NOW

​

The edge of the town is littered, as it always is, with mounds of skin.

​

They are stacked atop one another like a hurried song; with no care and no technique. The heat from the afternoon, trapped within these pieces of flesh finally escapes, cursing the space with a stench that is known to send away any beast stupid enough to draw close to their home. But this beast, this beast of the same flesh and same build as those living on the other side of the barricade always returns to this exact spot. This beast does so out of reverence. Out of routine. Out of necessity. She comes, a dull knife in her left hand, a sack made from straw in her right. She stands at the edge, always daring herself to go a little bit closer, taunting fate, sticking her comatose tongue out at the entity and coaxing him to do something. To say something.

​

For years he has said nothing. When it came to her, fate never did. He said nothing when the elders, displeased with how she could not assimilate to the new ways, cast her out; flayed and stripped, leaving her with nothing but tendon and sinew, her flesh, her beautiful flesh, bronze and shiny like burnished stars, taken from her. That was the final act of jilting those who no longer served the interests of the village, you see.

​

Once the village and those who run it saw that assimilation to the new ways, assimilation to your new name did not seem like it would work, you had to go. As soon as possible, before you corrupted those around you. Regardless of whether they were your own flesh and blood.

​

Fear prevailed over flesh and blood and family.

​

It sat on those three states of being, its buttocks pressed against their windpipes, denying them of air and importance till they became blue in the face and blue in the soul. Your name, the one thing that was yours to keep then trickled out of their connected lips, broken, clotted, defeated.

​

And that was the end.

​

She shudders at the memory of losing her name—her identity. She stands at the edge—a little closer nonetheless—and once again, she entertains the questions that slither around the marble floors of her mind whenever she comes to collect. Do those she called her family remember her? Have they forgotten who she is? The sound of her voice? The breath between her footsteps?  Do they remember the syllables of her name? Or has it fled their minds like it has hers?

​

She could remember it during the first moons of her exile. It was a fire, raging within her, keeping the frostbite of neglect and solitude at bay. But like all fires that have nothing to eat, its power waned, and it became ash and the cold came in, stomping and stomping and stomping and stomping till the ash became one with the ground and the ground swallowed whatever warmth was left; leaving her with nothing. Nothing but hollowness, a chasm that once held something, syllables, identity. Now it holds nothing but air and the withered remains of rage.  She inhales and takes a step back. Not today. She pivots, turning to the sack of flesh before her and begins her search.

​

“Take what was left of my skin and hear what remains of my story,’’ a voice, hard and cold like glass bites into her mind. She winces and shakes it off. She regrets taking that flesh and wearing it. The stories she heard—the dreams she wrestled with were not worth the act. She would rather die than wear some more of that. Her fingertips brush against the various options before her, some young and still nestling vitality, some old and empty. She traces the outline of the first letter of their name and that alone sends forth vivid images of their lives—their stories. But tonight, she doesn’t want something that bites. She doesn’t want something bright. She wants something warm and delectable. Something that will rock her to sleep and quell the withered remains of her rage. The endings are always sad, concluded with death, but the last steps before reaching the cliff of the skin’s resolution is usually colourful, usually beautiful.

​

Usually worth it.

​

She finds skin, coal black and tender. No doubt placed here at most, a fortnight ago. It brims with color and her mouth waters at the warmth that seeps out to meet her fingertips. Something within the skin wants to be let out. It wants to speak. It wants to reveal.

​

And she will gladly listen.

​

*****

​

BEFORE

​

It all began with a dream. The shaman of the village of fog was plagued by a recurring one, one that told of those who came with eyes the colour of the deep blue sea and of skin that was bloodless—white like milk. They came, with instruments that housed thunder within its bellies. They wielded this thunder and were able to use it to destroy both flesh and stone. Leaving nothing behind in its wake. They had their customs, their beliefs, and they forced them down the throats of the villages before that of the shaman’s, giving them the option of accepting said customs and god, or relinquishing life as they know it. The shaman, sensing the impending doom of his clan, sought advice from the gods. The gods, merciful as always, gave him a solution. Their names, the essence of their identity and the strongest stories that will stand the test of time were to be hidden—placed in places the milk-skinned would not find. They wove their stories, their names, their culture on their skins, hiding them from the eyes of the usurpers.

