CHAPTER

8

Xifeng is showing me that I am having hole in the back of my neck.

She is holding mirror to the back of my neck and making me watch in other mirror, and I am seeing hole and I am feeling it, and it is metal like gun or like Enyemaka. It is not shining. It is being covered in dust from the desert, and every night after our working, Xifeng is cleaning it for me, and it is like taking bath. I know what taking bath is like because I am downloading rememberings too, just like Enyemaka.

Because I am downloading rememberings, I am remembering what it is being like to be child of peace, not child of war, and to be sitting in tub with soap like clouds on the water and to be feeling mother’s hands in my hair. I am remembering what it is like to be laughing and splashing the water and maybe mother is sometimes talking soft to me and sometimes mother is splashing with me. I am remembering water is warm, and I am also remembering that mother is changing dial on wall in washroom to make water colder or warmer, so I can always be giggling. Some of the rememberings are being washed in blue like hologram, and some of them are coming in flashes with static, but some of them are whole and I am not just seeing thing, I am smelling and feeling it too. All of this I am remembering when Xifeng is cleaning the hole at the back of my neck. She is calling it outlet. Outlet is strange name to me, because I am using it to bring rememberings into me, so I am wanting to call it inlet, because I am letting things into me.

“An inlet is something else,” Xifeng is saying to me. “English is a strange language.” She is speaking in soft soft voice like her mind is being somewhere else.

“It is not what you are speaking when you are child?” I am asking her, and my throat is not paining me so much when I am speaking to her, though I am wishing I am speaking to her like I am speaking to Enyemakas. Our speaking is being full with sound and color, like what is being trapped in word is being released. I am feeling like Enyemaka is knowing all of what I am meaning when I am saying thing. But Xifeng is only knowing piece of it.

“What makes you say that, Uzo?”

“You are being Han Chinese. You are mostly speaking Mandarin, but you are wishing to be speaking Cantonese, because you are coming from Guangzhou. You are knowing people who are speaking Taishanese, and when you are not noticing you are sometimes moving from Cantonese to Taishanese, and I am thinking it is because you are wanting to be near to someone who is not being here.”

Xifeng is looking at me with wide eyes, and water is brimming in them, and she is not moving. Her hand is hovering over my neck. I am knowing that all of this is happening even though my back is to her, because I am feeling it, and thing is happening in my brain to be mapping where I am sitting and calculating her heart rate and diagramming the movement of her muscles and the ways in which her brain is sparking. Even though Xifeng is behind me, I am seeing all of her vital sign and numbers and the map of her body with some parts glowing red and other parts glowing blue. Retinal display is showing me diagram of her brain and which neuron is firing where. I am sensing these thing like how Enyemaka is sometime knowing when I am needing water to cool down or oil for my joints. Xifeng’s body is telling me these thing, and I am not knowing why it is doing this, because all I am doing is saying thing to her.

“H-how did you . . .” Her body is moving like the other woman when I am burying person she is loving who is dead. And I am expecting water to be falling from Xifeng’s eyes to my neck. Then Xifeng’s body is stilling like water after stone is kissing its surface. “Were you rummaging through my recordings?”

I am wanting to tell Xifeng that I am knowing these thing because I am hearing traces of where she is coming from in how she is speaking, and I am sometime seeing her writing and I am seeing how she is moving and what she is looking at and how she is walking and the way she is breathing when she is talking or when she is even just smiling, and all of these thing is telling me that she is wanting to be speaking Taishanese. I am wanting to be telling her that she is carrying rememberings inside her body and inside her bones and inside her skin and her body is speaking with rememberings every time I am looking at her. I am wanting to tell Xifeng that I am knowing all these thing from watching her, but I am not knowing how to say the full thing the way I am saying it to Enyemaka. And what I am wanting to tell her is crashing inside my head and trying to force itself into word. But then I give up. “Are you wanting to be speaking Taishanese to me?”

For a long time, Xifeng is not moving, and I am not moving. Then Xifeng is wrapping her arms around me and holding me close to her chest and water is falling from her face and landing on my neck and washing the dirt from my outlet.

“Oh, child,” she is saying to me in Taishanese.

And I am wondering if I am making her to be sadding. Then I am wondering if this is making me to be bad person. But I am not knowing how to be asking Xifeng if I am bad person because I am shooting gun and breaking hand and making there to be dead bodies, so I am not asking her. I am just letting her hold me until water is no longer coming from her eyes.

Then I am listening to her body. It is saying to me that it is happy.

I am making Xifeng to be happy, and it is making me to be happy too.


