Remote Control

by Nnedi Okorafor

Sankofa shined like a moon who knew it was a sun. The light came from her, from her skin. It poured from her, strong and controlled. It washed over everything, but it was only hungry for the man who’d shot at her. It hadn’t always been this way. In the past, her light’s appetite had been all-consuming.

Then the pain came. This was the moment when Fatima forgot her name. It was a pain that tumbled to her soul. Later she would understand that it wasn’t just a pain. It was a beginning. And this beginning annihilated all that came before it.

It left her as a butterfly leaves a flower. She felt it go. It wasn’t instant, just a gradual disappearance.

In Sankofa’s years on the road, she’d learned that people were complicated. They wore masks and guises to protect or hide their real selves. They reinvented themselves. They destroyed themselves. They built on themselves. She understood people and their often contradictory ways, but that robocop was not a person.

It hurt because so much of it was terrible and still it was hers. Regardless.