What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky

by Lesley Nneka Arimah

He blinds her with a constellation of gifts, things she’s never had before, like spending money and orgasms.

And when he finally returns to see her packing and grabs her hair, pulling, screaming that even this is his, she is struck . . . by his fist, yes, but also by the realization that maybe her mother was right.

What I hadn’t expected were the boys who ran behind her during recess and lifted up her skirt, as though my actions had given them permission, as though because they had seen her bare breast they were entitled to the rest. It was a boyish expectation most would not outgrow even after they became men.

She sounded just like my mother, and I knew that if I didn’t interrupt, the lecture would escalate until I wanted to slit my wrists just to give her something to mop so she would. Stop. Talking.

When Enebeli Okwara sent his girl out in the world, he did not know what the world did to daughters.

And he should chastise the girl, he knows that, but she is his brightest ember and he would not have her dimmed.

This starts another argument between husband and wife, mild at first, but then it peppers and there is this thing that distance does where it subtracts warmth and context and history and each finds that they’re arguing with a stranger.

This is the first time the girl becomes aware that the world requires something other than what she is.

Before she quiets in a country that rewards her brand of boldness, in her black of body, with an incredulous fascination that makes her put it away.

He does not yet wonder where she gets this, this streak of fire. He only knows that it keeps the wolves of the world at bay and he must never let it die out.

I can feel it coming upon me, the unfurling of myself until all that will remain is a raw center.

If she was to mother a child, to mute and subdue and fold away parts of herself, the child had to be perfect.

If Ogechi’s mother had seen the child, she would have laughed at how ridiculous such a baby would be, what constant coddling she would need. It would never occur to her that mud daughters needed coddling, too.

If she had her way, the girls would sleep as long as they wanted—days, months even. They had certainly earned it.

Is it okay? Buchi had to resist telling her she could have the whole bag, that Mummy would plant her a whole field of garden eggs, and a field of dolls, too.

There was only so much a mother could ask a daughter to bear before that bond became bondage.

“Well, my dad says what you people do is wrong, that you shouldn’t be stopping a person from feeling natural hardships. That’s what it means to be human.”

What would happen if you couldn’t forget, if every emotion from every person whose grief you’d eaten came back up? It could happen, if something went wrong with the formula millions and millions of permutations down the line. A thousand falling men landing on you.

She did a lot of things out of spite, the source of which she couldn’t identify—as if she’d been born resenting the world.

The problem with those who don’t know real power is that they do not know real power.

Guilt crushed every milestone in her life to dust so that she knew only Before and After. And Before seemed like the unfathomable dream of a foolish woman.

Girls with fire in their bellies will be forced to drink from a well of correction till the flames die out.