The Year's Best African Speculative Fiction (2021)

by Oghenechovwe Ekpeki

  Falling . . .

  The screen door creaked open behind her. Dave stepped out, Trane resting on his chest. He kept silent for a moment, observing; and when he did speak, his voice trembled, his words drifting out on the wavering wings of a half-whisper.

  “Listen, baby, I understand you wanna go exploring, see what else is out there . . . I know you hate being boxed in. You been saying that since day one.” He took a step forward, gazing up at the sky with her. “Now you tell me you wanna go to outer space to see if some moon can sustain human life. But here’s a human life right here,” he said, his long fingers on Trane’s spine, like how he used to hold his sax. “Ain’t she worth sustaining?”

  The question echoes as if it came straight from the mouth of Ligeia Mare, which lies below her now, wide open and ready to devour Titan’s first human trespasser. In the seconds before splashdown, she watches Trane, growing up so fast, bigger and bigger by the day, walking, talking, asking questions, learning to read, about to turn five, losing her baby teeth, printing her first bot buddy, wanting her own space.

  Her own space.

  A little girl on the porch looking up at the stars.

  “Where are you, Mommy?” she calls out into the big black yonder.

  But this little girl isn’t Trane; it’s her, Dr. Jenkins, in stretched pigtails and bright knockers, a little girl who actually believed prayer could bring her battered mother back home.

  “Ain’t she worth sustaining?”

  That little girl, now grown, jolts as the damaged ship smacks belly-first into the still lake. She opens her eyes as Orion II converts into a hovercraft.

  Floating.

  “We’ve arrived on Titan, Dr. Jenkins,” Rigel says. “Connect to the bioport for me to check for any injuries you may have sustained.”

  “Give me a second.” She breathes deeply, to slow her heart rate. Five-second inhale. Five-second exhale. “Do you hear something? Like a hum?”

  “Systems currently in standby mode for damage assessment and repair protocols—”

  “No, not . . . not in here,” she says. “I’m going out.”

  “Dr. Jenkins, for your safety, it is advised that you first connect to the bioport for me to check for any injuries—”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  And moments later, she is outside the spacecraft, looking over the vast landscape that stretches out past the lake’s edge, where the subdued terrain then takes over, saturated in a hazy sepia tint, something out of a dream. A deathly cold dream. Negative 180 degrees Celsius cold. Her only shield against the elements, the smart skinsuit compressed to her body; a banged-up body with bruised muscles and potentially internal bleeding that would deter anybody else.

  But not Dr. Jenkins.

  Below her, Ligeia Mare is still once again, like a mysteriously murky sheet of glass. What unknown creatures could be lurking in the deep? How many invisible hands might reach out to touch her, grab her, pull her under?

  She replaces those thoughts with thoughts of her mother. And jumps.

  She knew the viscosity of liquid methane was about a tenth that of liquid water, but the airy feeling catches her aching body off guard. She struggles to make her way, less swimming than gliding, to the shallows of the northwest shore. Crawling out of the lake and onto the land.

  The surface feels somewhat solid, not all the way stable, like slush. She looks around to get her bearings and when she does, she sees it—right there, right in front of her: the footprints. She drags her wounded self forward and puts her gloved hand in the first indentation, deeper than originally estimated. When she touches it, she hears that hum once again, a familiar voice, like rolling thunder, humming “Way Beyawn’ duh Moon,” the looping soundtrack to those muggy Carolina summers, the song that helped Gramma survive and thrive, like other songs did for so many before her, and led Dr. Jenkins to being inevitably here, now.

  She clutches her belly, buckles over in utter agony, her helmet hitting the frosty ground. Thinking about Gramma and her stories. And Dave and his sax. How truth, like spacetime, is relative and the beliefs we hold onto, the beliefs that keep us alive cannot, consequently, be lies.

