Whenever she dreamed, it was always the same dream. But this time, it was different. <\/p>\n
It was always the day before he left for the war. They were together on the white shores of Neo-Dar before the floods came. They were standing at their favorite spot, his arms wrapped around her waist, her back against the wall of his torso, facing the waters of Oce that glistened with frolicking shards of sunlight. The conversation was always the same. She would ask why he had to go; he would say he had to for the sake of the cause; she would plead with him not to go and fight though she knew it was pointless. He was a stubborn man. Then he would whisper into her ear, an assuring soothing whisper, and say: <\/p>\n
\u201cI dey come back t\u2019you. Promise you dey wait fa me?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n She would promise. His embrace would tighten before breaking his grip, releasing his hands to journey down the grooves and crevices of her body. She, with a quiver that rose from between her legs, surrendered herself to him. <\/p>\n \u201cCome back t\u2019me, I beg,\u201d<\/em> she would say as she pulled his head down to her neck, yearning for the wetness of his tongue. He reciprocated in full measure. <\/p>\n Her knees buckled, satisfied. <\/p>\n Then his hands stopped and the dream changed. <\/p>\n Then she heard them, the whispers<\/em> of the floods, rising behind her, coming from him. She turned and saw his eyes had hollowed out into dark holes that were oozing an endless flow of black gunk down his cheeks, leaving black war-paint-like trails on his deadpan face. The whispers were coming from the dark holes, echoing from inside<\/em> him. The whispers got louder. The holes grew larger. And then. <\/p>\n She woke up, screaming, gasping for air as if from drowning. <\/p>\n It was night and she was alone in her cabana. She sat up from the floor and placed her hands on her flat belly, stroking it in circular rubs through her tattered robe, taking in deep breaths as she did. As the dream dissolved from memory, as dreams often do, all that remained was him, the soothing reassuring him<\/em>, at their favorite spot. She wrapped her arms around her belly. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen he bi home, he dey take us away from this place. You dey see babi<\/em>.\u201d She said, before humming a lullaby whose words she didn\u2019t remember. <\/p>\n He was different the day he came home from the war. <\/p>\n It was hard to say how long it had been. Nuke-clocks did not have the same determining stronghold on the human estate as they once did. All she had were the sun, the seasons, the westerly desert of Sah and the easterly waters of Oce to help her remember. It had been six winters and seven summers, just before the first of many floods to blanket the lower plains in oil-slick blackness. He left the enterprise of ocean-farming to fight in the war for the Geo-Engineers. A war that raged on for far too long and took more than it had given. <\/p>\n It had been six winters of bitter chill and empty slumber. Seven summers of drought and unquenched hankering. Each season clung on for much longer than the one gone before. It made waiting that much harder. Lonelier. <\/p>\n She had given up hope on any chance of his return. <\/p>\n And yet there he was; standing in the frame of the makeshift doorway, held together by dried hyacinth, scrap titanium and rotting wood, in his soil-caked combat fatigues. The embroidery of the Geo-Engineers emblem \u2013 a lower case g with a plus in superscript \u2013 was still visible through the cracked-dry muck on the slouched shoulders of his fatigues. <\/p>\n \u201cYou dey bi here? Nay some mind witchery, I beg?\u201d she said, only then realizing she had been holding her breath, causing a mild dizziness. And yet there he was. Not a contorted shadow or passing silhouette. But here. Now. With her. <\/p>\n \u201cAye! I bi here!