Afrixan Warrior.

Saartjie Baartman: Beach Walker.

     As for me, I began the walk northwards towards the Marina da Gama. Wet bandages flapped loose above my boots and the grit of sand against my heel and soul grated painfully, but I walked on.

     I am alive, even though I’m rough and ready. Trust Lizzie.

     In my right pocket, I caressed seeds Saartjie had given me, when she found me waiting alone, outside the FuelCorps gate. My mission now? I will plant these seeds near the house I grew up in, and talk to whomever might be there, even if they are ghosts.

     The sun disappeared westward, behind the Hoerikwaggo spine to my left, while the south-easter dropped to a cool whisper through the trees.

‘Saar…kie…Saar…kie…’’

Of course. What else would the wind say?

Baartman.

Here, Africa begins.

What was that phrase Lizzie, my ex-wife had mentioned, while learning isiZulu, which many traditional storytellers had apparently used, down through the ages?

Ah yes, cosi cosi iyaphela.

A small white e-car stopped next to me and hooted, window opening. Colin van Deventer sat in the passenger seat of the self-driving car and thumb gestured to me that there was space behind him. “Hey boet, you want a lift?”

I opened the door and got in.

We are indeed all brothers and sisters, on this fragile Earth.

VryGrond, Camissa, November 2053.

Ends

Representing Sara Baartman in the New Millennium – Zoë Wicomb and Desiree Lewis (2021) in Surfacing: On Being Black & Feminist in South Africa, Wits University Press.

Nick Wood is a Zambian born, disabled South African (naturalised) clinical psychologist and SF writer with over two dozen short stories published variously (Collected in LEARNING MONKEY AND CROCODILE, 2019), as well as a novella in South Africa (Young Africa Series): THE STONE CHAMELEON (2004). His debut SF novel is AZANIAN BRIDGES (2016) and his follow-up is the African SolarPunk novel WATER MUST FALL (2020).

ODUDU’S GAMBIT – Albert Nkereuwem

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Albert Nkereuwem
Albert Nwereuwem is 24-year-old Nigerian writer and final year student of Dentistry in the University of Calabar. His stories explore varying themes through the lens of Science-fiction, Fantasy and Thriller set in Nigeria.

I.

CALABAR, NIGERIA.

I stand in the heat of Calabar, soaked from head to toe. Calabar’s sun is definitely different from the rest of the country. Even inside the Calabar sun, Watt Market sun is something else. Small Bend down select that I came to do, I have already been splashed water by a car and stuck my shoe in muddy water. I fucking hate this town. Contrary to popular belief, nothing exciting happens here, and for the past five years I have watched this “city” die a slow, painful death. Every day, I stare at the faces of the people who went about the entire year with their happiness in sealed bottles, waiting to ingest it all in one lethal dose for Calabar Carnival in December.

I walk past the stalls filled with people peddling their wares and into the shade of a jam-packed ‘shopping complex’. Watt market was not built with ease of movement in mind, so every time somebody bumps into me, I have to check for my balls because I don’t want to trend for the wrong reason on Beyoncé’s internet.

I also have to dodge the traders. A man in a black mesh singlet and jeans grabs my hand “Fine boy! I have your chinos here!” He says in an exaggerated accent; how this man got my chinos trousers from my wardrobe, I do not know. I shrug him off.

Markets are always like this, chaotic and filled with people grabbing you and trying to get you to buy their wares. That’s why I try to avoid markets altogether. But this particular trip was totally unavoidable. I have come to try get some new shirts for school and I immediately realise upon arrival that this is a mistake and I need to leave. I am trying to walk through the complex and get to the other side of the market and avoid the sunlight but these people do not know that.

As I approach the exit of the complex, I spot an ornament retailer; you know those ones that sell cheap watches, earrings and necklaces that fade and leave you wearing rust on your neck? That sort of guy. Thing is, although I know not to buy them because they’ll fade, sometimes something catches my eye and I simply cannot resist. “Chairman, come and buy, stop shining eye,” He says.