​

The shaman’s dreams appeared into the corporeal a fortnight later. But by then, his clan, gratitude to the gods, were ready. They subserviently “relinquished’’ all that they were to consume the ways of the white men.

​

They gave them names, forced them on their tongues, they gave them a god, forced them to swallow his ways, and they gave them new customs.

​

But this was not meant to be so. The gods, their stories, their truths, hidden in the flesh of their people rebelled against the novelty. They warred, wrestled, prevailed and the bearers of their marks bore the brunt of the aftermath.

​

Disease, madness and death plagued the village.

​

Those who had felt the brunt of loss, bitten and swallowed by grief opted to drive out the remaining white folk who had stayed to take dominion over the village. They plotted underneath the shadow and smoke of darkness. But their plans were intercepted by the shaman and the council of elders. Out of fear and the misguided belief in the greater good, those who planned the revolt were cast out of the village. The council believed this act would prevent more chaos and loss. Without realising, they had begun to assimilate, deluding themselves with the belief that if they pretended to be obsequious, in time, the gods would reward them for their patience. But they ended up relinquishing their beliefs. Forgetting their names. They took up the names forced down their throats. Their own stories and the stories around them became faded marks and wisps of ash.

​

She was the last of those who were cast out. Flayed and left for dead, she wandered the forest, meeting those like her whom the gods had not been kind to. Or had been extra kind to; she could not tell which was worse: wandering without an identity till you died, or dying before the full weight of forgetfulness caved your chest in. Time eventually answered her and forgetfulness, velvet and soft, crept up on her, embracing and smothering her till she was nothing more but sinew without soul, nameless and un-whole.

​

*****

​

NOW

​

She sits on the ground, cross-legged—drenched in the bone-white light of a full moon. The flesh is laid bare on the ground before her, present, alluring. Her insides churn and she shivers at the anticipation—how the first phrases of this flesh’s story would feel in the marbled walls of her mind. She swallows and takes a deep breath, preparing to get to work.

​

The first cut is the deepest.

​

Her knife now sharpened—she only sharpens it before the ritual—slices through the skin, splitting it into two parts. It stays upright for a breath before folding unto the ground. After the first cut, muscle memory takes over. It becomes a dance, punctuated by zzts and pffts; the refrains sang by her blade. After about seventy breaths and seventy heartbeats, she leans away from her work to observe. It is raw, scattered, just like her. Just like living. Just like being lost.

​

She exhales and turns to the rocks stacked beside her. This place, this clearing, has always been where she performs her ritual; where she lets the stories and voices take her. She lifts the rocks, one by one, after a heartbeat, to rouse the creatures underneath.

​

Weaver ants.

​

The third most important part of her ritual. She takes a handful of them from the damp soil, gnashing her teeth at the pain as they latch onto her skin, their pincers ready to begin work. She places them on a piece of fabric between her legs and begins the process of weaving flesh to bone.

​

Prose to soul.

​

She begins with the arms. With practice, with memory, she places the pieces of flesh on her. They feel cold, foreign, but it’s a coldness she craves, because the warmth that follows is worth it.

​

It’s always worth it.

​

She places a handful of the wriggling ants in the space where her body and the new flesh meet. The ants get to work. She stays still through the weaving, gnashing her teeth, biting her tongue, tasting her blood.

​

She continues, from practice and memory, till she wears a new skin. The first breaths of a new story, the first curve of the tongue that springs forth syllables that would sate her lost soul brush upon the silhouette of her name. It always begins like that. The flesh is willing to remind her, but her soul is not whole. So it wrestles with it, and it always prevails. The only compromise is for the flesh to confess what it houses. She leans back, laying on the ground, the ants still biting, pulling, tearing and weaving. That is their compensation till she returns from her slumber.

​

The stars look down on her. She breathes in the first words of the flesh’s story and slowly, everything around her becomes muddled—smothered. Her heartbeat remains, but in time, even that begins to fold into the silence.

​

Thump

​

Thump

​

Thump

​

Thump

​

Thump

​

Thump

​

Thum

​

Thum

​

Thum

​

Thu

​

Thu

​

Thu

​

Th

​

Th

​

Th

​

T

​

T

​

Within the repose of our raised feet, you can see the smile of the gods.

