The Monsters We Defy

by Leslye Penelope

If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! —Claude McKay

We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. —Marcus Garvey

“Can’t let folks like that get to you none, the ones always trying to tear you down. Nothing gets built up that way.”

highfalutin

“That will include her future husband, I’m certain. He will love her, but she’ll never be satisfied with him. That’s her Trick. A life without love. Men competing for her attention, becoming jealous, promising her the world. Giving it to her, even. But she’ll feel nothing.”

“Colored folks don’t often get good choices, do we?”

Which means one of them is likely responsible

sycophants.

Jesse Lee and Daisy had a hundred first dates that she never remembered, and she never saw the tears on his face as he left her each and every time.

mindless automatons.

Enigmas were bound to certain rules—they couldn’t lie, their interference among humans was limited to the deals they made and people’s willingness to become indebted to them or Embraced by them.

Ghosts could affect the world, becoming a nuisance and inspiring fear, but their ability to actually harm people was limited. Very rarely were the ghosts old and angry enough to be powerful enough to hurt someone. Grays had no such limitations.

Clara believed these were the spirits that caused men to go insane, made women murder their own children, caused folks to slit their necks or run off the edge of cliffs babbling nonsense. Or simply destabilized someone, scrambled their thoughts, caused them to doubt everyone around them, including themselves. Based on personal experienc...

Grays had no souls. How they’d come into existence without souls was a mystery. She believed that God created all life and every living creature had a soul, even what many called dem...

“The Emancipation Proclamation freed our bodies, the end of the Civil War liberated us from bondage, but it is up to us to free our minds. Part of that freedom includes finally participating in the ideals of this country, ensuring they apply to us: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Are you pursuing happiness, Clara?”

Maybe the biggest thing holding her back now was the limits of her own imagination. Maybe the problem was her.

while men’s bodies were fragile and easily broken, the stories that went lost and unremembered could do just as much damage as any stick or disease.

There ain’t too much true about history that survives the telling. Once your time is done and you head Over There, you get to watch the rumors about your life and times turn into lies that turn into myths.

She had been a seeker of knowledge, just like him.

as the ties that bind a mind to the world fray and sever, pieces of that mind do too. We wasn’t meant to hang around forever in that place and those who linger there too long pay a steep price.

God made us all in four parts: soul, body, spirit, and destiny. The soul is the divine spark; every creature She created has one. The body is the soul’s home, the animated clay, some might say. The spirit is the independent essence—if the soul is the part of you that’s connected to God, the spirit is the part of you that’s all your own. And finally, the destiny—God’s expectation. While everything that breathes and eats and shits gets the first three, the last is only for humans. No rat, dog, bird, or even Enigma gets a destiny; it’s what sets men apart.

That ocean that Garang crossed is a graveyard that holds the bodies of ancestors dumped overboard during the Middle Passage. It flows with the tears of our foreparents and carries the echoes of their sorrow. Any man who’s born and dies a slave has had their destiny damaged irreparably, and that injury is a scar passed on down to their children and their children’s children.

She didn’t have no use for controlling spirits, she wanted to control men—and not just men, the destinies of men.

Taking a hold of a man’s destiny is easiest when he’s already weakened: isolated, imprisoned, dejected, poor, or separated from his purpose. A rich and powerful man’s destiny is harder to take, though all the more satisfying when it’s done. Those’re the men who make the most mischief and cause the most pain.

“The ring separates a person from his destiny, slowly pulling it away from the soul it resides in like a rubber band being stretched until it snaps. That process drains the life from a person, Afflicting them with the malaise that makes them lose themselves.”

“How long you think a body can last without a spirit? Without a soul?

“With the destiny being weakened, they have no free will, and no purpose but the one they’re given by her. It’s a fancy form of slavery.”

‘White man comes toward you with evil in his eyes, you shoot first. Ask questions later.’ And that’s what I did.”

“All those folks who died over those days of rioting? I was the only one convicted of killing someone.

“Charms don’t need years of practice or finger stretches and hand weights.

if you want somebody else to buy what you’re selling them, you gotta believe it too. You can’t show any doubts or the audience will feel it. Deep in their bones. You show fear or waver in any way, then that’s what they focus on.

“You make them all believe what you want them to.”

“You court chaos, young seer.”

“Long as that ring exists, it will be fought over by those of us Over Here. It’s the only thing that can make us as you are, that can give us a divine purpose.”

Footsteps are powerful. They can be directed, they can be stolen, they can be changed. But the path is the path, and having one is better than having none, even if you never locate it.

“Many would give everything they have for what humans take for granted.”

Stealing human destinies and then giving them to spirits?

“Those in debt are rarely satisfied with the terms of their deals. And those who think they can control the ones who owe them are often surprised.”

“We can speak no lies, but we are also, at times, prohibited from speaking the truth,”

Professor Hansberry taught us about a concept they have in Africa—in Swahili it’s called utu. In Zulu, the word is ubuntu. It translates to ‘humanity,’ but what it really means is ‘community.’ I am because we are. Our humanity is tied together.”

“Our people were torn from their land, couldn’t speak their language or pray to their gods anymore, got split into house Negroes and field Negroes, had their families torn apart and sold off, and then go on to perpetuate the same biases on each other. It’s no wonder our destinies were ripe for the plucking. But we have to break the cycle.”

“Their destinies aren’t worth more,”

“Being rich and educated and privileged don’t make you a better person.”

“The Lord taketh and the Lord giveth away. Set your troubles on the hill and don’t let them roll back down.”

“If you pray twice on Sunday, pray three times on Monday, and don’t let the devil catch you in your Friday drawers on Saturday.”

“Humans have squandered them since the beginning of time. All that purpose and possibility wasted.”

What we really crave are destinies of our own. Every spirit ever denied one has longed for it, and I now have the power to give it to them.”

“You all are born dying. Speeding it up makes no difference in the long run. And now these destinies will go to those who can appreciate them. Those who understand their value. They’re actually priceless.”