The Deep

by Rivers Solomon

She couldn’t fulfill her most basic of duties. How disappointed he would be in the girl he’d chosen. She’d grown up to be so fragile.

A historian’s role was to carry the memories so other wajinru wouldn’t have to. Then, when the time came, she’d share them freely until they got their fill of knowing.

Yetu wanted people to remember how she remembered. With screams.

It took everything in that moment not to slip away again.

Forgetting was not the same as healing.

Oh, was this pain real? It didn’t even belong to her. Was there anything about her that wasn’t a performance for others’ gratification?

Who might she have been had she not spent the better part of her life in the minds of others?

She and her people were lost in a bubble of agony. It went on and on.

This time, she wouldn’t emerge from it. There would be no Yetu left for the next Remembrance. She’d be dead. Yetu wouldn’t let them do it.

She felt them remember. Yetu feared the world would feel it too.

What does it mean to be born of the dead? What does it mean to begin?

We become queen of this place. One of the eldest among us, we know what most others do not. For that, they call us historian.

We are a song, and we are together.

We remember.

But connection came with responsibility. Duty choked independence and freedom.

Wild speculation wouldn’t serve her. It was just another way to tie her to the past, and the past had been responsible for nearly killing her.

There was no saving Yetu.

The impossible weight of her responsibility to the world would obliterate her before she had the chance to fix what she’d done.

It wasn’t all pretty, but it was hers. If it was a choice between the History and emptiness, maybe Yetu wanted the History.

This time, the two-legs venturing into the depths had not been abandoned to the sea, but invited into it.