I look up at the guy; his accent and dressing indicate he is a Hausa man. His smile reveals an inlay on his upper anterior incisor and when he gestures to his jewellery, multiple wristwatches glisten on his forearms.

“Why, though?”

“The things are fine. You sef see am na,” He says in chopped pidgin English as he unlocks the small glass window, unveiling his box of ornaments. I look down at the assortment of jewellery and he insists I pick a bracelet; a silver bracelet with gold Versace logos; obviously fake, but that one is not my business. The thing is fine, so I pick it. “They are two, oga,” He says, pointing out a second bracelet “For your madam na.”

“I cannot afford it please,” I reply.

“Oya give me one thousand five hundred for the two, shikena.”

I look into my wallet and see that it is remaining 1500 minus my transport.

This guy, I think to myself. My future girlfriend will like the bracelet.

“Try am,” He says as I stand contemplating the financial implication. I put on mine and he is right; the drip is effortless. I turn to tell him he’s right and there is absolutely no one there.

No stall with bracelets. No Hausa jeweller. Nothing.

Hian.

I look at my wrist and sure enough, the bracelet is there. The second bracelet is still in my hand as well. I ask the closest shop owner if he saw any ornament seller standing there. “Oga, please if you are not buying joggers please don’t block my business.” The man does not even look up from his mounds of clothes.

Rude.

The thing is, I like free things. As I put on the second bracelet, both of them tighten on my wrists and I feel two sharp pricks on both hands. Both bracelets have turned black and, suddenly, I am drawn back to reality by the shouts of people all around me. The joggers seller sef has abandoned his business and run out. As the Nigerian I am, I follow them and run, make e no cause fight. I emerge from the shopping complex and it is dark out. I know it is still high noon so I’m unsure of what I’m looking at. I look up and search for the Calabar sun. I feel the hair on my arms stand as dread sinks into my stomach.

“Blood of Jesus!” A woman with half-done braids cries out next to me.

In the sky above, a flying structure has completely blocked the sun. It looks like a massive, metal, floating spider, with multiple legs pushing through, as if it is walking in the sky. A loud rumble goes through the entire area. I grab a wall as the ground shakes.

Every instinct in me flees, leaving only fear.

“What the hell is that?”

“That would be an Ufeni warship” a calm male voice says. I turn and the voice isn’t from anyone by my side. People push past me, trying to get to safety. Warship? In Calabar? Wetin come dey happen like this “Who are you abeg?” I wonder if other people can hear the voice as they rush past. Or is it just in my head?

The voice within my head is clear, despite all the chaos around me. “Abeg: I do not have that term in my database,” the voice says “Subject name: Joel Odudu. Twenty-two years old. Nigerian.”

“I did not ask for my own name oh!” I mumble feebly, as I  feel my heart thumping against my chest.

The bracelets glow and hum gently. “I have no name; my only purpose is to serve the wielder of Irkang.” the voice replies.

“Which one is Irkang again?” I’m running away from the danger, though it is not possible to be honest. “How fast do I have to run, to get away for god’s sake?”

The bracelet glows “The ship is exerting an artificial gravitational pull about 8.2% that of Earth’s,” The voice said, “your chances of escaping are currently at 14%.”

I stumble and quickly regain my footing.  “10%.” The voice says, devoid of emotion.

“Fuck!”

“Fuck.” the bracelets shift to a deep purple.

“I was not talking to you!” I blink rapidly, trying to process everything. Around me, people keep running, though from what I observe, the voice in my head is right. That “warship” is so big that everything around it is being drawn upwards. One of the police officers who is running with us (I don’t blame him sha; me I would’ve been pushing people away) is skewered by a rising iron rod. The entire scenery is every alien invasion movie, but this is not New York. Do the invaders know that? I look up at everything being pulled towards the core of the warship, its shadow looming over us.

I need to keep moving. Get to safety Jo.

“Ufen will consume everything, incorporating all into itself, such is its purpose,” the voice reiterates. My mind races through the possibilities and I have to decide if having a voice in my head offering me information on supposedly alien technology is now normal.

