Remote Control

by Nnedi Okorafor

“You come at the king, you best not miss.” —Omar Little, The Wire

“Beware of remote control, o! The most powerful of all witchcraft!”

Is my girl a bruja?

“You want orange Fanta, right?” the young woman in the uniform asked her. “Room temperature, not chilled.”

That’s gross where chilled strawberry Fanta is the superior drink

“No ghetto talk.”

It’s giving xenophobia ma’am

“Tah … tamale … sorry, I can barely pronounce it. There’s an American food with the same name. T-a-m-a-l-e,” Edgar said.

Mexican food (are tamales eaten farther south? Now I’m hungry)

“You’re safe if you are not stupid.

Kinda right a lot of the time sadly.

thunder gods of Shango, Amadioha or Zeus.

Must Google and learn more

It always started with a wasp.

Those fuckers hurt hurt

There was talk of a new virus and fear of this resulting in a pandemic faster and more lethal than the one in 2020.

Rudeness

“She’s the adopted child of the Angel of Death. Beware of her. Mind her. Death guards her like one of its own.” There was truth in every single one of the stories.

So metal

has to be a female thing,

You’re the worst my guy

And it was clear that many of the women flash-bleached their skin,

This makes me sad

“Maybe if you press the urge to glow down deep and hard enough, you can smother it, put it out.”

And maybe that’s the most horrible advice ever

Death’s Adopted Daughter

So damn metal dude