  That thought gives her the strength to lift herself to stand and start sort-of-walking. But she falls down, not used to the gravity being fourteen percent what it is on Earth. She stands again and the atmospheric pressure pushes against her, which feels like walking in a swimming pool, but she staggers on. Following the marked path. One excruciating leap at a time. As she goes on, she discovers a different tune, a fact she can’t prove, but a truth that can’t be denied:

  Dr. Charlene Jenkins does believe in giants. She was raised by one.

  And as she comes to the end of the single-file footprints, she collapses on her knees and lifts her head, and the sight, suddenly, steals from her any semblance of speech, as if the same force beckoning the billions of rocks and ice and dust to bear witness to Saturn has seized the bulk of her words as well; and the sacred few she managed to salvage can be neither spoken nor swallowed, for they remain stuck in her throat, forming a lump as her eyes grow wider, wider, filling up with all the wonder in the world.

  Hear those engines roar / rumbling

  Feel those fires burn

  Blasting off / blasting off / blasting off / blasting off

  Step back.

  Hear those engines roar / rumbling

  Feel those fires burn

  At a loss / at a loss / at a loss / at a loss

  4

  “The Future in Saltwater” © Tamara Jerée

  Originally Published in Anathema Magazine (Issue 20, April 2020)

  The god turned a soothing shade of black upon touching me for the first time and wrapped its eight suckered arms securely around my forearm. Cool temple air combined with its damp skin, and I shivered. I was not a strong child, but Cheypa, my parent, smiled down on me proudly for bearing the god’s weight so well. The bulbous mantle of its body flattened as it sunk the needle of its beak into the soft flesh of my inner elbow. I winced.

  Luo—the god spoke my new name into my mind, simultaneously pulling out the memory of my old name like blood from a vein. I want to see the ocean, it said, undulating and boneless. My heart sank at this first request. On the way to the temple, my parent had told me that their god’s first request had been to acquire water from one of the inland freshwater lakes and pray over it until it turned to salt water. I wanted such a simple first task. My god’s request would mean not only abandoning my ill parent but also walking for days in the dangerous heat, only to confirm the still-toxic state of the ocean water.

  Two temple acolytes who’d been standing at the ready noticed my wince and hurried over to begin painting sacred scripts down my godless arm. The black ink was chilled, as Ocean specified, and the brush tickled my skin. I suppressed another shiver, but my skin prickled. “What name did your god give you?” the acolytes asked in whispered unison. They were intent on their job and spared me no glance.

  “Luo,” I answered.

  All that remained was to paint my new name across my palm. The acolytes sat back and stared into the clay bowl of ink, divining the unique symbol that would represent my new name. As we waited for the symbol to manifest, sections of ink trailed down my arm, one cold word drifting into another. The two acolytes moved in a trance, hands and brushes a blur as they painted my name. The ink in place, they said, “An honour to meet you, Luo,” and backed away with their clay bowl and brushes.

  I looked at my palm in the dim temple light. Three circles: two concentric, the third intersecting both. Some ink had already passed through my skin and done its work to numb the site where the god’s beak had pierced me. The god was silent now, but its arms undulated in reassurance. My parent smiled and patted the too-tight rows of braids they’d done the night before in preparation for the ceremony. We would not talk until we’d left the temple. Custom dictated that the newly named listen and talk only to their god while on sacred ground.


  I glanced around the temple’s main hall before we turned to leave, hoping to catch sight of the reclusive Temple Mother. I would not see her that day either. Few people had ever seen her. If she did not make an appearance for the naming rituals, there weren’t many other important events she might appear for. Children liked to spread rumours that they’d seen her in the shadows, watching their naming, but then who didn’t want to imagine the Temple Mother gracing them with her attention?

  This time, as we passed through the hall of water that led to the outer doors, I looked up through the glass to watch the unpaired gods spiralling through the blue. My god had settled on skin black as the ceremonial ink itself, but the ones that swam around us flashed colours I’d only glimpsed on the garments of rich travellers visiting the market. Before we passed through the temple doors, my parent pulled their goggles down over their eyes and tapped my shoulder to remind me to do the same. My god shifted so I could bend my arm, and then we were out and into the blinding sun.

