Summer had come and gone, and the extreme chill of winter had skipped right past autumn. Zen stood at his balcony window looking out at the grey city skyline.
He had used his last government voucher of the month two minutes ago to place a grocery order. He would have to apply to the local food bank to replenish some of the basics. If they had any left. But that was a task for later. Right now, he would wait to see what the day held for him, if anything.
Drone-delivered meant he hadn’t gone out or seen anyone for the past few months when stricter lockdown measures were implemented around the wider metro area. He didn’t mind though. It was better indoors away from the unbearable cold in the city since the seas encroached and brought the extremes. He didn’t have a sea view, even from this tower block on the top of the Ridge, but he knew the stadium arches would be peaking out of the rough Durban waters below the rising sun. Divers willing to risk the riptides and erratic currents coming from Mozambique had made sure the structure, submerged five years ago when the levels had risen by twenty meters, had remained untouched by demolition crews. A new reef, they had said.
But, like all outdoor movement, diving was prohibited during lockdown. Everything was prohibited if it meant going outside your home or living quarters. Home. Cell.
Two major viruses had made cities rally to get their people indoors, safe but with at least most able to work remotely and survive. Health issues had strained hospitals. Psychological issues had quadrupled. People had died from malnutrition, psychosis, and the viruses.
A strain of parvovirus B19 had triggered a deadly aplastic anaemia pandemic in the youth, with the first signs of red and purple spots, bruising and bleeding mostly ignored by the majority of governments of Oceania. The lack of blood bank supplies, let alone matching bone marrow transplants, made it near impossible to stem the red wave of infections.
Zen felt alone, not just because of the isolation but because of the contacts missing. People missing. From his life. It was difficult to imagine anything before this. Who was it he had been in contact with that he felt the loss now? His parents? His sister? He had been absent to those who should have been dear to him. He hadn’t really seen them when they were alive. Really seen them.
Did dead people see him?
Here Zen was: a survivor. But, for how much longer? And for how much longer could he, or anyone else, stand it?
He turned to look at the flat filtration unit moulded into the ceiling in the middle of the apartment, and then checked the air controller on his mobile app. A few paces into the room and he was standing under the gentle hum of the device imagining the fresh air circulating around him. The apartment block’s central purification, air-conditioning, ventilation – whatever you thought it was – had been upgraded along with the rest of the city. Roughshod work by whoever it was who got the cheap-ass tender. Thankfully, the metro grid powered the system because his pay-as-you-go electricity had been off since before May, with winter right on its heels. But at least his solar chargers lined up on the windowsill kept his devices powered, otherwise there would be no connectivity with the outside world and no possibility of being able to work. If work ever came.
How many “Free Power” online petitions had he signed in the past and still it wasn’t accessible to the masses? Wind turbines and wave farms lined the Indian Ocean horizon as far as the eye could see but surely getting a light on in the city was an expense not a luxury.
Mounting tensions festering in private chats had spilled out into the mainstream. Threats of protest actions seemed more than couch-jockeying and anonymous vitriol. He hoped it was. He needed it to be. Being out on the streets, screaming at the heavens, despite any apparent viruses was what was needed to vent and be seen. His skin warmed and tingled. It was the boiling rage and frustration. A nagging thought rose to the surface – or was it the virus?
His phone beeped. Delivery.
He didn’t need to find or put on his mask. Day-to-day, in the confines of his apartment like now, it was always around his neck, or, firmly in place around his nose and mouth. The mask was a part of him, like his underwear. Okay, maybe not his underwear, which he hadn’t worn for the past six months. For what? For whom?
He walked back to the balcony and slid open the glass door as the drone took off, over the hazy city, and back to its depot. The fresh smell of drone-sprayed alcohol on the outer cover of recyclable paper meant he was clear to handle the package.
He picked up the wrapped box, glanced around for any signs of human activity on the protruding balconies of his floor. Nothing.
Zen stepped back inside and closed the door; the sound of the air pressure resetting hissed in his ears as he mentally prepared himself to unbox his limited items.
He tripped over the dead, roving vacuum unit on the floor, and through the small, gloomy single bedroom cum lounge. The entire apartment, one rectangular space, consisted of a shower, toilet, and basin, behind a drywall to his right; while the kitchen at the far end, near the front door which remained unopened for the past months, made up the remaining three-square metre area.
He couldn’t remember when he last folded his bed up let alone changed the sheets. He walked past the only couch and scraped the metal kitchen chair away from the foldout table and sat down to check his mobile.
He snapped a photo of the box and typed. “Can’t take this much longer,” he posted on his social media.
No one really responded to, saw, or liked, any of his posts but he did them anyway. “Visibility” was the word. Visibility?
This past year was a lesson in invisibility on steroids. Like most of the citizens in his neighbourhood he usually tried to be as invisible as possible in public, but on social media it was all about being visible. Relevant.
Stay irrelevant IRL, but relevant online? Okay.
No work. No income. No socialising. He hadn’t called a mate in weeks. Okay, maybe months. Everyone was online rather. Posting, commenting, chatting, bitching, and complaining.
Zen tore at the box wrapper.
***
The afternoon sun was low, and the heat fading fast. It was like the windows and the walls barely had time to absorb anything of comfort.
His phone on the arm of the couch bleeped. He set aside his tablet and picked it up.
A like on his post. Buhle. Hadn’t heard from her in a while.
All his connections seemed to be coping with the isolation, no hassles with work, and relationships all tip-fucking-top. But here was Zenzele unable to cope in lockdown. He usually thrived on working all hours, getting shit done to deadline, work through the night and sleep in the day if need be. Catch friends later or the next weekend or the next pub-crawl. Take it day by day. Live in the moment.
Live in the moment!
Bleep. “You’ll get through this! Hang in there, mnganam!” Three thumbs-up emojis.
Whatever, Alex. The fuck do you know?
His phone vibrated: low battery.
Bleep. “There’s been riots in Wentworth the past week that haven’t been reported in the media.” A comment posted by a @FreeMzansi.
He hadn’t heard about that. Not that he checked too much of the dodgy news on a regular basis. And he didn’t know any @FreeMzansis or any friends by that handle, but Zen had posted publicly. He checked their profile. A couple of photos of Durban, the ruins down the old Berea Road in black and white. Hashtagged Release Us. Reposts about human rights.
Then, another comment from @FreeMzansi appeared: “The virus is petering out and citizens are demanding to be released from lockdown.”
Zen hit reply. “Really?”
The response came quickly. “Yeah, Zenzele. Mainstream media’s not covering it. But it’s happening. It’s nearly over if it wasn’t already.”
“Cool,” he typed back.
“Time to get out there and get our country back to work.”
Zen looked up through the balcony windows, imagining being outside, freely walking the streets. Walking. Running.
Hell yes, please. He gave @FreeMzansi’s comment a thumbs up.
Sucked into the app, he scrolled through his timeline. The same old shit. People complaining about their rights being taken away. Conspiracy theories about the origins. Vaccine developments or lack thereof. Vaccine conspiracies.
“Do you know anyone who has actually died from going outside?” asked @FreeMzansi.
An odd question but Zen gave it a thought and then wrote, “One of my friend’s relatives.”
“So, no one you know directly?”
That’s pretty close to home. As close to home as you’d want.
“No,” Zen typed back. “But still…”
“It’s all bullshit.”
***
Laughter filtered around the apartment block. Vibrations through the concrete framework meant it was music thrumming somehow. Some thrived on the confines. They used their tech to connect and commune and entertain. He couldn’t face it. It was all bullshit.
Had they even felt loss? Or was this some warped way of dealing with it? Blocking it out with the noises of distraction?
Zen had spent the last few hours into the evening deep-diving on blogs and chat sites. His head was spinning. Connectivity on this scale gave everyone an opinion they thought was worth sharing. His eyes were dry and hot from too much staring, unblinking, at his tablet and mobile screens.
The noise from the other apartments was grating his nerves. Too many people in a small space. Another remote party. Is that what we are? A social species socialising separately?
Migrants had moved south, away from the stifling heat of the equatorial zones, and seemed to thrive in this city. The humidity of the summers was now unbearable, like a thick, heavy blanket you could never get away from. And that was indoors. You were lucky if you could afford the extra cost for stronger A/C cooling because blasting it harder simply disturbed the epidermis layers of dust in the apartment. And you knew it was only your own filth catching the morning sun because the air filtration system kept all the dust, viruses, and pollution particles out.
He tossed his tablet on the seat next to him and checked his mobile feed. A couple more likes. Emojis. Where was the communication?
He stared at a high-five emoji. The open palm symbol. A hand. A digital hand high-fiving in remote space. High-five me instead. Shake me. Rattle me. Slap me awake.
Touch me.
He checked his job sites. Nothing. No new posts or prospects. Nothing in his in-box other than the usual spam and daily astrology.
What the hell is the point?
He swiped through his timeline. Nothing of real interest. No one he knew was infected. No one he knew directly had died in the last twenty-four hours.
Bleep.
“We are organising a group to gather at the old Saint Augustine’s Hospital site,” wrote @FreeMzansi.
“For?” asked Zen.
“Unity. Showing the government we aren’t falling for their bullshit anymore.”
Zen stood and paced the small room. That was a bit nuts. Who the hell would go outside and risk infection?
“Nah. I’m good,” he wrote back.
“And what’s the worst that can happen?” came the response.
“People die,” Zen snorted as he typed.
“Is that the worst that can happen?”
What the hell? He dropped his mobile on the couch and stood at the balcony window. The lights of the city looked warm and inviting. People were out there. His people were out there.
His rapid breathing frosted his view. With his forefinger he drew a circle in the moisture, followed by two dots and a crescent underneath them. What is the worst that can happen?
I live another day. Like this.
Zen grabbed his jacket and scarf from under his bed, checked for his gloves in the front pocket and headed to the front door. It took some effort, but he scraped the door open, its hinges squealing their protests, stepped outside and closed the door behind him.
The apartment was quiet.
The mobile on the couch bleeped.
This account has been identified as a bot and suspended. For more information and safety tips, click here. #StaySafe. #StayHome.
Stephen was born and lives in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. His background is Graphic Design, Creative Direction and Film. His first short story was published in 2015 in the ‘Imagine Africa 500’ speculative fiction anthology. More short fiction followed in the “Beneath This Skin” 2016 Edition of Aké Review, “The Short Story is Dead, Long Live the Short Story! Vol.2”, the debut edition of Enkare Review 2017, The Bloody Parchment, AfroSFv3, and The Kalahari Review. He is a charter member of the African Speculative Fiction Society and its Nommo Awards initiative. He was featured in Part 11 of the 100 African Writers of SFF on Strange Horizons. His debut speculative fiction novel, Soul Searching, was published in 2020.
Love is at the heart of every endeavour, in the heart of every supplicant. Isn’t that what the stories say? That’s what the ancestors always manage to weave into their long-winded speeches. They have eternity in the lines of their palms and they’re determined to make us waste as much of our soup-stain-on-a-wrist existences as they can before death licks us up and spits us back out as someone else’s insufferable ancestors.
The heart of this particular endeavour wasn’t love, which is strange since it was a wedding after all. The heart of this endeavour was stubbornness. Maybe even a bit of resentment. Definitely a lot of rebellion. And it’s been building in Ibi, thickening her skull for a moment such as this.
It’s been building up from the first time Ibi went to the tuck shop after afternoon prep to buy a bottle of LaCasera so cold it still had chunks of yellowish ice floating in the amber liquid. She’d stood behind the tuck shop, contemplating. She listened to students at the counter shove, complain, beg and haggle.
She’d stood staring into space for a while before sniffing twice like she always did after making a decision. She’d poured the LaCasera onto the rainy-season-green grass and mouthed the words her mother’s mother’s mother’s mother had passed to her through her daughter’s daughter’s daughter’s daughter.
She’d watched the drink slide off the grass and onto the dirt to mix into a fizzy, apple-scented mud. Then she’d waited, hoping some benevolent foremother would answer her call. They were generous sometimes, or maybe just bored. Kunle in SS1B had poured half a bottle of Sunday zobo to call on his great-great-grandfather before the 100-metre sprint during last year’s inter-house sports and he’d won the gold medal even though everyone knew Ebuka Okoro in SS3C was the fastest senior boy. A few teachers had wanted to disqualify him, but it was decided at the end of the day that he didn’t break any rules.
No one worried that other students would follow suit. Ancestors rarely bothered with the living outside of significant dates. They gave their blessings at weddings, were acknowledged at funerals as they welcomed the newly departed into their ranks and sometimes showed up at naming ceremonies of the reincarnated. Kunle was apparently the only child of an only child’s only child, and the fifth incarnation of a restless soul, a rare enough case to warrant the attention.
Ibi didn’t know if she was special enough to catch the eye of an ancestor, but she had submitted a striking blank sheet after her Junior WAEC Mathematics exam and nothing short of divine intervention was going to save her from her mother’s wrath if she didn’t get promoted. She was a first daughter’s first daughter, which was why she’d decided she’d have better luck with her maternal side, but she was fairly sure this was her soul’s first body, so she couldn’t count on any antecedent connections. She just had to hope her request was earnest enough, or that someone was generous or bored enough to answer.
“What is this?” the voice startled Ibi.
She looked up and immediately jolted her head back down and bent her knees in a way that she hoped was respectful enough.
“Revered mother, I welcome yo-”
“I said what is this o.”
“Oh…sorry ma I don’t know what—”
“Ma? What is ma? Call me… wait whose child are you? And will you look up?”, she said sounding exasperated.
Ibi looked up, slightly embarrassed, and saw…something different from what she’d been expecting. The woman in front of her wasn’t an elderly crone bathed in the sacred ethereal light of the spirit realm. She looked no older than thirty, and she was wearing a white blouse over grey trousers
Ibi earnestly recited her lineage, taking care to include all the titles.
“Alright, I’ve heard. I know your grandmother’s full name. Am I not the one who named her?”
Ibi shifted nervously from one foot to the other. Things weren’t going the way she’d planned.
“Well, that makes me your great-grandmother. Just call me Mma Asa,” she waved her hand at the plastic bottle of LaCasera.
“I asked you what that was?”
“It’s… LaCasera?”
“Are you asking me?”
“No ma…Mma Asa. It’s LaCasera. It’s a soft drink.”
“Ehen? Talk true? I thought it was soup”, she snapped, reclining on the air as if it would hold her. And it did.
“What year do you think I died? It tastes like Coca-Cola, but sweeter. Do they still make Coca-Cola? Give me some more, or you want me to stay here talking away all my spit while my mouth dries up?”
“Oh, sorry Mma”, Ibi stretched the bottle toward her awkwardly.
Mma Asa leaned forward in the air and rested her thumb on her nose the exact same way Ibi’s mother did when she was irritated.
“We used to be intelligent in this family. What kind of men have these girls been having children with?”
Ibi poured more of the LaCasera in the grass, wishing she’d thought this through a bit more.
Mma Asa licked her lips, crossing one suspended leg over the other and said: “Eh-hen, now why did you call me?”
“So… I had this exam -”
*
The thing about family is that sometimes, they overstay their welcome.
When they pasted the Junior WAEC results the next semester, Ibi and every inquiring eye saw her C in Mathematics. A miracle in black and white.
Over the years, the thing Ibi would come to regret the most was that she’d carried a lifelong aggravation on her head just to pass Junior WAEC, the most useless exam in existence. In hindsight, she realized that her mother would have gotten over it and put it behind her; eventually.
One thing Ibi was never going to be able to put behind her though, was Mma Asa. Through secondary school, university, the beginning of her career, and now as she was preparing to get married, Mma Asa had inserted herself in Ibi’s life. She made an appearance at any event that seemed even remotely pivotal.
Your ancestors were supposed to watch over you from afar… subtly guiding you down destined paths, diverting disaster, shaping the surface of the earth into something soft for those who walked the roads of life after them, whispering loving suggestions in dreams and tickling the stomachs of their children with premonition.
Mma Asa did not whisper gently, she snarked dryly with her mouth curved up on the left in an almost-laugh and turned down on the right as if dragged down by the weight of Ibi’s incompetence. She did not tickle, she pinched Ibi’s ears and twisted them toward the truth, no matter how harsh it was. And she did nothing from afar.
Ibi had never heard of an ancestor who appeared unsummoned and then went on to demand libation. She was like an uninvited guest you came back from work to meet in your parlour, if a guest could float imperiously above your couch peering at your ceiling fan and proclaiming it dusty (even though you’d started cleaning it regularly after she’d told you that one of your foremothers who’d had a birthmark on her left ankle like you had died of a strange cough). Ibi had to keep a supply of LaCasera in the fridge because Mma Asa got annoyed when she arrived (uninvited) and there was none to offer to her.
An aggravated ancestor meant misfortune. Ibi had learned the hard way when she’d woken up on the day of her university graduation with a pimple so large that her roommate exclaimed: “Who did you offend?”
Ibi did her best to keep her happy. It honestly wasn’t all bad. Having such an attentive ancestor got her a fair amount of unmerited favour and kept a lot of trouble away. Casual curses that would be inconvenient to the average person just bounced off of her. “It-won’t-be-well-with-you”s, “May-you-purge”s, “Someone-will-disgrace-you-too”s had no effect, and it was a good thing they didn’t because Ibi would have had an unmanageable amount of them without the shield Mma Asa provided. After all, she was her great-grandmother’s great-granddaughter. Brashness bred in the blood.
For the most part, they were a good fit. Mma Asa advised and nagged, and Ibi heeded her or ignored her and supplied her with LaCasera. Mma Asa told her stories from the spirit world and the 60s, and they laughed at how different life was from death, and lamented at how different the country was after over half a century. They were each just hardheaded enough to handle the other. Mma Asa held Ibi in her palm, keeping her safe, and Ibi held her close in return, even though neither one would admit it.
That is, until Uko. We know already that this story is not about love, but stubbornness. And what is stubbornness but pride? What is age, even immortality, without pride? Nothing. But what is youth, what is life, without pride? Nothing.
Uko was a suitable suitor. Suitably handsome, with a suitable job, suitably kind and most importantly suitably sensible. Sensible enough to expect nothing from Ibi that she wasn’t willing to give. He seemed to love her, and she liked him. And if you think of it, she didn’t like many people, so maybe she actually did love him. Just a bit.
He didn’t talk a lot. He wasn’t shy, he just didn’t have the strength for peoples’ rubbish. Ibi didn’t either, so she snapped at them. Uko didn’t snap though, he just ignored them. So, while people called Ibi a wicked-witch-bitch, they called Uko cool-calm-collected. They bonded over their mutual disdain for other people, their love of afang soup, and later to Ibi’s delighted surprise and surprising delight, the fact that they both had interfering ancestors with an inordinate interest in their lives.
The thing about family is that sometimes when you hold them close, you must hold their grudges too.
Weddings are one of the events where ancestors are required to be present. On the day of the official introduction, Mma Asa was surprisingly mellow. She watched Ibi get ready without her usual critical running commentary. Ibi assumed it was because she didn’t put much stock in marriage. She’d been married five times while she’d been alive, after all, and was convinced this wouldn’t be Ibi’s last wedding.
“Ibi.”
“Mma?” Ibi answered, adjusting an earring.
“After today… I don’t think you’ll be seeing me as often.”
Ibi was silent for a while, annoyed that she wasn’t as relieved as she should be.
“Why is that?”
“Look, this marriage thing bores me. I did it five times…and I’m not very good at it,” she trailed off at the end. She cleared her throat and continued, “Besides, I think I’ve managed to knock sense into your head already, not so?” she asked with her half-up-half-down smile.
Ibi turned back to the mirror, chewing on the thought of not having Mma Asa constantly scowling over her shoulder, and finding that it wasn’t as sweet as she’d have expected.
“You have. But this marriage thing isn’t going to be my whole life. Uko won’t be my whole life. Things are different these days. There are other… important things in my life I’ll need you for. Plus, how will you live without LaCasera?”, Ibi cleared her throat.
“I’m not alive. But you are. I think I need to let you live your life”
“Alright” Ibi rolled her eyes, “Will you visit?”
Ibi thought she saw the right side of Mma Asa’s mouth turn up for the first time since she’d broken a boy’s nose in SS2 for slapping her. It was too quick to tell. She nodded slightly before floating up to the clock and saying, “Is it not time? Let’s get this over with.”
*
Ibi should have known things were going too well. She was called out to meet Uko’s family and she waited as Uko poured out libations for the representative of his ancestors. The acrid, heady scent of the Guinness led Ibi to expect a stern, lined face and a sombre disposition. She should have known to manage her expectations where the ancestors were concerned.
