by CP Patrick
“I have a place in mind. A land where there are few mortals. This is for your protection.”
“Why?” Awiti asked. “Why can I not be around mortals? I must remain alone? Forever?” She was a child in this moment, fearful at the thought of being lonely.
“Just as you are not welcome among the descendants of the Nephilim, you will not be accepted among mortals,” the Watcher said. “They cannot know what you truly are. And the more you interact with them, the more you will want to become like them.”
He reminded Awiti, “This is what happened to Oranyan. He left his place of banishment. His desire to become mortal was so great, it led him to deceive you.”
Awiti nodded in acknowledgment.
“You must stay in your place of banishment,” the Watcher instructed. “Do not try to find your village or the land that was once the Oyo Kingdom. Stop seeking to harm the descendants of the White Faces and Black Faces, as you call them. You must abandon your quest to seek retribution for those enslaved.”
Then He warned her, “What I am asking is a great sacrifice. But you must heed my words, Awiti. There will be no Watcher to guide and instruct you. Once you are banished, it will be your responsibility to adhere to these rules. And they are just as much for your benefit as they are for the safety of others.”
“Is there no other way?” she pleaded.
“There is no other way. It is regrettable this happened to you. While you will suffer, be certain to never do this to another. No matter how tempting. Remember what you are feeling in this moment.”
“I will never do this to another,” Awiti said. “Never.”
“Good,” the Watcher encouraged. “Reach out to those in the spiritual realm. They will share in your pain and sorrow. But again, you must be careful. For you may find yourself wanting to become like them. Spirits, once they find peace, can cross over. But you must remember, your spirit will never cross over.
“Your task as a banished immortal is to find peace simply for the sake of finding peace. To make your infinite years on this earth bearable. And this will not be easy.”
Awiti nodded.
“I will record your name in the Order so the descendants of the Nephilim shall know of your misfortune,” the Watcher advised. “Awiti, I can only encourage you to find peace. It is my hope you comply. If not, you will learn a most difficult lesson. No matter the extent of your persistence, damaging others will not heal you.”
10
in time
Tristan da Cunha (1872)
I now know since Creation others have been banished. The Watchers record their names in the Rules of the Order to document their tribulation. And now, my name is among them. Awiti Akoth. A child born of misfortune as the rains fell on her village. One who should have been thrown away, for she was a girl sure to bring trouble. How I have lived up to Father’s naming of me.
“Do you know what I think when I say your name?” Father once asked me.
“No, Father. What is it? What do you think of?”
“That you were once destined for death. How you grew from a tiny child I could hold in one hand to a young girl who captured my heart.”
I try not to think of Father and my family, of the love we shared with each other. I do not like to remember my village. To wonder what became of my people once the strange men with brown skin bound and led them away. I know they faced untimely deaths and unimaginable suffering. Days and nights within the confines of stone castles; shackles around their hands, necks, and feet, packed aboard slave ships. Torture as they were sold into lives of servitude.
I especially try not to think of Amondi. But her smile and the soft puffs of black hair haunt me.
“Do you like being the oldest?” This was a frequent question Amondi asked of me. “Do you enjoy being the first?”
“Sometimes.” My answer was always the same.
“I wish I was the first.”
“Why? You are perfect, Amondi. You are the youngest. It’s not always who is first who is best. Sometimes it is she who is last.” I was always surprised whenever I found myself repeating proverbs told to me by Mother.
“But…” Amondi thought for a moment.
“But what, my little sister?”
“Well, if I were the oldest, there would have been a time when I had Father and Mother all to myself.”
I smiled.
“Do you remember that time, Awiti?” she asked. “What was it like to be the only child they loved?”
We were selfish in that way. Guilty of wanting all of Father and Mother’s love from time to time. Not that we were children who didn’t love each other. We shared the type of love siblings possess. Only we were allowed to annoy and taunt each other, to be self-centered in wanting attention. We were individuals, but we were nothing without each other.
I hear Amondi’s voice.
“Do you remember, Awiti? What was it like to be the only one they loved?”
My memories are a swirling pot, boiling over with love, grief, and anguish. Recollections so tormented, I am no longer certain whether they are real or imagined.
“Yes, I remember, Amondi,” I tell her.
Mother teaching me to braid. The softness of her hands as she showed me how to till the garden. Father holding me in his arms, naming me. Sitting beneath the baobab tree. Times that were just for us. Those moments when they loved only me.
I often imagine Father and Oranyan wrestling for my heart. In my dreams, Oranyan is still handsome and I am honored he has chosen to fight for my love. And yet, Father knows the truth. He can see Oranyan does not want the vastness of my heart, just my life. Both of them, the two men I loved most, dark skin sweating and fighting. Each man determined to win. My value to them, though the rationales are different, is priceless.
“You cannot have her,” Father says.
And then, just as he did when the men with brown skin appeared, Father turns to me and says,
“Run, Awiti. Run and don’t look back. Run until you find a new village to call home.”