  Following the quiet cool of the temple, I was unprepared for the assault of noise and heat and light. My parent could not afford a vehicle or riding animal, and so we would sweat on the walk home while rich travellers in sand skiffs and more modest traders with animal-drawn carriages sped past us on the dusty street. Sometimes I could successfully beg a trader to let us ride with them toward central New Limsa. Often ill, my parent didn’t fare well in the strength-sapping heat. We waved at a couple of passing carts, but the most we got was the blank stare of their mirrored goggles, reflecting our sweaty, dusty figures back at us. Cheypa kept saying we would go to a glass weaver to repair my own cracked goggles, but that promise had first been made many moons ago, and the left glass was still cracked across its horizon.

  The god withdrew its beak, slithered up my arm and onto my head to clap the end of an arm across the broken lens. When it slid back down to my shoulder, the crack was gone and my goggles dripped water. Thanks to the ink, I did not feel pain when it anchored its beak into the flesh between my shoulder and collarbone, re-establishing our connection. Thank you, I said, but my gratitude felt inadequate. The god snaked its arms around my neck. An embrace. Its damp skin felt like a cool rag around my shoulders, a balm in the heat.

  A woman with an intricately wrapped scarf on her head stared at me from the back of a merchant caravan. From her closely tailored clothes, I guessed she was from one of the cooler, central lakeside cities. Their caravans rarely travelled this far south toward the poisoned, heated ocean, and they did not understand the concerns of previously seaside cities that were forced inland, away from their water. The lakesiders did not believe in the gods; rather, they did not believe our octopoda possessed fractions of Ocean’s consciousness. Though they liked to come to New Limsa to trade fine goods with our unrivaled glass weavers, they didn’t understand the Oceanic teachings behind the beautiful glass.

  My parent stepped in front of me to shield me from the prying eyes of the lakesider who had called more of her people over to come look at the strange child with an ocean creature around their neck. Near home, Cheypa’s sandals scraped the street; they sagged against my godless shoulder. I scanned us into the small box of our ground-level apartment and the sand, as always, swept in with us. The door beeped, hissed shut. We crunched across the floor. I put my god in a shallow bowl we’d left out on the altar. The best water we had, our drinking water, was brown and not at all like the crystalline sparkle of the hall of water in the temple, but this was what we had to offer my god. I poured slowly so as not to splash any. The god, relieved to be in water again, squished its arms in close so they were all submerged. Cheypa gave me a smile as they passed and went to lay down on their cot in the corner of the room. They were always so tired. Even their time with their god as a child had not cured them of what the temple acolytes called their “weak heart fire.”

  We had one high narrow window in our apartment, and so despite the blinding desert light, it was always dim inside. The electric lights were expensive and thus saved for detailed work. New Limsa might have been known for its glass weavers, but that did not mean that most of our own people could afford much glass. Cheypa was not bothered by this, had said the dark indoors reminded them of their years of service in the windowless temple.

  To the ocean. Soon, said the god.

  I glanced at my parent, breathing shallow on their cot. Who will care for them when they’re tired? Cook when they can’t? Complete the ornaments for market?

  The ocean is always first. The god’s black skin shifted toward grey.

  Could you heal Cheypa’s heart like you healed my goggles? Then I could go and not worry.

  Your devotion is admirable, but Cheypa will not be forgotten.

  We have no money to hire a skiff or even rent a riding animal. And no one would permit someone to take their animal near the ocean.

  A pause. Luo. The god spoke my new name alone, and I averted my eyes. The ocean is always first.

  I kneeled at the small altar so that I didn’t have to speak. Ours was not as elaborate as those at the temple—platforms of glass in pools of water. One could wade in and almost imagine stepping into the wash of the clean ocean. In our home, we had a simple sandstone block with a glass cup of blessed saltwater on top. Each week, we tucked a new prayer slip into the small corked vial at the bottom of the saltwater. At the end of the moon, we returned the saltwater to the hall of water and drew a new cup.