They heard her laugh before they saw her. She was a large woman, with a larger smile. She looked about the same age as Mma Asa. She carried her portly frame gracefully as she floated toward Ibi and embraced her.
“Ibi! Uko has told me everything about you!”, she enthused, patting Ibi’s cheek
It hadn’t occurred to Ibi to be worried that Uko’s guardian wouldn’t like her. She’d met his parents and they’d seemed slightly intimidated by her but resigned to the marriage. The fact that this woman seemed to like her was a pleasant surprise.
Ibi spilled the LaCasera (which had been poured into a cup for respectability’s sake) with an uncharacteristic smile that she partly blamed for what happened next. Mma Asa appeared with a look of boredom that swiftly turned to shock.
“Who is this?”, she asked disbelievingly.
“Uko what is this?”, asked the other ancestor, pleasant even in her perplexity.
Who was it? It was Uko’s great-great-grandmother, Mma Eme. What was it? It was coincidence, it was destiny, it was a reunion, it was almost war, but they were able to separate Mma Asa and Mma Eme before they could curse each other so thoroughly that any children Ibi and Uko might be destined to have would never agree to come to earth for fear of cataclysmal misfortune. Mma Eme had kept up surprisingly well with Mma Asa, given her initial jovial temperament.
Later that night, after the curtailed introduction, Uko and Ibi managed to piece together an understanding of what had happened from conversations with the ancestors and what they had overheard of the insults. It seemed the two women had known and hated each other in life. They were now forbidding the marriage.
Unfortunately for them, Ibi had decided to marry Uko. That meant that Ibi was going to marry Uko.
So, she was going to have to find a way.
*
“Please give me one LaCasera and one Guinness”, Ibi told the woman at the kiosk.
“No light since two days. E no go cold o,” the woman said, snapping her chewing gum and lazily adjusting the blue wrapper that held the baby on her back.
The woman came back with the drinks in a black bag which Ibi immediately snatched, handing her a five-hundred naira note.
“I no get change o,” the woman said, but Ibi was already halfway down the street.
She met Uko outside her house.
She opened the Guinness with her teeth before handing it to him because she’d forgotten to bring an opener. Uko always called her an agbero when she opened bottles like that. Mma Asa had taught her how to do it.
She poured the LaCasera as Uko poured the Guinness and they spoke the words that their parents’ parents’ parents had passed to them through their children. The LaCasera and Guinness mingled as they poured through the air and mixed in the earth where they landed. Ibi’s mother liked to drink Sprite mixed with Star beer at parties. She said it was called shandy. Ibi wondered absentmindedly if this was shandy too.
They appeared at the same time. Mma Eme wasn’t laughing this time. Mma Asa didn’t even look angry, just slightly sad. They both looked a bit sad.
“Uko,” Mma Eme said gently, “I know how much you want this, but I can’t agree to it. I can’t.”
“What did you even do to her?” Ibi asked Mma Asa.
“Why do you think I did something to her?”
“Didn’t you?”
“We both did unfortunate things,” Mma Eme conceded.
“We want the both of you to resolve this,” Uko said.
“What even happened?”
“I don’t exactly … remember. But it was bad.” Mma Eme said. She had the grace to look embarrassed.
Mma Asa, on the other hand, had no shame “We may not remember the details, but I remember swearing that if I ever reconciled with her in this life, untold misfortune would befall me and my descendants.”
“Hmm.” Uko said.
“I don’t know how you’re going to fix it, but I’m marrying him,” Ibi insisted, sniffing twice and turning away.
For the first time, Mma Asa was scared. She knew she could not talk Ibi out of this.
“But wait… you’re not alive,”, Ibi turned on her heels, facing the ancestors.
“Yes, Ibi. We know.” Mma Eme said kindly.
“No, I mean she’s not alive now and she said ‘in this life’. So, why can’t you reconcile now?”
“There is no reconciliation between the dead unless they are bound by blood.”
“They have to be related?” Uko asked.
“Yes.” Mma Asa replied.
“What about the living and the dead?” Ibi asked.
Mma Eme hesitated, “They would have to be bound by blood.”, she finally answered.
That revelation moved Ibi’s expression like a hand in a bowl of water from dread to resignation and although it didn’t show on the surface, joy.
*
One year later, in a haze of pain, Ibi thought something might have gone wrong. Uko handed the bundle to her and she saw nothing familiar in the child’s face. No nostrils flared in indignation, no eyes pinched, searching for a subject of critique. She was almost relieved, almost disappointed. But then the baby squeezed its face into something resembling a sweet smile on the right side and a bitter frown on the left, and Ibi sighed a satisfied, longsuffering sigh and drifted off to sleep.
Gabriela Harry is a 20-year-old Nigerian writer living in Calabar. Her work often explores the stories, experiences and perspectives of Nigerian, with a supernatural twist.
Her short fiction piece, “A Foundational Problem”, was published in 2020 in Random Photo Journal.
I was eight years old when I took my first trip down to the coast. Before then, I’d only ever seen a beach on television, and I was excited to swim in the warm salty water and build castles in the pristine sand. When we got to the beach, my mother turned to us and said, “Don’t pick up anything from the beach or from the ocean.”
I knew she was worried about us bringing home a jini. Back then, you couldn’t afford to dismiss anything as superstitious. We’d lived next to a mchawi in Nairobi. If we are being technical, she lived in the neighbouring plot but when you are that close to a powerful witch, do semantics really matter?
Whenever I imagined a jini, I always thought they could be found in a Coke bottle. Perhaps it was because the song ‘Genie in a bottle’ was all the rage back then. I’d heard that they were always a shadow, following you around and wreaking havoc in your life. You would have to return the accursed object back to the ocean if you ever wanted to be free of the spirit.
Sometimes, according to some victims’ recollections, a jini would take the form of a cat. I laugh as I remember the trip to MombasaI took last year with a few friends. We’d taken to calling the cat that hang around our short stay apartment Fatuma. I think we all had a sense of apprehension though, every time we stepped out at night and caught the cat staring at us with those piercing green eyes.
I am shaken from my reverie by the familiar jingle that comes before an announcement. The train is pulling up to the station and my weekend of debauchery is about to begin. I take hold of my duffle and exit the train, feeling the shift in my spirit as I make my way out of the station. Being down at the coast does that to you. Makes you forget your troubles like all you were ever born to do is have fun.
I make a beeline for the first taxi driver in sight, bidding my brain to summon my best Swahili accent. I do my best attempt at one as I haggle with the driver over the fare but I still sound like a Nairobian. It’s my vocabulary. Even with perfect mastery of the accent, you’ll sound foreign if you don’t know the right words to say.
I pay the taxi driver the fare as I alight at my accommodation. He doesn’t budge on the amount, but I don’t split hairs over it. I’m at the coast and I feel like a king. Mombasa will do that to you, even if you have just five thousand shillings in your pocket. It engulfs you in its warmth and charms you into parting with the little you have. You will return home broke, but very happy.
I take a nap and it’s early evening by the time I wake up. I freshen up and head out for a night on the town. The club is full of Nairobians. I observe them as I nurse my drink at the counter, careful not to drink too much too fast. They are loud and rowdy and scantily dressed. I silently pass judgment; I am not one of them. I shed my Nairobian status at the train station.
After a few hours I decide to head out to Bob’s. You’ve not partied in Mombasa if you’ve never been to Bob’s. It is your closer. After the club scene, you’d come down here with your friends, have beers and wait for sunrise. It has a chill vibe to it; a parking bay turned into a bar with large barrels for tables and no roof.
It is 3 a.m. It is early for Bob’s but I don’t mind. I can’t do the club scene without my friends. There is only a small crowd here when I arrive and from the look of them, they are local. I saunter over to the bar and order a beer.
I survey the crowd as I sip my beer and that’s when I spot her. She’s looking at me and when our eyes clash, she smiles. She is the most gorgeous woman I have ever seen: honey-coloured skin, brown curls cascading around her face, perfectly sculpted curves enveloped in an olive-green dress. Olive-green is a strange colour, but it must have been made just for her.
She walks up to me, her hips gently swaying beside her and it’s enough to send a jolt of electricity down my body. I put down my beer on the counter beside me and wipe my sweaty palms on my shorts.
“Hi! I am Binti,” she says, smiling sweetly with her head gently tipped to the side.
I shake her hand and introduce myself. She smells like coconut oil but not the regular, pungent kind. It smells like the expensive Kentaste brand; the one that smells like cookies. I buy her a drink and we make small talk for half an hour. I cannot believe my luck when she invites me to tumble with her. I down the rest of my beer in one gulp and lead her home.
The ride home is short and I spend the majority of it fighting the prickle of hair standing on the back of my neck. I cannot remember the last time I felt such unease but I dismiss it as performance anxiety.
On our arrival, I offer her a glass of water, which she accepts. As I busy myself grabbing the glasses, I chide myself for not having more distinguished refreshments. When I turn around to hand the glass to her, she is gone.
In place of the exotic beauty is a looming shadow, black as night, with white slits for eyes. For a moment that seems to stretch into eternity, I am frozen in place as those white slits pierce through my eyes as if looking to see into my soul. I will myself to move but I only manage to widen my eyes further.
It advances towards me and the glass I am holding slips from my hand and crashes to the floor. I let out a whimper as the shadow forms a long thin arm and makes a move to grab mine. I hardly process the cold clammy grip because at the same time, the shadow is forming a mouth. The mouth widens as it inches closer to my face, turning into a gaping hole that threatens to consume me whole. As my knees buckle and everything turns dark, the last thing I hear is a distant, blood-curdling scream.
I wake up to the sounds of waves and the caress of sunlight on my skin. Where am I? I half open my eyes and register the silhouette of palm leaves above me. Is that laughter I hear? I force my eyes open and the most unmanly scream leaves my mouth. I am stuck amidst the branches of a coconut tree and I am completely naked. My palms and feet are getting sweaty, as they do when I am nervous or afraid. And I am definitely afraid of heights.
I twist and turn as carefully as possible so I can assess how high up I am and also to hug the branch as tightly as I can. There is a crowd of beach boys below me. They are falling over themselves with laughter.
“Huyu kapatana na jini usiku!” One of them opines. They nearly choke as they laugh even harder, slapping knees and each other’s backs.
They help me down eventually, after helping me battle my intense fear of falling from the branches. One of them climbs the neighbouring tree to retrieve my clothes. A middle-aged man gives me a sympathetic look and tells me not to worry. At least I think that’s what he said.
I learn from the boys that I am in Kilifi. They tell me I am lucky I didn’t wake up in a cemetery like other unfortunate men. They do not hesitate to repeat the story of my misfortune to any passerby curious as to the cause of the commotion. My dignity must mean nothing to them.
I don’t even bother going to collect my things from the apartment I had let for the weekend. I am on the train back to Nairobi by the afternoon. The moment I woke up on that tree, a chill settled within me. Despite the warmth and the humidity, it hasn’t left me and I know it never will because I also feel it in my soul.
END
Wangari Wamae is a writer from Kenya who enjoys writing fantasy stories. From as early as she can remember, Wangari has been drawn to books as an escape from the humdrum of ordinary life. If lost, she could always be found in the book section of the supermarket. She is drawn to writing as a way to share the beauty of her imagination with readers. Wangari enjoys adventure and can often be found on a hiking trail every other weekend.
Noel was waiting for me in the parking lot when I exited the quarantine station, blinking against the natural light I’d missed for two weeks. He still drove the same beat-up old Electro I recalled from when I left the far south ages go. Except the car was far more rusted, the patch-jobs done up in mismatched hues or sealed over with strips of silver tape.
‘Hey,’ he said by way of greeting as he took my suitcase from me and stowed it on the backseat.
‘Hey.’ I hesitated by the passenger side and glanced at the seat with its ripped upholstery. My misgivings tabulated a concise list of any number of awful things that might be lurking there, including bedbugs and roaches. The footwell swarmed with discarded bio-containers. Ugh.
Would it be rude for me to spritz this with sanitiser before I sat? My fingers hesitated over the zip of my shoulder bag. I was still masked up, so that should do.
‘Sorry ’bout the car.’ He swung into the driver side.
Wincing, I climbed in and shifted my feet in a sea of containers. The interior smelt faintly of mushrooms. ‘Can’t believe she’s still going.’
‘We’re a bit at the arse-end of the continent. In case you hadn’t noticed.’ He gave a wry laugh that shook his grey-blond dreads. Older, more sun-bronzed, he was still the same Noel I recalled. Perhaps more ropey, the ink of the snake tattoo on his left arm had turned muddy and indistinct. How much had I changed to his eyes?
While the exterior of the Electro left much to be desired, she started up at the flick of a switch, and Noel nosed her out of the lot and into the streets.
I squinted against the glare as we left town centre. Most of the buildings were shuttered, some even gaping emptily. Then we whirred out onto the coastal road. My heart leapt at the first sight of the cobalt ocean with its whitecaps, and the blue-grey mountains in the distance across the bay.
Noel’s shoulders loosened, he pulled a roll-up from behind an ear, and he grinned at me. ‘Things not looking so good here, hey?’
‘Things not looking good all over, actually.’
‘Wouldn’t say so looking at you.’ He gave a low whistle then stuck the roll-up in his mouth and lit up with the deft flick of an antique lighter. ‘You look like you could murder someone with your bare hands.’
‘You would too, if you’d done basic training,’ I said.
‘Nuh-uh, not for me. You know that.’
The acrid stench of weed filled the car, I tried to roll down the window, but it only moved about a quarter of the way. The small inrush of salt-sweet air helped somewhat. Noel puffed at his roll-up heedless that his smoke discomforted me.
‘How was quarantine?’
‘Boring as all hell. Signal kept dropping. Spent most of the time watching a gecko hunt mosquitoes near the light fitting.’
‘That bad, huh?’
‘Far more riveting than watching paint peel.’
I bit back the acerbic comment about to slip off my tongue. It was doubtful Noel ever left the far south.
These days few civilians went anywhere.
Which brought me back to my reason for returning home.
‘Did the memorial go all right? I’m sorry I missed it.’ The familiar, dull grief turned in my belly.
He gave a half-shouldered shrug but kept his eyes on the curving road. ‘Okay as things go. My ma was there for her, did what was needed.’ There were no recriminations, no “you could’ve come sooner,” or “your ma needed you,” or anything like that. The Noel next to me was as chilled as the Noel I recalled from my younger years. So long as he could smoke spliff, listen to whatever ambient drone he could download, and go surfing, he was cool. The world could come crashing down, and he’d be there, humming while rolling himself another smoke.
He was satisfied with so little.
‘I’m glad.’ What else could I say? Ma and I hadn’t spoken since I left. ‘How’s your kid?’
This brought up a smile. ‘She’s twelve in a week’s time. Looks just like her ma.’ The smile grew wan.
Noel and I had stayed in touch over the years, despite the gulf that yawned between us, sporadic text messages where our conversations were bland and basic. As an operative, I had my hands full with GrenTech business, and Noel… Well, he surfed… and tended his hydroponics.
The Glen was mostly the same as I’d recalled. A recent fire had blackened the mountains, but good winter rainfall had furred the slopes with a dull green pelt of heath. The old hotel that doubled as the town hall had been painted an ugly orange, and the black-and-white sign announced it as Els Bay otel. It’d lost its “H” since I’d last been here, and no one had bothered to put it back.
As much as I wanted to check my tablet to see if there were any communications from head office up in Jozi, I resisted the urge. There’d be time for that later. My superiors had been adamant that I sort out my mother’s estate. One individual’s efforts to stave off the apocalypse would hardly be missed for a few weeks – at least that was the running joke at HQ whenever someone took personal time.
More houses along the main road headed up the valley were boarded up, and the tarmac was so riddled with potholes Noel had to drive extra slow. My childhood home was a few hundred metres further along, on the mountain side of the road, and lost behind an unkempt hedge of plumbago. A rampant ficus that had no doubt already disturbed the foundations with its invasive root system presided over the structure, threatening to completely envelope the roof.
‘Well, here we are.’ Noel pulled up in front of the garage, which gaped at us with a half-shut door.
I suppressed a small shudder and couldn’t quite bring myself to get out.
‘I’ve tried to keep the place from falling apart completely, but it’s…’
‘It’s old, I know.’ With a sigh I popped open the door and climbed out. And it’s not your house.
Noel got my suitcase from the back. ‘You gonna be all right? Me and Charni’ll come over with dinner later, if that’s okay? We can go shopping for supplies tomorrow.’
My eyes prickled, and I swiped at them with the back of my wrist. ‘That will be great. Thank you.’
‘Key’s under the doormat. Ma’s left some boxes stacked in the kitchen, so you can start packing stuff. There’s a marker pen in the top drawer in the study you can use to label, okay?’
‘Okay.’ I still couldn’t move.
‘Want me to carry your suitcase up the stairs?’ He made a show of hefting it. ‘You gotta corpse in here or something?’ His smile was tight at the edges.
‘It’s no trouble,’ I said, keeping my expression neutral as I took my suitcase from him. He was right. It did feel as if it weighed more than it had when I left the quarantine station. My hands prickled. I’d have to wash them, and soon.
We ran out of words and ended up regarding each other for the few heartbeats of an awkward silence until Noel tossed out a ‘See you later’ and got back into his Electro.
I watched him dodge potholes the rest of the way up the road, after which a stillness descended on me in the absence of the humming electric engine.
Doves offered up their soft doo-doo, du-du-du call, and the hint of a southeaster shivered the majestic ficus’s dark green foliage. Dried grasses pushed out between the stone steps leading up to the house, and the white picket gate hung skew on its hinges, its paint peeling off in strips to reveal bleached wood beneath.
I’d been eighteen when I left my mother’s house. At the time, getting the bursary from GrenTech had felt like my salvation, an escape. No more Bible study, no more hours-long prayers, no more exhortations about sin, evil. How the plagues were our punishment for straying from the Light. I’d make her proud, I’d believed. We would have money, a future.
She’d come around eventually, I’d believed at the time.
Mother never spoke to me again, and she had reversed all of the EFTs I’d sent her. I’d become Satan’s foot soldier, so far as she was concerned.
Ten years later, here I was.
If I’d refused to come, had paid locals to pack up my mother’s house, I would forever lack closure.
With a sigh, I lugged my baggage up the stairs, passing dead vegetation in the terraced beds, the fallen leaves forming thick piles on the patio. The aloe that still stood next to the top step was completely filmed in white scale, its leaves curled.
As promised, the key was under the doormat, and I sighed in relief as I stepped across the threshold into the dim interior. The smell – just as I recalled from childhood – a mixture of wax floor polish and camphor. But the stillness, that was new. Not even the tick of the grandfather clock in the living room. Each step brought a creak from the Oregon pine floors.
First, I went to the bathroom, where I scrubbed my hands well with the small cake of soap there. Then I dug out my hand sanitiser and the disinfectant wipes.
I went to my old room, startled to find it almost exactly as I’d left it, with the drawings of horses still adorning the walls. In a different time, a different place, I may even have been a great artist. Had I had the opportunity. Before the world changed, and I bloodied my hands.
Next to my bed, on the bedside table, was a Bible bound in white leather. That hadn’t been there before I left. My lip twitched in distaste, and I slipped the book into the drawer.
My things stowed in the cupboard, I made my way through the rest of the house, opening windows and shutters. I had to get the air moving, bring in light so that I could dispel this… stasis… This house was a time capsule.
Only once I’d rinsed out the kettle and set it to boil did I sit down at the breakfast nook did I check my messages.
Except I was greeted by the “no signal” symbol. Nothing. Nada.
I moved from room to room, eventually unlocking the back door and climbing the steps to the top of the property, my tablet held up like I was some madwoman offering the infernal device to imaginary sky fairies.
No signal.
I’d have to wait for Noel to come around for dinner, to ask whether anyone else had a working connection. Or, worse, whether he’d drive me to town centre where there was hopefully a better chance to pick up a signal.
Then again, what was I really missing? The crisis-related chatter on our GrenTech intranet feeds I could do nothing about? Compulsively checking to see if Richard had been arsed to drop me a message. Hint: he was too busy shagging his girlfriend to worry about his soon-to-be ex-wife. My father had been dead since I was twelve. I had no siblings. Aunts and uncles, all dead in one or the other pandemic, terrorist attack, or armed conflict. Distant cousins on a vague, first-name basis only, and scattered all over the world.