\u201d he mumbled through a foliage of red-tinged facial hair, each word delivered with an Olympian effort. Her extremities tinkled; she imagined those extinct butterflies, the ones from the stories, were fluttering underneath her skin, craving to burst out, taking her memories with them to serenade the coming night. Letting off a quiet chuckle peppered with sniffles, she leapt to him and wrapped her arms around his sunbaked neck, pressing her smallish body to his. Startled, the man took in a sharp breath and flinched slightly. His arms, which were still hanging to his sides, flexed faintly unsure of how to reciprocate, as if this were some unfamiliar custom of an alien civilization. As his appendages recalled the appropriate customary response, he reciprocated, though in gradual measure. <\/p>\n She held on to him tightly, her hands fondling the back of his head, as if to reassure herself that this was no mind-witchery<\/em> of the man who had gone to fight for the side that promised to save the old world from this place and failed. <\/p>\n As she hung onto him, her feet airborne, a dark shadow came over her and the butterflies started fluttering again. This time, she wished that they could carry away her secret as well. For as they stood, quiet in each other\u201fs arms, probably not wanting to break this silent magic with the clumsiness of words, she had a singular thought on her mind. <\/p>\n Howse do I tell \u2018im \u2018bout you, babi?<\/em><\/p>\n Her heart continued hammering \u2013 harder than before. <\/p>\n When she woke up, she reached for his side of the floor bed and found that it was cold \u2013 hadn\u2019t been slept in. She scoped the sparse room. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be: power cylinder, food containers, water purifier and a small stack of clothes neatly folded to one side. She looked to the door beyond the foot of the bed. It was open. She panicked. <\/p>\n Had he left again?<\/em><\/p>\n Post-haste, she shoved the sheets away, got up, put on her old mandarin gown and bolted for the door. She sighed, relieved. <\/p>\n He was still there. <\/p>\n With his back to her, he stood naked and dangerously close to a billowing bonfire that was reaching for the dark of night, rising over him. The bonfire was an oasis in a limitless maw of darkness. Beyond, further up the plain, were little flickering lights, homes of fellow plains-folk, scattered off to the west. At a glance, it was as though the earth and the night had been seamlessly stitched together making the flickering lights just celestial members of an age-old constellation. He was alone and seemingly unafraid. His frame was blackened into shadow making him a child\u2019s stick figure against the flames. <\/p>\n Walking slowly on her tip-toes, she started toward him, until she was within earshot. That was when she noticed there was some kind of clothing clasped in his hand. The heat had singed his body hairs to black freckles on his hardened skin. But he didn\u2019t groan. Instead, he spoke. <\/p>\n \u201cGo \u2018n bed,\u201d he said calmly, his head tilted to the dark night sky as if talking to the few stars that pushed through the overcast smog-vapor. \u201cI need t\u2019bi on my ownsome.\u201d <\/p>\n Startled, she stopped motionless, her elbows cupped in her hands, not sure of what to do. <\/p>\n \u201cGo \u2018n bed, sabi?\u201d he snapped, twisting sharply in her direction, revealing crusted dark-red trails that lined his caved-in torso. Though the fire reflected in his eyes like a shapeshifting tattoo, all she could see was a deadness<\/em> around the edges. His brittle look cut through her like some fated betrayal. <\/p>\n He didn\u2019t<\/em> want her there. <\/p>\n She complied, albeit reluctantly. As she turned back to the cabana, she heard crackling behind her; she stole a glance before closing the door. He had thrown the piece of clothing into the bonfire and it ignited into brilliant greens and purples against the relentless reds and oranges. Before the cloth was consumed by the flame, she could make out what it was. His old combat fatigues. <\/p>\n As she tried to rest herself to sleep, she could hear weeping in the calm of the night. \u201cNay now,\u201d he said, shrinking away from her and breaking her tether. \u201cGi mi time.\u201d <\/p>\n And she, with a sigh, rested her head on her interlaced forearms as they both pretended to sleep. <\/p>\n A few days later, she bartered off some clothes at the Weekly Barter in exchange for a large woolen shawl. <\/p>\n Stop kickin\u2019! You ticklin\u2019 me! Babi! <\/p>\n What!? You bi try\u2019n to cheer me up? Why? <\/p>\n Methink you no much-much. These bi grown things. <\/p>\n I no no. Its jus\u2019 he bi diff\u2019r\u2019nt. <\/p>\n Aye, Tru\u2019 to god. He need time. Me only wish he talk\u2019d to me \u2018bout di war, m\u2019be it dey help \u2018im sleep. <\/p>\n I told \u2018im \u2018bout howst been since he left. Neo-Dar under di water. Me r\u2019build\u2019n three times bicos o\u2019 di waters. He worri\u2019d that m\u2019be di waters will rise \u2018gain. I nay worri\u2019d. It bi so long since di last flood. <\/p>\n He bi out on the Oce scavv\u2019n fa food \u2018n supplies. He nay like the weekly barter wit\u2019 di other plains-folk. <\/p>\n \u201cWe fend fa us-self\u201d he say.