​

Their teeth, blackened gates, bite into the ground as our feet meet the earth, sinking their goodness into it and drawing first blood.

​

In our sways, the winds mimic us, tilting, turning, swooping and returning.

​

The gods, one with the wind, revel in the routine; the mirroring of them.

​

It makes them feel celebrated.

​

Loved.

​

Desired.

​

Welcomed.

​

They titter, and you can hear it in the trees, the way they glide across the greenery. It is svelte, intentional, graceful, old.

​

It is something we may never fully understand, but we do it all the same.

​

Our trembles call forth thunder, they coax lightning and they command rain.

​

Our dips, fluid and generous, nourish the soil and call forth new life.

​

The might in our claps break curses, bring forth children out of the wombs of their mothers.

​

We break cycles in our twists and turns, release good will in our steps and the world weaves its goodness unto our backs and into our sweat.

​

We move our bodies to the thrum of fate, to the beat of our hearts, to the cries of our souls and we know we have called the gods into us.

​

They stomp on our names, woven in our secret places, eliciting shudders across our bodies.

​

They hop on the succeeding goose bumps, scenting our desire to please and our desire to remember. They twirl on that truth, wiggle away from the lies and lean into the simplicity of our beings.

​

Only then do they stretch our names across the stars.

​

Only then can we remember who we are.

 

You see, their names, those of the usurpers, sewn into our tongues and forced down our throats are potent. They wrestle with our blood, diluting and tainting it. That’s where the forgetfulness begins—in the blood. The blood is the path to the gods, yet, the ways of the pale men act as boulders, staunching the natural order, the organic flow of things. They muddy the path, cutting off the connection.

​

Cutting off our memory.

​

Our tainted tongues wrestle with both names and end up bruised, bludgeoned, butchered.

​

They become butchered tongues that call forth syllables, syllables they do not heed.

​

Scorched tastebuds belch smoky remnants of the power they formerly yield.

​

Throats, mighty back when bees used to smoke, now bleed.

​

And yet, through it all, they croak.

​

Croak for reprieve.

​

To say a name is to remember, but two names cannot exist in one body. They will always wrestle for dominance, and in the end, the body bears the brunt of it, burning from within. Withering away into nothing.

​

So the throats croak, the tongues seek refuge outside the mouth, lying like bent branches on the cusp of our lips and they beg anyone that has eyes to see, to give them rest.

​

But there is no rest for the abandoned.

​

There is only forgetfulness and death.

​

Forgetfulness and death.

​

Forgetfulness…

​

Death…

 

She jolts awake.

 

Blinking to cast the remnants of sleep away, she adopts a sitting position. The birds sing a song in the trees, blessing the morning. The sun, an orange eye in the sky glares down on her. Her body tingles, the remaining syllables of the skin she wears still wriggling atop her muscles and tendons. Her mouth tastes like ash. Her tongue is swollen—an instrument pregnant with words that wish to be repeated. Names that yearn to be remembered. She swallows and her throat pushes down unsaid words into her belly. These words, they tumble and fall like rocks in a well.

​

Within the first exhales of respite she makes, she tastes something behind her throat: longing.

​

It lingers, a dusky-citrus flavour in that space of silence and speech; forgetting and remembering. Death and Sleep. She sends her tongue back in an attempt to brush against this foreign taste, but she cannot reach it. She whines in frustration and rises from the ground, dusting herself off. The ants have long since departed, but their work remains on her skin; this new skin still whispering stories.

​

She moves her feet to walk, and something happens. Her left foot lingers in the air for a beat before coming to the ground. She watches its descent, confused. Why is it moving on its own accord? She looks up and finds her right-hand hovering, straight and stiff like an extended blade in midair. Her eyes widen and a sound, broken and disjointed escapes her throat. Have the gods finally enacted their punishment for the sacrilegious things she has been doing? Is this their curse? Seizing control of the one thing she so desperately clings to?

​

Her legs begin to stomp; the rhythm is shaky at first, but muscle memory takes over and before she can catch herself or confess her despair into the morning, her body begins to move in the same fashion the flesh she wears did when it swelled with life many moons ago.

​

She sways, claps, swoons and ducks, her body and mind separated—one fervid and purposeful, the other lost.