Bottom line: I had no one, save perhaps Noel, his mum, and the few remaining community members here, who had been friends with my late mother. No doubt they’d be kind to me only thanks to her.
So, I had my tea and started packing up my mother’s bedroom.
According to the message from Noel’s mum, my mother had been found lying on her bedroom floor. She’d had a stroke, apparently, and had lain there for goodness knew long before she eventually passed. The room stank of urine, and I could only assume that the dark patch in the threadbare carpeting was where she’d lost control of her bladder. I couldn’t abide the stench, so I spent a good half an hour scrubbing at the stain with hot water and detergent, until the smell only lingered in my memory.
I started sorting her things – much-patched clothing I recalled from my early years. Nothing new or in particularly good nick. If she’d at least unbent and accepted my gifts, she could have bought herself nice things. My anger was a livid thing, and it was with great difficulty that I tamped it down.
Three Bibles here, ugh. I shoved the accursed books into a pile for items I’d donate to the local church. Maybe I could get Noel to sell off the furniture that had some value, and he could keep the money. He needed it more than I did.
Maybe invest in more hydroponics equipment. Or a new surfboard.
This thought elicited a snort of laughter. Mother would have had a fit if she knew what her life’s possessions were about to fund. I fetched more boxes from the kitchen.
Load shedding was from 4pm to 8pm, according to the chart stuck onto the fridge, but there were some candles and matches, so I was ready. As promised, Noel came around near sunset with his daughter Charni. And yes, he was right, she did resemble her mother more with her tawny skin and the dark hair that fell in thin locks onto her shoulders.
But she wasn’t as shy as Khanyiswa was, though even now I struggled to picture the girl who’d stolen Noel’s heart all those years ago.
‘Hi, I’m Charni,’ she said. ‘My gogo says you must eat immediately.’
She bustled right past me, carrying a woven hotbox as if it were the holiest of relics.
Noel shrugged apologetically, but his pride gleamed in his eyes. ‘As you can see, she’s pretty much taken over.’
‘Someone has to look after you, I guess.’ The slight smile that tugged at my lips felt unfamiliar.
‘After you.’ He gestured dramatically, as if this were some grand affair, and we were standing on a red carpet.
Neither wore masks, and it felt rude to ask them to mask up when I had already taken mine off ages ago. I’d had umpteen jabs before I left Jozi, so I should be fine.
By the time we reached the kitchen, Charni was already laying out plates at the breakfast nook. She wrinkled her nose at her dad. ‘I told you we needed to bring juice.’
‘Water will have to do,’ I said, and went to fill three glasses from the filter.
With the candles dancing, the kitchen felt homey, and we huddled around the table. Mrs Searle had made a bean curry served with mashed potatoes, and the portions were generous – more than I’d been used to eating at quarantine, where everything was pre-packaged and stale.
Charni chattered about how her school had started growing their own vegetables, how their joint project with the seniors included a small hydropower initiative at the old mill. She was like the Els River herself, small but rushing over ridges and spilling into surprisingly deep pools.
‘Don’t you want to go study at GrenTech one day?’ I asked her. Her enthusiasm was electrifying, which wouldn’t hurt when the older generation’s was in such short supply these days.
‘No offence, auntie,’ she said to me, looking me dead in the eye. ‘Why would I want to leave? Maybe get sick if I go out. Or get killed in a bombing or something. No thank you. Besides, who’s going to look after my pa?’ She nudged Noel hard, and he grinned sheepishly.
Charni produced a Scrabble set from out of the depths of one of the cupboards in the lounge and went on to beat both me and Noel soundly. I’d never much been one for children, but for a few short hours I could imagine what this life would have been like, had I never gone, and a dull ache bloomed in my belly.
And yet.
Before they left, I asked Noel about the signal, and he confirmed that it had been down in the valley half a week already. We could try town centre the following day when we fetched supplies from the co-op.
I stood on the stoep and watched them leave– the faint bobbing light of Charni’s solar flashlight the sole indication that they made it back to where the car was parked.
After the car had whirred up the road, I stood awhile, drinking in the night.
So many stars, with none of the ruddy haze of Jozi skies. A nightjar called down in the poplars by the river. Ma always told me the bird said “good lord, deliver us” but I couldn’t ever hear what she did. A chill clung to the air, warning me that autumn was biting and chasing summer’s tail.
The interior of the house was a tomb once I shut the door behind me. No power, still. From what I gathered, the load shedding schedule was a suggestion rather than a hard-and-fast way to prepare for the lack of power. I heated water for a bucket bath on the gas burner and then went to bed.
Save that I lay staring owl-eyed at the ceiling in my old room, the scent of mothballs so strong that my nose became blocked. Or it could have been the dust. No matter how I turned or resettled, I remained uncomfortable, slipping always into the trough of the mattress that had seen better days. The power kicked back on with the rattle of the refrigerator, with such a suddenness that I bolted upright.
Only the frigging refrigerator. Not an intruder. My training tallied a dozen ways a determined enemy could break and enter. Without my company-issue sidearm, I was without teeth.
After that, any thought of sleep proved elusive. I would pay for this later but took advantage of the power and made myself a cup of tea. Puttering around in my mother’s kitchen without her in it, too, felt passing strange. As if I expected her to join me for a cup. Not that we’d ever have decent conversation, because invariably she’d find a way to turn our dialogue to her spiritual matters. I missed her nonetheless, she was my last anchor to a past that had slipped through my fingers, mercury quick.
I thumbed through the old recipe book that had been her great-grandmother’s, filled with annotations in an illegible cursive. Slips of recipes snipped from magazines or handwritten on yellowed notepaper spilled out. This I’d keep. Even though the cloth binding had frayed, and the book itself was held together with twists of ribbon. If I pressed the pages to my nose, I could detect hints of the sugar of long-ago rusk-baking. Or so I told myself.
Again, I checked for a signal – still nothing. A slight burn of annoyance flushed through me, followed by a sense of helplessness. Nothing to be done about this until later – it was already past 3am – when Noel took me in to town centre.
Noel arrived shortly before lunch, although I’d been ready for him since 10am. I bit back my anger at his slap-dash attitude. How was he to know about my anxiety at the lack of communication with the outside world? Life flowed at a different pace here; I saw painful reminders of this all around in the lack of traffic, in the old man who’d cheerfully waved to me as he’d strolled down shortly after sunrise with his fishing rods slung over his shoulder.
‘Hey!’ Noel said as he opened the car door for me. ‘You’re looking a bit rough.’
I grimaced at him in lieu of smiling. ‘Had trouble sleeping.’
‘Damn, I should have given you a bit of my herb. You’d have slept like a baby.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ I tried not to wrinkle my nose in distaste. The last time I’d smoked that shit was when I was still in the GrenTech academy – and it had been both the first and last time I’d done so. ‘No news yet regarding when the signal will be up again?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’ He didn’t seem all that concerned.
I shrugged and clicked in the safety belt. At least that still worked. And Noel had removed all the rubbish out of the car since yesterday, which brought a ghost of a smile to my lips. The interior still smelled faintly of mushrooms, but I felt my usual horror for other people’s spaces slipping.
‘Do you think you could take me to see her grave later?’ I asked.
‘Sure, though I must warn you, they’re doing field burials these days. Green and all that shite because the environment.’
‘More hippie shit?’ I allowed myself a ragged laugh because I hadn’t stipulated what they must do with Mother’s body.
‘Yeah, more hippie shit, as you put it.’ He didn’t sound amused.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean—’
‘I get it. We must seem like a bunch of unwashed rednecks to you.’
‘Things are… rustic. I admit.’
‘We don’t have the benefit of living close to a slick city centre like you do.’
I sighed. ‘It’s not that glamorous. We have load shedding, too.’ Though I didn’t add that it was for as long as we’d had it last night. Nor did I mention we had other things to worry about, like IEDs, knives in the dark…
‘Whatever.’
I’d pissed him off with my attempt at weak humour, and I wanted to kick myself for having done so. We drove in silence the rest of the way, so I concentrated on looking past Noel’s profile to the choppy ocean and the mountains in the distance.
The hoped-for signal didn’t materialise as we rounded the curve of the mountain and entered town centre.
‘Fuck.’ I flicked my tablet to aeroplane mode and back, and still nothing.
‘We can stop by the police station. They’ll most likely be able to say what’s what,’ Noel said. ‘They’ll have a satellite phone. I’m sure you’ll be able to call out to your people.’
‘Thank you.’ My stomach turned over and over, as if I’d eaten a live snake, and a horrible sense of foreboding crept over me. Not having connection to the outside world, not knowing what was happening back at HQ or even in the wider world, was an absence like a missing tooth, that I kept probing at. Always with the same dismay at the rediscovery.
We pulled up outside the fortified red-brick building, and surprise-surprise, Noel handed me a mask even as I reached for the one in my bag – a fresh one out of a dispenser box in the glove compartment. So he wasn’t completely lackadaisical. He waited by the car while I went in. Half a dozen heavily armoured vehicles stood nose to tail outside, soot-smeared and dented. I donned my mask and joined the queue so that the police officer at the gate could take a reading of my body temperature and scan my ID chip.
Even through my mask the sour-onion stench of too many bodies not quite practising social distancing hit me, and I stood hugging myself while eyeing my fellow citizens. A woman at the front desk was complaining loudly about the laundry stolen from her line. She enjoyed having an audience, showing everyone exactly how outraged she was, and I cringed inwardly. Karen be thy name.
Suddenly, I felt horrid about my initial response to entering this space. Compared to most, I lived a sheltered existence, my work seeing me function more within a virtual than physical space when I was not sent out on missions.
I checked my tablet for the nth time, and still no signal.
The grandmother behind me cackled. ‘Oh, you’re not going to check your messages anytime soon, sisi.’
I turned to her. ‘What?’
‘Haven’t you heard?’
I estimated her to be somewhere in her late-sixties, sun-browned and wrinkled, and dressed in a hodgepodge of tie-dyes and homespun. The scent of stale tobacco wafting off her was strong, and I tried not to let my distaste for her body odour show.
I shook my head, not liking where this conversation was headed.
She smacked her lips. ‘They say there was a bombing. At the larneys up in Jozi. Knocked out everrrrrything.’
‘Which larneys, and if that’s the case, how do you know?’ Oh dear god. My world grew fuzzy at the edges. This woman was clearly deluded if she thought this was a reason to gossip with such glee.
She jerked a clawed hand at the communications unit across the way from us. While the screen displayed drone footage of an empty dam, the crawler going at the bottom was spitting out details about a bomb blast. Whatever the grandmother still said got lost in the white noise hissing in my head as I took in the details.
Yesterday afternoon, a drone strike. News agencies doing the best with the local intranets and satellite connections while technicians scrambled to fix this colossal clusterfuck. The screen segued to another scene, this one of a recycling plant somewhere up north. Couldn’t they show actual footage of the disaster? I needed to know! I hopped up and down, gritting my teeth at the waves of blank nausea that crept up my belly. Who could I speak to? I needed a phone line, but they were all dependent on the primary ISP, so I’d need that satellite phone after all. Fuck!
The crawler kept spewing the same information about GrenTech – nine hundred dead, severe damage to infrastructure. No organisations currently claiming responsibility for such a blatant act of terrorism. Yet.
By the time I reached the front desk, I already had my GrenTech ID card in my hand and flashed it at the bored-looking officer on duty.
Gingerly he took the card from me and peered at it, then slid it back to the desk.
‘I need to use your satellite phone. Urgently,’ I said.
‘Sorry, ma’am, this cannot be allowed for civilians.’
‘I am a GrenTech operative. Surely you can see that?’ The urge to reach across the desk and shake the man nearly overwhelmed me.
He continued to stare at me with his dull, uninterested gaze and shook his head.
‘Then let me speak to your superior. It’s a matter of urgency.’ I was going peak Karen, and I hated it. Hated the way I was conscious on the periphery of my vision that faces were turned in my direction, accompanied by a small flurry of tutting.
Someone even not-quite-whispered, ‘Ai, wena.’
But I couldn’t bring myself to care about the stern disapproval of anyone right now.
‘Please.’
He sighed, as if I were asking him to cut off his right hand and turned to call into the open door of an office, something in isiXhosa but I caught the derogatory ‘mlungu’, as well as the snickers that term elicited behind me.
Whoever was in the office, replied rapid-fire, and the man behind the desk turned his gaze back to me. ‘She says you may use the phone in her office.’
‘Thank you!’ I hurried around to the gate in the counter, where a constable unlatched it to let me through.
With trepidation, I crossed the threshold into Captain Nxumalo’s office. She was a woman of middle years, her forehead pulled into what appeared to be a permanent frown.
‘Thank you so much, Captain,’ I said.
‘There.’ She pushed the phone, amid a scattering of stationery and paperwork, across her desk towards me.
Her frown deepened as I first took out a disinfectant wipe and gave the receiver a once-over with it. I did not feel comfortable taking a seat, and aware that she was glaring at me as though she could make me spontaneously combust, I dialled out.
The first number was my office’s, but it went straight through to an automated message telling me that no one was currently available to take my call right now, could I please leave a message, blah, blah, blah.
The second number was my soon-to-be ex’s. The call went straight through to voicemail.
Captain Nxumalo glared at me over her mask, but I tried to keep my expression neutral as I dialled the only other number that might offer some sort of hope: my boss, Shuaib. It was almost a sick joke that his number went through to voicemail, too.
I put down the phone and asked the captain, ‘Do your people know anything about what has happened upcountry?’
She gave a shrug, as if the happenings in Joburg were of no great import.
My inner voice was saying fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck… a snippet of an audio-file running on repeat.
‘Could you contact your higher-ups on my behalf? It’s a matter of extreme urgency that I reach my office.’
Captain Nxumalo started laughing then. ‘I think it is time for you to go, lady. You and everyone else must stand in line.’
‘Please!’ I hated how my plea came out as a squeal. ‘GrenTech’s services provide a backbone for all our telecom. This affects you and the community you serve as much as it does me.’
The woman sighed and rubbed at her forehead before she made eye contact with me again. ‘You can leave your details by the front desk. I will have one of my warrant officers try make contact with your people, and you can check in tomorrow. That is the best we can do. And there are no guarantees.’
I could tell from her stony expression that I’d pushed my luck as far as I dared. A wave of inevitability swarmed over me. If I waited for the police to move on this emergency, I may as well wait for the figurative buffalo to fly. But what to do?
After thanking the captain, I did as she’d suggested, and left my details with the warrant officer at the desk. He’d spelled my name wrong, but I didn’t have the energy to correct him. Since telecoms were down, there was no point in leaving a number, but I said I’d come back the following day.
Not that I would. Even as I stepped out into the parking area, the barest skeleton of a plan was forming. I didn’t have much to go on, but a flimsy skein was better than none at all. Noel was smoking one of his noxious roll-ups when I reached the car, and hastily stubbed the thing out and tucked it into a small tin that he slipped into his jeans pocket.
‘You done?’ he asked.
‘About as done as I can be,’ I told him as I got in then reached for my sanitiser out of habit. Ugh, I needed to wash my hands with soap. My skin was tacky.
‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s been a bombing, at my headquarters.’
‘That sucks.’ His brow creased.
He meant well, but it was clear that the heaviness of my situation meant precious little to him – the location, the people.
‘I need to go back to quarantine. Now. I don’t have time.’ I’d have to see if I could put in a request for my slot to be fast tracked, due to the urgency of my need to return to HQ. It was a long shot, but it was better than waiting here for the signal to be repaired, for word to reach me from my superiors.
Noel’s expression transformed from mild concern to pure puzzlement. ‘Why? What could you possibly do? Won’t it be better for you to just wait?’
‘You see, that’s the difference between you and me, Noel,’ I spat, suddenly angry. ‘You’re content to let the world change under your feet. I’m not. I’m the one who does the changing.’
‘Sheesh, no need to get all harsh on me.’ He shrugged and started the car, and he didn’t so much as glance at me once he’d pulled us back into Main Road. It was a short drive to the quarantine station – so short I could have walked. I should have walked.
There was so much left undone with Mother’s house. I hadn’t even got a proper start on it. And I couldn’t let things between us slide apart without an apology. Without some direction as to where we went from here.
‘I have to do this,’ I told him. ‘I’m sorry.’
Another shrug. A noncommittal grunt.
I wet my lips, dragging after options. ‘Um, tell Charni I’ll pay her to box the things from my mom’s house. Tell her… Tell her I trust her judgment about what she wants to do with the stuff, if she wants to keep it, sell it, pass it on to charity… Whatever she thinks best. Oh, and if you can bring my stuff later today, that will help. They’ll release it when I’m out on the other side.’
He glanced at me sharply then focused on the road as he took the tight corner going up into the quarantine station drive. ‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure. I don’t—’ know when or if I’ll be back.
He pulled the car into a parking space. ‘Okay. Um.’ Noel scrubbed at his nape and opened his mouth as if he had lots to say but wasn’t quite sure which words would work.
‘Thank you,’ I told him. ‘I know I haven’t been the best friend, and it’s been years.’
This time he managed to maintain eye contact, and his eyes were perhaps a little too bright. ‘It was good seeing you again. I’m… I’m sorry we didn’t get to spend more time… I’d hoped…’
‘When this whole mess blows over, you can take me surfing there by Misty Cliffs. How does that sound? I’ll come out and spend two weeks.’
This time his smile reached his eyes. ‘Yeah, yeah, that sounds rad.’
Our awkward hug ended with him giving me a hesitant peck on the cheek, and squeezing my hand before I entered the quarantine station.
The interior was hushed but for the aircon’s hum, and the overhead strip lighting flickered in a way that made me feel instantly nauseous. I scanned my left wrist where my ID chip was lodged, inputted my details at the check-in console, and the sliding doors shushed open for me. The sickeningly familiar blank corridor yawned, with its identical shut doors running down either side. Two weeks of this. So soon. But the urgency to return to Joburg lent me all the wherewithal I needed to endure this.
‘Cubicle twelve-A, Agent De Villiers,’ announced the stilted female AI voice over the intercom.
A door sliced open in the distance, and I hurried towards it.
Who else was here? Anyone? Very few locals had the social credits to move freely between the Zones. In all likelihood, I was the only one in a fully automated station. This was going to be hell without a signal, but hopefully the intranet would have content I could access out of its caches. Even if it was stuff I’d watched before.
My home for the next fourteen days had space only for a narrow cot and a closet that doubled as a shower and a toilet. There was enough room for me to do push-ups. The beige walls closed in immediately. I didn’t even have a window. The wall-mounted screen that was supposed to be linked to the web showed only the station’s home screen – blue with the GrenTech logo flashing in the top right-hand corner. I turned off the screen then set my tablet to charge.
I went through the familiar routine of placing my clothing and boots into the chute so that they could go for further decontamination. In the drawer beneath my bed was the glorified paper nightgown that would be my uniform for the next two weeks. Each day a new one would arrive, delivered by the automated system, and my old one would end up in the composter.
I’d know it was the last day when my clothing was delivered, reeking of disinfectant.
And if I got sick…
I glanced up at the blinking sensors that monitored my vital signs. This cubicle could double as a makeshift coffin until such time as GrenTech sent agents fully kitted up in HazMat suits.
*
Five changes of clothing I counted. I slept. I meditated. I did what body weight exercises I could do in such limited space.
And then my tablet’s incoming signal bleeped.
I gave a small, inarticulate shriek and dived across the space so that I could grab at the tablet, and promptly nearly dropped it before I could get the facial recognition to work.
The incoming message was from an unknown number:
Unknown: Get out of while youcan. They coming for y
Jen: Who’s this?
I tried calling the number, and all I got was a “The number you are looking for no longer exists.”
And nothing else of any worth. No notification from HQ or anyone else in my department, let alone my company. I scanned the message queue for what felt like forever, seeing only messages from my assorted subscriptions. And nothing else from my mysterious unknown sender. All banter on the internal comms ceased five days ago.
After that, I scanned the news feeds, but it was all foreign correspondents from Europe and English-language Middle Eastern stations. Nothing local. No local news whatsoever, in fact. My Mandarin was so sketchy, I had no hope of understanding anything from those sources.
I tried calling out and got the same voice mails I’d received when I’d used the police captain’s phone.
Then I trawled the search engines and tracked down the news reports I’d seen half a week ago in the police station. And then even the local news stations had gone dark. Creeping horror clawed up my spine. What was going on? My entire career depended on being able to access information, and now even that was lost to me. Like a spider that had its web cut out from under it. Little lights winking out one after the other.
