I hesitated. "Why can't I look?"
"It's not time." She frowned at Suzette, who took the envelope from me and passed it to her. She set it aside and went back to scanning barcodes. When she had finished, she did something under the counter and a flatscreen rose up from a slot that had been invisible thus far. I couldn't see what was on it from where I was standing; after checking for armed guards (none), I stood on tiptoe and tried to crane my neck. What little I could see didn't tell me anything-a few straight lines radiating from a point and a square the size of a postage stamp cycling through the color spectrum.
"There are many different routes from here but of course, not all of them are desirable-"
Suzette pressed the photo up against the barrier. "Is there one that goes here?"
The woman barely glanced at it. "No."
"Why not?"
"Because you're already here."
"Wait a minute." Suzette put the photo on the counter and pointed. "This is my mother. I'm trying to find her. And my Aunt Lillian-"
The woman motioned for her to pass it to her. "That narrows things down." She studied it for a moment and then concentrated on the screen, touching it occasionally, frowning at the result, touching it again, and frowning more deeply. After a few more touches, she stood back.
"I'm sorry, you can't get to her."
"What do you mean?" Suzette asked.
"There is no possible itinerary that will put you with her."
"You sound like you're booking flights," I said.
The woman nodded. "Yes, of course. What did you think you were doing here? However, I can give the both of you much better routes."
Suzette and I looked at each other. "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.
She emptied my envelope and spread the contents out. It all looked like bus tickets, appointment cards, and the written portion of the driving test in Massachusetts. "I can give you both a route where you graduate from your respective universities magna cum laude and you meet for the first time during post-graduate study abroad." She touched the screen again. "It comes with single parenthood but you'll both be fairly well off."
"Magna cum laude in what?" I said. She was speaking English but nothing made sense.
The woman smiled. "That's up to you. Isn't that nice? You get the choice. Please pick something beneficial. You don't have to, of course, but if you did, it would make planning routes much easier in the future."
"My mother-"
"Your mother's itinerary does not intersect with yours. At least, not any more than it already has. Your flights in relation to her are unchanged."
Suzette shook her head, baffled.
"On your itinerary, she still dies when you're sixteen. But on her new itinerary, she never has children. I'm sorry, but there was no route with offspring that didn't include an early death. Once she understood this wouldn't affect your existence, she decided. I don't blame her."
"This," Suzette said, "isn't happening."
"Oh, it is. And it's not going to get any better, believe me." She put everything back into the envelopes and passed them back to us. "Through there," she said, pointing at the nearest turnstile.
We went through and down a passageway to a metal door. "This way to the egress," I said with a nervous laugh.
"On three," said Suzette. "One… two… "
We pushed through and the noise hit us like a physical blow.
We should have realized that it wasn't going to be a Rolling Stones concert, either in the late 1960s or from last week. I was actually hoping but when we pushed through that door, we found ourselves out on the tarmac at an airport. The wind was blowing and it sounded like a hundred jets were revving up for takeoff all at once. My inner ear suddenly turned against me and I felt myself falling. But before I could hit the ground, two strong hands caught me and set me on my feet again-an armed man in a uniform. He smiled at me and Suzette as he hustled us over to a shuttle bus and pushed us onto it.
The bus took us not to the airport building but to another plane. I was too boggled to do anything except get on board and sit where the flight attendant said to. "I guess this means we won't be enjoying the Zoma," I said to Suzette as we sat down. Another flight attendant standing nearby gave me a disapproving look.
"Keep your voice down," she said. "I don't think this is… you know."
"No," I said. "I don't know."
"Excuse me," Suzette called to the flight attendant. "What's the name of this airport?"
The woman raised one eyebrow, as if she thought Suzette was being rude in some way.
"The full official name, I mean."
"Moi," the attendant said. " Mombasa Moi International Airport."
"Thank you." Suzette turned to me with an I-told-you-so look.
"OK," I said. "Just tell me how we got here from Madagascar -"
"No, no, no," said the flight attendant, looming over us now. "You don't mention Madagascar."
"But-"
"No." She raised a finger and I thought she was going to shake it in my face.
"This has got to be a trick," I said.
"It is," said the flight attendant. "And it's a very good one. So be quiet. Don't tell how the trick is done."
We'd been in the air an hour before Suzette realized she had left the photo behind.
We flew to New York and then to San Francisco, where we live. Suzette has a degree in economics and works on budget planning. I'm an architect, which I find amazing; I never thought I had it in me.
Neither of us is a parent yet. I don't think we're even close to it but the trajectory of this route allows for surprises. Other things, however, it doesn't allow for.
I'm more easygoing than ever, tearing the tags off pillows, jaywalking, wearing white after Labor Day. I got over my thing about folding photographs. People should live life just the way they want. So go ahead, dye all your hair purple, live in a tree, hitchhike your way around the world in a chicken suit. Whatever turns you on, yanks your crank or gets you through the night is OK with me.
Just don't mention Madagascar. At least, not where I can hear you.
On the Road by Nnedi Okorafor
A tiger does not proclaim its tigritude. It pounces.
– Wole Soyinka
Sub-Saharan Africa 's first Nobel Laureate
I slammed the door in the child's face, a horrific scream trapped in my throat. I swallowed it back down.
I didn't want to wake my grandmother or auntie. They'd jump out of bed, come running down the stairs and in a string of Igbo and English demand to know what the fuck was wrong with me. Then I'd point at the door and they'd open it and see the swaying little boy with the evil grin and huge open dribbling red white gash running down the middle of his head. Split open like a dropped watermelon.
My stomach lurched and I shut my eyes and rubbed my temples, my hand still tightly grasping the doorknob. Get it together, I thought. But I knew what I'd seen-jagged fractured yellow white skull, flaps of hanging skin, startlingly red blood and some whitish gray jelly… brain? I shuddered. "Shit," I whispered to myself.
The boy had been standing in the rain. Soaked from head to toe, as everything outside was from the strange unseasonable three-day deluge. He'd been smiling up at me. He couldn't have been older than nine. I gagged. I couldn't just leave him out there.
Knock! Knock! Knock! In hard strong rapid succession. "Oh God," I whispered. "What the hell?" Every hair on my body stood on end. I took a deep breath. Before really thinking about what I was doing, my hand was turning the knob and pulling the door open. I kept my eyes down. His wet black shoes were clumped with red mud. Gradually I brought my eyes up, past his soaked navy blue school uniform pants, to his worn out and cracked black fake leather belt, his tucked in white dress shirt, the brown skin of his throat, his little boy face… cleaved open, all the way to his eyebrows. Fuck! I thought.