The Prophets

by Robert Jones Jr.

You do not yet know us. You do not yet understand.

You are not lost so much as you are betrayed by fools who mistook glimmer for power.

Lies are more affectionate than truth and embrace with both arms.

July had tried to kill them. First it tried to burn them. Then it tried to suffocate them. And finally, when neither of those things was successful, it made the air thick like water, hoping they would drown. It failed. Its only triumph was in making them sticky and mean—sometimes, toward each other.

wash in a glittering river beneath a lucid sun, arms open to hold your one, whose breath was now your breath, inhale, exhale, same rhythm, same smile returned.

And yet, there she was: a black that made night jealous with eyes that were, themselves, questions.

When she felt her shape, it evoked in her another outlawed quality: confidence.

There were only the four dull corners of the kitchen, where sorrow hung like hooks and rage leaped in from any opening.

She tried to remember the old word from the other sea that Cora Ma’Dear used to describe toubab. Oyibo! That was it. There was no equivalent in English. The closest was “accident.” Then it was simple: these people were an accident.

Maggie didn’t much mind their brutality, though, because it was what she had come to expect from them. People rarely deviated from their nature, and although it pained her to admit, she found a tiny bit of comfort in the familiarity.

So Ruth cried and Maggie learned right then and there that a toubab woman’s tears were the most potent of potions; they could wear down stone and make people of all colors clumsy, giddy, senseless, soft.

No matter what kindly tricks she employed, they would be the same dreary, covetous creatures they were destined to be, a blight their humorless god encouraged.

It had occurred to her early on to rub nightshade petals on her nipples just before being forced to suckle. Against her skin, purple was disguised. It worked. Adeline died for what appeared to be inexplicable reasons. She foamed at the mouth. But this created no suspicion because Ruth had miscarried once and had a stillborn child just prior.

Sometimes, they made it even harder for themselves by being so damn stubborn. But never had stubbornness been so enchanting.

No, those boys risked more than was necessary searching each other’s faces, again and again, for the thing that made rivers rush toward the sea.

She had set the table with unfathomable resentment.

There were many ways to hide and save one’s self from doom, and keeping tender secrets was one of them.

understanding in their haint-state what they couldn’t before: however we are is however we are.

Given enough time, betrayal—no matter how tiny—makes its way up the steps and sits on the throne as though it had always belonged there.

Loneliness had hands,

Would ivy cling so closely to a lover who failed it?

Maybe that was why toubab perpetuated the cruelties that they did: people seemed to be able to take it, endure it, experience and witness all manner of atrocity and appear unscathed. Well, except for the scars.

When he reached the fence of the barn, he saw Samuel and Isaiah kneeling near the barn door, a slop pail between them. He refused to be seduced by their glowing.

You are the vessel, you see, so that is why you must not give in to the temptation of the long sleep.

You can never be an orphan. Do you understand? The night sky itself gave birth to you and covers you and names you as her children above all others. First born. Best adorned. Highest thought. Most loved.

And despise not the dark of your skin, for within it is the prime sorcery that moved us fro...

She was thick with grievance, which she had to continuously tuck back into her crevices, inhale to give it more room and hold it in place.

Samuel had the kind of eyes that invited people over, greeted them, and then quietly shut the door in their faces. And for some reason, standing out there on the wrong side of it, people felt compelled to keep banging on that door until, by some mercy, he opened it.

He looked at Samuel and Samuel turned to look at him. If they said anything to each other, she didn’t hear it. But it certainly seemed like there was some sort of exchange.

That was the problem. The desire for power erased memory and replaced it with violence.

Big as he was, he never once shifted his weight in her direction or tried to block out her light with his shadow.

The sun was creamy at the horizon when she decided to go see Samuel. Some of the other people sat outside their shacks trying to relish as much as they could of the day as it was being pulled out of their grasps. Even the children who, earlier, had an energy that couldn’t be sapped had slowed, sat down to mourn its passing.

“No,” Isaiah said quickly. “I young. Young as you. But this I know ’cause it don’t take long to learn it: anybody with a whip gone use it. And people without one gone feel it.”

She saw the ax in Samuel’s hands and the pail in Isaiah’s. For Isaiah would milk the cows and Samuel would slaughter the hogs. Isaiah’s hard-earned smile and Samuel’s understandable fists: she could precisely attribute glee to one and despair to the other because one’s spirit had clearly sprouted wings while the other took refuge in the echo of caves.

By the time they collapsed into each other just past the barn entrance, dust scattering as they fell, to the dreary people watching they looked like two ravens who had the nerve to become one.

“We all suffer; ain’t no doubting that. But surely we can have some say over how long and what shape it take. Am I lying?”

Puah nodded. She got up. She felt like she should bow, so she did. Then she turned and left. Maggie giggled. “So nervous when they new.” “She knew to bow, though. And ain’t nobody told her to do that. Which means her insides are working. You was right for choosing her,” Essie said. “She choose me. Glowing the way she do, I’d be faulty to walk past her and not notice.”

The only way to persuade any man of something like that was to agree to be the rug he wiped his shitty feet on.

But how something so soft could wreck the fingers she knew all too well.

“Some people pain is eternal. Some people worship they pain. Don’t know who they are without it. Hold on to it like they gon’ die if they let it go. I reckon some people want their pain to end, true. But most? It’s the thing that make they heart work. And they want you to feel it beat.”

It was then that the clouds began to form, interrupting the sun while it was in the middle of a crime.

You are of the common folk. By common we mean dancing, singing, weaving, speaking: the ones who could have held their heads high but chose to hold their hands high instead. For they knew that all the universe wanted was their reverence, not their pride.

They were born guardians, Takumbo had told him. The whole village knew it from the moment he and Kosii met as barely-walkers. The way they took to each other and remained as inseparable as a tortoise and its shell. Only with great violence could they be split, which all of nature would frown upon.

Shame was a sturdy master with strong legs and clinging embrace.

“What it feel like,” Adam asked quietly, knowing full well the answer would never satisfy. “To have each other?” Samuel winced, but Isaiah broadened his chest. “Like it supposed to,” Isaiah said.

He knew then, at least, that his mother had a mouth shaped like truth because his was too. But truth called attention to itself in ways that were usually detrimental for the teller.

There were never any real choices for chained people in this world, but for the strong . .

They stepped on people’s throats with all their might and asked why the people couldn’t breathe.

But how tender his affection.

Isaiah’s breath smelled like milk and his body curled snugly into Samuel’s. Moonlight did all the talking.