I’d been a baby at the time, but I still vaguely remembered the smell of asphalt and the adhesive used to seal in the solar panels. My parents were well known back home, though not all that well paid. And the government townhouse I grew up in was a solid strong structure as were all the apartments I’ve lived in since I moved out of my parents’ home. I was a typical southerner.
So seeing how these people lived was jarring. Up until yesterday, I’d never spent a night under the stars, these people lived beneath the stars. They set up tents made from thin but colorful Ankara cloth. They were protection from the winds, not the rain. It barely rained here, apparently.
And there was one huge conical thatch structure in the center of it all. It was this that I set my eyes on because everything else around me was too much. I’m used to being stared at, but not by an entire village. Not all at once. Some wore the traditional long flowing garments, but most wore sun gear, a stylish Ankara clothing made to absorb energy from the sun into a small battery in the side pocket that could be used to power appliances. The women tended to wear sun gear with a blue or black thin veil covering their heads that went all the way down to their ankles. And they spoke English, at least around DNA and me.
“Hello, ma’am,” one woman said to me. “You can’t walk?” I was still sitting on Carpe Diem.
“I can walk,” I said, quickly scrambling off the cow.
“It’s DNA,” someone said.
“Oh my goodness.”
But most of the villagers just stared at us. Especially at me. They crowded around us and I immediately wanted to escape. I narrowed my eyes and squeezed my fingers into fists. I wasn’t afraid of these people, but I was still jumpy from yesterday, when I was surrounded by seemingly nice people who’d then hardened into cruelty.
“Everyone move back,” DNA said. “Farah, Jojo, Mohammed, everyone, it’s me. What is all this?”
I noticed her first because she looked just like DNA except with braids and darker skin. Same deeply Fulani face that peacefully blended remote Arab features and powerful West African ones. And she had the same tall lean frame. She was pushing through the people, an intense frown on her face. “Brother, come on!” she grunted as she shoved two men aside. She wore a long red abaya and a sheer red veil, and she somehow managed not to get it caught on any of those around her. She grabbed his hand and yanked him between two women.
“You people, move,” she snapped. “Always sniffing for gossip. Go to the city if you’re so bored.”
“AO,” DNA said, looking back at me as his sister spirited him away. “Come.”
We followed her into a series of tents with entrances facing each other, not far from the large thatch structure in the center of the nomad village. These tents were all made of the same deep red cloth, setting it apart from the patchwork of tents around it. DNA’s people had money.
“Go in, go in,” his sister insisted, shoving DNA into an entrance covered by two hanging red cloths.
“Wuro, stop pushing me. I’m coming,” DNA snapped.
“Gololo! Mama!” she yelled.
I followed them both in, glancing behind me. Several villagers had followed us, but stopped some yards away, talking amongst themselves. Then I was inside a courtyard in the center of tents lit by sunshine streaming in from above and scented with an incense so strong, no fly would dare try to endure it. Red cloth walls, flimsy yet protective, floors red with thick carpet, red leather travel bags, even the woman staring at DNA as she emerged carrying a large platter of flat bread wore red pants and an embroidered red kaftan. Red, red, red.
It happened to both DNA and me at the same time. We had just met and something had bonded us. Yes, it was mostly the traumas we’d both endured but also something else. Whatever it was, the bond was so true that we both expressed PTSD in the same way, at the same time.
We stopped where we were. DNA stood in the center of the courtyard, facing his staring mother. I was directly behind him, my face inches from the gun on his back. I was looking over his shoulder, seeing only the red cloth of the tent. Only the red.
. . . I was falling into red.
. . . Falling and flailing through time.
. . . Flailing backwards twenty four hours.
Time dumped me at the moment where men’s blood was spilling a stark red onto the dirt of my market’s dirt ground. Reflecting in the rays of sunshine that fought their way through the market booths and stunned hardened people. They were like stone, unmoving and unfeeling as they watched and did not help. The blood on my dexterous robotic hands, my robotic feet. I heard a whimper escape my throat, and I heard a man’s throat crushed by my hands.
“Mama! Look!” Wuro said, rushing to a tall woman in red pants and a red shirt putting a tray of bread right there on the floor. DNA’s mother strode to him, her hands outstretched.
“Dangote, what are you doing here?”
“All dead,” I heard him whisper. His back was to me, but I heard him as clearly as if I were hearing my own thoughts. I reached forward and took his hand. He grasped mine. I caught Wuro’s eye as I did this, and her eyebrows rose.
“Mama,” he said. “C-can’t I come home? To rest? If you’re worried about her . . .” he motioned to me. “She’s off the grid, like us. They won’t find her anytime soon.”
“I don’t know who this woman is,” she snapped waving a dismissive hand at me. “You reject every woman we found for you. Too old, too young, too much school, too much city life. You finally bring one home and she’s mostly machine.” She loudly kissed her teeth.
Wuro laughed loudly.
“Mama, she’s—”
“Dangote!” A man who also looked like DNA but older burst into the courtyard from another tent entrance. “Hey! He is really here!”
“Gololo, I can explain,” DNA said.
“Just tell me. Is it true?” Gololo asked.
Wuro stood beside him, her arms across her chest. She shook her head, rolling her eyes. “One-track minded. Our brother is home, Gololo. Take a breath and see that for a moment.”
“Is it true?” Gololo demanded.
“Is what true?” DNA asked. He looked back at me. We were still holding hands. His flesh to my steel. His eyes, still clouded with the pain of his trauma, asked me, Do I tell them? I looked away.
“I’m not asking about her,” his brother snapped, pointing at me. “I’m asking about you. Is it true about you? Have you really become a terrorist?”
Wuro picked up the tray of bread, clearly anticipating trouble. She ducked out of the tent, and I wished I could do the same.
“Terrorist? Me?? Why would I . . . ?”
His brother stepped closer. “If the stories aren’t true, where are your steer? Just GPS and Carpe Diem? Where is everyone else? Why come home without them? What herdsman would do that?”
“I came home because . . . wait, what stories?”