“Oh Abasi mmi!” my voice comes out as a deep screech as I’m yanked off my feet and being pulled upwards to the ship. I grab an iron fence post and hold on as tight as I can. I know that if I am pulled up, I will die in the onslaught. “Why, Calabar?” I shout over the sound of a bus crashing into the walkover bridge.

“It knows the gauntlets are down here somewhere. So, it will decimate all, living or non-living, till it gains that which it seeks,” The voice explains as I helplessly watch people not yet in the range of Ufen’s pull scream for help that will not come. Nigeria is not equipped to handle potholes, not to talk of an earthquake or a disaster of this magnitude…

“Help please!” I cry. The pull is getting stronger and I know it is only a matter of time till I am drawn up.

“Hold on!” A woman shouts at her child, too weak to hold anything. She lunges for the girl and grabs on tight. They will probably die before they reach the ship. I watch as flying shrapnel tears through them, unable to look away.

“May I recommend Manoeuvre forty-seven? The casualties may not be averted but the ship will be neutralized.”

“Who is doing the manoeuvre?!”

The voice hesitates, as if trying to understand me. I am losing my grip on the rod. The white light on the bracelet throbs gently, as if it is waiting for something. “Irkang.” It replies.

I draw in a deep breath and exhale, trying to slow my breathing. I do not know what will happen, but I know I need to survive to find out. “Do it!”

 The voice does not respond. I watch as humans get hit by higher, faster rising projectiles as they are pulled up by the warship. What is all this? How does so much chaos replace an otherwise uneventful year in the calmest city?

Finally, slick with my sweat, the rod gives, and I am pulled up. In retrospect, I could have done more with my life than be a mere passenger but, na so we see am.

“Engaging in three… two…one.” The air hums and the bracelets around my forearms turn blood red.

There is an explosive sound, followed by a rumbling. Suddenly, the pull of the ship ceases and everything and person begins to fall. I land and taste gravel, though I scramble to my feet to the safety of what remains of the shopping complex. The people who had risen too high land with crunching sounds, some of them might survive, but for the others I cannot say. I look up and see that other ships have entered the fray. They are smaller and more mobile and launch a barrage of missiles at the ship, and looping to attack again. Debris clatters on a roof.

“Do you want to explain?” My breathing is ragged as I call out, knowing the voice will hear me.

“My prime directive is to seek out a member of the resident sentient species on a planet and grant them access to Irkang; the military capabilities designed and deployed by my planet, Id’ea, to combat the invasive forces of Ufen, which are quite substantial as you can see.” The voice keeps talking as I begin to see what he’s describing. I can suddenly see the view from one of the ships in the fleet. The Ufen ship is so massive I know we cannot take it down and risk obliterating a huge part of Calabar.

 “Why are they attacking now?”

“They want the power you possess, the powers you uncloaked when you wore both onyx bracelets.”

Power? “Power? What power do I have abeg?”

The bracelets begin to grow out, till I am wearing full black metallic gauntlets. They clink as I move my fingers, reflecting sunlight. “Within each of the gauntlets lies the control over a weapon that can obliterate their entire invasive force. It is the only capability the Ufen military cannot replicate because it can only be found on Id’ea and her mirror planets, of which planet Earth is one.” I look at my hands again and then at the carnage the Ufen has dealt in just its first attack.

So much for “Nothing exciting happens in Calabar”.

II.

Etekamba – which is the name I’ve decided to give the voice in my head – is an Artificial Intelligence Module deployed within Irkang and designed to assist whatever sentient species found on its planet of deployment in the defence against Ufen forces. When I ask who Ufen is and what they want with my planet, the AI sounds afraid, though I do not think that is possible.

“I have the logs of every planet that Ufen has attacked; some were able to defend successfully but others weren’t. The people and their planet were coopted into itself.”