​

She watches, detached from herself as she cuts through the morning, quick and without mercy. A laugh bubbles through her at the memory. It unfurls in her mind’s eye, ruby, potent. She listens and the breeze sings to her. The leaves sway, mimicking her movements like eager apprentices. She giggles; the sound, a long-lost song in her ears. It causes the taste in her throat to swell and rise further up. Further, further, till her tongue can reach for it. It escapes her throat, spinning, turning, moving in tandem with the dance she’s adopted with the forest, and it reaches the tip of her tongue. She screams the taste into the morning, and it whispers something back.

​

The first letters of her name.

​

*****

​

BEFORE

​

The first time she stood at the edge of the village, she didn’t know what she was doing there, but she had not totally forgotten who she was. Despite the banishment, despite being lost, the lights from the village called to her, promising warmth and protection against the harsh bite of the foliage behind her. The piles of skin laying in heaps in the far corner caught her attention because a horde of houseflies were buzzing with elation. She walked, curious, towards the sound and once she reached it, retched and vomited what was left of the fruits she had eaten for sustenance. The smell was malodorous, weighted, so much so that it brought her to her knees.

​

It was in that moment of hacking, retching and vomiting that she lost her balance. She reached for something to hold, and her hands gripped the flesh that once covered a palm that lay at the base of the heap. That was when it all began. That was when the promise, the shadow of remembering became something she could see within the farthest reaches of her marble corridor of a mind.

​

Her hands stayed there, basking in the voice trapped within the flesh she held. It was dull, lacking in potency and rot was setting in. She let it go, a thirst, vibrant and consuming birthed within. She went for one of the pieces of flesh on top of the heap, still warm, still free from rot and she touched it.

​

The voice trapped within was stronger, sharper. It coaxed her in.

​

“Take me, and I will fill in the space you so desperately want filled. I am the answer. I am the promise of your salvation.’’

​

“How can you be?’’ she thought.

​

“I am because I have been tasked to be so. And because I hold within the first sprout of who you are,’’ the voice said, with a cadence that was velvet like the night that enveloped the sky.

​

“What does that mean?’’

​

“It means I have what you desire; the silhouette of the first letter of your name.’’

 

*****

​

NOW

​

She stands at the edge of the forest, whole, ready.

​

Her knife in her left hand, her sack in her right. The wind howls its blessings, the trees hiss their approval. This is her moment. She remembers.  For many moons now, she has been coaxing, collecting, shaping and beating the various stories, voices, songs, truths that have poured into her being; squeezing, twisting, biting, tearing, till she tasted her own name within the innards of her determination.

​

Now, with remembering comes action. She looks down at her skin, her own skin, stitched together. It waited for her, patient, like a seed. It glistens, bathed in moonlight. A dark bronze, courageous, deadly. She turns her arms, her chest inflating with pride at the way her skin catches the light, pooling its essence to the surface in a manner that makes her look regal; like a phantom.

​

The village stares back at her, nearly silent save for the occasional wail of an infant, the howl of a dog or the boom of a man’s laughter. The latter makes her wince, that sound—thunderous and menacing brings back memories: of sweat, of palm wine, of yellowed teeth sneering, of cloth being ripped, of legs being pried apart and of warmth trickling down her legs. She shakes off the thoughts and before doubt or anything else can stop her, she takes a step inside the village.

​

She could have stayed outside, could have kept her identity a secret and made do with what she was and who she was in solitude. But the flesh provokes; it desires and it resents. It poisons the soul and deludes the mind.

​

It thirsts for vengeance and pines for satiety.

​

The village swallows her in a different manner than it spat her out; silently and without force. The memories creep up on her, but she tamps them down. There is only a singular purpose here, a threading that needs to be undone before any else can be considered or entertained.

​

To remember blood, blood must be spilled.

​

She walks, led by her legs which know the way. They take her to the front of a large hut, its entrance covered by a thick red cloth. Upon her arrival, the cloth is picked up by a strong wind; it dances, giving her all but brief glimpses of whom lays inside. She sees the man’s silhouette, his shadow, a large beast of onyx plastered against the wall. A stark contrast from the frail thing that lays on the mat.