Outside, the sun is shining bright and red on us again. Enyemaka are telling us that the next grave site is not far, and I am hearing the buzzing from what Xifeng is calling nanobots. To get the rememberings from the dead bodies, we are sometimes plugging into them directly. But sometimes, we are getting to a grave site and it is covered in nanobots that is swarming like flies. I am seeing that they are different from flies because they are being made out of metal like the gun or the outlet at the back of my neck. Xifeng is not seeing the nanobots because they are small small, but I am seeing them and Enyemaka are seeing them too. And when we get to grave site, Enyemaka are standing still while nanobots fly to them like mosquito, and they are taking the nanobots inside them and their eyes are glowing because they are receiving the rememberings through the nanobots, and the same is happening to me. The nanobots fly into my ears and are buzzing into my blood, and I am collecting the rememberings like this too.

When I am asking Enyemaka where they are coming from, they are telling me that they are being built and that they are being given life by nanobots. They are telling me that person made out of metal but still person with flesh and blood is having nanobots inside her and she is spitting on Enyemaka’s ear, and I am thinking that spitting is bad thing because Xifeng is telling me not to do this when there is much saliva in my mouth, but Enyemaka are telling me that this is what this girl did and that it was to put nanobots inside them. And then when Enyemaka met the other robots, Enyemaka did the same thing to them, and that is how they are being given life.

When Enyemaka are telling me these thing, they are sending image into my brain and I am seeing girl with hair in braids down her back and rough fingers and dirt smudged on her face and who is cleaning Enyemaka with hand that is made of metal, and I am seeing that her whole arm is being made of metal, and something is shaking in me when I am seeing this person. I am not knowing this feeling, but it is taking all of me and shaking the inside of me, then the image is gone, but the feeling is still there, then the feeling is gone too.

Who is that? I am asking Enyemaka.

Our maker, Enyemaka are telling me.

Why am I feeling like this when I am seeing picture of her?

But Enyemaka is not answering me. I am asking them again, but Enyemaka is still not answering me.

So I am finding dead things in the desert like lizard or animal with two heads or giant boar and I am spitting on its ear, but it is not working. And I am thinking there is problem with me, but Enyemaka are telling me that there is no problem with me. Some things are dead and are staying dead. And I am thinking that Xifeng is having Enyemaka telling me these thing so that when I am finding dead body I am not spitting on them to give them life.

We are not far from grave site when I am hearing buzzing. But this buzzing is different. It is lower like rumbling, and we are all looking to where the ground is meeting the sky in the east, and I am seeing dust rising like clouds from the ground where the air is so hot it is looking like water.

The first gunshot is like a really fast bee. It is just buzzing by my ear. Then there are being many of them and they are just pinging the sides of the trailers, and Xifeng is running inside while the Enyemakas stand guard around her trailer. Nobody is having gun, so there is nothing we can be doing while Xifeng is driving the trailer away and searching for shelter.

But my body is moving without me thinking. The Enyemakas are making line to protect the trailer and I am behind them, but suddenly I am running and running and running and there is only desert in front of me and there is dust behind me rising from my running, and it is like everything is blurring around me, but I see them coming toward us fast fast.

Bullets whistle at me. FEWN FEWN FEWN. But my body is moving to dodge them. They are shooting with pistol, and it is easy to hop to left, to right, to duck, to jump where they are striking the ground at my feet. From far away, I am hearing CLICK-CLACK of rifle, and I am running faster toward the sound and timing my moving perfectly so that when I hear RATATATATATATA I am flipping and hopping and always moving forward. I am not knowing how I am able to do these thing. I am not remembering this doing in the rememberings I am downloading. I am just moving. Like this remembering is deep in my body. Like it is not being in my braincase, but it is instead being in my bones. In my legs and in my arms and in my fingers. It is like electricity but it is also cool, and I am feeling like I am being washed in cold water that is feeling nice under the desert sun. And maybe this is how I am knowing that Xifeng is wanting to speak Taishanese. Her body is remembering.

In front of my face, I am seeing target reticle and I am seeing enemies outlined in red. And I am hearing beeping as each one appears to me and my brain is being told what guns they are carrying and how many bullets they are having left after wasting them on me. And my brain is being told what they are riding and how many of them there are, and suddenly they are close enough for me to smell.

They are riding hoverbikes and trucks and are in a staggered line, all jagga-jagga. And they are wearing masks and bandanas over their faces to keep from breathing the red dust. This is how I am knowing that many of them are weak.

The first one is speeding his bike toward me. He is steering it while another sits behind him with a shotgun balanced on the driver’s shoulder.

As I am running, I am picking up stone and throwing it with all of my strength. It is hitting boy with shotgun straight in his forehead, and he is falling backward and landing on the ground. Driver is swerving and losing control and turning too fast so that his bike is flipping over and crashing and flipping and crashing, and he is dying when it lands on top of him. I am jumping over the bike and running to boy with shotgun who is not moving, and I am picking up shotgun and shooting through cloud of dust at a man on another motorbike. He is flipping and crashing and dying too.

