Osahon Ize-Iyamu
The First
Earth was a friend turned enemy. Normally, Ivie would have stayed back, faced the storm or whatever toxic life man had created over the years to make earth so unlivable. Five years ago, her decision wouldn’t have been a question. What was the point of going to a new place?
“This one does not concern me o,” her grandmother had said as Ivie packed her things, giving her that look, her grandmother crossing her arms in silent judgement. “Am I not still breathing, eh? The enemy that has been shouting I will die since has not reached me yet.”
Ivie had gotten up and stared the woman in the eye. It was easier for her grandmother to say that when she had one foot in the grave, with nothing else to consider but herself. She was allowed to be stubborn.
“Apparently radiation hasn’t reached this sector yet.”
Grandma stretched her lips. It was funny; the old woman trying to persuade her to stay. “There’s radiation there, too.”
Ivie’s mind flashed to the skin lesions she’d seen on her friend’s back earlier in the week, the stories her husband had told her to convince her. “It’s not as bad.”
Her grandmother proceeded to shrug, pacing around. “I still think it’s a money scam sha, but you are free. Even if it is true, I am not afraid of death. Let me go and practice my coding.” Her grandmother left, the last Ivie would see of her, the final words.
Should she stay or should she go?
Ivie ended up with her husband nearby, one of his brown, hairy fingers intertwined with hers as she held their baby closer to her chest in the very last row of the very last spaceship, cramped for space and near the toilets. There were no seats available to soothe her back or place her child, sailing through the cosmos strapped to the wall with the other latecomers, as they all went up.
It wasn’t comfortable, but it was something. And besides, the sacrifice wasn’t for her. She was as good as dead for all she cared.
The jolt and toilet smell made her baby cry as well as other small children; fat tears through the silence, and the pressure of her chest. Nobody was talking, each to their own in a probable silent prayer for a safe journey. Ivie didn’t pray; there was nothing else she could think to say that hadn’t been said already. She didn’t sleep, but she wasn’t sure any grown adult would be. Everyone in the back looked stiff as a board, trapped till the end of the journey, silent as mice.
After all, who wanted to die after coughing up enough money to restart their life, then crash on the way?
No windows, but a harsh announcement slapped everyone out of prayer.
“Welcome to Mars.”
It wasn’t a sightseeing trip. Besides, there was nothing to see, just a large expanse of red earth, like how her father’s farm looked like when he just bought it and it was full of opportunity. The stars were pretty but it wasn’t enough. Ivie was sure she saw the dust of the air mix with the cold, the otherworldly nature of the dark sky of space, but the picture of this new world still didn’t do it for her. It wasn’t earth.
Beauty cannot be found here. Return back and you’ll see it.
But my baby can’t die. Not yet.
Sure, they had done their best to renovate it, make it look presentable, market and package it as a symbol for rebirth; but call a spade a spade. Try as hard as she could, she saw red land, back night. And a litter of stars.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Her husband tapped her, getting off the ship, clutching himself and shivering, his hair looking tangled and messy; his voice weird and funny from the hours of silence; even stranger when he took his first breaths through his oxygen regulator.
Ivie looked up again for the beauty. Maybe she had been missing something? Looking up, constellations of stars paved their way through black space, blinding lights through the night. They were better, but it felt like staring at the sun, sometimes magical, but only in small doses.
Then the cold. Her clothes didn’t do enough to protect her, and like a battering ram, it hit her. Her teeth chattered, slamming against each other for some kind of warmth.
Moving was already the biggest jump she had taken. She couldn’t afford to go jumping around from planet to planet. That wasn’t life. All her life she had grown up in the same place, lived near each member of her family. And none of them had agreed to leave. Her family would move on. They would play games and host traditions, do the best of living before earth toppled on them.
Absence would not make their hearts grow fonder—distance, distance, distance. A million miles away. There would be no calls, no letters, no love.
Just tell yourself they’re dead. It’ll make you feel better.