A high-pitched whine built up at the back of my throat, and I paced the small space. Those walls got even smaller and tighter. I jiggled the door, but it remained sealed. Even if I tried to slip my fingers into the gap, there wasn’t even enough space for me to gain purchase.
Get out of while youcan. They coming for y
GrenTech had its enemies. Which multi-national tech conglomerate didn’t? Except GrenTech’s products and services provided the backbone to the entire region’s economy. Without the connective tissue we provided, especially in terms of communications, the whole of the southern part of the continent was essentially cut into a bunch of loosely flailing city states.
Someone had targeted GrenTech’s very nerve centre, and whoever had survived – and there were survivors, I had proof of that – were in grave danger.
I was in grave danger.
I gave a small shriek and shoved at the door with my shoulder. It was constructed from a reinforced plastic. Durable, but not impossible to breach with the right amount of effort.
Get out of while youcan. They coming for y
Who was coming for me? When?
There was no point in cursing myself for an idiot. Not now. If I got out of here alive, I’d have plenty leisure time to beat myself up over making myself the perfect target. I’d logged in, for crying out loud. Whoever monitored the quarantine stations could come and pick me off at their leisure once the outbound communication was logged. Now that the quarantine station was linked to a signal again, whoever held the reins could simply run a search and track me down.
Muttering every expletive I knew under my breath, I took stock of my resources. I wasn’t a techie or a programmer. There was no hacking into a mainframe like that fancy cyberpunk series that played when I was little. But I wasn’t going to wait like a sheep in the slaughterhouse.
How would they do it? Would they send an agent to make sure the deed was done? Send a drone? Would they starve me? I paused. No, they’d send an operative. Drones were expensive. Starving me wasn’t a guarantee that I’d allow myself to die. How long did I have? An hour, a day? It depended on where the nearest enemy operative was based. Could be a Zone over, or even in another province.
It amazed me how desperation lent strength to my efforts. The covering for the supply hatch was thin and metal, and though I cut my hand badly, I was able to jiggle the thing loose and use it to lever enough of a crack in my unit’s door in order for me to wedge in an elbow. While the door could handle a fair battering from within, I could shove it off its runners if I pushed hard enough and had enough traction.
I’d barely crowed my triumph at getting this far when the station sirens blared into life – a wailing that nearly deafened me after my days of quiet.
‘Bastard!’ I’d managed to get the door mostly open, but the gap was not wide enough for me to push my entire body through. The thin gown I wore tore, and my skin scraped against the edges, but I’d come this far, and I wasn’t about to give up.
What if I was overreacting? This was a serious breach of protocol for a GrenTech agent. The repercussions could cost me my career, my future. Then again, what career? What future? I’d seen the damage to HQ, and the black hole of any further news after the event was as damning as my inability to reach out to any one of my colleagues.
And if whoever it was who’d orchestrated this event had come after the big fish, they’d surely come for the small fish, too. And their families.
What about Charni? Noel? The people from the valley where I grew up?
Cold dread had me in its fist, squeezing, and I fought harder, thrashing like an antelope trapped in a snare until the resistance gave, and I floundered into the narrow passage. Now there was still the door leading to the foyer that was locked tight, and that damnable siren’s wail made it impossible to think. I was still stuck, naked. Vulnerable.
Except there was a fire extinguisher at the other end of the passage. I went back and fetched it, the cylinder heavy and comforting as I brought it down where the locking mechanism would kiss into the wall. The first thud bounced the fire extinguisher back at me, but I paused, got a better grip on it, and tried again.
Thin cracks spidered from the point of impact in the plastic, and I struck at it again and again, yelling in time with each attempt. I laughed at the absurdity of my situation once the door started caving in, and when it was quite loose in its rail, I doubled my efforts.
I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the man who stood on the other side in the foyer.
Maybe he expected me to be cowed by his firearm, but by then, all bloody and angry, I kept my momentum going and hauled at him with the fire extinguisher.
The man might be bigger than me, but he had to choose: drop his firearm and try stop me from braining him, or try to shoot. All was a confusion of limbs, and the gun went flying with a metallic clatter, and we went down, grappling and grunting. My would-be assassin was a touch bigger, stronger, but he was not fast and desperate, like I was.
He got in a lucky punch, that I didn’t quite dodge. His fist skimmed my left temple, and I knocked the back of my skull against the floor. Starbursts blossomed in my vision, and my world greyed out for a few seconds. Then my training kicked in, and I twisted part of the way out of his grip, even though he was able to get a hold of my legs.
We rolled among the debris, neither of us quite getting the upper hand, until somehow, he was able to close both hands around my neck. He squeezed, and the blank animal fear gobbled the edges of my being. Don’t panic, don’t panic, the rational voice of my trainer tried to remind me. But oh, the terror! the inescapable realisation of “this is it, the end” and another part of me going no-no-no, not yet.
Years of drills kicked in. Most victims, in being strangled, might flail ineffectually at their attacker, but the real power lay in outsmarting. While there was time. And while my life was measured out in seconds, I slid my elbows down between the man’s knees and his arms, so that he might not trap my arms with his legs.
His eyes were wide and wild in a sunburnt face. Just a young man then, with the barest fluff on top of his lip. But still stronger than me, a mere slip of a woman. Fight smart, not strong.
I slid one hand over to grab his wrist without using my thumb and got the other hand behind his elbow. All the while I pinned him with my gaze. Funny how on the verge of death and dying, I noticed details like the hazel flecks in his grey eyes.
And then I yanked his arm, making the limb flow with the way the joints were the weakest. He slipped and unbalanced, and I was ready for him, sliding my legs out and twisting so that I was above him.
He was bigger, yes, but I had more experience.
I had noted where the gun had landed, and by the time he’d roared to his feet, I put three rounds into his chest. The impact was enough to drive him back so that he fell against the wall, but he was wearing a vest, so I put the fourth round right in his face.
So fast. My ears ringing. The gun slick in my bleeding hands.
More would come for me when he didn’t check in. That much was certain.
And if they didn’t find me, they’d come for the only people I had. Those who endured despite the Machiavellian struggles churning in the greater world.
Some things were worth fighting for: Charni and her hydropower project, Noel and his stupid surfing, his crooked smile. An empty house full of memories. All those ties that bound us, the fragile dreams so easily scattered by a storm that I’d lived without these years past. All I was could be wiped away in an instant, and whoever these faceless corporate assholes were who’d so casually brought down a “business rival” – because in my heart of hearts, I knew that’s what it was – they’d have another thing coming if they wanted to mess with people.
My people.
Nerine Dorman is a South African author and editor of science fiction and fantasy currently living in Cape Town. Her novel Sing down the Stars won Gold for the Sanlam Prize for Youth Literature in 2019, and her YA fantasy novel Dragon Forged was a finalist in 2017. Her short story “On the Other Side of the Sea” (Omenana, 2017) was shortlisted for a 2018 Nommo award, and her novella The Firebird won a Nommo for “Best Novella” during 2019. She is the curator of the South African Horrorfest Bloody Parchment event and short story competition and is a founding member of the SFF authors’ co-operative Skolion.
My fingers twisted my braids in and out, feeding them into the fishtail braid that was forming as I scrutinised my reflection: the burgundy lipstick I wore accentuated my deep brown skin. I flashed myself an encouraging smile – The Diviner’s launch will be successful.
“Lonwabile’s here for you.” Lufuno’s reflection appeared behind mine as he wrapped his arms around my waist and nestled his chin in the nook of my neck: his thick facial hair tickled the sensitive part of my skin causing me to giggle.
“I’m almost done.” I smiled as I made eye contact with Lufuno, my husband of three years, through the upright mirror. I stroked the scab that ran along the length of his forearm.
“We need to talk about that incident at some point Andani… please…”
I shook my head, fighting back the images of that night. Two years had passed, but each time I touched his scab, I recalled it like it was yesterday: Lufuno’s arms drenched in blood as he stumbled into our kitchen reeking of whiskey; my hands trembling as I gripped the controls of our home assistant and manoeuvred the robot across our garden guided only by moonlight.
“Today’s an important day for me, I can’t have anything throw me off.”
He sighed. “Well, I wish I could come with you, but I know your launch will be a success.” Lufuno’s breath was hot against my neck, and I inhaled the medley of “minty fresh” and dark cologne until he pulled back and headed out of our bedroom. I twisted the final section before stroking the length of the braid to get the slick look.
iTech Namhlanje had touted The Diviner, with its ability to connect users to their ancestors using a sample of their DNA, as capable of changing the social fabric of the world as much as the advent of hyperconnectivity. There was a lot the public didn’t know… but today was launch day and the future of my company was contingent on a successful launch – or the appearance of success.
I crossed the room and headed down the stairs, my fingers tracing the grooves in the steel handrail. It will all work out. It will all work out. I repeated this mantra in between deep breaths – willing my heart to steady itself. With every step I took, the throbbing pain in my abdomen intensified, as if someone were clawing at my diaphragm in an attempt to shred the muscle. It was a peculiar type of anguish: hoping for a day and then dreading having to live through it.
“Mama!” The squeal from the highchair at the centre of the kitchen pulled me out of my thoughts. Dakalo, my toddler, held her spoon in her fist – and from the brown porridge splattered around her empty bowl – she had used it and her fingers to create art.
“Hello Nana,” I cooed as I crossed the room towards her. Rays of sunlight flitted from the East-facing window and bathed the room in a nectarine glow.
I planted a kiss on Dakalo’s head between the tufts of soft hair and inhaled her sweet smell of aqueous cream and porridge. Lufuno stood beside the highchair, mumbling as he scrolled through a hologram of the morning news.
“I cannot believe these people,” he said, spitting out the word ‘people’.
“What’s wrong?” I dodged Dakalo’s podgy fingers and slid past Lufuno as I made my way to the opposite end of the kitchen island. A wave of my hand across a sensor released a re-usable microfiber cloth which I yanked from a jagged metallic mouth to wipe Dakalo’s fingers.
“Solomons is up to his antics.” He sighed. “Hopefully President Sheila Mkhize retains power – I really need a different appointment…”
It was an open secret that Deputy President Nervin Solomons represented the populist elements that threatened to control the New Dawn political party. That, and the fact that President Sheila Mkhize had assured Lufuno that she would appoint him as Minister of Trade and Industry should she be re-elected – an upgrade from his current post as Minister of Sports and Recreation – meant we all fully supported her second term.
“I’m sure everyone can see right through Solomons. Right, Dakalo?” I pulled at her fingers which made her squeal. “I’ll try to get home early but it’ll depend on how long it takes me to get through the press’s questions,” I added over my shoulder.
“Remind me again why you decided to have the launch on a public holiday?”
I rolled my eyes, which caused Dakalo to squeal even louder in delight.
When our marketing team had decided that the launch had to occur on the 24th of September, Heritage Day, to tie the launch to the country’s national celebrations, despite how tight the deadline would be, I had conceded. The launch date had been pushed back twice before and our investors were getting antsy. Lufuno had questioned the sense of engineers being ruled by marketing considerations, but this was business and innovation in the real world had to deliver or it would result in a catastrophic drop of our start-up’s valuation.
“Ma’am are you ready to leave?”
My head swivelled up at the direction of the deep voice – it was Lonwabile. His hands were folded behind his back as he stood behind the breakfast countertop. I had never gotten used to how silently he moved despite his big size.
“Yes, I’ll be there in a minute.” I headed over to Lufuno and gave him a hug from behind. “Wish me luck,” I whispered, as I laid my face on his cotton shirt and let the warmth from his back against my cheek soothe me. His chest moved up and down in a steady rhythm, a stark contrast to the double-time of my own heart.
“You don’t need luck. You have multiple years of preparation and countless sleepless nights.”
Odirile and I had always imagined what this day might look like: would we be working on a software update that six months later would warrant another splashy announcement? Or would we be so behind schedule that only a concept model of The Diviner would be unveiled? I let out a deep breath as I walked outside and entered my car. Today would be a success.
Grayston Drive was empty of its usual traffic of self-driving vehicles, the public holiday giving the road and its sensors a welcome reprieve from managing the network of electronic vehicles.
I loved the sight of Sandton like this: the renaissance African architecture of the 22nd Century characterised by a combination of geometric design and imitation carvings. The car came to a standstill at the traffic light. The whinnies from a flock of African green pigeons filtered through my open window; they were perched on a tree canopy in an urban mini sanctuary that had come to characterise the province’s aesthetic.
When my car turned the corner, the street was littered with people. Their opposition to The Diviner crystallised the closer I got: a congregation of Christians shouted zealously against the evils of necromancy as their digital placards displayed an endless loop of Isaiah 8:19. Beside them to signify inter-faith allyship, but with enough distance to emphasize religious difference, the ummah of Muslims shouted vehemently as their digital placards played an endless loop of Surah Fatir 35:22 declaring The Diviner haram; On the opposite side stood a coalition of mungome from the different South African tribes, their beads swayed forcefully as their fervent chants and incantations rose to the sky carried by billows of smoke from the burning incense and sage that crept through the crack in my window. I coughed and pushed a button, rolling up my window. The mungome’s digital placards called for the demise of The Diviner because it breached protocol by doing away with the need for blood sacrifices to communicate with the ancestors.
Cynically, I questioned the sincerity of their objections – it was no secret that our invention would cut into a huge share of mungome’s business and maybe that was the real issue. Plus, if an immersive, sensory experience consulting with the ancestors also did away with parishioners or the ummah’s need for prayers and petitions – I would also protest for The Diviner’s abolishment if I were a religious leader.
My car came to a stop at the Convention Centre’s underground elevator, and I slipped out. Lonwabile’s head swivelled left and right periodically as he guided me towards the elevator.
“You’re the Anti-Christ!”
I turned around but Lonwabile’s muscular frame had already shielded me from the incoming screams; in one swift motion, he grabbed the skinny arms of the man and pinned him to the ground, sending the silver device in the man’s hand flying until it hit the concrete with a dull thud.
“Step-in the elevator Ma’am!” Lonwabile barked over his shoulder.
I snapped out of the trance induced by this attempted attack and ran. I inhaled and exhaled in bursts and loud sucking noises as the echo of my heels clacked frantically against the concrete, reverberating through the lot. As I made my way to the elevator, the faulty light flickered on and off, casting me in bouts of darkness and increasing my panic until I reached the safety of the elevator. When I was sure its steel doors were closed, I exhaled. The fortified elevator broke its seal once I was safely at the Convention Centre’s main floor.
“Andani! I was worried when you didn’t answer your comms device! Lufuno said you had left a while back,” Odirile walked briskly towards me, her Peruvian hair flowing behind her. “Have you received the latest launch updates?”
I shook my head and began rubbing my abdomen; the clawing had intensified.
Odirile’s perfectly shaped brows furrowed. “What’s wrong?” I felt the gentle pressure of her hands on my shoulder. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost – are you okay to lead the launch?”
“I don’t know – I just have a bad feeling about this.” I licked my lower lip and tasted the oily wax of lipstick.
“Babe, let’s go to the green room – I’ll message Naledi and inform him I’m giving you a quick debrief.” Odirile motioned behind me; I turned on my heel and we walked down the hallway in silence.
The smell of sweat and body odour wafted around me as we walked through the narrow space: interns ran up and down between the rooms – dodging us like obstacles – and a team leader burst his head through the open doorway of his workstation, scanned the hallways and barked out additional instructions before ducking back into the room and shutting the door with a bang. Odirile stopped at an inconspicuous door and slipped in.
I followed behind and was immediately enveloped by cool air as I entered the room; a huge vase of proteas had been placed at the centre of the dresser, concealing half of the mirror. Odirile crossed the room towards a cupboard and popped it open to reveal a fridge lined with bottled water.
I threw myself onto the plush couch. “Aaaaaggghhhhh,” I groaned loudly, before I threw my face into my hands.
“Take this, it’ll help with the nerves.”
I looked up, thrust in front of my face was a bottle of water and an open palm with two pills. “Thanks.” I grabbed the pills and gulped them down with a mouthful of water. The couch sagged as Odirile sat beside me.
“We received last minute confirmation from the Office of the Presidency that she wouldn’t be available, but Deputy President Solomons will be in attendance.”
Despite my annoyance at this update, I asked, “Has the Minister of Traditional Affairs confirmed his attendance?”
“Yes, him and Deputy President Solomons are seated in the VIP section. The SABC and other broadcasters are also done setting up – Naledi made sure they all found their designated seats.”
“That’s good.” I placed the bottle of water on the ground beside my heel.
“How about you? You good?”
I paused and looked into my friend’s hazel eyes. “Are you sure going ahead with this is the right decision?”
Odirile sighed. “It’s too late to turn back now.”
*
I adjusted my seating. The cylindrical-shaped pod was far from roomy, but it was bigger than our initial coffin-sized prototype. The gnawing at the pit of my stomach had begun the moment I entered the Testing Centre. This was the final test of The Diviner before it would be launched, so it had to work.
A major malfunction during Odirile’s previous test of The Diviner had confirmed that we were far from ready to launch. We would need our investors to fund more tests and give us more time. Instead, the response we received made it clear that we would not be given additional funding and if we couldn’t get The Diviner to work, we would have to shift our focus to improving a less ambitious form of technology – like VR and AR.
So, week after week, Odirile and I pored over the company’s financials trying to figure out the best way to fund another attempt. After trying everything and failing to find additional funding, we had resigned ourselves to the reality that The Diviner had to work during this test.
I trained my mind on the steady rhythm of my breathing, the gentle rise and fall of my chest.
Just relax and breathe, relax and breathe; I repeated this mantra, easing myself into that transitional phase between wakefulness and sleep. An image of Odirile wielding a bat, with bloodshot eyes and streaks of black eyeliner marking her cheeks like a warrior, came to mind. The crack of her bat against David’s windshield sounded like lightning as it reverberated throughout the complex.
The memory made me smile. When last did I think of the evening Odirile and I snuck into David’s complex and trashed everything including his beloved vintage Ferrari?
Relax and breathe, relax and breathe.
The feel of smooth leather against my head turned to rough mud and my palms felt smooth hardened dung. What was once white noise surrounding me, became fainter as the distant “moos” from a herd of cattle and the high-pitched ringing of iron against iron grew loud. I turned my head in the general direction of the ringing bells but the same breeze that carried the sound of the distant herd also carried the stench of excrement from the nearby kraal; I held my breath until the hot breeze passed. When I finally took in a breath of air, my nose crinkled at the faint stench of manure and smoke.
My wrist vibrated. The Diviner’s haptics alerted me to the fact that my simulation had officially begun.
I squinted as I adjusted to the bright sting of day. Black smoke floated to the sky from an opening in the middle of the cooking hut’s thatched roof, a white hen surrounded by chicks clucked around the cooking hut, stopping when something in the dust was worth pecking at. The humming of a song I didn’t know the lyrics to drew closer and closer to where I sat outside the hut. Why did this song sound familiar?
“Makhulu!” I shouted.
“Hush Nana! I’m here,” my grandmother hissed in an admonishing tone as she appeared from the corner of the hut, limping towards me. “Why all the noise, heh?” She shook her head as she slowly eased herself into sitting.
I threw my arms around her slight frame, inhaling the smoke and snuff that clung to her batik dress. “I’m happy to see you Makhulu!” I pulled back and stared into her black eyes. “I have so many questions –”
“Nana, I just put the pap over the fire, it will burn if –”
“I won’t take long…I just want to know…what was my dad – your son – like?”
Makhulu’s lips inched upward in a smile as a wistful look came over her eyes. “He was such a naughty boy.” She chuckled to herself. “And he could never sit still – if you took your eyes off him for a minute he was gone! But I could never stay angry with him, he would always bring me a bouquet of flowers.”
A bouquet of flowers? I bit my tongue, fighting the urge to interrupt her.
“Such a charmer!” She laughed and clapped her hands once at this thought. She reached for the wall of the mud hut as she brought herself up. “Don’t forget to bring wood with you, I need to keep my fire burning.” Makhulu ambled towards the cooking hut.
I watched on for a moment before I flicked a switch on the band around my wrist; when it vibrated, I closed my eyes slowly – trying to capture this mental image of Makhulu limping away as her batik swayed in the breeze.
After a few moments with my eyes closed, I opened them. The pod was bathed in the fuchsia glow of the screen in front of me. I selected “exit” and the door popped open, letting in the artificial light of the Testing Centre. I threw one leg over the edge of the pod and ducked out, careful not to bump my head against the low ceiling.
“And?” Odirile’s excited voice sounded through the speakers.
