Lagoon

by Nnedi Okorafor

The cure for anything is salt water— sweat, tears, or the sea. —ISAK DINESEN ( pseudonym of Danish writer Baroness Karen Blixen)

WELCOME TO LAGOS, NIGERIA. The city takes its name from the Portuguese word for “lagoon.” The Portuguese first landed on Lagos Island in the year 1472. Apparently, they could not come up with a more creative name. Nor did they think to ask one of the natives for suggestions. And so the world turns, masked by millions of names, guises, and shifting stories. It’s been a beautiful thing to watch. My designs grow complicated.

She slices through the water, imagining herself a deadly beam of black light.

Despite the FPSO Mystras’s loading hose leaking crude oil, the ocean water just outside Lagos, Nigeria, is now so clean that a cup of its salty-sweet goodness will heal the worst human illnesses and cause a hundred more illnesses not yet known to humankind. It is more alive than it has been in centuries, and it is teeming with aliens and monsters.

Ayodele will be fascinated at this aspect of her new world. She has yet to realize that there are other things inhabiting Lagos besides carbon-based creatures. There are greater beings of the earth, soil, sea, lagoon, and land. This stretch of highway has named itself the Bone Collector. It mostly collects human bones, and the bones of human vehicles. But sometimes it likes the chitinous bones of spiders, too.

What have I done that is so terrible? she wondered as she stepped up to the soldier. Selling my body? It is just a body. I have a pure heart.

Adaora took a deep breath and steadied herself. When she turned to go downstairs, she realized that she was floating three inches above the ground. My idiot husband is right, she thought numbly. I am a witch. Outside, Lagos rioted and aliens invaded.

Then something smashed against the side of his head and crashed to the ground. A bottle. Coca-Cola? he wondered. The gods must really be crazy.

So Agu, the soldier, trained to defend people during a time of need, who had instead probably just killed someone, turned and ran like hell.

Edgar stood as they approached, and blocked the open doorway to his parents’ house. His house. His siblings’ house. His bare feet pressed firmly to the ground. He wore an old T-shirt and black shorts. He was dark-skinned like his father, and he looked them all in the eye like his mother. “What do you want?”

Edgar never used the rhythm to do violence again. But when he got on stage, when he rapped and let the words flow from his tongue like warmed honey, he could feel it. It would be there when he needed it. So far, he hadn’t needed it. But he needed it now.

He was a positive force. But only because he chose to be one. That day, in the doorway of his mother’s house, he’d been something else. He’d had to be.

Now Father Oke laid his eyes squarely on Anthony. The two stood tall, proud, and powerful. Both were adored by the people around them. Both knew it and could feed it. Anthony was calm as an underground river. Father Oke was a volcano ready to erupt.