That was how she saw it. Quick and swift and in the middle of the night. No explanation, nothing to be done. A time for mourning, and crying, then she was done. Thinking about their bodies, dying from radiation, collapsing and shrieking, riddled with scars. No. It was too much. It hurt, and her hands ached from holding her baby so long. She didn’t have to care about herself. Just that her baby got everything, got opportunities.
Moving on.
Ivie took a deep breath, staring at her husband. “How are we sure we won’t mess this place up again?”
Her husband whispered in her ear, his breath hot against her skin. “Hopefully, that won’t happen for a very long time.”
Ivie stretched her body. The only advantage of her seating position was that they got to come out first, before all the others: the politicians and presidential figures that booked first seating, abandoning earth. Also, funnily, the ones that missed the chance to sneak onto the American spaceships. Ivie stared at them, judged them as they came out, her face deep in a scowl.
You will not take your corruption here. Maybe in the new system of politics there would be an overhaul, and all things would work for good, and the future would be bright.
The landing spot for the Ghana and Nigeria spaceship looked nothing like the pictures she’d seen in the adverts. But then again, it was all about packaging. She gritted her teeth to the point where she wouldn’t have been surprised to see her canines as stubs, having formed fresh white powder. Ivie bet her money that the fleet of spaceships designed for Americans and Brits landed somewhere much different.
But that’s just the way it goes.
A man came to them, seemingly out of nowhere, a goofy smile plastered on his face.
“Welcome! Welcome, how was your journey? I’m Simon, your nearest consultant. You have any problems, you come to me.”
Mostly murmurs were given as replies. The other people coming out bumped into her without apologies, moving their way to the front, relegating her to the back again. Snobs. Her husband wouldn’t think much of it, but she knew better.
The white man looked like a tour guide or a front-desk clerk at a hotel. That only made her feel worse. She wasn’t coming here to visit. How was your journey? Wasn’t enough. Not in the slightest.
She stared at some people fiddling with metal parts or objects. Every large mechanical device that needed to be carried—cars, hoverboards—had to be broken down into junkyard scraps to rebuild later—pieces of a new life.
“Well, right this way,” the man said. He did the tour guide thing again. Her belly tightened, looking around the desert place. Was this a mistake?
The man took them round, and she felt like she was moving in circles—practically floating due to the lack of gravity. Endless same paths to the same place—the definition of problems. Let’s get lost, Ivie thought.
The tour guide found his way though and stopped after a while, stretched his hands out theatrically. There were a bunch of tents set up, like they were going camping.
“Welcome to your new home!” He shouted.
Ivie felt a drop of pressure in her stomach, like how she lurched when landing, like she would be thrown out of seat. Home? Tents. Tents? Home. What billows in the wind, barely tethered to the earth, barely protecting her from cold—tents.
And it was nonsense. She wouldn’t take it. Her definition of home for her baby is the grandest place imaginable, space and space and space, land that children will inherit and fragment and give. Home must be great if she’s come all this way, if she’s left the whole galaxy and family and culture she’s not sure she’d be able to experience again, and it couldn’t be tents. If she went all this way to see home broken and redefined, to have traditions aching in her chest, pained from the distance, then she wouldn’t be given the wrong end of packaging. She wouldn’t be given what the general public’s eyes didn’t see.
Carrying her baby in her other hand, Ivie readied herself.
“This place is so small. Do you expect both Nigerians and Ghanaians to live here?”
Simon scratched his head. That could have meant uncertainty. That didn’t sit well with her. Incompetence wasn’t to be tolerated. “Well, as you know, we weren’t nearly ready to live here before the radiation came, so this isn’t exactly the fini—”
“And this place is…” she stomped her feet, annoyed at the imbalance. Her child would not run on a tilted terrain. She’d given up everything; she wasn’t here to see mediocrity. The pause did make it seem like she was looking for complaints, which she was, but that wasn’t the effect she was going for. Ivie ended her statement swiftly. “Too rocky. We’ve been moving past level landscapes since. Why is our home like this?”