  I reached into the cup for the vial. Cheypa had said I could change the prayer by myself for the first time when we returned with my god. I removed the old slip of paper and took a new one to write, Strengthen my parent’s heart fire. This was not a new prayer. I’d often asked Cheypa to pray for their own health. They’d been reluctant to do so but always wanted to make sure they acknowledged my input on household prayers.

  This was not a new prayer, but now there was a god on our altar.

  I took Cheypa water and started grinding spices for dinner. Put beans to simmer low over the gas fire. In minutes, the room was filled with aromatic warmth.

  Cheypa dozed, their face dappled with sweat, carefully set curls frizzing back out into kinks. I was laying a cool damp cloth against their forehead when my god said, They would not be alone. The temple would make sure of that.

  I did not look at the altar. I tasted the beans. Needlessly crushed more cardamom pods. The beans were already well-spiced.

  I won’t abandon Cheypa like Doni did, I said.

  Doni had been the strong one in our family. Doni had abandoned us for the promise of a lakeside city shortly after receiving the ink of passage. We received less contact from her over the years. The last communication had been moons ago, about a joining ceremony with a lakesider. It wasn’t an invite, only a statement. Not that Cheypa could have made the journey anyway.

  I ate alone, sour now that I’d reminded myself of Doni. Cheypa still slept, and I did not want to wake them. I set aside their portion of dinner for later.

  The god spoke again when I was settling into my cot. Decades have passed since I’ve seen the ocean. Their longing begged for an answer. My chest tightened. A splash in the dark from the direction of the altar.

  I covered my head with blankets. Turned over.

  * * *

  Lungs, chest full of damp weight. My stomach churned. I stumbled out of my cot and fell to the concrete floor. Small morning light in the window. Cheypa’s blankets rustled as they turned over in sleep. I crawled to the altar. Tried to take a breath.

  The octopoda.

  I stared.

  The small light must be lying.

  I fumbled for the light plate on the wall. It beeped at the touch of my hand. White-blue light hummed down.

  The octopoda.

  Water gone from the bowl. The godform. Grey, desiccated.

  I pointed a shaking finger toward the mantle. Touch caved in papery skin. Bitter snap. Shivering breath in silence. My breath my lungs.

  And the ink on my skin—vanished. As if th
ere’d been no ritual at all. No naming. The god had taken the memory of my old name, and the new one was gone too. I thought I could remember the way the sound moved, but the specifics were fading.

  I was nameless.

  I took the bowl from the altar. It was too light. Such a heavy light thing. A noise in my throat.

  Cheypa turned over.

  I crushed the bowl to my chest and ran, beeped the door open. As it hissed closed, I thought I heard Cheypa utter a sound that could have been my name.

  Through the streets, dodging cartwheels and whirring skiffs. Sand stuck in the damp on my cheeks. Someone cried out, I stumbled, fell atop the god. The bowl rolled into the street. A hoof came down. Another. The clay bowl was crushed to dust.

  “Let me help you.” Brown hand in front of my face. A woman with an inked forehead, a new adult, stared down at me.

  I scrambled up and tried to scoop the god into my arms. Its fragile skin crushed into my tunic like dust. Intact, though, was an arm. One. I gingerly picked it up.

  The woman was staring. “Is that—?”

  I ran.

  Breathless, I slammed through the temple’s heavy double doors. The clap echoed down the hall of water. Octopoda stopped their placid spiralling and hung in the water in shock. Temple acolytes were immediately upon me, hushing me: “This is the Temple Mother’s meditation hour,” and “Careful of the glass!” Delayed, I noticed the pain in my side from shouldering open the door.

  My mouth was dry with dust and sand. So much of my octopoda had been crushed and whisked away by the wind when I fell. The thin membrane of some of the suckers on its remaining arm had started to crumble. “My god!” I said, holding it up for the others to see.

  The temple acolytes stared at my skin, my hair, my clothes, all a dusty mess, uncomprehending.

  “My god has— I think my god is—”