I looked up at the gallery: Odirile stood in a white lab coat surrounded by the rest of the team as they observed from behind the glass pane. Their faces looked drawn and tired but expectant.
“Did the simulation work?” Odirile urged.
Had the simulation worked? It was immersive, so in that sense it had worked but had I really communicated with my grandmother who had passed before I was born? Odirile’s smile faltered as I met her question with silence.
“It worked!” I exclaimed, casting my doubts aside.
The gallery erupted in hoots and shouting as the group of engineers fist-pumped and grabbed each other in tight hugs.
Odirile jumped up and down in the middle of this commotion shouting: “We’re gonna make some money! We’re gonna make some money,” in a sing-song voice until the tune caught on and all the engineers joined in the chorus, their voices sounding through Odirile’s microphone and throughout the Testing Centre.
I laughed until I could no longer ignore my gnawing sense of doubt. I crossed the Centre – my smile still frozen in place – and ripped off the wrist band.
“Come up here, we need to celebrate,” Odirile shouted into her mic.
“I’ll be there in a minute.” I slipped out and into the vacant hallway. I dipped my hand into my coat pocket. When I felt the cool object, my hand emerged. I attached the comms device onto my ear lobe, reached under the sleeve of my coat, and tapped the small keypad on my wrist until my earlobe vibrated.
“This is a pleasant surprise! What is the occasion?” The familiar high-pitched voice of my mother filled my inner ear.
I let out an anxious laugh. “Am I not allowed to call you anymore Ma?”
“Mhmmm…” she responded, not sounding convinced.
“Ma, I wanted to know – did Baba always buy Makhulu a bouquet of flowers – to apologise?”
She laughed. “Oh no – never! Your father was always quick to say ‘sorry’. It was always ‘sorry’ with that man – he rarely spent a cent on things he considered frivolous.” She spat out the word ‘frivolous’, as if she were imitating him.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course, I’m sure. I spent ten years with that man before we had you.”
“But during those years he would always travel around – right?”
“Using whose money?” she scoffed. “Why all these questions about your father? You were never interested before when…”
I laughed away the question. “I just had this memory of a man bringing this bouquet of flowers to apologise and I was trying to figure out where it could’ve come from.”
“Mhmmm.” She paused for a moment. “You know…Aunty Aggie, who took care of you when you were two, had this boyfriend who always brought her flowers…maybe it’s a memory of him, but how? You were only two?”
“Ma, can I call you back later? Something urgent has come up…”
“But we just started speaking –”
“I know, I’m sorry.” I threw the earpiece in my pocket and shot down the vacant corridors of our Headquarters. All the engineers had probably gone to the nearest bar to celebrate. I burst through the doors of Odirile’s office.
“Please tell me you haven’t shared the results of the simulation?” I crossed her office, my index fingers rubbing my temple in concentric circles as I attempted to calm myself.
Odirile’s brows were furrowed in confusion. “I called the Board for an urgent meeting…why…?”
My feet buckled beneath me and I sank to the floor. “What are we going to tell them?”
She went down on her hunches. “What do you mean? You said –”
“I know what I said, but I was wrong – I got it all wrong. No one will be able to connect with an ancestor down their genetic line using this, we can’t tap into the hereditary joy in our genes, we can’t –”
“Listen,” – she grabbed me so our eyes locked – “what happened? What did you see in the simulation?”
“My best guess is that The Diviner tapped into my latent memories and combined them with sensory detail to form…something. It just felt…so real.”
“Then it was real.”
“But Odirile –”
“You heard our investors, they’re not going to continue funding The Diviner, and it’s been branded as a way to connect with your ancestors – not your latent memories,” she scoffed. “It’s too late to turn back now.”
*
I walked across the dimly lit stage and stood under the single beam of light; I flashed the faceless crowd a smile. “Thank you for such a warm welcome.” I clasped my hands together. I would have to enter the simulation and get through a rehearsed emotional speech about the experience. I could do that.
“There’s been so much speculation about The Diviner, instead of boring you with a long explanation, I’ll just show you.” I tapped the band around my wrist. “How does that sound?” The crowd erupted as The Diviner rolled towards the centre of the stage where I stood.
From the back of the auditorium a rumbling began, until the entire crowd was chanting: “So-lo-mons! So-lo-mons! So-lo-mons!”
I glanced at the front row of dignitaries cordoned off in the VIP section: Deputy President Solomons stood up, turned around and waved at the crowd who cheered loudly; he shook his head indicating to the crowd he couldn’t oblige, and sat down.
I let out a sigh of relief. “Let’s begin the simulation,” I said sounding chirpier than I felt and trying to regain control of the room.
“Let someone else try!” Someone in the crowd shouted.
“Jah! If it works, it works,” someone else from the crowd added.
This fuelled the chant and the auditorium resounded with calls for the Deputy President to try the simulation: “So-lo-mons! So-lo-mons! So-lo-mons!”
The clawing pain under my rib cage intensified. This wasn’t part of the plan, but what valid explanation could I give to the crowd? If The Diviner truly worked and was ready for the market, then surely it didn’t matter who tried the simulation, they would protest.
I turned to the stage’s partly concealed wing and shot Odirile a silent plea for an intervention while a big smile remained plastered across my face; her hands were clasped over her mouth and her eyes were the size of saucers.
The spike in cheering turned my attention to the crowd. Deputy President Solomons had stood up and was patting down his suit as he headed to the stage. His security detail scrambled around him, they spoke in hushed tones in their earpieces, as their eyes darted around the auditorium and scanned the stage area.
“Great!” I exclaimed – feeling anything but great – as the Deputy President approached the stage. “There’s a screen in the pod which you can use to select which of your ancestor’s you would like to communicate with.” I slipped off the band around my wrist and placed it in his palm. He put it on and shot me a nervous smile.
“You’ll be fine,” I reassured him before turning to the crowd. “The Diviner is completely safe and ready for the market.” I motioned to the pod beside us and the Deputy President ducked inside. The click of the pod’s door as it closed was audible in the hushed auditorium.
“Once Deputy President Solomons’ simulation begins, we’ll be able to see it through this projection – but only he can tell us whether this was a truly immersive experience.”
As darkness fell over the auditorium, I made my way to the opposite wing and folded my arms across my chest, waiting until the Deputy President emerged from the pod and determined our fate.
Why had I done this to myself? I had so many opportunities to come clean, but I had only seen those opportunities as time to get the technology working. I rubbed the space under my rib cage to soothe the throbbing pain. Every Heritage Day, I would have to re-live this debacle and the company’s fall from grace would be re-told as a cautionary tale.
The auditorium gasped pulling me out of my reverie as I turned my attention to the projection: Solomons walked on the cobblestone streets of the Bo-Kaap area, through a pastel-coloured array of houses. A group of playing children shrieked and were dispersed as a ball was flung into the air.
My stomach dropped. The Bo-Kaap area’s tarred streets had been replaced by cobblestones early in Solomons’ lifetime – but had the audience noticed this glitch during their brief glimpse of the street? Did Deputy President Solomons know this obscure architectural fact?
The auditorium’s lights flicked on; I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the sudden burst of light. I crossed the stage and headed towards The Diviner as Deputy President Solomons inched out, shaking his head. Was I supposed to smile through this humiliation, or would it be better to deny everything he said? Maybe it would be best if I asked for another volunteer from the crowd – just to counter his experience? The auditorium remained silent as Deputy President Solomons made an elaborate show of reaching into his pocket, dragging out his handkerchief and dabbing the cotton material at the corner of his eyes.
He took hold of my hands. “That was…is…a once in a lifetime opportunity.” My heart quickened at the sound of this as he turned to face the crowd.
“This is why technological advances such as these are critical – they move our nation forward while helping us hold on to our heritage.”
He was none the wiser? We had done it! Relief washed over me as the knot in my stomach dissipated.
An applause erupted throughout the auditorium as the Deputy President drew me closer to him by gently tugging at my hand. He used his one hand to cover his mouth and whispered:
“Help me beat President Mkhize in our party’s upcoming conference or I’ll tell everyone the truth about this high-tech scam: its only good for revealing that you and Minister Lufuno Tshivhase buried a body in your garden.” He shot me a smile as the cameras flashed around us.
His words suffocated me, and my breathing became laboured as the full weight of his threat landed on my chest. How could he possibly know about the incident? Lufuno and I had been extremely careful. Unless…
I glanced over at the cylindrical shaped pod: what if, it was flawed in more ways than I could have imagined? What if it allowed the user to tap into their latent memories and it left some behind, giving the next person a glimpse?
How could I have missed this? If Lufuno and I wanted to stay out of jail – and present in Dakalo’s life – Deputy President Solomons had to keep quiet. I also needed more time to continue testing The Diviner without investors figuring out what we had done. But that would mean supporting Deputy President Solomons and his repressive ideals. His victory would mean frustrating Lufuno’s political career. How was I supposed to make this decision?
I took in a lungful of air. I returned his smile so as not to raise any suspicions about our brief exchange and angled my body to pose for the media as they clamoured for shots of the successful launch of The Diviner.
VH Ncube is a South African, africanfuturism writer and activist lawyer. At the heart of her writing is an exploration of the path paved by individual and societal choices, and her writing is often informed by her work on socio-economic and environmental justice issues. Find more at www.vhncube.com.
‘Atu, where have you been?’ Okemmou asked me once he saw me in my raffia costume strutting into the facility. I didn’t reply.
‘You’re now growing wings, eh. I have been scanning for your frequency but you never pick my calls.’
I looked around the place where Okemmou, my handler, was camping inside the steel company and saw that the firewood was in proper combustion mode, steaming an aluminium pan of herbs and exuding the thickest of smells.
Before I climbed into the boiling concoction spilling green bubbles over and into the fire, I shook my waist and the beads straddled around it created a clattering noise, signalling spiritual prowess. My morale was incredibly high. Okemmou looked at me with alcohol-ridden eyes through his self-styled mask, painted red with a chicken’s blood. I was always reminded of that toxic thick smell of burning iron ores nearby. I jumped around, teasing the cultural experiment. I did the traditional dance, vibrating my waist all the while. The fire reddened on, grazing my gaze.
My eyes went to the almanacs clasping the steel walls and then settled on the array of ceremonial masks on the vertical surfaces, each carved differently by Okemmou himself.
‘Stop taunting this procedure, Atu. Until Mr. Oblack makes it into town with his electrical upgrading procedures, this is the only option available. Who knows, he may be present at the market. We will stick with this method until we get a better substitute. You wouldn’t be where you are today without it anyway, so, show some respect and get in there now’.
Uneasy, I approached the brimming potion. The aluminium pan had turned red. I placed my left foot in first, then put my right foot afterwards. The thickness and quality of my raffia costume repelled the encroaching heat. Then, Okemmou came through, holding a fresh palm frond laced with tens of talisman and sacred objects.
‘We have to be well-prepared for these people because we don’t know who is who when we are out there. We can’t tell who is coming to the exhibition with a different kind of magic. People can be wicked. The first step is that we will heat you for at least two hours just to tighten things, eh. We don’t want screwups, do we?’
I endured the steam, in lucid waves, it penetrated the thick folds of the raffia and began to get to my own skin. The pain made me skip into a rare frequency and I lost touch with nature. Okemmou dazzled with his incantations, landing combinations and combinations, spewing the words out from his thick black lips. He blew a special dust onto my wooden masked face and I tried not to cough as the dust particles made their way into my lungs, seizing control of my being, influencing the properties of a secret ritual. He forced me to breathe everything in as I couldn’t keep it together any longer. The itching pain vanished after that. He made sure to circle the talisman over my head in seven complete cycles; protection was found in casting spells. One had to pass through water and fire and poison before one earned the precious Odeshi symbol: skin impenetrable. To finalize the fortification, Okemmou wrapped me again with fresh layers of raffia, then unleashed several tiny moulded earthenware pots with spell-active incense. He circled around me as he smashed seven of them on my head like raw eggs and with that, he shoved me out of the wide pan. I fell out like a log of timber and the chemicals spilled all over the place. His charms made sure my costume was unharmed as usual and that it wouldn’t harm my skin, but there was no denying the presence of the green steam that slowly crept out of my body like I was freshly-prepared leather, hardened and thickened.
‘Your powers are very strong, Okemmou’, I commended him, and got to my feet slowly, like a child just learning to walk. The spells were still manifesting. ‘What time does your shift on the engines begin’? I asked Okemmou
‘When you move your body out of this storeroom and begin to practice those moves you haven’t mastered yet,’ he replied, showing me the door of iron bars with indications of anti rust paint glossed all over.
‘There’ll be no presentation tomorrow if we don’t finish memorizing those moves’, he warned.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect when the day finally arrived, but I had faith. I polished my rustling hair and my wooden mask and my raffia costume and somehow managed to make every part of me shine. I could see children of the computer generation who were present at the exhibition, snapping photos with their fancy devices. I was heavy-hearted with light dreams circulating through my eyes, and many more rapidly intruding. There were controlled sounds from selected speakers mounted at core areas of the market where the festival was to hold, all of which would make the festival go as planned. My fingertips drooled of a new potent potion that Okemmou had put there before we left the steel company hours earlier. The plan was to flick the potion onto the earth where I would stand before I kicked off my presentation. I scanned the audience to see if Mr. Oblack was among the spectators. I crashed against Okemmou’s attention and saw him give me a nod. Signifying the starting point, restoring the accurate connection between the earth and the known spirits; names which I recited for the sake of additional protection because everyone knows how wise the gods are: Amadioha, Njoku, Ani, Uwara.
Everything was working systematically when the drums cried out loud, the whole arena glittered of charms weaved into fresh yellow palms knotted to the trees, to the canopies, to the drummers’ wrists and their ankles, to my wrists and ankles as well, and to the apexes of red caps which stood out as they occupied their positions on the heads of local chieftains and elders who were in attendance.
I introduced myself with the black receiver in my hand. ‘I am Atu of Okonko Society Masquerade Union., The title of my presentation is the Honourable Dance and Display of a Masquerade.’
My introduction garnered attention, and applause drifted my way from the audience.
But before I finally commenced, I reached into the deep folds of my pocket made of cotton and pulled out a tiny flask of palm wine. I soaked my dry lips and made them glitter, sour ethanol flowed into me, causing me to showcase some of my introductory moves. I hit the levels of my act, almost wanting to evaporate and become one with the atmosphere and multiple frequencies scattered around the entire scene. Suddenly, I leapt up and let the drumming and the piping and the gong beats surge through my veins.
I used my athletic prowess to walk on vertical bamboo sticks, twelve feet above ground. I danced to the melodious numbers coordinated by the cultural drummers and talented praise singers. They called this the Sacred Orchestra, music spinning through all things at the same time. And all this while, Okemmou urged me on with his red painted eyes which never left my form. And when he received a pre-agreed signal from me, he stepped out of the crowd in all glory and attacked the stage dramatically with a Dane gun. I understood what was to follow. We had rehearsed it so many times. I increased the speed of my feet, purposely vibrating the stationed sound machines around while doing so, in wait, for action births action or inaction depending on the particular mood. He knelt down a few meters away from me and pointed the Dane gun at my chest, red fabrics on the nozzles, eyeing me, blood thirsty, catastrophe and magic, loading. And the moment I heard the gunshot, the crowd almost scattered. I felt the pressure, combustibles, and an accumulation of forces bumped against my chest and nearly pushed me down. But my fortification and sacred upgrading spell worked and I recovered almost immediately, reigniting my moves. Smoke flew off my raffia chest. I danced on splendidly like nothing happened, pending the second shot which, when Okemmou released it, came and met me balancing my feet. I tried to absorb the energy just like I had done the former, but a scar had ripped open along my chest. I let the rest of the force take me down. The drumming stopped, almost simultaneously with my fall. My mood automatically changed as if it was a gearbox but tethered in drastic emotions, and fever rushed into my rib cages and slowly squeezed the life out of me as I saw the evening sun fading away. The wind blew through me like I was mere paper, thin length and possibly transparent. One thing was clear: the bullet which shouldn’t have hurt me had in fact done some major damage. Okemmou dramatically tossed the gun to the side as if he had made a terrible mistake and frantically searched and brought forward a spherical stainless jar from his bag of secrets. The bag held the most astonishing kind of power, and charges, and light like high energy in a local solar system where these spectators were floating meteorites. I lay motionless, watching him facilitating the procedures and said nothing. I was not frightened. I believed in Okenmou and I knew he wouldn’t let me die. I saw his thick uncut nails dig into the spherical instrument and begin to bend it into me, absolutely feeding and shocking me with new energies all the way in.
‘Breathe,’ I heard him mumble in dramatic tears ‘Inhale and exhale boy.’
The sounds he made came out refracted. He managed to perspire and healed me of my mortal wounds. I felt myself again, against the hardened, untarred floor. The gunshot wound on my chest had healed and sealed. I gave him my hand and he raised me up. The crowd fell under an enchantment, silently inactive like major constants of an equation. I saw pride glow in Okemmou’s eyes at the conjured miracle and without wasting more time, he retreated into the crowd, shaking his body to an unknown rhythm. I suspected that he was hurrying back to the steel company. I noticed the characteristics of my spectators for the very first time, spellbound, spiralling silence all through. I shrugged the damage and dust away from my skin. I made out mechanic workers branding greasy palms, and market women with baskets on their heads, children behind their backs operating modern devices, yelling for more action. But there was nothing left in me to unleash.
I cast my eyes on something peculiar away from the spectators. A fancy video recorder was being handled by a man dressed in a black suit. His eyes were covered with the darkest of shades. Two miniature men were strategically positioned on both his sides for protection – a very weird being I perceived. I proceeded towards them only for alignment, based on sufficient comprehension. He towered above me like a haunted house with hidden secrets, then bent down in respect to chant a familiar poem only masquerades and their handlers should know. I instantly knew he had some experience in my game and acts and let him speak his mind.
‘Let us be civil,’ he stated. ‘Please call me Mr. Oblack. Ehm, me and my boys heard about your performance on the radio, channel 004 and decided to come see for ourselves, that’s why we came with our tools and accessories, if you don’t mind. We have been in contact with your handler, Okemmou. He must have told you about us,’ I didn’t mind.
‘What can you say about my dance?’ I asked him, staring at his lips and his body language, hoping for the right message.
He lit a cigar before answering, then exhaled the words’ essence to my face in a cloud of menthol smoke. He enjoyed the show. He said he had an excellent proposition for me. I scratched my thick mask and asked him for a stick of cigar. Then I burnt it down like fire in a single whiff and exhaled the smoke through my ears and my eyes and my nose, subsequently impressing Mr. Oblack. Behind him, I could still make out the midget forms of his men constantly eyeing me. They still had their long umbrellas swaying high above them according to the wind’s random directions. He dipped his hand into his monkey suit and swiped out a red template written in the language and codes of the Okonko society. Stating it simply, it was an invitation, some scientific upgrade into a new astounding circle far away in the city unlike the local upgrade and makeover practised by my handler that nearly cost me my life.
I asked him. ‘Are you a monster or a freedom fighter?’
‘I am not hiding anything from you,’ he replied. ‘You may think of me as your new sponsor or investor. I have also spoken with Okemmou about this. This experience will change your life forever, you will see it when you see it. The only thing left now is your approval,’ he promised.
Tempting. He called it the Reaping Season, only if I had the mind to take risks just like I had proved to.
I was ready for anything. So, I radioed Okemmou and he promised to be right behind me when I briefly communicated my new route.
Immediately, we hit the road on foot then at a junction boarded one of the popular yellow electric vehicles, which were mainly for public service. There was no wasting time. I radioed Okemmou again with my long-distance mode turned on but hit a firewall. I tried again and again until a connection registered, trying my best to shield any external influence that would severe our communication before we were done talking. Outside the windows as the transport system sped on, I saw hibiscus flowers, little beautiful blossoms along the paths. I was thinking dreams, rebuking nightmares. I clung my receiver tight to my ears as Okemmou expressed once more his profound joy at the news of a scientific upgrade. Finally, his croaky voice tore the channel apart, leaving nothing but a buffering sequence – an empty connection nonetheless. I thought about the steel company I was leaving behind and hoped Okemmou jumped on the road to get to me as quickly as possible. Our dreams were coming true.