Her husband slipped his hands into hers and Ivie took it, making a united fist. At this time, most of the other passengers were looking back at her, some raising their own questions in low voices.
She would not stay silent.
Simon scratched his head again, his smile still lingering, his words coming out with the same cold stare, rehearsed, not natural like before.
“Look, ma’am, many third world countries have—”
She squeezed her husband’s hands a bit too tight, a jolt running through her. “We are not third world countries.”
Simon sighed, taking a moment to pause and stare at her. She wouldn’t allow him to win the conversation. This wasn’t funny.
What is home? Home is not here.
“As I was saying, ma’am, many developing countries received land that has not finished being operated on, but of course that will change very soon.” He used developing almost sarcastically, but she took it as a win. God knows she needed one at the moment. It made her belly untie some of its knots, made her breathe.
Others started to voice their concerns, then made their voices louder. She didn’t think she was some kind of revolutionist, leading the way for others; she just wanted to know how things would be done.
By the looks of things, very poorly.
“And when will that be?” another person said.
Simon brought out his phone and slid through the projections. His cheeks turned red and he stuffed his phone back in his pocket. “There’s still a lot of work to be done, you see? Of course, I don’t expect anything longer than about two to three years.”
“Years?” Someone at the back shouted.
“Yes,” Simon nodded, looking increasingly weary with each question. It pleased her that she had tired him out. “So, in your houses—”
“Tents,” she corrected him, stretching out the word so he could understand how unacceptable the situation was.
“My contact is in your phones, as well as a holographic map and address to my office. There’s a satellite there for connection, but it dies some so it might take some adjusting to your devices in this new place. I’ll let you settle in.” Simon scurried away, the words fast and breathless, in a hurry to leave the conversation.
Ivie stared at the place again. The tents swayed from side to side with the dusty winds, but she hoped, prayed, they wouldn’t fall apart. Adjusting the oxygen regulator they had given her before she’d left, she allowed spikes of fresh air to flow within her.
The spaceship went away, probably to park itself with the other ships, and she swallowed the fat lump in her throat. There was no going back. She was stuck here. Now she knew it. Shuffling feet made the best of a situation as people moved to their quarters.
“Don’t worry,” her husband whispered, the best he could without too many people hearing them. “If there’s one thing Nigerians know how to do, it’s fight for property. We will expand.”
We will expand.
• • •
The Second
Adesuwa walked home because no one came to take her from school. It usually happened if Mummy and Daddy were busy digging for metals and ores during the day at the organisation. The days when Mummy was free, she went to Simon’s office holding a signboard, her face stern, though Mama didn’t speak much about that. Adesuwa felt sometimes her parents forgot about her, falling back to their beds and sleeping, too tired to do anything.
Adesuwa didn’t mind walking, but she wished she could move. Seeing people fly past her on supercharged motorcycles made her feel electric, even if she wasn’t the one riding.
She used to force both her parents to run around and play tag and toss with her, but these days, she let them sleep. Adwoa was a more willing partner anyway, but sometimes her friend only wanted to play tag, and there were other games. You mixed it up a bit, not just the same thing everyday. At least that was Daddy and Mummy’s advice when they taught her how to cook her first meal.
“It’s not jollof, but it will do,” Daddy had said, giving her a smile that made him seem like he was in pain.
“What’s that?” She had tilted her head to the side, falling out of her drumming skit with the big spoon.
“Never mind,” Mummy replied quickly, and that was that.
But upon getting home, both of them were awake, listening to something. They were not smiling.
“What’s happening?” She asked, laughing, hoping it would make the two of them smile.
“Everyone is dead,” Mummy said, voice sharp, and something pinched Adesuwa’s chest. She tried to grab at her mother’s cloth, but Mummy pulled herself away, sharply, not to be touched, hitting Adesuwa in the process. She watched as her mother left the room, slamming the door behind her.