<\/p>\n He rathr go far-far out on di Oce than beg. He keeps com\u2019n backs wit\u2019 li\u2019l or nuttin\u2019. <\/p>\n Hey-hey! Look at di shawl I gat fa you. Gat it from the weekly barter where I gat you. Should keep you cover\u2019d \u2018til I tell \u2018im. <\/p>\n Nay, he no no \u2018bout you yet. <\/p>\n Aye, I no told \u2018im. Bicos it might bi much-much fa \u2018im, but I will tell \u2018im. I no no when, but soon. For now, you bi my li\u2018l secret. The sky was anemic, losing its pallet of color and taking on milky grey pallor, as if one were seeing through cataract-coated eyes, as the heavens welcomed the stardust of the coming night that promised to be cold. <\/p>\n Squatting outside the cabana in her shawl, she blew down into a discus of pulsing red heat that was hovering several inches above the ground. When the glow’s intensity was just right, she placed her hands, palms up, underneath the discus and rose with the restraint of an aerialist. The discus rose in unison with her. <\/p>\n As she started for the cabana, the creaking and groaning from a field of timeworn windmill turbines on the Oce could be heard far out in the easterly distance, beyond where Neo-Dar used to be. Many were still standing, perforating the greyish smog-vapor that blurred the twilight. A thick jungle of fabricated monoliths. <\/p>\n Clank!<\/em> <\/p>\n The sound of debris, from Neo-Dar drowned beneath, clanking against the rusted hull of the massive turbines formed the ambience of the day and night. The smell was putrid, reeking of the black gold that had seeped into the ground, poisoning the ground water and rendering a livelihood impossible on land or Oce. <\/p>\n Clank!<\/em><\/p>\n But she never noticed any of these, only because she chose not to. A part of her believed things would get better. She had to \u2013 needed<\/em> to \u2013 believe that. What was the alternative? Give in to the cabin fever<\/em> that was always at her doorstep, waiting to be invited in? To her, noticing the smells, the sounds, made her a conspirator of her own despair, like the many plains-folk that had gone before; many by their own hand in the quiet of their shacks. Some gave in to the Sah, further west beyond the far-off hills. Others walked toward the Oce and never stopped walking. <\/p>\n She felt an unwanted kinship with those who gave up and gave in, because she understood. It was this place. Being trapped in this place \u2013 this terminus<\/em> between the Oce and the Sah \u2013 got the better of them. <\/p>\n It bi eith’r by water or by fire<\/em>, she often thought. A cruel choice \u2013 the only one that remained. <\/p>\n Water ‘n’ fire.<\/em><\/p>\n Oce ‘n’ Sah.<\/em><\/p>\n Death ‘n’ death.<\/em><\/p>\n If only it could all stop fa a li’l<\/em>, she often thought. <\/p>\n The whispers. <\/p>\n The desert.<\/p>\n The life within her. <\/p>\n Him.<\/em> <\/p>\n Come back t’me, I beg!<\/em><\/p>\n Stop ‘um vain mullin’<\/em>, she snapped, as she entered the cabana and partook of the glowing warmth of the discus; the nightly routine numbing her from the vain mullin’<\/em> that came with this place, before she slept. <\/p>\n She didn’t wait for him to come home. <\/p>\n Like most days, he arrived, late and empty-handed, and threw himself onto the floor bed next to her, not touching her. And like most days, he didn’t say a word. <\/p>\n It was the funk that woke her first. Then his rummaging. <\/p>\n The room hung heavily with the unmistakable stench of the Oce. Dead and unholy. As she lifted herself off the floor bed, the film of sleep melting from her eyes, she saw him, clad in his kanzu<\/em>, frantically clawing for the supplies and throwing them onto a large lightly woven cotton cloth spread out on the floor. <\/p>\n \u201cHey-hey. What bi this?\u201d she said, with the back of her hand to her mouth, fighting off a comfortable yawn. <\/p>\n \u201cThere bi no time!\u201d he exclaimed, not looking at her as he rolled the power cylinder onto the cloth. <\/p>\n Then she heard it. It had been several moons since the last time she heard it outside of her dreams, but it was unmistakable. Her eyes widened with horror. <\/p>\n Di whisp\u2019rs.