But there is no place to run. I am banished. Living with the heartache and memories of a time long past. Dreams that are mixed with reality and fantasy. Imaginings to sustain me.
Before meeting Semya, I thought I was alone. For many years I had never encountered another. Oranyan told me there were other immortals, but as with most things, he failed to tell me the whole truth. Just fragments sure to entice.
“You must be comfortable being alone, Awiti,” Oranyan instructed me before the Exchange.
I remember that day, his words. Our lives were complete the morning he whispered those words to me. I had just oiled Oranyan’s skin, washed his hair. I loved him, and I was enamored with his beauty, his intelligence. And while I thought he was also besotted with me, for he looked at me with love, it was my mortality that he held in high regard.
“You must realize as an immortal you will be different. What mortal would feel comfortable being friends with someone they know will live forever?”
“But I am comfortable, Oranyan.”
I was beyond comfort. I was taken with him and his words.
“Ah, but you became comfortable with me before you knew.”
“Yes, but…”
“Did you not feel fear the night I told you I was immortal?” Oranyan asked. “I remember your eyes, Awiti. You wanted to run.”
“But I did not run.”
“Only because I wouldn’t let you,” he said with a smile.
Then he grabbed me, pulling me close to him. His lips touched mine. I still remember his eyes and full, dark lips whispering sweet words, promising to love me forever. But did he ever love me? Didn’t he know I would one day be banished?
Although I am exiled here on Tristan da Cunha, I am not alone. It is a place of refuge for those in the spiritual realm. A gathering place for the dead who wish to remain among the living. Watching and longing. Loving.
The spiritual world is vast and infinite. A never-ending stream of
consciousness. Some are anxious at their misfortune and lot in life. Others simply refuse to let go. Their lives were complete and full. Spirits with lifetimes one might define as wonderful. Yet, they are unable to leave this earth. The thought of being separated forever is incomprehensible.
“How can I leave them?” Marisol once asked.
She could not bear the thought of leaving her children on this earth alone. Motherless and fatherless on the count of an unnecessary war.
She rationalized, “I have to watch them. To protect them. Sometimes they hear me. Sometimes they do not. But at least I am here. At least I can be near them.”
It is not uncommon after death that spirits remain. In the shadows and within the breeze. They hover around that which they cannot leave behind. Spirits are felt, even seen at times. But the human mind possesses great strength. It can convince itself of anything it wishes. So many simply pretend the spirits of the dead do not exist.
I am so thankful. For while I find myself alone in the physical sense, I am never lonely. I have taken great interest in spirits’ past lives, their reasoning for refusing to cross over. And of all of the spirits I have encountered thus far, I have most enjoyed my time with Seraphina.
“I am thankful to be among the dead,” Seraphina once told me. “I lived a long life, one that was not easy, but not as difficult as others. And in my lifetime I learned a lot. By watching and listening. My family taught me everything there is to know about life and death. About the afterlife. And I prefer to stay between. As long as I am in between, I know what to expect.”
Gracious in her knowledge and wisdom, Seraphina is the mother I never had the chance to fully know. To her, life is simple.
“All of life is a balance,” Seraphina explained. “Light cannot exist without darkness. Wet is nothing if there is no dry. One cannot only acknowledge good and say evil does not exist. Just as one cannot only recognize the spirits of the living and say the dead are not present. That is not the way of the Great One. For if there is one, there always exists the other—the contradictory.
“This is why it is essential to respect both good and evil, whether alive or dead. This is where so many of the living often make their biggest mistake. If they would acknowledge the dead, they could learn so much.”
Whenever I lament about my lot in life, Seraphina admonishes me. I chose to become immortal. And thus, the fault is mine.
Seraphina’s words echo the sentiments of the Watcher. “You cannot be angry at Oranyan for not telling you everything there was to know about immortality. He did not owe you the truth. Man owes another man nothing.”
“But had I known, I would have chosen otherwise,” I argue. Living in isolation. The burden of living alone indefinitely. The unlikely possibility I would ever find my family. I would have never chosen such a life.
“This is true, but would you still be here?” Seraphina asks. “If you had not chosen immortality, would your spirit still be here, unable to cross over? Angry and unable to forget the life taken from you?”
“Perhaps.”
“This, my dear Awiti, is what the Great One intended with free will. Choices. And consequences.”
I know Seraphina is right. Even if I had not chosen immortality, I would still exist in the spiritual realm. Mourning with so many others.
So hidden and deceiving is Tristan da Cunha, mortals who spot the island from a distance believe it to be a mirage. A figment of their imagination, the mind wanting so desperately to see land after being enclosed by nothing but water. People come to the island and believe themselves to be the first, or among the first, of the few inhabitants. They claim the land, believing because they found it, they own it.
“One of man’s biggest failures is his need to possess,” Seraphina admonishes. “Not everything is meant to be a possession. No one can own the island, for the earth does not belong to any one man. Likewise, man is not meant to control another man. All things—in the land, the air, the sea, both good and evil, whether alive or dead—belong to the Great One.”