“What happened?” Adesuwa asked, her voice low, head spinning. Sharp pain spiked her shoulder. Her arms were still reaching out so for a minute Adesuwa thought what was wrong was due to the uncomfortable feeling that had settled in her house, like evil had come to rest. Evil that made her mother cold, unreachable, behind slammed doors. Evil that made her ache, causing pressure to tighten around her, making her not breathe. But then Adesuwa looked down, seeing that she forgot to regulate oxygen, and adjusted the device, causing her to receive a sharp intake of air, like hands finally removed from her neck.
“You should go to bed,” Daddy said. He carried her, switching off the radio, but not before...
A sad event as we mark the end of Ear—
Adesuwa’s eyes widened. She gave a look to her father, but he shut his eyes tight, as if holding something back. Even as Daddy settled her onto bed, when Adesuwa tried to speak, he shook his head. He closed her mouth. He shut the bedroom door and left Adesuwa in silence and black walls, where evil did not seem so far-fetched.
And the issue, like most things— they did not speak of it.
• • •
The First
Ivie sat down near the table, feeling the vase that looked like the most expensive thing the Ghanaian family owned. Their house was cramped, uneven, but not any more cramped than hers, but a step above tents, right?
We will expand.
She believed the statement less and less.
Yaa entered the room, staring at her.
“We never talk,” the woman said, raising an eyebrow, looking straight into her eyes.
“But our daughters are friends. And…” Ivie paused, mastering it for great effect. “I want to talk.”
“About what?” Yaa took a seat, crossing her legs.
How could Ivie process these emotions? How could she begin to talk about herself, and all the things she felt, and how she ached. To bring up Earth was an ache, a shattering against her rib, a stab. There was comfort in knowing, in the smallest part of her mind, that her family was living out all her old traditions, but now they were gone. And she couldn’t just let all of their—her traditions die on earth. But Ivie was dead, not open for a new world, but she had to open up an old world for her daughter.
“I can’t seem to talk about it. Culture, I mean. It feels like such an earth thing, and we’re in this new place.” Ivie noticed the woman’s look after she said new. Well, earth was alive for a while, so new for planets could be a thousand years for all she cared. She stood by her statement. Besides, it wasn’t her home. She thought when she first arrived that it was just skepticism, that it would pass, that all she needed was time to love the place.
Nope. It was all about her daughter.
“You know there’s this new sort of pidgin all of them are speaking now, like they mixed our own with Mars slang,” Ivie laughed nervously, smiling at the woman. “I needed to talk to someone. I don’t know if you’re doing better, but I can’t keep up. And for someone, I want her to know that there was once a place different from here. Everything feels so much better and improved that it’s kind of overwhelming.”
Yaa put her finger in her own hair, softly stroking it as she spoke. The woman had a soft voice, like warm butter spreading on soft bread. It was part of the reason why she had come to her.
“I find that there are two cultures. Many of them don’t really understand Earth, or any concept of tradition, so you just have to force it in. You can’t let things fall out of place. If you do, there will be no history, no appreciation for the things that came before.” Yaa stared into her eyes, voice soft but cool, almost steely. “Don’t let it slip away.”
We will expand.
Don’t let it slip away.
• • •
The Second
“Why do we protest?” Adesuwa asked as Mummy readied her signboards with Daddy. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked the question, but her mother had taught her that if you repeated something enough times, you could break the person.
“Unfulfilled promises, breach of contracts, for Simon to do his damn job and make sure someone cares about us enough so we don’t end up being taken apart for more American malls and British museums…” Mummy listed each off her fingers, turning to smile at her. “Don’t you worry about it! How do we know our home? By rocky ground. What do we always say?”
We will expand.
“Well, can I go too? I can make signboards and—”
“Absolutely not,” Daddy cut in. “Why don’t you go hang out with Adwoa?”
“She’s sick,” Adesuwa muttered, folding her arms. “Her mother said something about spaces getting cramped leading to sickness and epidemics… I wasn’t really listening. Please, can I go?”