I shudder. Ufen means suffering in ibibio. “You speak of Ufen as if it is one entity,” I ask. We are seated outside a destroyed Chicken Republic, watching the poor attempt at aid being dispersed; the few people who survived the encounter with the Ufen warship are all gathered beneath the shopping complex at the centre of the market, which should have been destroyed completely but for Etekamba’s initiation of Irkang with manoeuvre forty-seven. The ships, all unmanned, fired their weapons at the lone Ufen ship and a secondary group flew beneath, reducing the ship’s debris to limit the impact areas of their crashes. I look at the bodies strewn on the floor, covered in varied clothes and know that though it is not my fault, it cannot happen again.

“Ufen is a single entity, spanning whole galaxies lightyears away. At the pinnacle of Id’ean technological advancements, we sought to expand even further than our own world. Id’ea created an unmanned exploratory force, controlled by an artificial intelligence module and sent it to Ufen, our uninhabited sister planet, to test its viability.” As Etekamba speaks a soothing feeling courses through my veins, and the voice pauses to inform me that Irkang is releasing a number of chemicals to heal my body and preserve its host. Then it continues.

“It was infected by a techno-organic parasite on the planet and, with the exploratory mechanisms of the Id’ean machines, it began to absorb the entire planet Ufen, using her core for energy.

“The Id’eans realised their mistake and tried to destroy it, but it was too late. Ufen and the Id’eans have been at war with each other since then, and that war has finally gotten to your galaxy.”

I ask what we have that Ufen wants. “Surely it has already found it?”

“Ehn?” One woman on my left in a faded ‘Adieu Papa’ shirt responds, thinking I’m talking to her. I apologise and point to my right ear and mouth ‘phone call’. She returns to pouring water on her bleeding forearm and I walk away from her as Etekamba responds.

“Not quite. Although it has come close to finding it, hundreds of times,” it says “Ufen yearns for expansion, to envelope all life, till it is all that exists in the universe. It lacks the technology and the power for this endeavour, and absorbing the Id’ean planet would have been enough. After years of war, near the demise of their civilisation, the Id’eans also discovered that the core of their planet possessed energy they could have harvested and used to decimate Ufen, but they were too late; their planet was dying and the energy wouldn’t be enough to kill Ufen off completely. So, they created Irkang.”

“So, basically, you’re like Siri for a world-killing drone militia?”

“Siri…” the bracelet hums as Etekamba searches the term. “That is correct.” it says, as the base of the gauntlet flows out in liquid form and covers my arm injuries “The Id’eans knew Ufen would outlast their civilisation and inadvertently win the war, spreading to galaxies ill-equipped to stop it. Between Irkang and the crimson core of their mirror planets in each galaxy, they gave their mirrors a fighting chance. This was what you of Earth would call a double-edged sword, as Ufen absorbing Irkang would spell the end of all life in the universe.“

“So why don’t you just use the tech and defeat it?” I ask Etekamba. I have not felt as healed up and strong as I feel at this moment.

“Irkang has preset techniques and manoeuvres but it still relies on the sentient species to render an air of unpredictability to its combat potential.”

“Makes sense.”

“Though Ufen has conquered and absorbed other Id’ea mirrors, it still does not know how to use Irkang’s destructive power, because it has never absorbed the gauntlets, so the weapons are merely scrap metal.”

I look at all that has happened. The destruction must not be repeated.

“Etekamba, you need to hide Irkang till we’re ready to retaliate.”

Fathers. Mothers. Brothers. Sisters. I know I cannot let Ufen take Calabar. We have carnival this December.

    “Etekamba?”

The bracelet lights up “Present.”

“Teach me everything.”

I spend the next twelve hours having information speedily uploaded into my brain. It is the most painful process I’ve had to experience in my life and Etekamba says we have to do this constantly for as long as we can. “The knowledge available to you is from countless battles between Ufen and other users of Irkang in galaxies you have never even heard of.” It says during the upload. According to it, our universe is, at its core, repetitive, with the same sequences of stars and planetary forms occurring billions of light years apart. Ufen realised that and knew if it developed light-speed capabilities, other planets with crimson cores could be harvested and it would truly be unstoppable. Its Ide’an creators also came to the same conclusion and resolved to stop it in every conceivable galaxy; their way of fixing their mistake.