The Great One is All. I suspect had the strange men not come to my village, I would have learned my people’s version of the Great One. I am certain my family taught me of this omnipotent being. I try to remember words from Mother and Father, songs from our village. But it was too long ago. And so, everything I know about the Great One I learned from Seraphina.
In the beginning, the Great One breathed life into many. She called Her creations the Living. The Living were not only humans, those with flesh and coherency. All of the Great One’s creations, even the earth itself, were among the Living.
She took joy in creating plants and animals, from the most minuscule to the mighty. Her creations were of varying degrees of beauty and competency. The Great One desired Her creations to dwell together in harmony, no matter their standing.
Some of the Living needed no governing, their purpose for existing modest. The Great One did not create in them a complex system of thinking and being. These Living simply were. Rooted in the ground, swimming in the waters, or existing in the air. They served their ordained purposes to purify and cleanse, or even as sources of food for other Living. They remained where the Great One destined for them, and She allowed them to govern themselves.
This was a success for some and a great failure for others. They were not intellectuals. They did not have adaptability, and so many did not survive. And this too was the way of the Great One. For there cannot be life if there is no death.
And yet some of the Living needed much governing. The Great One constructed within them a system of intelligence and creativity. They were dominant beings capable of great things. These Living were curious and daring. And the Great One, although powerful, could not watch them all. So She designated Watchers to govern the most influential of Her creations— humans and animals with infinite potential. Living that were blessed with free will.
The Watchers were tasked with authority to oversee those among the Living who were intellectuals. Their responsibilities were to encourage the Living to heed the advice and precautions of the Great One. For this would ensure the Living co-existed in harmony.
Watchers were more protector than dictator. They had no control over the Living. Because the Great One had blessed the most influential of Her creations with free will, the lives they chose were ultimately their decision. And the repercussions theirs as well.
Those among the Living that were animals and plants proved themselves to be the most obedient. They remained where the Watchers told them to stay—in the air, land, or sea. Even if it meant their extinction, they did not leave.
But many of those among the Living who were human proved themselves to be disobedient. They did not stay on the lands the Great One designated for them, their gifts of curiosity and free will often too enticing to ignore.
Humans became more authoritative, confident in their hierarchy among the Living. Each generation posed a greater threat. They questioned and defied the authority of the Watchers. In time, there were humans who even began to challenge the Great One. And it was written these humans were called the Defiant.
The Defiant began to go about and challenge all of the Living. Many of the Defiant did not survive. They tried to dwell in places the Great One had not prepared for them. They did not have wings to fly in the air. Some could not withstand extreme cold and heat. But some of the Defiant, although not properly equipped, did survive due to their resourcefulness.
And the Defiant who were disobedient have altered the plan of the Great One forever.
“So the strange men who came to my village, they were among the Defiant?” I ask Seraphina.
“Why, yes, of course. They were away from the land the Great One designated for them.”
“But why?” I ask. “Why could they not behave like my people? Why didn’t they stay on their own land?”
“As I have told you: the need to possess. The desire to explore and challenge is one of the Living’s greatest failures. It is difficult
to understand, but this is also the way of the Great One. There will always exist a contrary. She knew that given free will, some of Her creations would choose to be defiant. Even though your people were obedient, this does not mean all people will be obedient.”
“But it makes me so angry!” I feel a storm brewing as the skies darken. “Because of their defiance, they altered not only their lives, but mine!”
“Yes, this is true,” Seraphina agrees.
“What if I did the same? What if I was disobedient and left my place of banishment? What if I continued my wrath? Destroying the descendants of the White Faces and Black Faces?”
“The choice is yours, Awiti, to do what you wish.”
“I want to return to Africa. I want to make the Defiant suffer for disobeying the Great One. I want them to pay for coming to my country.”
“So go, Awiti,” Seraphina encourages. “Go and do what you feel you need to do. I will be here waiting for you to return. You have my blessing.”
“Seraphina…”
“Tell me, Awiti, what is stopping you?” Seraphina asks.
“Because I know it is wrong. It is a direct violation of the orders given by the Watcher.”
“So?” Seraphina is unapologetic in her questioning. She explains, “Awiti, you must make the choice to do what you wish. Whether you stay or whether you go, you will suffer consequences. But, if you decide, the choice of where and how you will suffer is yours.”
11
atmo
Goree Island, Africa (1874)
Bàbá named me Ajulo Daren. A strong and purposeful name for his second son born in the night. On the eve of my birth, Bàbá heard thunder, the sounds of a great storm. He ran outside to see if Orunmila was sending an omen.
Rain was falling only on our home. The rest of the village sat dry in the moonlight. A small white haze hovered above our roof. It released droplets of rain, slow and continuous. Bàbá ran back inside, stood beside his wife, and said,
“Orunmila has blessed us.”
Mama put me to her breast, and I began to suckle. My family knew what had to be done. Our tribe was careful to acknowledge the gifts that reside within every living being.
