it, the lights just – pshee Power cut. A minute later they came back on and I was like, “I’ve been fucking acknowledged.”’ Tabitha sipped. ‘So I bought this tea to, like, preserve that feeling? It’s part of my decolonial diet.’
‘I miss you so frikkin much,’ Naila pouted.
‘My heart twerks for you too, love. Right, let’s see it.’
Naila propped the laptop on the bed and stood up. She tilted the screen to catch her image, then turned and pulled the back of her panties down, unveiling the patch of brindled skin.
‘Ugh, you’re a goddess. Look at that ay-ass,’ Tabitha Minaj’ed the word into a squeak. She peered closer. ‘Beautiful,’ she concluded and sat back. ‘Fucking. Vintage.’
Naila craned her neck to look at the fresh tattoo. It was a row of thin vertical lines of different weight, tiny numbers nudging up into them from the bottom edge.
‘What price comes up when you scan it?’ Joseph laughed from across the room.
‘You can’t scan it,’ said Naila. ‘The lines are meaningful but not, like, capitalistically.’
‘You know what?’ Tabitha was nodding. ‘I really respect that you didn’t do a QR code.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Joseph rolled his eyes. He was pulling his socks on. ‘A barcode is so much classier.’
‘Uh, it makes it clear that she’s critiquing late capitalism rather than neoliberalism, which is, like, infinitely more available for revolutionary inversion? But also, Nilotic, you don’t want a code on your body that someone can actually scan. That’s fucking terrifying.’
‘Tabs, I need to tell you something,’ Joseph called out as he put his shoes on. ‘Don’t pop a vein but…You’re on a computer. Right now.’ He stood up. ‘You might even work for the Internet?’
‘Is he being funny?’ said Tabitha. ‘Listen JoJo, I’ll let it go because you’ve straight mapped my girl’s g-spot. But truth? The Web is dark. It’s all fake smiles and blahblahblah we’re changing the world, but underlying it all is just a big, poisonous, capitalist fuck you—’
‘Bye Tabs!’ Joseph cut her off as he walked to the door, then turned and mouthed to Naila: ‘Don’t forget dinner.’
Naila nodded and sat back on the bed. He shut the door.
‘What’s his problem? Testing a new butt plug?’
‘Taaabs,’ Naila moaned. ‘I can’t leave. I think I’ve been dicknapped.’
‘Grrrl, I’ve been there.’ Tabitha was tweezing her eyebrows. ‘Sometimes I think I live there.’
‘The dick isn’t even all that – I’ve just trained it. Like a pet snake. A kundalino.’
Tabitha snapped her fingers to make Lilliputian applause. ‘So what about the, uh, friend?’
‘Jacob? What about him?’
‘“What about him?”’ Tabitha echoed Naila in a mocking singsong. ‘You seemed…intrigued. And if I know my Nilotic, one man will not satisfy the beast.’
‘Uh, that dude makes frikkin drones. Ew.’
‘And?’ Tabitha glanced up into a corner as if a thought had flown into the room. ‘You know what? You should hook Jacob up with yours truly. We would have loads to chat about. Technologically speaking, of course.’ Tabitha grinned, unveiling her purplish gums.
‘Anyhoo!’ Naila rolled her eyes. ‘How’s the job?’
‘Tweather?’ Tabitha shrugged. ‘It’s just numbers, darling. It’s all just numbers. But it’s the future, too. The revolution may not be televised, but it sure as fuck is gonna be programmed.’
‘Mmm. Jacob said something about that the other day.’
‘Oooh!’ Tabitha clasped her hands. ‘Jacob did, did he?’
‘Fuck you, men,’ Naila said sheepishly. ‘It was just kinda smart. He was like, if everything’s online now – banking, government, military ops – and the power cuts, what do we do then?’
‘Oh that’s easy, darling.’ Tabitha pressed her middle finger to her chin to turn on her Bead, lighting her smile from below. ‘Then it’s just a matter of to bead or not to bead.’
* * *
Naila had been avoiding this dinner with Joseph’s grandmother for months. Now that it was finally happening, it felt both formal and frenzied, like a job interview on New Year’s Eve. Joseph’s grandfather had passed away a couple of years ago, from colon cancer. They were living off his UNZA retirement bursary and the money that Joseph’s Aunt Carol sometimes sent from her conservationist work in Malawi. Naila could tell the Bandas were barely making ends meet. The dinner table was set with elaborate place settings but the edges of the chairs were scuffed, the tablecloth faded and stained, the plates chipped and mismatched.
Joseph had decided on a French meal and instructed the worker, Ba Grace, to make it. She had taken over preparing meals after the old cook, Mr Sakala, had retired, but this was apparently not her