All around the world, countries were preparing for war. No one knew that Etekamba and I had stopped the first onslaught, but they were bent on defending themselves. I wish I could tell them their weapons would not work in this fight; Ufen has warred against planets that had gained nuclear capabilities and lost initial engagements, then it developed countermeasures and won in subsequent battles. How did Ufen defeat all those planets?

I was not ready to face it again, but I had no choice. I’d have lived out a mundane life and died, but the universe brought me war. “Etekamba?”

The bracelets come alive “Present.”

“We need to send a message to all the world powers, letting them know I will handle the threat personally.”

“There is currently an emergency G20 summit being held.”

“Perfect. How fast can I get there?” I ask

“An hour at top speed.”

“Send me a ship now.”

Etekamba gets me to Greenwich, England in exactly one hour. I had wondered how I’d get into the summit, but my ship flew through what is considered the most surveilled airspace in the world without triggering any of their surface-to-air missiles and when you arrive in a stealth ship more advanced than anything the global military divisions possess, it earns you much-needed attention. I am tickled, yet struggling not to be overwhelmed by the fact that I am now standing before the leaders of twenty of the world’s most powerful countries. They believe they have the military powers to face up to this threat, but here I am, informing them that I am the only one in possession of the powers and technology that can save the entire world. The looks on their faces range from disbelief to anger at the vim I show. Etekamba feeds me information on every leader before me. “What is your name?” A handsome man, clearly the Prime Minister of my future country, Canada, asks.
I have repeated my name at their many security clearances but I answer him “Joel Odudu.”
“How old are you?” The British prime minister is trying to remain calm, but his rapidly reddening skin, and the fact he is shaking as he tries to drink his water, give him away

“Twenty-two, sir.”.

“Where are you from, young man?” The German Chancellor asks.

“Nigeria, ma.” I reply.

They all laugh, amused at the audacity of an individual from a country in West Africa claiming he can save them all, despite their bombs, their jets and their guns. Their arrogance is annoying. Unfortunately, I cannot tell them that Etekamba’s uploads have shown me that in the mirror planet Id’ea, the centre of power is Charias, a region in West Africa.

“Well, I have said what I travelled here to say. It will be best if you focus on keeping your citizens safe.” I link with some drone ships in the fleet and will them to rise from the floor of the Mediterranean Sea, the closest of the ships to them. “I know it seems like an absurd request but you will only make things worse for us all if you don’t comply.”

Their aides are informing them currently of a group of about thirty ships in the air above our location.

“Those ships are all mine. I stopped the first attack and I believe we can end this threat permanently if you let me do this.”

There are cries of outrage at my actions, but they all know I am right. I possess Irkang and the knowledge of its power. “Ufen wants our planet’s core,” I tell them,

“It wants our lands and our waters. I will not let it happen.”

The head of the G20 summit calls for deliberations. But I sense Etekamba’s systems go into alert. Something is wrong. I cannot speak on the podium so I concentrate and connect to it. Etekamba?

Its voice rings out in my head, “Present.”

What is happening? I clench the podium in anticipation of Etekamba’s reply.

“Ufen is coming. My deep space scanners detect an entity as large as planet earth’s moon just beyond Jupiter, headed for Earth.” As it shows me the images from the scanners relay, I feel hair lifting on my arms.

That is much larger than the first ship they sent, right? Also, how long till it gets here?

“Will that information increase your stress levels?” It replies.

This computer will not focus on saving lives, e wan form Psychologist now.

Yes. It will, I think in response, answer me, abeg.

“This capital ship is at least five times larger.” Etekamba’s voice is noticeably heavier.

I take a deep breath.

How much of Irkang can I handle without damaging my brain?

The AI pauses, likely analysing my brain. I cannot see the bracelets, but I feel them gently vibrating on my forearms. “The accelerants and all the information have improved your cognition and processing abilities. I believe in a week you will be able to control Irkang completely, Mr. Odudu.”

Now it uses my name.

