What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky

by Lesley Nneka Arimah

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. At first Anita yelled and pulled her skirt down and chased the offenders, but soon something cracked and though she cried, she no longer tried to stop them. This earned her the reputation of being

easy, which would haunt her long past girlhood. I resisted the urge ...

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

dew

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

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. It dampens her for a few

He does not yet wonder where she gets this, this streak

fire. He only knows that it keeps the wolves of the world at bay and he must never let it die out.

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

This is the sort of thing a mother should do for her child, Ogechi told herself, resisting the urge to yank the baby off her neck. A mother should give all of herself to her

child, even if it requires the marrow in her bones. Especially a child like this, strong and sleek

someone

conversation down with

Nnamdi would ask Buchi in private, “Is money everything?” The correct answer was no, money wasn’t everything, and how foolish of people to define themselves by it. That high-mindedness felt foolish now that she

couldn’t afford to send

her children to...

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

destitute. Because your father was a fool and, yes, money is everything. Because the consequences

disrespecting a man like Dickson are always disproportionate to the sin. A grenade in retaliation for a slap. A world undone for a girl’s mistake.

You might as well bite into a diamond.

summoned. She looked at Damaris,

“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.” Someone

part of Glory had always thought to win her parents’ good graces by her own merit. She held out hope that one day all her missteps would stumble her into accomplishments she

could hold up as her own, that the seeming chaos of her life would coalesce into an intricate puzzle whose shape one could see only when it was complete. That this ring was to be her salvation—she couldn’t bear it. And yet, salvation it was. Acceptance

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

This is what you get for asking a godling to do the work of a god. None of them, not even Love, kept in contact with their half-divine

wanted the Ajayis to beat her, to open her up and scoop out the thing that made her brave. To leave her like the rest of us, like me.

felt foolish under the glare of this truth. Girls with fire in their bellies will be forced to drink from a well of correction till the flames die out.