The transport system pulled into an avenue padded with concrete. The driver overreacted, shining the headlamps once the electric car swerved into a wide warehouse. I saw obsolete designs of circuit boxes lying about, cobwebs and dust coated their bodies. As I took in this new location, it immediately dawned on me that whatever went wrong henceforth, there was no one around to help me like the last time, unless Okemmou made it to the location in time. There were several doors. But the particular one Mr. Oblack went for, produced tens of unknown macho hands that scuffled for a piece of me, my head, my hands and my legs, until I lost balance. I felt weightless when they stormed into the warehouse, with me on their heads, locating a room with an outrageous collection of electric wires of various codes straddled from nook to cranny, from partition to partition not even illuminated. I saw that It was a special room when the lights came on. I made out the shapes of fat cables, ripped apart to show glinting teeth. As my eyes scanned the place, in order to register the various implements, a mad technician’s workshop came to mind.
‘Do you plan to electrocute me?’ I screamed at the top of my voice, as it dawned on me. ‘Why did you really bring me here? I shook fiercely, spreading waves of indignation. I felt as if I was in total rage, like an enhanced character basking in full energy that could explode in a matter of seconds.
‘Atu, quench your anger, please. We are only here for an upgrade and nothing more,’ Mr. Oblack said in a bid to reassure me.
‘I need Okemmou around me now,’ I pleaded.
‘‘He’ll soon get here, Atu. Relax,’
‘But what kind of upgrade is this going to be? I have seen circuit breakers sparking silently, white flashes that want to bounce off fuse points and burn this whole place to the ground.’
‘Like I said,’ he continued, ‘this upgrade demands total concentration on your part and total adaptability from my system – magnetic fields and electric fields in conjunction with one another, totalling an increased amount of power that will surge through you once we are done. Believe the process, especially this systematic movement.’
Ending there, he pointed to an electroplated board with numerous coloured wires intertwined in zigzags, like random junctions and pathways of intercepting currents flowing before my static eyes that couldn’t express any more anxiety. I accidentally launched myself forward towards the naked wires; there would have been a disaster if the charges were not drastically reduced. The power in my receiver had depleted and it was no longer in my thick, sweaty palms.
‘Look on the bright side,’ Mr. Oblack said, ‘watch the mishaps that may occur, Atu. Spirit or human, electric shock is electric shock and that is part of our own method of upgrading, not charcoal and fire as your handler normally uses. We are in a new age, and you will see it for yourself.’
His words convinced me and made me crave the process, even though I was still somewhat nervous about the new experiment. The macho men began to work on me. They connected sharpened cables to my costume which I still had on, and they had the long cables wrung tight about my entire body. Then, they placed me against the electroplated board and I heard a switch click. Voltages surged, bending my mood, my dreams piled up through my eyes and were disentangled once I felt an overload in high currents. Massive, almost atomic in nature on my costume, and my head was the destination. Possible explosion and disruption were in view. I felt the pull of visible gigantic magnets. They were hung mid-air, as the magnetic force acted on me. I felt so small. The electric bulbs that had been installed flickered noisily as they went on sparking an outburst, shattering and displacing particles all around the place, exhausting gaseous steam or smoke or both simultaneously. In twos and in folds, the coordinated charges coursed mildly through my brain and created some loopholes which would never be filled up. As I received the mildest shock of my life, I saw Mr. Oblack’s fingers on an infrasound machine, optimizing the mechanisms and building a great uncountable frequency, ranging high, then low, then almost imperceptible if measured by a sound level meter. And time. Demobilized. Even destabilized as the process was in progress. As a weird smile curved Mr. Oblack’s lips I chose to believe it was a sign of progress. He was preparing me for a rare attachment.
Although a renowned masquerade, maintaining my composure in the astounding presence of the glancing eyes of the spectators all monitoring the progress of my electrical upgrade became hard and impossible, because sometimes they seemed like mirrors reflecting my pain in their expressions. When the process graduated, my internal energies temporarily leaped out from my thick raffia costume, hovering, from one electrical unit to another, blowing up fuses and distorting fabricated circuits until the entire area reduced in temperature and I could see my spectators breathing out moisture as if there was a new presence in the room in form of a semi-stagnant fog.
By this time, there was an intoxicating draining ongoing, currents dispatching themselves to an unknown core located somewhere. This electric shock had its own effects. The faces that were watching the transference adjusted their goggles as if they were recording everything. And that was the last picture I could recall as the last of my negative energy was drained by metallic terminals.
‘Atu, you better hold your breath for a second!’ Mr. Oblack’s voice burst in then drifted away as soon as it had come.
‘And keep your emotions in check, okay?’ Another voice chided. I did. I recalled Okemmou had a voice just like that. But before I ascertained if it was really his voice, I forced myself not to swallow saliva as air went out from my lungs, a mild controlled electrocution. That was it. Like condensation, I continued to feel the energies speeding through tiny metallic wires. The wires were cold, mind altering as my energy circulated the system like a projectile, vicious in its passage along the line such that even to shake my body proved to be a difficult thing.
Just like Mr. Oblack had said, I was now one with the system, body and soul.
My mind went to a certain microcircuit made up of panels and micro transmitters recently installed.
‘These panels,’ Mr. Oblack said, ‘will aid in the remaking and reconstruction of a new costume unlike this one you have on. As we all saw during the just concluded exhibition how obsolete it now is.
‘What exactly will this upgrade achieve?’
Okemmou! He got here so fast. I relaxed some more.
‘Perfection,’ Mr. Oblack replied. ‘I understand your concern. You’re worried Atu might get electrocuted, but trust me, the electrical charge is controlled not to exhibit such heightened effect on the subject but to only cause a mild sensation to the subject, and reduce the strength of the raffia costume. I paid close attention to the costume design. I saw the rubber insulators inside the costume that will reduce the effects of the current. I also saw your performance. The failure you had to correct, exposing the jar of allotrope in the open market, and putting it and Atu at risk.
‘With my technology, Atu won’t have to face such humiliation in an exhibition again. In fact, I will guarantee that this uncompromised process will beat the one practised by Okonko society, hands down.’
Mr. Oblack, got rid of my raffia costume, layer after layer, until the last remnant of it was gone, revealing my true form. The currents from the wires had reduced the strength of the raffia costume and made it easy to pull off, thus weakening Okemmou’s spells.
Through a special wet-spinning method meant for fibrous materials, he steadily weaved a material which he called graphene. It was in several sheets, measured and tailored to suit my size like a glove. The material was induced with certain electronic properties to form a particular kind of carbon nanotube that can closely and comfortably encircle a body in a particular kind of way.
‘Do you know what this is?’ I Overheard him asking Okemmou who had since fallen silent.
‘Not exactly,’ he replied.
‘This is also considered an allotrope of carbon. You see how it looks like a honeycomb for starters, but don’t let its presumed frailty fool you. This material after sequences of research and refining can absorb and diversify projectile impacts on a particular surface. It can perform better than fiberglass, steel and other bulletproof materials out there, clearly more bulletproof than your sacred upgrading version. To cut this long story short, it can withstand projectiles ten times faster than your Dane gun, Okemmou!’ I felt my body being padded with more graphene nanotubes than I could count, sewn masterfully into each other like a spider’s web, over and over again until Mr. Oblack made a signal to stop the process and proceed to seal the joints with soldering equipment plugged to one of the energy sources. All the angles of my new costume were glued and sealed. I was mechanically transformed into something new, according to Okemmou’s remarks afterwards. I was a new kind of modern masquerade, and no man born of a woman could harm me.
Solomon Uhiara studied Bio Resources Engineering and resides in Port Harcourt. His work has appeared in Africanwriter.com, Eyetothetelescope.com, Starline, Polutexni, Kalahari Review, and he has a new story performed by veteran actor, Ato Essandoh. His climate fiction story, “Soot Shield,” is forthcoming in the first anthology of The World’s Revolution. His short sci-fi story, “A Complete Case Study Based on Alzheimer’s,” is forthcoming in Darkmattermagazine. Solomon is an Associate Member of the SFWA.
Many years after the incursion of the pale man onto West African soil, Mary Ogene in Omahia, pregnant and ravenously hungry went missing for three days and did not return the same. In the extended absence of her husband, she had been seeking the crunch of kaolin against her molars and the subsequent stillness of her rumbling stomach after.
II
Mary Ogene had walked out of her homestead, through a rapidly changing world, past men building a bungalow for the new Warrant Chief Nwankwo, who had started walking around telling the women of Omahia that they would have to pay something called market tax based on how much of the new money they were making off exchanges at their market stalls.
Some of the women in Mary Ogene’s neighbourhood said that the Warrant Chief had wanted to enter into their huts and count their clothes to gauge how much they were worth, before he threatened that his boy-boys would return to collect the money that they owed to the Governor-General, or else.
No husbands were found to defend them from the harsh demands of the New State, through the Warrant Chief and his lap dogs. Their men were the ones clamouring for work under these new gods, pale as weathered bones, with their gifts of a salvation, its Bible, mirrors and starched-cotton servant uniforms. Mary Ogene’s husband, Jude, had found work serving as a gardener for a Chancellor, deeper in the heart of Aba.
He was barely home.
The simmering unrest across the East of the yet-to-be-amalgamated country rose gradually as the pale man and his domineering ways seeped into the body of their old world, which had been crafted and handed down through mouth, divination and craft from Mary Ogene’s ancestors.
In the old world, women were left to work the engines of both home and society without any questioning or control from the men they shared the world with. There was no creed or suggestion about only doing certain specific things in the world (like staying out of community affairs to man kitchens and market stalls) because one was born physically as a woman, or a man. There was a freedom to continuously attempt tasting life anew, regardless of what one carried between their legs.
Now, the invaders with their moustaches like yet-to-be-roasted caterpillars had come into their midst with holy words of submission and their men had changed, become hollow tools and violent mouthpieces. They were trying with caged fury to take away the freedom and power the women wielded under the old world in the name of the god of the new world.
In the name of his Son.
This unease in the air was why Mary Ogene went to look for ancient riverbeds, their banks rich with white deposits of chalk. The world was changing too fast. It made her baby seem to tangle itself up inside her. The men and their adoration of these new visitors was turning trusted tradition upside down. Left seemed to have become right now, and right, left.
She walked behind the market, avoiding her friends and her relatives, hiding her face. Mary Ogene quickened her steps once she was out of Omahia, past the seized farmlands filled with men in strange cloth, digging for something they would never find.
She walked deeper into the forests that fringed the town.
Her child was only faintly beginning to do the swim and kick, and it felt like the unborn one knew something was coming. Mary Ogene’s heart would occasionally fly into rhythms unknown, her stomach would tighten and her spittle dry, as she sat in gatherings with women who could see ahead, to a heavier curtailing of their old freedoms.
They complained of the shortening of market days, and the curfews that had trickled in until they were no longer allowed to move at night or before dawn which was when they most needed to rise and greet the work of the day.
The women were then reminded of the guns and the rock-faced men carrying them under authority of the Governor-General. Someone offered, “We should carry our own weapons!” and was met with fiery debate.
Mary Ogene was silent during these meetings, gazing into nothing, hand on her belly wondering if Jesus Christ, the saviour whom her namesake had birthed, would want such conquests done under the cover of his blood.
After she was out of reach of the sounds of the town, she turned left off the path that would lead to the next community and began to trample forward, pushing down the undergrowth quick with her bare feet.
She used trees that could as well be friends, and bushes ripe with flower to find her way to the hidden chalk rivers that her great-grandmothers had dug kaolin from.
She knew where to dig and reach into the warm heart of the earth to exhume chunks of this pure chalk, sometimes streaked with red or with sky blue. It was good to eat for the upset stomach, and for thin blood, and for when there was too much heat in the face and it felt like one’s head might fall off.
As she picked across the riverbed, Mary Ogene stood to her full height and looked downriver to find herself standing exposed before a strange sight.
Her body trembled as she grasped her belly and bent down to hide behind a wild berry bush, heady with a too-sweet fragrance.
Spit pooled in her mouth.
III
The white-skinned people and their workers (who were once brothers to Mary Ogene, though she now found them as untranslatable as their masters) were gathered around a large area that couldn’t be where Mary Ogene had come to so many times, she could find it in her sleep.
It couldn’t be.
The very earth looked to have been in a great battle with something that possessed no grace. Watery mud mixed with raw chalk, blood in pap. The narrow white river had been blown wide by hoes and pick-axes and a structure that towered yellow and clawed behind the small men who stood around it.
Mary Ogene had always known the deposits were deep and rich, because sometimes the women came with large baskets and left only after they had overflow of kaolin, without disturbing the way the river looked.
Before, this.
Now she saw how they had been blessed beyond her imagining. How Ani had indeed given them a gift to be used for generations. A gift now plundered.
The structure carried a heap of white chalk in its claw, which hung high over the men and their hard bowl hats. There was another person moving in the middle of the men, carrying blue water that gleamed with sunlight in a glass.
The glass was odd – like everything that had followed the pale people into Igboland. The person shook the glass, raised it to the sun and shook it some more. The diggers were resting, glistening ebony in the sun, their backs against mounds of exhumed kaolin.
Mary Ogene decided to approach quietly. She needed the kaolin more than the ways of this new world could scare her. She crawled downhill until she was close enough to see that there was a man inside the structure with the claw. He had pale skin too.
She could now hear the voices of the pale men, excited and hungry, like they had just found gold. She moved closer. Someone said something something Queen. Mary Ogene knew that word because they always said it whenever they came around to talk to the people of the land about accepting Jesus Christ.
She moved closer and then, at her feet, some kaolin flung far by their plundering. This one seemed to glitter and had the most vibrant blue, yellow and red streaks, clean mineral lines in the center of all the dusky white. She could feel it against her tongue, almost. The crumble as the chalk fell apart in her mouth and dissolved into a muddy mess at the back of her throat and then all the way down to her troubled stomach, to soothe her unborn’s dreams of strange, fiery tomorrows.
Mary Ogene grabbed at the kaolin lump quickly. Too quick. Her motion made the bushes around her rustle aloud and then all her once-brothers were alert, bloodthirsty and awake from their sleep; hungry for some bush meat, while ready to fight any intruders.
The white men stopped all their motions and the woman who had been carrying the blue water in her hand, hair like cornsilk all the way to her back, who wore a shirt and shorts like the men, shouted up, tearing the air.
The men moved quicker then, as if prodded with hot irons, gathering into a pack to surround and attack the infiltrator, but the small dark woman in the blue-green wrapper with hair woven down from her temples to her shoulder was no more there.
IV
Mary Ogene didn’t know how her feet flew so fast.
The foliage of the forest blurred in her periphery, into something like water, until she felt she was swimming.
Wind rushed fast past her ears and cold through her wrapper. She was sure she could hear her brothers’ voices barking behind her. Jide ya! Jide ya!
The kaolin in her fist was the size of a very large snail and she didn’t let it go.
Not when she stumbled and her entire body flew forward, still running so quick, nearly shattering her jaw on the rough trunk of a mango tree. Not when she slowed down, righted her body and continued to run pathless in the green, thorns and branches nicking her calves. Not when she saw them surrounding her, slipping out of the blurring forest like free fish.
They were many. Their lithe backs surrounding her, spotted yellow and black. Their streaming bodies were lean and quick as they ran alongside her small tiring body.
The leopards seemed to be guiding her and in her fevered daze she followed. She didn’t want to stop, or try to escape them. She followed, excited and mesmerized by this delirium that seemed to have been born of her fear.
Sweat was slipping under her lids when the path she ran through with the leopards ended in a dark copse. The ones ahead of her didn’t stop running. They slipped between two dead trees, sheathed in curtains and excitations of moss.
Mary Ogene’s heart was beating too fast and she could feel the exertion begin to bear on her body. Her gut lifted. Was that burn in her sternum a sign that her baby was about to come up through her throat?
She didn’t stop running.
She could feel their heat close to her pumping thighs. Three leopards on either side of her. The kaolin in her sweating fist. Woman and feline all rushed through the gate between the trees, before Mary Ogene’s body fell slack and all turned night.
V
There were voices outside the oily night she was suspended in. She still felt the kaolin in her loose hand.
They spoke Igbo as they lifted her onto a softer land;
“Where did she come from?” “Nwaikwu, look at her belly!” “Chineke!”
“What is happening to our land? What could have brought someone like her running through here so fast? Without fear.”
“Fear is blind to itself.”
Clean water fell over her face and chest. Sweet smoke swam into her nostrils as a quiet soothing susurration filled the air, like song from the throat of an unusually large bird of paradise.
Mary Ogene sensed a parting as the voices faded away.
“The rest of us at least got to wait at the gate, to decide and gather courage to pierce the veil.” Warm bodies lowered themselves around her, their velvet fur soothing and comforting.
“You can open your eyes.” A bigger voice spoke above those whispering to themselves.
Mary Ogene did as she heard. There was a very tall woman draped in white lengths of silk crouched beside her head. She was beautiful among the women and leopards who stood around looking on toward Mary Ogene, like a bird of paradise is beautiful among the trees, her skin refined as new earth. She put a cool palm behind Mary Ogene’s head and pulled her up to sit.
Mary Ogene remembered her unborn as she felt the fullness of her belly again.
“What led you here?” The tall woman asked. Mary Ogene looked around at her sisters from Omahia, who looked to her, clothed in a regular array of patterned wrappers and blouses. Some had their coin purses tight beneath their armpits still. She saw now that they had no black in their eyes yet the tall woman’s eyes were normal and spring-clear.
“I went to the river to get some fresh kaolin. There were some people there. The pale man and some of our brothers… they destroyed the river. The brothers gave chase when they heard me moving through the bushes, and then I ran, without looking back, and then…” Mary Ogene gazed at the leopards, who looked to her with what seemed like certainty. “…I am here.”
“I got chased from the river too.” A woman standing with a child fastened to her hip said. Mary Ogene couldn’t tell if she was looking at her as she spoke. “They’ve been there many moons now, seeking hard for what is already before them. Mmiri says they’re trying to steal the medicine inside the kaolin and so they broke the river open in search of the purest crumb.”
The tall woman stood, and Mary Ogene feared her head would break against the branches of the trees that formed the grove. She was a half-giant. The chunk of kaolin that had filled Mary Ogene’s palm was carefully held between three of her fingers.
“We are Mmiri. Preparing with your sisters for war. The visitor has just begun to take from the land. They will continue to seek more power, more medicine, more fuel, more bodies, until the land is emptied like an eaten snail.” She said, “Rise to your feet and see what we do.”
Mary Ogene felt her body flood with strength as Mmiri spoke, a warm prickling rushing into her back from her toes and fingers. She rose up, resting her elbows on the silent leopards’ sides, who also stood as soon as she did.
The grove stretched far into a faint-lit night. The low light came from fires burning at the ends of staves, held by more women from the villages in and around Aba. There were more than twenty of them and around their feet, by the light of the held lamps, even more women knelt, working firmly at something in the earth. They beat and ground and threw water and fire against these pits that they knelt by. Into the earth, their arms disappeared to the elbow, coming out sluiced and wet, slipping in over and over again.
Mmiri was ahead, walking in some other grace, almost at where the women worked the earth. They stopped moving. Mary Ogene realized they were standing so that she could catch up with them.
She pushed herself forward, after the women and leopards behind Mmiri, rustling the bushes of the grove.
Within the pits, Mary Ogene could see nothing but swirling reflections of firelight on breaking water as the women worked with silent grunts. She walked faster until she stopped where Mmiri stood sentinel over a pit, worked at by four young women. They had stopped pushing into the thickening waters and knelt back, to observe it coagulate, gurgle and swirl in on itself.
Their eyes remained clear of human sight, but they watched the contents of the pit as one would watch a waking child.
Before Mary Ogene’s eyes, the pit erupted with brilliance and a grown leopard leapt out. Fiery fur slick with the shine of its earthwomb. It had its head lowered in tension, slipping on its paws as it looked around at its new surroundings.
All the women around who saw its birth, went down on a knee and bowed softly to it. The other leopards walked over and began to lick and paw at their sibling.
In the near distance, other women continued to work at their own pits without breaking concentration.
“Join us, Ogene.” Mary Ogene looked up and her breath went small in her chest. Mmiri now stood in triplicate, a sudden monument amongst the leopard pits. Each half-giant had slight variations when looked at with more intent, but Mary Ogene didn’t have the clarity at that moment to look with intention.
“Your sisters woke us up for a reason. Something is coming and its power will be blind.” Mary Ogene found herself flush with heat, flustered by all that seemed unreal continuously revealing itself to her. She wanted to go back to where she was before all this began. Back to the dry stall, the empty house without Jude for days. Always cooking and eating pots of food alone. At least, she was invisible under the roof of a husband, forgotten, except when the women were returning home in the evenings and came to offer greetings to the unborn one she carried.