Both of her parents shared a look—they never told her anything.
If anything, they went faster.
• • •
The First
Ivie bought the bicycle scraps from the engineer next door. The misshapen things, rusted little relics of dead earth, gave her that feeling of nostalgia, reminding her of that weird other life she’d been living before she came here. She was different now.
“Madam, are you sure you want this one?” The engineer stared at her. She sighed. It wasn’t easy running a local business in a place that was constantly reducing, fighting for space, clustered up in the middle of place called nowhere when it was her place, the home they’d given her.
The home they were practically trying to take away, bit by bit.
Buying something new would have given the woman more profits. She considered it, but wasn’t in the position for reckless spending.
Ivie paid a little more, wincing as she folded the money, thinking of the extra hours she would put in at the mines. She nodded back at the woman, leaving her to count her blessings.
But what she’d gotten; it was everything.
It was also a distraction. She didn’t need her daughter getting involved with whatever was going on. There were other things Adesuwa could be doing. Ivie thought about the mix of the two things, reasoned to herself how the reasons clashed, yet made the same noises—for love and protection.
It could be both.
• • •
The Second
For her birthday, things were different.
Waking up, she rushed outside, expecting that Mummy would mash together a nice cake and biscuits, even if it was the cheap ones that tasted like sand. She had learnt that not everyone got nice things, but even the cheaper things could be somewhat as good.
She stood in front of rows of food she had never seen before, her parents’ clothes different from their usual colors, with more patterned fabrics decorated on it.
“What is this?” She raised an eyebrow, stretching out a lip, staring around. No cake, not even the cheap kind.
Mummy smiled, it was the first time she had in a while. “This is your culture.”
She sat down and shrugged, tasting the food, both parents staring at her, waiting for her opinion.
“I…” she paused for her effect, as she’d learned from Mummy, shifting the food from cheek to cheek, letting the taste spread all over. “…like it!”
Her parents laughed, and she joined in too, because laughing was infectious. Also, because laughter was a remedy for when you didn’t know what else to do.
“We really didn’t plan this party well,” Daddy whispered.
“Abeg, we’ll just invite Adwoa over,” Mummy said. Then she looked at Adesuwa, smiling. “Time for your gift.”
Going back into the house, Mummy brought out a dull, rusted piece of metal. In some ways, it resembled the sleek motorcycles that people went around on, but like an unfinished form; like a first generation computer.
“It’s a bicycle,” Mummy laughed, but it wasn’t funny. Adesuwa frowned, folding her arms.
“It looks like it’s about to fall apart,” she looked to her father. “Maybe we can trade it for something else, eh?”
“What nonsense!” Mummy screamed, and she jumped back, almost falling to the floor. “Let me tell you what we are going to do. We are going to renovate this thing, blend the old with the new. How do we know our home? By rocky ground. Earth and Mars.”
Earth. And Mars.
• • •
The First
It was about learning how to do things, not just going about life with a simplified version of something. The motorcycles on Mars were nothing like an actual bike. No training needed in the slightest.
Every kid learns how to ride a bicycle. They just don’t take this long to do it.
“Adesuwa,” she screamed, rubbing her eyes. “You can’t be afraid to fall.”
“Never,” her daughter shook her head. “I don’t like injuries. Or pain.”
“But,” Ivie sang. Singing made the place feel less small, gave room where walls closed and left her alone. “That’s the only way you can ride.”
“Everywhere is so bumpy. It makes it harder.”
“And that,” Ivie nodded, “will make you stronger. Again.”
Adesuwa rolled her eyes and sighed, throwing both feet to the pedals, moving slowly at first, then picking it up, moving faster, faster, faster.
“I’m doing it!” Adesuwa shouted.
“You’re doing it!” Ivie screamed, jumping up, almost touching the stars. Ivie’s heart swelled up, broke open, beating against the stars. Her daughter. Her champion. On rocky ground. Her most prized posse—
And then Adesuwa fell flat on her face to the uneven floor.
