debate on the best way to befalls on either side of this blade. The social contract or individual free will; the walls of a commune must keep us close or capital must run rampant. That’s how you froze your long Cold War, with this endless, mindless divide.
Our essence is somewhere between or besides. We flee but our flight is unruly and tangled, a haphazard hover, a swarm. We loiter a lot but we move over time, we do best when we choose to meander. Come and go, nor fast nor slow, but at a peripatetical pace. Be open to float over land and sea, beneath the communal sky, a throng, a flock, a sly murmuration – is this perhaps the solution?
Jacob’s design might achieve this in time: a latticework drifting in tandem. But in the hands of those who are power disposed, what becomes of this socialish network?
Naila
2019
Lake Malawi at sunset. The sun was melting into the water, a simmering pot of gold. Twelve-year-old Naila sat in the sand, wearing her mother’s old swimming costume. It was brown with little orange rectangles and fastened with safety pins to fit her slim hips and flat chest. Mother sat beside her, legs stretched out, green veins like tangled seaweed in her pale skin. Mother crossed her ankles and laced her toes, fitting one set into the interstices of the other, her best and only trick.
Gabriella and Contessa and Lilliana got up from their half-built sandcastle and ran towards the lake, hand in hand. At the shore, they dawdled and shrieked as the waves slurped up their toes and spat them out again. The wind dimpled the water. The girls splashed in and now Naila was with them. They floated on the rocking lake, their faces up to the glowing sky. They sank together, crossed legs for anchors. Tea party. Pinkies jutting, hands arcing, they sipped from invisible cups. Bubbles rose, stringing their lips to the air, necklaces losing their pearls.
Naila was alone underwater. A pin on her swimming costume popped open, hammocked down, nestled among the rocks. It glinted astral down here, but it would be dull metal once she pulled it out of the water. She reached for it, but it was too far away and then she couldn’t move, her foot was caught. A pressure on top of her head, a hand, pushing her down, holding her under—
* * *
Naila gasped awake. Mother. She shivered. The air in the plane was so cold and brittle, it just might crack with the right kind of tapping. Tapping. Someone was tapping on the lavatory door a few rows behind her. With a small whine like an inhalation, the door buckled open. The familiar smell of sugary soap and alien fart. Then the smell of shit, wide and deep.
‘Yikes, right?’ said the man next to Naila with an incredulous smile.
Oh no. She had already weathered a nine-hour flight and a four-hour layover. This second leg of the journey would be only six hours, but she was exhausted. The man in the middle seat hadn’t been too bad so far, as far as flight companions go. Minimal fumbling, elbows politely retracted inside the armrests, a scent dominated by toothpaste, and blessedly quiet – until now.
She entered the conversation reluctantly. He was of Indian descent too, but they both spoke English, hesitant to broach language differences, which immediately convey class ones. She told him her name, about Zambia and its weather – ‘still so mild, even with The Change?’ he asked – and that she had just graduated from uni. He told her his name, which passed right through her head, and that he was an accountant for Cadbury Chocolate UK – he handed her a shiny purple business card. He was on his way to meet his bride for the first time.
‘The first time?’ A twenty-first-century arranged marriage. This should be interesting.
‘Yeah.’ He leaned in to speak confidentially. He had lowered his standards a little because he really wanted a good woman. Naila’s eyebrow lifted. His fiancée currently worked for a phone bank in Chennai. Once they married, she could work as an administrative assistant for his father’s garage in Birmingham. She’ll adjust really well. Everyone in England had been shocked by his choice, especially his mates. His previous girlfriends had been flashier. More stylish.
‘I’ll show you.’ He pulled out an Android – their Digit-All Beads had to remain off for the duration of the flight. ‘So this is when we arranged things.’