​

She walks into the hut, her steps silent. The man laying before her sleeps soundly, without a care in the world. He inhales deeply and exhales, a soft snore escaping his lips. She looks down on him in disgust, in pity, in rage, in amusement. Then she shoots down, her knife ready, and she plunges its blade into his chest.

​

His eyes snap open and before he can let out a scream, she extracts the blade and slits his throat. His eyes bulge, the beginnings of his shout succumbing to gurgles and bubbles of blood.

​

Her eyes do not leave his as he thrashes and wrestles with his demise. She stares at him, unblinking, savoring every moment of his torment. Slowly, his thrashes become languid, his mannerisms jerky. That is when she searches his eyes for the question she knows he was going to ask, if only his mouth would still work. She finds the confusion in his bloodshot eyes before they clamp shut forever.

​

She smiles, leaning in to his ears to whisper her name.

​

He gives up the ghost then, weighted by a name that casts him to damnation.

​

*****

​

MANY MOONS LATER

​

The last of the usurpers, for moons now, has evaded sleep. He has been upright, propped on his back, facing the entrance of his cottage in preparation for what is to come.

​

He knows it will be anytime soon, and he wants to have a fighting chance. He wants to have the opportunity to draw blood, even if it’s the last thing he ever does.

​

He prefers to go off into the next plane kicking, biting, fighting.

​

He has fought sleep for many nights, finding different innovative ways to stay awake: there was candle wax, there was walking around his cottage—this he did not much care for because it gave him less of a chance to fight back, if death did choose to come then—till the sun crested the sky. There was chewing raw kola nuts and herbs recommended by those he oversaw. Even they were apprehensive on his behalf, after everything they had heard. How the woman, wearing mismatched skin and wielding a bloodied, rusted blade walked through the village, shrouded in darkness and killed any and all who were unfortunate to deserve it. Some called her the personification of the wrath of the gods; their rage turned flesh. He had shooed those possibilities away as the slave for his quarters had handed him a bowl of ice water to splash over his face periodically, to forestall slumber from stealing him away.

​

These people and their backward beliefs.

​

They worshipped idols and trees and had the tenacity to try to influence him to see through their muddied lens.

​

Hogwash!

​

It was someone, something—his people were yet to determine if this race of black skin and primitive beliefs were fully humans—that had grown too bold and was lucky enough to have dealt such a blow to the village’s hierarchy of power.

​

Then again, he thinks, the sheer will and dedication is laudable; almost scary.

​

Almost.

​

The last of his kind, the last usurper closes his eyes briefly to rest them for half a heartbeat, bathing in the memories of home. Where he belongs on the other side of the deep blue. Where he is deemed a hero, a saviour compassionate enough to relinquish comfort in a bid to attempt to change these savages. These people who kill their own, tearing their skin off and heaping it at the edge of the village. He did not understand why this was so and asked his immediate superior why the savages were still practicing the barbaric act.

​

“We can take, but we must not take all from them,’’ he was told. “Some things, my dear boy, are meant to be shed individually. We must only hope, in time, our teachings and our ways will be wholly assimilated by them.’’

​

“Plus,’’ his superior had said, leaning closer to make sure his next words left his lips and reached only the last usurper’s ears, “if they end up punishing their rebels in that manner, it leaves room for only the pliant to be plied.’’ The dear boy could not argue with that logic. 

​

He opens his eyes wide, feeling the pull of sleep overtaking his senses. But he is alone in his quarters. The door has been sealed shut, his gun laying on his lap, cocked and ready to tear flesh. He takes a deep breath and turns his neck to his left to ease the stiffness. He notices the full moon, yellow and menacing, staring back at him through his open window.

​

He thought he closed…

​

He whips around to his right, but it is too late. He only gets half a heartbeat to graze the trigger of his gun before his throat is slashed.

​

He stares into eyes that burn him from within, so much hatred pooled in their irises. A mouth that was once full and beautiful, now torn and sewn together sneers at him.

​

“Wh-wha-what a- are you?’’ he croaks.

​

Death makes a sound in her throat, melodious and final. She leans in and despite everything, the scent of something, sun-fire, wafts across his nostrils. It smells like home.

​

“I am the voices you smothered. The stories you exiled. I am remembrance.’’

​

She waits till his last breath begins its journey outward and she whispers her true name.

​

“I am Karma.’’

​