<\/em><\/p>\n He wrapped the corners of the cloth over the supplies and heaved it on his back, as she bolted from the floor, dashed outside and looked to the dawn-tinged easterly horizon, looking for it. <\/p>\n It was coming. <\/p>\n A deluge of water \u2013 one endless escarpment of liquid death rising to a boil of white froth \u2013 thundered steadily up the plain, swallowing the poisoned ground beneath it. <\/p>\n ClaClaClank!<\/em><\/p>\n The sound of debris hitting against the windmill turbines came in rapid succession. The massive stem-tower of the rusted hull was twisting in the waters \u2013 each twist going further than the last \u2013 as the mammoth metallic blades creaked loudly, without rotating. With each slow grotesque twist, the hull groaned a metallic groan of age and tire; squeaks and cracks could be heard echoing from within its guts. <\/p>\n So it bi by water.<\/em><\/p>\n A sudden force dug into her shoulder, pulling her away. \u201cWhat you doing? RUN!\u201d he roared, yanking her by the gown with his free hand, while carrying the cotton-cloth satchel with his other. <\/p>\n \u201cRun for di hills!\u201d he yelled, pulling her behind him. <\/p>\n \u201cWait!\u201d she screamed. She grabbed his hand, broke his grip and tore back to the cabana, disappearing into the black of the interior. <\/p>\n The man kept screaming for her, as he watched the water approaching, relentless; staring into the frame of darkness waiting for her to erupt forth. She couldn\u2019t feel her legs as they carried her neither could she feel the wet crimson-rich ribbons that ran down the inside of her thighs as she ran. But she could feel the fear in his voice as he cried, \u201cNo look back!\u201d <\/p>\n And she didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n The last thing they heard was the hollow crack of the windmill turbine hull as it slowly toppled to the waters. <\/p>\n A splash of water kissed the heels of her airborne feet. <\/p>\n They made it to the scarp face at the base of the hills. Safe and breathless. She sat on a rock to catch her breath as he walked away, transfixed by the devastation. <\/p>\n They watched as wave after wave of water swept through the lowlands \u2013 most of the plains now under with Neo-Dar. Their home, if it ever was such, gone. \u201cWhat we do now-now?\u201d she asked, putting on her shawl, still catching her breath. The man\u2019s shoulders slouched as he sighed. He turned and walked to her until he stood over her. <\/p>\n He placed his free hand on her cheek and stroked it with his thumb. Softly. Gently. It was the first time she felt<\/em> him like this since his return. She closed her eyes, as her head leaned into his hand. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat we do now-now,\u201d he repeated. In one sudden swift motion, his hand recoiled from her cheek and re-connected in an open-handed slap across the same cheek. She almost stumbled off the rock from its intensity as a plume of pain exploded across her face. <\/p>\n \u201cNay ev\u2019r do that t\u2019me \u2018gain,\u201d he said in a whisper, with the veins of his neck protruding grotesquely as if about to burst. His face, a contorted mask of contempt. He immediately headed for the slopes and started climbing, the satchel hanging from his back. <\/p>\n \u201cWhere we bi go\u2019n\u201f?\u201d she said mildly, clutching her cheek, her eyes teary. Though she asked, she knew the answer. She knew where he was going, because there was nothing left for them here. <\/p>\n This bi it<\/em>, she thought. It bi by fire<\/em>. <\/p>\n She, faithfully, followed him into the desert. <\/p>\n The air was always still and the sun, unforgiving. <\/p>\n The desert was an enveloping sprawl of nothingness below a searing oblivion sky. The sand dunes rose and fell as if nature were making love to itself, as the man and the woman, like magi following the North Star, journeyed through the dry emptiness. <\/p>\n The grit, which stung their eyes, graduated from grating to familiar to tolerable. <\/p>\n Babi? Talk to me, I beg (cough) <\/p>\n I hate this place Babi. Howse can I prepare you fa this world the way it bi? Me says to \u2018im \u201cwe should take \u2018er wit\u2019 us\u201d <\/p>\n And he say \u201cNay! She slow us down.