What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky

by Lesley Nneka Arimah

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. 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.

By the end of the day, I was a queen with no pawns.

When Enebeli Okwara sent his girl out in the world, he did not know what the world did to daughters. He did not know how quickly it would wick the dew off her, how she would be returned to him hollowed out, relieved of her better parts.

Oof

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

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 days that worry Enebeli, and then she returns, but there is a little less light to her.

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.

She could have gone to her father, head bowed so low she’d have gravel and leaves in her hair,

Love this imagery

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

Soft children with hard lives go mad or die young. Bring me a child with edges

The look her daughter gave her was acid. Louisa ran out, and Buchi knew something had changed between them. There was only so much a mother could ask a daughter to bear before that bond became bondage.

one of the fifty-seven registered Mathematicians who specialized in calculating grief, down from the fifty-nine of last year.