The buzzing of their vehicles is now a roar around me as some of them pass me, then turn around. I know I must destroy their vehicles so they cannot move fast fast to Xifeng and Enyemaka.

I hear RATATATATATA fast fast and duck behind first bike that I am causing to flip and crash. It is man on another bike who is shooting at me. I am peeking my head out to see him and ducking again when he is shooting.

He drives past me, and I am aiming and shooting, and his partner with gun is falling over and crushing the driver and causing him to swerve back and forth until he is stopping.

I am running and bullets are chomping at my feet, and at moment when driver is reaching for his partner’s rifle, I am shooting him and his face is exploding. I grab rifle so I am holding shotgun in one hand and rifle in the other.

And I am turning and shooting and turning and shooting until all around me is explosion and dying. I am jumping and taking cover behind overturned bikes and I am hearing rumbling of truck getting closer. It is the last vehicle left.

There is dust making clouds everywhere, but I am seeing through the dust, and my brain is locating the target, so I sling shotgun over my back and fall to one knee, and I am aiming the rifle and shooting, and the front tires of the truck are making loud POP and truck is skidding until it too is falling over.

I am hearing screaming and I am seeing blood splashing on front window, and that is how I am knowing that driver is dead.

But I am seeing shapes move behind the truck. There are more attackers coming out, and they are wearing dirty bandana over their nose and mouth, and they are shooting and I am shooting, but I am only having two guns and I am quickly running out of bullets.

Small bikes and larger bikes are lying like dead animals almost in semicircle around truck. So I am moving fast fast from one to the other and dodging bullets until I am getting to behind truck and the attackers are not seeing me.

I am holding my rifle by its neck, and I am swinging at the back of the first bandit’s head, and he is falling like sack of yams. I am dropping my gun and picking up his and shooting the second bandit, and there are three left and one of them is holding knife and running at me.

I am shooting at him but he is moving fast fast like me, left right left right, until he is in front of me and knocks gun away from me.

He is slashing at me and I am raising my arms to keep knife away from my head and my chest. He is raising arm and bringing it down, and I block and twist his wrist, but he is dropping knife and catching it with other hand and stabbing, and I am moving out of the way, but he is cutting my shirt. I turn behind him and twist his arm, and it is making snapping sound. But snapping sound is also CLICK-CLACK of rifle behind me, and I know other bandit is going to shoot. So I spin around again, and bandit with knife is catching bullets with his body, and I am running using his body as shield and taking knife from him. And I am crashing into bandit with gun and raising knife and cutting his neck.

I am rolling to the side when new bullets are cutting line through ground straight for the bodies. And I am coming up to one knee and throwing knife at another bandit, and he is dropping and everything is being quiet again, not even mosquito or nanobot is buzzing.

Slowly, I am standing again and I am walking to pick up knife and take rifle and put it over my shoulder so it is hanging with shotgun, and I am picking through pockets for bullets and shells and putting them in my own pocket, and I am taking vests and other clothes and putting them on so I can hold more bullets and shells, and just as I am turning to go, I am seeing him.

He is boy. Vest is hanging off his bare chest that is all skin and bones. He is so small that gun he is holding is as big as him. And he is standing so still that not even my mind’s eye is detecting him. He is not glowing red like living things. When smoke clears, he is just boy covered in dust.

Even though he is not shooting at me or throwing knife, I know he is like me. He is child of war.

“You are not having to be like this,” I am telling him. And I am saying this out loud because Xifeng is saying I should practice talking but also because I am sometimes missing the sound of my own voice. So I am saying, “You are not just child of war.”

But the boy is silent.

“You are not needing gun to live.” I am looking for more words, because I know I am supposed to be saying more to this boy. “I am once being child of war, but I am learning of more way of being. Different way of being. Only killing and fighting when I must. To protect people. Some days, no killing and no fighting. I think before I am killing and fighting all the time, but I am not doing these thing all the time anymore.”

He is looking at me and not saying words, and there is small small hair on his head and I am wanting to shave his head so that his hair is not trapping sun-heat on his scalp, and I am wanting to give him headscarf and protect him from sunburn. And I am wanting these things because I have remembering in me that I am doing this thing before for someone who is making my heart happy. And I am wanting to make this boy happy, but he is saying nothing.

“Come with us. Come with me.”

“You’re one of us,” he is saying in quiet quiet voice.

Blood-covered fist is clenching at my sides. “I am not bad person.”

But boy is saying no more thing and is just looking at me with nothing in his eye, not even water. Then he is walking away with gun in his arms and machete slapping his leg softly like it is walking with him.

I am collecting gun and bullet from dead bodies, and I am walking and walking and walking until I see Enyemakas and Xifeng’s trailer. And while I am walking, I am telling myself I am not bad person.

And I am trying to believe it.