“Alright, let’s move on to brakes.”
Ivie felt calm, that she could be a mother and a fighter. That she could keep her daughter away from the troubles of protest and marches, let her be in that moment, riding in peace.
Let Adesuwa be blissful and ignorant, be kept away, hidden under the floorboards while the revolution went on.
We will expand.
• • •
The Second
Many years later…
It was a bicycle. Or a motorcycle. Both, but that wasn’t the point. It moved: crackled and spurted, zipped with electricity, vibrating with power, a small Nigerian flag hanging for good luck.
Earth. And Mars. A little bit of both.
She was still that little girl—still moving, still moving. But she would not fall. The crowd stirred, millions of faces lost between dark and light under a million stars, each contestant one beating heart representing a nation. Adesuwa looked to the crowd, never ending, and felt a rush of familiarity.
A loud voice raised everyone’s cheers, almost drowning within the sea of voices.
Welcome to the Olympics.
Speed is your friend.
Adesuwa balanced herself, her heart screaming from the voices of the crowd.
Silence. Just pretend they’re all dead. You’re moving, you’re progressing. It’ll make you feel better.
The track before her promised a lot of things. A long path. A hard race. Individual tracks demarcated by white chalk.
A gun shot, the kind designed for the power of Mars, so it struck the air with force.
Progression.
Adesuwa screamed, oxygen regulator to the fullest, riding purely on adrenaline, blood boiling several degrees. Moving. Moving. Moving.
For her trainer. She sped past the first track, past leagues of her others. Pressure. Pressure. Training flashed through her mind like a montage; the work of twelve weights a day, five hours of cardio, two hours of simulated attack sequences.
It will make you stronger.
For her parents. Her mother’s spirit flowed through her, riding with her, goading her on. She looked back. There was no one ahead. She was first.
The way it’s supposed to be.
Adesuwa grinned, upped the ante, moved at reckless speed. She could handle the accelerator. She could handle the brakes. She would win.
But she stopped, looking down at the tracks. The intersection. Rocky ground.
Her eyes widened. She covered her mouth.
How do we know our home? Earth and Mars?
Rocky. Ground. Here. Here. It’d been a long time since she’d been home, forever, and she knew they were losing space, or space was being taken away. Or at least what she heard in the cracks, in between.
This uneven land barely housed her family, and they’d taken from it. For the Olympics. For the sports. Rocky ground was where her legs first hit the land. Was where her bike first sled above the land, was where she fell face first into the floor. Rocky ground was where she kicked and fought on, dreamed and ran on. This was where she lived. It was bare, and it wasn’t enough. And if they took here, what was left?
And she’d been participating here. She was apart of this: the crowd, the sport. And she didn’t know. She didn’t know, and her parents didn’t tell her, and she didn’t realize. And maybe after a while, she gave up wanting to understand, to seek out for herself.
The truth came as a stab, and Adesuwa was left bleeding.
• • •
We will expand. The building, seemingly never ending, pushed back a lot of things.
Once there were two countries, pushed back to a largely overpopulated village not too far from where she was standing. Her home ever decreasing till it was a dot, no longer a spot on the map.
• • •
Adesuwa felt bile push up her throat, the rush of adrenaline decreasing, overtaken by reckless and bitter thoughts.
Distractions don’t last forever.
Her competitors—other nations—passed her by. She felt white-hot rage burning within her lungs, and she began to sweat, the crowd confused.
Adesuwa could do this—progress, progress, progress. She could do it and win, and succeed, in her own way, reclaim the land. A victory in being better. Her bike was just there.
But.
She breathed and breathed and breathed, then took many breaths, then fell to the floor. She spat and cried, tears fresh from her eyes. She felt the breeze as she was overtaken, and she felt the smallest in the world—a dot, to never expand.
She let her tears soften rocky ground.
• • •
Once there were two countries on Earth that jumped away. In the place they arrived, they became a clan.
Once they were vast.
Now they are called a minority group.
Generations.