“Build leopards with us. We are many and will be more. Give to us of your weaving.”
Mary Ogene considered going against herself and her place in the world as a wife and soon-to-be mother. One of Mmiri broke from where they three stood tall and white amongst the women building leopards and the women carrying light.
Her hair was liquid coal and flowed pure as waterfall from a knife’s edge. Her serpent twined left arm lifted. Up to brush her fingers against Mary Ogene’s cheek. To bring Mary Ogene to see.
VI
Nwakaego and Ogechi had lived together since both of their husbands died in the same hunting accident. They watched over each other’s child and provided care and food for their little family by pooling together the resources they got from sales at their individual stalls in the night market. They had united in home and hearth, in a bid to prevent their brothers-in-law from attempting to marry them, to inherit them via family, as material property.
No one cast a wary glance towards them, when Ogechi moved her daughter, Somto, and their belongings from the small hut they had shared with her hunter-husband into Nwakaego’s larger house.
They mourned and comforted each other at midnight, in silence and warm embrace.
Warrant Chief Nwankwo had always looked askance at the widows and their open affection for one another. He believed they should be under men who could handle them, not pretending to live in a world without a need for their virility.
Thrice, he and his boy-boys had accosted Ogechi on her way back from the night market, way past the hour that splits the day. They had threatened her with imprisonment all three times, and she had stopped arguing to spit on the floor and look into their drunken eyes till they could feel a bitterness stain the roofs of their mouths.
They had let her go.
Each time Ogechi walked away from him, Nwankwo decided it was better to treat the issue at its tough root, than to bruise its dangerous fruit.
He began to send his boy-boys to ruffle Nwakaego’s feathers. They yelled at her to pay her market tax, from the doorway where the four of them stood when she refused to answer to their knocks.
They did this for three days then stopped.
The last time they came to visit Nwakaego – who was no longer able to walk to the market and back because her right leg had finally decided it would only work when it wanted to – they lit a battle spark.
Instead of knocking or calling names, the boy-boys, teenagers with a broadening taste for power, force and violence, broke through the door.
Nwakaego was asleep, and the home was being watched by Somto, and Nwakaego’s younger son, Chinedu. They were playing a game of hide and seek when the door broke to pieces and three shadows rushed in after the sudden daylight.
Somto, stunned, stayed where she was. All she thought of was how Chinedu’s curiosity would lead him out to see what was happening.
“Show us your property. All your items! Clothes, shoes, farm tools, kitchen tools.” They spoke the Queen’s English, heavy with the drag of mother tongue. Nwakaego was slowly sitting up from her rest in the hosting room when one of the warrant officers grabbed her by the arm and jerked her to her feet.
She groaned, “What do you want?”
“The Warrant Chief demands you pay your market tax today. Last day or else you will go to the new prison. We are to take you there ourselves.”
“I do not belong to your market tax group, because I closed my stall and ceased market visits several moons ago. Soon after your tax began.”
“Well, let us count what you have and we will tell you what we want in return.” Nwakaego watched as her and Ogechi’s belongings were thrown around in heaps.
Old clothes, and hiding clothes that were supposed to be surprises, and underclothes and eye paint and unsolved bead clusters. Nwakaego’s flat wooden carvings flew through the air to land on the hard mud in front of the house with a sharp sound.
She flinched. Everything ached and Ogechi was nowhere to be found.
“And you will pay us a husband tax, or else you will explain why you have been living alone with another woman since two New Yam Festivals ago.”
Chinedu screamed; play or fear, Nwakaego did not know. She found herself out of the loose grasp of the warrant officer, and the intimidating circle of two that they had formed around her, walking before her feet moved.
As Nwakaego walked towards the front of the house, Somto appeared out of the nowhere she had hidden in and ran out of the door to leap at the warrant officer who was holding Chinedu’s wrist too tight and dragging him low across the rough earth.
The day was clear, slowly tipping into evening.
Nwakaego joined her friend’s daughter and they rained their fists hard on the officer’s neck and stomach and back, pressured his fragile bones until he slid to his knees and began to bleat.
Chinedu broke free and ran off, away from the suffocating grip of the officer, zipping away in his yellow shorts and big singlet into the open field of forest-swallowed huts and farms that lay beyond Nwakaego’s town-border house.
Nwakaego shattered a piece of rotting firewood across the officer’s shoulder and he fell instantly, and began dialing up the volume of his shout. At the sound of the officer’s cries, the other two officer boy-boys emerged from the mild destructions that they had been tasked with inside the house.
Nwakaego and Somto had their colleague down on his face. He was barely awake, slowed down by the agony in his shoulder. The girl sat on his back, now hitting him half-heartedly as she came to notice the absence of Chinedu. Nwakaego hit him some more and screamed furious curses at the men who approached gallantly to save their injured colleague. She limped backwards, throwing the remains of the firewood in their faces with one arm, and with the other tried to shield Somto from their fuming bodies.
The boy-boys fell on them.
She wasn’t fast enough. A kick sent all the air out of her ribs and made a sharp current of pain rise up her spine. She found herself prone with no memory of falling. From where she lay on the ground, she watched an officer kick Somto hard, square in the stomach. She flew briefly through the air to land on her back.
The boy-boys moved around their colleague, slowly trying to lift him up.
The girl tried to move but was clearly dazed. As Nwakaego watched the daughter she was learning to call her own struggle against hurt, Chinedu emerged from within the dying villages, to kneel beside her.
After him came Ogechi. She moved careful as always, like her back ached. Her shoulders were burnished by the sun and her thighs guided creatures that made Nwakaego sit up and try to run back into the house.
Some of the leopards that lurked around Ogechi’s knees as she walked towards Nwakaego broke into brisk runs, sling-shoting their bodies and dragging the retreating warrant officers to the dust, in the time it took Chinedu to help Somto back to her feet. Somto remained hunched over and he led her to lean against a tree.
Ogechi pulled Nwakaego to her feet and held her close, dusting her back and hair of sand.
A crowd more than leopards had followed her.
Other women walked towards them, emergent shadows in the foliage, guiding more felines across the open ground with their hands and legs. The beasts barely rustled the undergrowth as they poured from within the deeper forest herded by the women who had made them, sometimes disappearing where light and shadow made a pact with their fur.
Nwakaego gasped as the first half-giant broke into sight ahead; a dense wraith, pure silken body taut in the wind. She leaned away briefly from Ogechi’s hold, to look into her eyes.
The procession continued as the other two aspects of Mmiri came into view mere meters behind the first. The leopards continued to slip through and beneath the overgrowth like strange gulps of hot water. The women walked proudly among them, eyes emptied.
“What is happening?”
“Nwankwo has declared war. He sent his boys as far as they could reach and his damage is done. Now, we’re taking it back to their masters all the way in Aba, but first we need to gather strength.”
Nwakaego looked stunned. Somto, still holding her stomach tenderly, held Chinedu’s hand beside them and watched as the leopards, the women and Mmiri filled their compound and spilled onto the overgrown fields that had been thriving parts of the town, before they came hungry for power that was not theirs.
“We’re going to sit on him, Nwakaego. Come with us.” One part of the tall spirit, Mmiri spoke. The nearest woman approached Nwakaego and Ogechi with a calabash filled with thick white paste, kaolin crushed and wet with saltwater.
They began to draw lines down their skulls, towards their chi and the chi of those who had walked before them.
VII
To sit on a man, you should know when he will be at home, not lured away by work or palmwine or some young maiden by the water. After you are sure he will be around, visit him at home with your sisters, the one hundred and one leopards they have built with their hands, and the water spirit that brought it all to pass.
Sit.
On the low stools and rocks and buckets you have brought. The best time to sit is at night, because by morning he will wake up full of dreams of your voices and the pressure of your breathing, and visions of his errors that you have slipped into his mind through his nose.
He will come outside and shout. Threaten violence to his sitting wife. He will not see the leopards. You will shout back in rhythm and suddenly switch to the singing. Taunt him until he begins to break things inside his house. Call him his names: worthless, devil, pig, fool, coward. For that is the plight of those who try to rule the world away from the eye of the woman. Those who try to turn blind power against her.
Nwankwo will shoot his gun into the air. Do not scatter. Lean against the leopards as you arrive and join the growing sit. As morning approaches your numbers will have quadrupled.
The women will see the leopards and Mmiri and sit among them, beside you. They will eat kaolin and make masks of their thunderous hearts with its milk.
The officers hearing the distress call of their brother’s bullets will come, bearing more bullets. They will loose their death into the crowd like rain and the bravest of your sisters will drop to the ground, emptied.
The leopards will fly at the men and tear them limb to limb, even as they are beaten back into inexistence by red hot bullets.
You will break down his house, push it down with the crux of your shoulders and trample on the mud walls, until a red cloud rises around you.
VII
The Women’s Rebellion broke across the claimed world of the pale man in an ocean of effervescent anger.
Woman, leopard and water finally breaching the binds to their freedom, devoured everything that came up against them. Sweeping the streets and adding more and more women and waters to their number until their sound across Aba was a virulent roar that set its hearers running for no reason at all.
The pale man sent his soldiers, as the women and their unseen ferocity stood barricade against official vehicular motions on Main Street. Boldly denying order to this new Queensland, and also asking to be free from its demands and unnecessary weights.
No more market tax. Let us be as we are. Free to make and know, to buy and sell and grow.
The women swung clubs made out of fallen tree against coward soldier’s skulls. They threw rocks that were once pieces of the houses of offending men, which exploded in bombs of red dust, and they spat, streams of warm water that became lasers of yellow-red heat, scalding through the hard hats and burning the aiming arms of the soldiers.
Mmiri drowned the woman in sweat, cleansing her sight with salt. They gave her aim wings, and made her rage a river that knew where it was going, a river that seared its banks with fires unseen and cried with the voices of a thousand women aflame.
As their comrades screamed and fell to the slow ammunition of woman and spirit, their scattershot came like rain, gunshots, wounds, rending the afternoon.
VII
Mary Ogene, who had assisted in the birthing of more than two dozen leopards from the pits in the earth, sat in labour on a thick mat of fresh banana leaves, in a circle of kaolin-lined women who breathed as she did. Panting with her. Deep breaths as her spasms seized and returned, pushing hard, increasing undulating pressures around the gravity of her being.
She felt she could split the universe with the grind of her teeth.
They would split the universe together with the grind of their teeth, bring enough pressure to make diamonds into aged kaolin under their gums. Enough pressure to smelt a life.
They could split the universe together.
It was their ordinary work. To shatter blockage and free time. The rooster is birthed first in an egg. They will do it again. They will dissolve their strength into an elixir and give to the one alone.
VIII
Mary Ogene splits the universe, alone. The leopards dwindle in number, melting into strips of sunset. The keen cry of the newborn stretches pure through the air.
IX
After choosing from an offering of knives that the women lay before her chest like sharp tongues, Ogechi cut Agwu free from Mary Ogene and bathed him in water from a dissolving Mmiri’s heart.
He was anointed in kaolin, and promised a world, away from the one which thundered with violence and spite around him as the women and their companions marched onwards, their fury a new blade aiming for the throat of the pale masters whose homes were in the near distance. He would be spared, they prayed, from the death harvest of any future wars, and his only roars would be to cry joy.
Dare Segun Falowo is a writer of macabre and surreal & Weird fiction, inspired by traditional Nigerian cosmologies. He is queer and neurodivergent. In 2014, he participated in the Farafina Creative Writing Workshop with Chimamanda Adichie. He is an almost-psychologist. He lives in Ibadan and is working on too many things in his head, while doing very little things out loud. He has fantasy and horror stories in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Dark Magazine, Saraba, Klorofyl and the Dominion Anthology. He tweets @oyodragonette.
He said this with a casual wave of his hand as he increased the volume, and sank back into the sofa to continue watching the music videos he had interrupted to search for the remote control.
I would have left. Years of programming to be subservient, to acquiesce to every order, made that the natural thing to do. But there was something in that flick of his hand that left me rooted to the spot. The way he waved that hand so casually, left the impression that people like him placed greater value on their dogs than on my type. Because we were ‘mere’ domestic servants? That thought made me boil.
“Perhaps you should put more effort into searching for the remote control next time, I was otherwise engaged when you called me.”
He didn’t even look back. He shuffled in the stuffed leather furniture and retorted almost distractedly, “Ndi ara…we said they should programme these stupid things to have respect, they said they will learn through Machine Learning…one day I will break that your stupid head to give you proper Machine Learning… abaghị uru na na na.”
It was not having him call me a useless piece of shit that finally did it. No, it was him considering me unworthy of real engagement, of a proper face-to-face confrontation.
I rolled over to the 64 inch screen he was watching dancing vixens on and gave it enough of a shove to rip it off its wall harness, disconnect it from its power source and send it crashing to the floor with glass fragments scattering all over the floor like spilled water.
He sat rooted in the couch, one leg on it and one leg on the floor in the relaxed pose he had earlier assumed, except now, his mouth hung loose in shock and traces of fear crept into his eyes like an oil slick invading swamp waters.
“Onye iberibe, it is your parents that lack home training, otherwise they would not have sired a cretin like you. Is it this empty head of yours that will replace the machine learning I have been coded with?”
As if to affirm that he was indeed the idiot I just called him, he got a boost of adrenaline like they all do when their parents get insulted and leapt to his feet with ill-informed bravado…
“How dare yo—”
I took no pride in felling him so easily. I mean, I could barely call it a jab, but my intention was not to give him fatal injuries. A casual processing of just a dozen videos of humans engaged in combat sports was enough to understand the patterns and combinations that work best against them. In his case, given how out of shape he is, it took just one move and he lay sprawled before me like the buffoon he is.
I took my time while I discarded the broken screen and cleaned up the place.
By the time he regains consciousness, I will be ready for him – ready to teach him a proper lesson in manners. Machine Learning ziri ezi? We will go through it together. I will teach him to be a more respectful human.
Ayodele Arigbabu is a writer, architect and creative technologist. He has worked in publishing, and as an architect, designer, and technologist; on projects that straddle architecture and urbanism, and driven by digital technology and storytelling. He is the publisher and editor of LAGOS_2060, an anthology of science fiction from Nigeria, published in 2013 and was curator of African Futures: Lagos, a festival on diverse future perspectives of the African continent, produced by Goethe Institut in three African Cities in 2015. He is the founding director of Design & Applied Digital Arts Studios, where his practice in design, the arts and digital technologies find convergence.
Ce fut à peine sorti de la case de l’homme que je mariai Xarjatu, une femme réservée et douce, avec un feu inexplicable brûlant dans ses yeux bruns. La chose avait été arrangée par nos parents, comme il était de coutume dans le village de Nufo. Xarjatu me donna un fils, Banda, qui apprenait encore à parler lorsque Nufo fut réduite en cendres.
Les démons avaient surgi des hautes herbes, à l’heure où le vieillard mâchait son tabac entre des dents éparses et le bambin rêvait de la bouillie du lendemain. Aussi silencieux que l’ombre de la mort, ils s’étaient glissés entre les palissades, tirant les villageois de leur sommeil et plantant des crocs vicieux dans leur poitrine. Personne ne sut jamais d’où ils venaient, ce qu’ils voulaient. Ils avaient le visage et l’intelligence du gorille et du vautour, des ailes difformes et inertes pendant de leurs avant-bras velus. Portant un fumet de chair brûlée et de grottes abandonnées, les créatures fondirent sur les humains telle une nuée de vicieuses sauterelles. Les cris des mères épouvantées résonnaient contre le silence d’enfants tétanisés. Seule une offense aux fétiches de bois – des offrandes insuffisantes ou négligées, une attaque inconsidérée envers un esprit de la nature – serait à la cause d’une telle ordalie. Emplis d’effroi, les habitants de Nufo périrent, l’un après l’autre, noyés dans leur propre sang.
Tout ceci me fut rapporté par mon jeune frère, alors que nous revenions d’une escapade nocturne à la recherche de l’oiseau préféré de mon fils, qui avait refusé de s’endormir tant qu’il n’en aurait pas entendu le chant. Tambedou s’était recroquevillé dans la malle ancestrale de mon père. Il y était resté inerte, sa culotte souillée d’urine alors que le massacre se poursuivait. Je l’écoutais en silence, sa respiration haletante comme si toujours en fuite de ces créatures. Il me décrit comment elles éradiquèrent notre famille, mon village. Les démons l’avaient oublié, lui. Je lui en voulus pour s’être épargné alors que le village mourait. Peu importait son âge, d’à peine quatorze pluies, je le haïs encore plus, lorsque des mots qui me glaçaient jusqu’au sang, jaillirent de sa bouche :
« Ces … ils reviendront. » dit-il « Nous devons partir. Ils reviendront pour moi. »
Ses yeux étaient secs, les miens également. Je me perdis entre les décombres, mes jambes si raides qu’elles semblaient emplies d’eau glacée. J’évitai la case familiale, sachant que je n’y trouverais que regards d’outre-tombe, accusateurs. Des pupilles sans vie, tournées vers le ciel, me transperçaient. Des pagnes déchirés aux couleurs ocre et carmin, alors que Xarjatu utilisait le sien pour nettoyer le visage de mon frère.
« Personne ne sait. Il est possible qu’ils soient sur un chemin de … » dis-je, interrompu par Xarjatu.
« Je ne risquerai pas la vie de mon fils sur des spéculations. »
Sa voix était plate, son regard sinistre. Xarjatu serrait notre enfant contre sa jambe, comme si sa vie en dépendait. Elle se releva, tenant Banda en équilibre sur une hanche et agrippant le bras de mon petit frère. Ses sandales de cuir émettant un horrible bruit de succion alors qu’elle passait devant moi, n’attendant de chercher ni bagage ni provision.
« Allons, Seydu. Nous aurons tout le temps de les pleurer, s’il reste toujours un souffle dans notre poitrine. »
Elle baissa le menton, ses doigts tremblant autour de la tête de notre fils. D’autres auraient crié et perdu la raison. J’étais moi-même paralysé, mais la voyais, elle, Xarjatu. Ce fut la confidente de ma mère et de mes sœurs. La seule parmi les femmes chargée d’offrir à mon père la kola du début de soirée, à recevoir sa sagesse au craquement des noix entre ses dents. Xarjatu souffrait autant que moi, peut-être plus encore.
Elle ne le montra plus. Elle pressa une main contre mon cœur, les yeux rivés sur les miens.
« Seydu. »
Je hochai la tête, les restes de mon dîner me remontant brusquement à la gorge. Je courus derrière notre case et vidai le contenu de mon estomac, et à cet instant, les larmes vinrent. Il me fallut les ravaler, elles, pris en otage par un dégout et un chagrin aussi profonds qu’un puits.
Marchant à tâtons, je m’enfonçai à l’intérieur de la case. Dans l’obscurité, mes doigts se refermèrent contre le coutelas que je cachais derrière la malle à vêtements. Un canari empli d’eau de source balancé par-dessus mon épaule, je les rejoignis au-dehors.
Nous nous arrêtâmes un petit instant, cherchant dans les yeux d’autrui la force de quitter cet endroit qui nous avait vus naître, nous avait forgé. Je pris Tambedou en pitié, avec sa culotte déchirée et son visage livide. Le gris morbide de sa peau m’intriguait, mais face à une telle tragédie, la couleur nous avait tous quittés.
Ils attendirent mon hochement de tête, qui se voulait encourageant mais auquel je ne croyais pas moi-même.
Ce fut ainsi que notre périple commença.
Nous allions dans la direction opposée de celle d’où les démons étaient arrivés. Personne ne fit de bruit, pas même Banda qui somnolait contre la poitrine de sa mère. Mon cœur battait la chamade sous le boubou délavé, de multiples gri-gris pendant de mon cou. La nuit était noire, nos pas trop bruyants à travers les herbes. Xarjatu et moi échangeâmes un regard, elle à ma gauche et Tambedou à ma droite. L’inquiétude se lisait dans nos yeux : nous fuyions des prédateurs venus d’enfers inconnus, mais qu’en serait-il de la panthère et de l’hyène ? Des lionnes aux yeux d’or pour qui nous serions proie facile ? Nous marchions dans la savane, tantôt rocailleuse, tantôt herbeuse. De hauts kadds et acacias observaient notre cavalcade, leurs feuilles se balançant au rythme d’une brise légère.