Do one more thing for me. I need these people to understand. They need to see Ufen.

Etekamba projects a hologram of Ufen. The ship looms, large even in this scaled holographic image. Its tendrils swirl as it pushes through the void of space, towards Earth. Towards us.

 Fear radiates through the hall.

I address the world leaders “Ufen is larger than you all can handle,” I point to the holo, “let me stop this or we will all die.” My voice borders on desperation.

“What if you fail?” The Japanese Prime Minister asks. He waits for his translator to inform me, but Etekamba has already translated.

“I will not fail sir,” I reply him in perfect Japanese.

The world leaders do not say anything, but their fear is palpable; they have never faced a threat of this magnitude and no number of missiles prepares you for a nearly unstoppable force. They will not stop me.

This time I speak so they can hear me “Etekamba, give me everything we have.”

III.

When the initial excitement wears off, I am drenched in fear. The worst thing is the loneliness. Every so often I am pushed to ask myself: How did I get here?

A week after my meeting with the world leaders, I stand on the bridge of a space vessel; the vastness of space screams how little I am in comparison to its endlessness.

But I am inconsequential no longer; what I do here decides the fate of humanity. The journey up to my fleet, positioned a thousand kilometres over the planet, had been disorienting, but it meant when I looked back I saw all that I was fighting for; a blue ball filled with families who hoped to see the next sunrise. This is without a doubt, not the future I envisioned for myself; I am the general of an army that will take my thoughts as its orders and execute them to perfection.

With the information I’ve received from Etekamba’s database, it becomes clear to me how truly poetic combat in space is; the fluidity of the motions of the ships in the soundless void (No pew pew here). I watch as the force that is Ufen crosses the blackness between us to face me, as it probably has countless times since its birth. I’d watched other people do it; other humanoid races who existed in Earth’s other mirrors. Some had been victorious, though upon a second attack, Ufen defeated them swiftly and efficiently. I tried to learn from the losses of the now extinct planets, undoubtedly now a part of Ufen.

But nothing prepares me for the real deal.

Etekamba had not said anything since I started my journey. He’d told me if another had worn the second bracelet, I would have had a co-pilot on this journey. I know that I would have gifted the bracelet to a loved one and put them in the danger I now see before me. I look at the gauntlets, spread fully out of the bracelets and on my hands. I take a deep breath “Etekamba, can I get some music?”

Etekamba’s voice comes from the ship’s speakers “I can link to your phone. Will that work?”

“Thank you.”

The greatest threat to an overwhelming power is usually miscommunication. Unfortunately, Ufen did not have that problem; it is one entity and can deploy its forces where and when it deems necessary. Irkang was an efficient countermeasure. I needed to be fast and flexible, using my ships as a swarm rather than a massive hammer. My view was at the back of my fleet; my ship was a swift skimmer; I needed the larger destroyers for later.

I looked through my scanners at Ufen. The mother ship released thousands of smaller vessels as I nodded to the beats of Prettyboy D-O’s Dem go hear Wehn, which translates to… there’s actually no easy way to explain.

I deploy a quarter of my ships. They swarm in small squadrons through the neutral field between my ships and Ufen, all fitted with weapons powerful enough to pierce through Ufen-metal. Irkang was designed solely for the purpose of destroying Ufen and preventing it from consuming planet cores, but Ufen did not expect resistance, especially on a mirror planet so far from Id’ea. I had to overshoot its estimate of human insanity and show him how little it understands us. I peel off a quarter of the ships hurtling at the Ufen ships from my main force and direct them to attack the southern edge where Etekamba informed me the Ufen fleet have their weak spot, their engines. “Etekamba, increase thruster outputs to eighty per cent.”

 Ufen lurches into motion and the distance between the fleet and my ships erupts with missiles and long-range projectiles. I see that Ufen tilted the side of about sixty of its ships to face the incoming ships I deployed to attack their south pole. They release a volley of railgun munition – a few thousand guns go off at once.

Metal shreds. The smaller ships – mine – are all but damaged.

