Binti (Binti, #1)

by Nnedi Okorafor

Now the weight of my entire life was pressing on my shoulders. I was defying the most traditional part of myself for the first time in my entire life.

My parents would never imagine I’d do such a thing in a million years.

was going to be a pariah.

“What am I doing?” I whispered.

Here, I was an outsider; I was outside.

Binti. You go to that school and you become its slave.”

It was cool in the terminal, but I felt the heat of social pressure.

This was the rest of the world and I was finally in it.

“It is either that or I will start a war with them that I will finish,” he said. My father didn’t believe in war. He said war was evil, but if it came he would revel in it like sand in a storm.

“Edan” was a general name for a device too old for anyone to know its functions, so old that they were now just art.

Thankfully, they knew not to touch my hair again. I don’t like war either.

I was on the threshold now, between home and my future.

I stepped into the blue corridor. * * *

However, just because something isn’t surprising doesn’t mean it’s easy to deal with.

The ship was packed with outward-looking people who loved mathematics, experimenting, learning, reading, inventing, studying, obsessing, revealing. The people on the ship weren’t Himba, but I soon understood that they were still my people.

However, looking at Heru made my heart beat too fast and my words escaped me, so I merely shrugged and turned back around to pick up a bowl of soup.

My body was shuddering so hard that I could imagine what it would be like to die from terror.

The Meduse move like water when at war. There is no water on their planet, but they worship water as a god.

All of us had twisted ideas that were probably wrong . . . maybe partially right.

I was looking ahead toward my future and I was laughing because it was so bright.

My eyes were open, taking it all in, but the rest of my brain was screaming.

We are few and we are happy and uninterested in weapons and war, but we can protect ourselves. And as my father says, “God favors us.” * * *

“I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,” I whispered. Because I was and there was no way out.

I shut my eyes and prayed to the Seven. I wanted to ask, “Why did you let this happen?” but that was blasphemy. You never ask why. It was not a question for you to ask. “I’m going to die here.”

Me and my thoughts in that small room, no escape outside. I had to stop crying; I couldn’t afford to lose water.

I shut my eyes, trying to stop myself from completing the thought yet again. But I could never stop myself and this time was no different.

Instead, I looked my death square in the face and then . . . then I surrendered to it. I sat on my bed and waited for my death. Already, my body felt as if it were no longer mine; I’d let it go.

Green tiny leaves of green tiny life when I was so close to death.

Then, quietly, calmly, “You are understanding us?” this was the growling voice that had been calling me evil. Okwu. “Yes,” I said. “Humans only understand violence.”

“There is nothing shameful about an object that keeps me alive,” I said.

“It poisons Meduse,” one of the others said. “Only if you get too close to me,” I said, looking straight at it. “Only if you try and kill me.”

ignoring the fatigue trying to pull my bones to the bed.

I dropped what was left, spat out the bone and opened my mouth to speak. Then I closed it. I was still alive.

I jumped when it spoke. “I wish I could just kill you.”

His anger was rightful, but all that he said was from what he didn’t truly know.

I frowned. They sounded like the same thing to me, gain and purpose.

It said nothing. “Suicide is death on purpose!”

I felt calm. I didn’t feel at home, because in the part of the desert that I knew, only tiny scentless flowers grew. But I sensed Earth.

Including the floor beneath me. And I could hear it. The floor. It was singing. But not words. Just humming. Happy and aloof. It wasn’t paying attention.

“Run?” I wiped tears from my face. I wiped and wiped, but they kept coming. The nightmare kept happening.

the definition of harmony made from chaos.

The air was full of water.

In a way, this set me at ease. People were people, everywhere.

At once, I felt both part of something historic and very alone.

My destiny is stronger for leading me to you.”