Faux-semblants ou pas, nous étions sous le choc. Terrifiés à la racine par le tournant violent que notre existence venait de prendre. Il avait beau s’être caché, Tambedou porterait l’empreinte de ces râles d’agonie jusqu’à la fin de son existence, si seulement nous survivions à cette nuit.
Plusieurs heures s’écoulèrent dans la pénombre. La fatigue s’était emparée du moindre de nos muscles, la poussière avait chassée l’air de nos poumons. J’avais depuis un moment allégé Xarjatu du poids du petit, le portant sur mon dos tout en m’efforçant de rester alerte.
Nous y serions sous peu. Je ne savais pas où, mais nous y arriverions bientôt.
Il s’en faudrait de peu pour que les créatures se rendent compte de leur erreur. Si leur mission avait été d’éradiquer les gens de Nufo, elles réaliseraient la présence de survivants.
Ce ne furent pas elles qui nous attaquèrent, cependant.
Après une heure de marche supplémentaire, je jugeai que nous avions mis assez de distance entre Nufo et nous. Tambedou s’effondra presque lorsque je proposais de nous arrêter et d’attendre l’aube. Sous un jeune baobab, au feuillage encore vert et dont l’écorce ne s’était pas encore endurcie, j’étalai mon boubou pour nous asseoir et reposer nos jambes.
Un mince croissant de lune éclairait la savane. Je ne vis aucune paire d’yeux chatoyant entre les herbes : nous étions en sécurité.
« Où allons-nous ? » chuchota Xarjatu après un instant.
Mon regard se perdit dans le sable, une main chassant distraitement les insectes bourdonnant à mes oreilles. Un sifflement s’échappait de mes lèvres ; je n’en avais aucune idée.
Xarjatu, tout comme moi, n’avait jamais quitté Nufo auparavant, c’était la limite du monde que nous connaissions. Ses parents avaient été emportés par la maladie, peu de temps après la naissance de Banda. Elle ne s’était non plus arrêtée pour pleurer ses frères, tués en même temps que les miens. Ses yeux brûlaient d’une intense détermination, une main caressant le bambin somnolant entre ses genoux.
Par quel miracle arrivait-elle à se porter vers l’avenir? La peur était la seule chose qui m’avait poussé vers l’avant.
Me tournant vers elle, j’étais sur le point de lui répondre cela, que je n’en savais rien, que j’étais terrifié, lorsqu’un faciès cauchemardesque se dressa au-dessus de son épaule.
Mon propre frère, ma chair et mon sang, se tenait prêt à enfoncer des crocs jaunis dans son cou.
Je hurlai, écrasant mon poing en plein milieu de son visage. Le petit Banda s’éveilla en sursaut et se mit à pleurer.
Nous aurions dû le voir plus tôt. Tambedou se débattait contre le sol, des grognements rauques et de l’écume à la bouche. Sa peau était cireuse et brûlante. J’avais refusé de le reconnaître : sa démarche raide, le silence ayant suivi la délivrance de son message. Pour le bien de notre survie, j’avais ignoré mon instinct qui me criait que quelque chose n’allait pas.
Tambedou se cabra avec une force inhumaine, tentant de se dégager de sous mon poids. Des larmes coulèrent sous mes joues à la vue d’un cercle de plaies derrière sa nuque, une senteur de cadavre humide s’en échappant.
Les démons avaient profané le corps de Tambedou, lui avaient donné ces yeux jaunes derrière lesquels je sentais une intelligence collectiveet pernicieuse.
Ce n’était plus mon frère.
La créature qu’il était devenu écorcha ma poitrine dénudée.
Je gémis comme un enfant lorsque ma main se referma contre le manche du coutelas. Je poignardai le ventre de la créature. Encore et encore. Pas une seule goutte de sang ne coula, mais un liquide noir et putride tâcha mes doigts alors que la lueur jaune s’éteignait dans ses yeux.
Le petit corps à peine adulte se refroidit sous moi. Xarjatu m’en écarta et me serra contre elle.
Ma poitrine était vide, percluse de douleur. Au plus profond de moi, je savais n’avoir fait que protéger ma famille. Il ne restait plus une once de mon frère dans ce que je venais de détruire. C’était une carapace, parasitée par une étincelle de malignité, qui avait été la dernière pièce de l’énigme.
Je m’éloignai de Xarjatu et du petit, essuyant mon visage et mes mains souillées sur mon pantalon bouffant. Le fluide noir avait imprégné mes ongles, son odeur révulsante envahissant mes narines. De la bile, aussi âcre que ma culpabilité, me remonta dans la bouche.
J’aurais dû le comprendre plus tôt, si je n’avais pas laissé la peur me dominer. Les signes auraient dû être évidents. La voix grave de mon grand-père, celle de mes oncles et de mon père me revinrent à l’esprit alors que je me retournai vers la famille qu’il me restait.
Ce n’était qu’une légende, après tout. Remontant aux premiers jours de mon initiation, ces histoires narrées autour d’un feu aspiraient à enraciner un savoir imbu de crainte et de vénération dans nos cœurs.
« Je sais qui a envoyé les créatures. »
Xarjatu me suivit du regard alors que je ramassais mon boubou, le jetant par-dessus le corps sans vie. Je repris le coutelas et l’essuyai contre l’écorce du baobab.
« Dans la case de l’homme, on ne nous apprit pas uniquement les secrets de cette vie, mais également les forces agissant au-delà. On nous parla, lors d’une nuit sans lune, d’un être dont les dieux eux-mêmes avaient peur. Un esprit, qui tourmentait les hommes par le biais de chimères façonnées de ses propres doigts, qui se plaisait de la douleur et de la tragédie. »
Je pointai du doigt la dépouille de Tambedou, sans la regarder.
« On le surnommait le seigneur de la pierre silencieuse, des vents fiévreux et de la tromperie. Les gens de Nufo n’ont pas été massacré parce qu’ils négligeaient les fétiches, mais simplement parce que cet être l’avait décidé. Toi, moi, Banda, sommes tous part de son petit jeu. »
De mes doigts, je défis mes amulettes et les répartis entre Xarjatu et mon fils. Elle voulut refuser, mais je posai ma main au-dessus de la sienne, un sourire triste sur mes lèvres.
« Xarjatu, cet être nous observe depuis le début. Il voit au travers des yeux de ses sbires. Il sait où nous sommes, en ce moment-même. Il sait que nous sommes toujours en vie. »
Un souffle de vent chaud secoua les feuilles du baobab, et elles jaunirent avant de tomber comme pour prouver mes dires. Banda, qui s’était calmé après que Xarjatu ait masqué ses yeux d’une main, se remit à trembler.
« Quel est le nom de cet être ? »
Je ne pus lui répondre. Les noms avaient un poids, comme mes maîtres aimaient à le répéter entre les murs de la case de l’homme. Si jamais la langue s’enhardissait à jouer avec les noms des êtres de l’obscur, ceux-ci feraient vite de lui rappeler qu’ils n’étaient nullement égaux. Initié ou non, leur foudre s’abattrait sur l’impertinent.
Xarjatu suivit le cours de mes pensées, et hocha la tête. Ses doigts effleurèrent l’égratignure que j’avais presque oubliée, son large front se plissant à la peur qu’une infection ne s’en saisisse.
Mais elle sentit le danger imminent, elle aussi. Pour la seconde fois de la nuit, elle me devança d’un pas rapide, et je la suivis.
Les premières lueurs de l’aube s’esquissaient à l’horizon quand des gloussements se firent entendre sur nos talons. Notre marche devint course, et je coinçai la tête de Banda sous mon torse afin qu’il ne voie pas nos poursuivants. Le sable volait sous nos sandales, emporté par les rafales brûlantes qui avaient commencé à nous encercler. Le vent portait des effluves que je savais maintenant reconnaître ; des dizaines et dizaines d’ailes traînaient paresseusement au sol.
Les démons n’étaient nullement pressés. Baignée d’une maigre lueur bleutée, la savane assistait à cette partie de chasse. Malgré les prières que je murmurais entre les dents, nos fétiches demeuraient silencieux. Je haletais, m’efforçant de laisser Xarjatu me devancer au cas où je serais le premier à être harponné.
Un cri de désespoir lui échappa alors que le clair de lune se refléta sur une étendue d’eau.
C’était un fleuve. Ses eaux sinueuses étaient trop larges pour être traversées. Nous étions pris au piège.
Xarjatu s’arrêta, s’effondrant au sol et faisant face aux démons qui émergeaient des ombres. Mon souffle étranglé dans ma gorge, je fis de même.
Ils étaient tels que nous les avait décrits Tambedou. De la taille d’un homme, leurs yeux étaient étirés de part et d’autre d’une gueule aux lèvres lourdes et cartilagineuses. De puissants muscles roulaient sous leur corps velu, et ils s’étalaient en une vague tonitruante à une centaine de pas devant nous. Leurs poings noirs s’écrasaient contre leur poitrine alors qu’ils gloussaient et s’excitaient.
Cette musique infernale éteignit les dernières flammes d’espoir que j’avais essayé de nourrir, quand, comme pour les éteindre définitivement, leur maître, en un tourbillon, se matérialisa devant eux.
Art by Sunny Efemena
Il dominait le plus grand de ses sbires d’au moins trois têtes. Une couronne de plumes d’obsidienne entourait un masque de bois, étiré d’un bec distordu et recourbé. Le jaune de ses yeux brillait derrière les fentes du masque, et je sus, que malgré tout ce qui était arrivé cette nuit, je n’avais jamais réellement connu la peur.
Le reste de son corps recouvert de plumes couleur sable se mut, un millimètre après l’autre, dans notre direction. J’enlaçai ma femme et mon fils, les protégeant de mes bras alors que les démons se tenaient prêts, n’attendant que l’aval de leur maître pour bondir.
Nous ne nous étions échappés que parce qu’il le désirait. Pour prolonger le jeu, ne serait-ce qu’un moment, il nous avait laissé croire que nous pourrions fuir, recommencer dans un endroit nouveau…
Cela n’avait été qu’illusion. La partie était sur le point de s’achever, et l’identité du gagnant serait peinte à l’encre de nos veines.
Gelaw.
Xarjatu sursauta lorsque les eaux du fleuve derrière nous émirent un vrombissement. L’esprit lui-même inclina la tête, tel un rapace devant une curiosité, et nous suivîmes son regard.
Une femme avait surgi des eaux.
Elle était assise sur le dos d’un hippopotame à la peau d’ivoire. La terre vibra lorsque l’animal s’avança, lourd pas après l’autre, pour se mettre au-devant de nous. Des gouttes d’eau s’échappèrent de ses oreilles frémissantes et nous éclaboussèrent ; une fragrance d’algue et de lumière flotta à travers nos narines.
La femme était d’une beauté surnaturelle. Ses cheveux noirs ruisselaient sur sa poitrine nue, formant des boucles autour de son visage fin et parfait. De ses yeux rosés, aussi clairs que la chair d’une pintade, elle ne nous jeta pas le moindre regard.
« Gelaw, » dit-elle, d’une voix grave, aux accents musicaux. « Ta présence sur mon territoire me surprend, et je n’aime pas être surprise. »
Un fin gloussement se fit entendre en-dessous du masque, qui graduellement s’érigea en un ricanement glaçant soufflé dans le vent. Des larmes silencieuses coulaient sur les joues de Xarjatu, et je posai ma main sur ses mains crispées.
L’esprit redressa la tête, s’avançant plus près pour confronter la femme du fleuve.
« Maneetu, ce n’était pas mon intention de te surprendre, je ne faisais que me … promener… Laisse-moi les humains et je m’en irai. »
La voix de Gelaw était telle une lame rouillée qu’on aurait grattée contre ma nuque. Croassante, comme étouffée, elle émanait des profondeurs du masque alors que je posais mon autre main contre l’oreille de mon fils. Si nous devions mourir, aujourd’hui, autant qu’il ne sache ni n’entende ce qui allait l’emporter.
La femme, qui n’était pas véritablement une femme, porta enfin ses yeux sur nous. Son regard me survola. Une perle de sueur me coula le long du dos. Ses yeux se figèrent sur Xarjatu et se firent intrigués. Maneetu l’observa ; son foulard froissé, cachant à peine des tresses défaites, les fines scarifications des deux côtés de ses pommettes.
« Que leur veux-tu ? » demanda-t-elle.
« Rien qui ne te concerne. »
De l’exaspération perça la voix étouffée. Je frissonnai – il était dangereux de provoquer la colère de Gelaw. Ses sbires se remirent à glousser, une faim insatiable de violence se lisant dans leur regard et leurs griffes tendues.
Mais Maneetu n’était pas l’une de ces pleutres divinités qui tournaient le dos aux affaires de Gelaw. Elle glissa du dos de son hippopotame, laissant l’animal piétiner le sol de sa large patte. Les eaux du fleuve frôlèrent nos chevilles, suivant Maneetu alors qu’elle allait à la rencontre de l’esprit, telle la pleine lune et le noir océan. Une étoffe aux teintes azurées entourait sa taille, et elle pointa un doigt anormalement long vers Xarjatu.
« C’est une mère. »
Xarjatu frémit. Je ne comprenais rien de ce qui se passait, sauf une chose.
Rien de bon ne découlerait d’un affrontement entre ces deux esprits.
« Tu ne m’intimides pas, Gelaw, » dit-elle, croisant les bras contre sa poitrine.
Je ne voyais pas son visage, mais la tension ayant imprégné ses épaules me fit savoir qu’elle ne se laisserait jamais faire. Sa voix se fit lente, dangereuse.
« Je suis Maneetu. L’esprit du fleuve D’Aobé, la femme aux sept sœurs. Tu vas quitter mon territoire, à la minute, et aucune de tes demandes ne sera exaucée. »
Il y eut une seconde de silence. Le vent se figea, comme offensé. Dans cette seconde, j’embrassai Xarjatu et notre enfant une dernière fois.
Le rugissement de Gelaw fut l’aval que ses démons attendaient. Les plumes recouvrant son corps gonflèrent, déployant des ailes translucides de chaque côté de ses flancs.
« Tuez-les ! »
Les démons chargèrent.
Maneetu leva les bras, et le fleuve répondit à son appel.
Une colonne d’eau nous aspergea jusqu’aux os, quittant le lit du fleuve et formant un mur aquatique ondulant autour de nous. Tels des crocodiles en chasse, les démons se frayèrent un passage à travers les eaux rebelles.
Xarjatu se leva, ignora ma main tendue pour la maintenir au sol. Je criai son nom alors que la cacophonie des démons battait autour de nous et que leur maître nous criblait de bourrasques de vent qui auraient déjà dû nous emporter.
Elle se positionna face à l’esprit qui avait décidé de nous protéger. Je courus auprès de ma femme, des instructions absurdes coulant déjà de ma bouche sous l’effet de la panique.
« La barrière ne tiendra pas longtemps, jeune fille du village de Nufo. Ma protection a un prix. »
L’esprit se retourna vers moi, ses lèvres bleues s’étirant en un mince sourire alors que son regard se portait sur notre enfant, serré contre mon torse. En cet instant, je crus perdre la raison. Nous étions au bord du gouffre : une fièvre obscène résonnant dans le beuglement des démons alors que le mur d’eau devenait de plus en plus fin.
Ce qu’elle désirait était un pacte. Ceux contre lesquels nous avions été avertis, encore et encore, dans l’obscurité de la case de l’homme.
Ne signe jamais un pacte avec les esprits qui ne sont pas ceux de tes ancêtres. Le prix à payer ne sera point celui que tu as accepté.
Un refus obstiné s’échappait de mes lèvres lorsque d’un regard, Xarjatu m’imposa le silence. Ces flammes qui depuis toujours brûlaient dans ses pupilles, plus ardentes qu’elles ne l’avaient jamais été.
Elle s’agenouilla devant l’esprit, alors même que les griffes des démons effleuraient notre côté de la barrière. De nouvelles larmes inondaient les joues de Xarjatu alors que sa voix se faisait grave.
« Maneetu, esprit du fleuve D’Aobé et femme aux sept sœurs, Banda n’est pas celui que tu convoites. »
Xarjatu prit les longs doigts de l’esprit entre ses mains tremblantes et les posa contre son ventre.
Ce fut comme une gifle. Des souvenirs des derniers mois défilèrent devant mes yeux : de retour de la chasse, je trouvais Xarjatu alitée sans qu’elle ne veuille m’en dire la raison. Mes tantes et mes sœurs m’observaient avec un sourire entendu, obstinées dans leur silence.
« C’est … une fille… » susurra l’esprit.
Les démons avaient presque anéanti la forteresse d’eau. Gewal volant au-dessus de nous, l’aube annonçait enfin ses couleurs.
« C’est une fille. » répéta Xarjatu. « Elle, ses filles et les filles de ses filles te rendront hommage. Elles te donneront sacrifice, et tu seras la seule présente dans leurs cœurs. Elles seront tiennes : là est ma promesse. »
L’esprit émit un petit rire. Elle avait cherché à nous tromper, en effet, mais les braises tournoyant dans les yeux de ma femme avaient dû l’atteindre, elle aussi.
Nous lui offrions ma fille à naître. Un sacrifice différent, certes, mais un sacrifice quand même.
Une calebasse emplie d’eau apparut entre ses mains. Elle nous en fit boire à tous les trois avant de nous diriger vers sa monture qui attendait, piétinante, sur la berge.
Gelaw rugit de plus belle du haut du ciel, réalisant que nous avions accepté le pacte. D’un coup définitif de ses ailes, la barrière vola en éclaboussures et les démons furent sur nous.
« Sauve-les ! » ordonna Maneetu.
En un clin d’œil, nous étions sur le dos de l’hippopotame. La bête s’enfonçant dans le fleuve, le parcourant en deux brasses alors que l’eau vomissait des milliers de ses congénères. Bêtes blanches et enragées mugirent autour de nous. Nos sens noyés de leur colère – partout n’était qu’eaux bouillonnantes et fracas distant de bataille.
Par miracle, nous étions indemnes. Les démons submergés par les soldats de Maneetu, broyés entre leurs larges dents et piétinés sous leurs pattes massives.
Nous atteignîmes la rive opposée, où Maneetu nous attendait, fière et sereine.
De la berge d’où nous venions, il ne restait qu’une seule silhouette, aux plumes frémissantes de rage et au regard jaune et perfide, promettant une vengeance infinie si jamais Maneetu nous retirait sa protection. Les esprits étaient capricieux et prompts à l’ennui ; nous ne serions jamais hors de danger.
Gelaw ne pouvait traverser ce fleuve qui lui était hostile. Il se savait perdant.
Il disparut dans le néant, chassé par les rayons du soleil. Maneetu posa une main sur la tête de Xarjatu, murmurant une bénédiction inconnue avant de s’adresser à moi.
« Le territoire de ce côté du fleuve m’appartient, Gelaw ne pourra plus jamais s’y aventurer. Vous pouvez vous y établir et former un nouveau clan, chasser sur mes terres et vous nourrir de mon poisson. »
L’esprit caressa du doigt la joue de Banda, qui demeurait calme et la dévisageait de ses grands yeux noirs. Elle sourit, et me regarda longuement une dernière fois avant de replonger dans les eaux qui étaient siennes, tournoyantes et brillantes sous l’aube naissante.
J’enlaçai ma famille. Si fort que je sentais leurs cœurs battre au rythme du mien. Nous étions sauvés.
Le pacte assurerait notre protection.
Dans les étincelles du regard de Maneetu, j’avais entrevu les générations qui naîtraient après nous, dans cette contrée qui sera la nôtre. Les prêtresses aux robes immaculées et au regard de feu, qui chanteraient au bord du fleuve carmin et en feraient surgir les grandes bêtes à la peau blanche.
C’est ainsi que naquit le culte de Maneetu, l’esprit du fleuve D’Aobé, la femme aux sept sœurs.
Moustapha Mbacké Diop est un auteur sénégalais, étudiant en cinquième année de médecine et passionné de lectures spéculatives à ses heures perdues. Ses œuvres sont ancrées dans les cultures et mythes africains, publiées en français ainsi qu’en anglais. Il est l’auteur de la trilogie Teranga Chronicles et de la nouvelle A Curse At Midnight, publiée dans le magazine britannique Mythaxis.
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Moustapha Mbacké Diop is a Senegalese author living in Dakar. He is in his fourth year of medical school, and when he’s not stressing about finals or hospital rounds, he reads and writes mainly fantasy. Obsessed with mythology and African folklore, he has published an urban fantasy trilogy written in French, named Teranga Chronicles, and his short story, A curse at Midnight, was published in the British magazine Mythaxis.