Ufen is fast. But I needed to be sure…

I know what it wants. I know Ufen wants me captured so it can take Irkang and finally learn to harvest cores. With the knowledge it gains from Irkang, it can produce world killers – the same kind of weapons I planned on using now; mirrors would no longer even win their first battle.

“Etekamba, now we know what we need to do, abi?”

“Indeed,” Etekamba says “Initiating countermeasures.”

“Launch my destroyers. We go at it now.”

The two-thirds of my largest ships left in closing distance to Ufen fire their missiles. Ideally, two missiles would not be enough to harm Ufen, but these were the Id’ean’s trump cards. World-killers launched at the Ufen ships. These missiles were nearly undetectable, as their exterior was made from Ufen metals. An explosion rocked the left flank of Ufen’s defensive fleet, leaving a gaping hole that it was struggling to close.

“Railguns Now!” Etekamba fires twelve railgun rounds, made from the scrap metal in Irkang’s forge. Three get through before Ufen succeeds in closing the gap and the mother ship is hit.

“Ehen!”

Ufen doesn’t relent though. It launches more ships, smaller than the other Ufen ships, but still sizeable. They do not hesitate and deploy hundreds of missiles, shredding the entire frontline of my ships.

“Hold steady,” I mutter a silent prayer. Hold steady!!

“Etekamba, how far off am I?” I bite my lower lip; the speed is jarring. Usually, astronauts train for months to acclimatise to the force, but I’ve only had a few days.

“Considering the slingshot of the planet’s trajectory. You should be engaging Ufen in ten minutes.”

“How fast are we going?” I feel the food in my system lurching about.

“Mach Seven,” it replies, which is over eight thousand kilometres per hour. I think of the people on my home planet, all relying on me to win this conflict.  We need more “Maximum velocity, Etekamba! Launch missiles.”

“Those are the last missiles in the fleet,” Etekamba informs me.

“I know that!”

The missiles are launched and the attack I executed earlier is repeated. In all other conflicts against the mirror planets, Ufen was met with an all-out assault with all their rare core missiles. They would decimate its initial force and it would attack again in a few weeks with a stronger force and defeat the planet. The Praetors would destroy the gauntlets to keep Irkang’s power from It. Cycle repeats. Being a machine, it anticipated that all its opponents would attack the same way.

So, while I make Etekamba simulate my manoeuvres and make them believable, I am on another mission. This machine-idiot definitely does not expect this.

I arrive on the Ufen capital ship, with no form of defence or even any activity.

This is the day that the Lord has made.

“How are things on your front, Etekamba?”

“I have held off on the attack and focused on the defensive.” Etekamba says “Ufen is as you predicted, inactive in its secondary position.”

“Launch the Atlantic regiment,” I order. Ufen’s secondary forces are one hundred million kilometres from the mirror planet, inactive and waiting for information from its failed onslaught to turn the tide of the battle. At our current rotation and revolution that places it just behind Mars, caught in the red planet’s gravity. I launch all six missiles at it, followed by a week’s worth of mined rail rounds. I watch as every missile in the ships I’d taken from Earth four days prior lays west to the second, defenceless Ufen capital ship. I stare in awe at the capabilities of the missiles at first but I know the job isn’t done.

“Etekamba, how is it looking?” I ask.

“The Atlantic regiment is primed, Master Odudu.”

I watch from Mars as my last ships rise from the ocean floor where Ibeno beach meets the Atlantic Ocean and fly straight up into the engagement. Etekamba is to fly them straight into the Ufeni fleet, with their reactors set to overheat. The destruction unfolds as predicted in the simulation. The strike sets off a series of reactions that end with the parasite dead.

Maybe if Ufen had left Calabar alone, it might have stood a chance; that was its first mistake. Much as I hate the damn place, it is home.

Checkmate, Unam ikot.

Albert Nwereuwem is 24-year-old Nigerian writer and final year student of Dentistry in the University of Calabar. His stories explore varying themes through the lens of Science-fiction, Fantasy and Thriller set in Nigeria. 
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