\u201d He scavv\u2019d \u2018er supplies \u2018n left \u2018er there fa deat\u201f <\/p>\n \u201cShe bi dead already\u201d he says, \u2018n walk\u2019d away. <\/p>\n What could I dey do? We left \u2018er there. Does dey make me a bad person babi? (cough) <\/p>\n Does dey it? At first, they travelled by night and slept where they could shelter by day. But with each passing day, the woman got inexplicably weaker. It started with mild coughs which he dismissed as passing. But they were getting stronger and more violent that they only travelled when she had the strength for it \u2013 which was seldom. <\/p>\n During a biting cold night when they should have made distance, she slept, covered by her shawl, next to the glowing discus, which was running on their last megajoule of power. Sitting across from her, the man stared; the light from the discus was an orange-yellow iridescence on his pupil, like a wolf’s eyeshine in the moonlight. He was staring intently at her. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat you bi think\u2019n \u2018bout?\u201d she rasped. <\/p>\n \u201cI?\u201d he paused, the yellow flicker still dancing in his reddened eyes. \u201cSurvival.\u201d <\/p>\n That night, as she dithered on the twilight of dreamless sleep, she felt a strange engulfing presence pressing into the elfin swell of her belly. <\/p>\n When she woke up the next day all she found were a few supplies and bottle of water. Inscribed in the sand, next to the supplies, was a message, though partially windswept, she made out the words: <\/p>\n You dey promis\u2019d to wait fa me.<\/em><\/p>\n She combed around, searching, and found a trail of footprints in the sand. Straight and determined. <\/p>\n He was gone. Again. <\/p>\n I saw dry bones t\u2019day \u2018n wonder\u2019d what their stories bi. Did they love as I? Did they dream as I? (Cough) <\/p>\n He bi gone babi . This place has tak\u2019n \u2018im the way it has tak\u2019n di stories fr\u2019m \u2018um old bones. It dey bi this place that has empt\u2019d \u2018im out. (Cough) But I nay let this place hav\u2019 the better o\u2019 me. I dey nay bi one wit\u2019 this place. <\/p>\n I dey rath\u2019r bi wit\u2019 you when di moons ripen. <\/p>\n Babi ? Talk to me, I beg? She lifted her frail body up, carried her supplies and continued walking into the godless desert. <\/p>\n A mutant moth fluttered passed her ear and away into the scorched sky. As the moth climbed higher, becoming a speck in the heavens, she gazed with a smallish smirk and swore she had seen a butterfly.<\/p>\n Fly, babi, fly!<\/em><\/p>\n Whenever she dreamed, it was always the same dream. But this time, it was different. It was always the day before he left for the war. They were together on the white shores of Neo-Dar before the floods came. They were standing at their favorite spot, his arms wrapped around her waist, her back against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":207,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[344,343],"tags":[345],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThe air in the room, like her mind, felt lighter as if gravity was falling apart at the seams. Her heart was hammering in her flat chest and echoing in the chamber of her ears as it once did when she witnessed the broken cohorts of wounded soldiers coming back to the barren lowland plains they called home. She would wait in the small of her cabana of black mud and rock, looking at the silhouettes of passing soldiers through the tattered drapes over her singular window, hoping it was him. It never was. <\/p>\n
\nShe took a step forward. Then another. Each step, ruffling her threadbare robe, taken with cautious consideration as if walking through a mine field \u2013 her eyes, glazing over into runs of tears, fixated on him, until she was close enough to feel the warmth of his stale breath on her dampened black cheeks.
\nShe let off a self-conscious chuckle, whispering his own words to herself. Aye! I bi here!<\/em><\/p>\n
\nLater, as he snuck onto the floor bed next to her, she shuffled closer, spooning him as she caressed the roughness of his dry skin. Her hand slowly sloped up and down the valley of his pelvic region \u2013 the way he liked it. <\/p>\n
\nAye! Aye! I promise. I will tell \u2018im \u2018bout you! <\/p>\n
\nHe jus\u2018 need time, babi.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nShe darted for the floor bed as if by magnetism, scooped up her shawl from the ground, leapt for the doorway and out of the cabana, joining him as they charged for the westerly hills. <\/p>\n
\nNow one with the old world. <\/p>\n
\nWe found a dy\u2019n woman (cough) t\u2019day layin\u2019 on \u2018er ownsome in a brokun nuke-silo. <\/p>\n
\n(Cough)<\/em><\/p>\n
\n(Cough) <\/em><\/p>\n\u00a9 Muthi Nhlema, first published in Imagine Africa 500<\/em>, ed. Billy Kahora (Lilongwe, Malawi: Pan African Publications, 2015).<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"