Blood burnt |
Issue 11
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We couldn’t possibly be brave without fear. The latter had to happen so the former could occur. But that’s not what I thought about when the first red crane ascended, marking the beginning of a prophesied storm of fire.
I thought of running, but my feet remained stagnant. I thought of fighting, but I barely ever hurt a fly in my life. “Run, Klaudia. Run!” A fellow royal maid’s voice hit me awake like cold water on my face. I stumbled back from nothing, got up, and dashed off with a thundering heartbeat. Out of the royal servant chambers and through the back door that was ornamented in so much gold, if it were any other day, I would have stopped to admire the crafter’s creativity. But on a day like this, dread guided everybody to run for their life. Unlike me, who was secretly led by a piece of information I had acquired after overhearing one of my godfather’s old clients, Lot. Despite the client’s promise to include me in his insanely short list of ‘The forty-five’ that he believed his god would spare, he was nowhere in sight at the moment. Like his morbid god, the man became invisible when I most needed him. So righteous, yet so pathetic to the point of living for a deity who restricted him from wandering out of Eden to the trees of freedom. A lord like that with no heart had no business giving me their love. I scurried away from Lot’s empty house, tearing my dress in the process and cursing the man’s ancient god for it. I had no clue about where I should go, and I was even more uncertain about my ultimate destination. With cautious footsteps, I struggled to move one leg in front of the other. Anything to progress me out and away from danger. Anything to move away from the rain of fire, as if I hadn’t people, I cared for scattered all about. There was really no time to care. Nobody cared about nobody when death knocked on their doorstep. So, I disregarded thoughts of Mama, Baba, or my little nephew’s whereabouts and hurried off. I felt like my eyes were submerged underwater, blurry and weighed down, leaving me uncertain whether I was actually crying or if it was merely the ceaseless sweat dripping down my forehead. I kept moving. The only thing I could hear were the squeaking red cranes over the red sky and the blowing up explosions behind me. I dared not to look back. The possibility of being turned into a pillar of salt felt way too high. Everything I didn’t believe could happen was happening, and I wasn’t up for taking the risk of turning back to meet my enemy — To see my hometown burning down to dust and ashes, or if there were any lives left. Any living thing who had a nerve left to save themselves, undeterred by the forbidding prophecy. Anyone speaking the only language I knew — running. No one. ***
My stomach purred like an enraged panther.
Isolation had me yearning for a thing I hadn’t yearned for in a long time. I tried to watch every step I took, and still couldn’t help but begin fiercely hunting at the first streak of sunlight. I craved an animal. The familiar taste of Gomorrah haunted me down. But the only creature there was a man lying down on his back in the dirt. Drunk in a stupor. So I lunged over, salivating over the victim of my hunger. I hid away from easy view, lowering myself the way a lion would before pushing off its prey. The fire in my intestines intensified, feeling weirdly divine as I anticipated filling up my empty gut. There was an unexpected profound pleasure, I swore, that came from having a hope fulfilled. I held my breaks when the man stirred in his torpidity. Impatiently, I waited a while for him to settle. Little did he know, he was about to be transformed from half-dead to a full death. It was a natural phenomenon. Or perhaps the sombre aftermath of a walking, lifeless-looking woman who happened to be me. The way I struck and let my teeth plunge right through his neck? Oh so almighty. Almightier than Lot claimed his reckless god to be. “Death isn’t always a bad thing,” my godfather, a grey-haired coffin builder, used to say. “It’s not as godawful and dark as you people make it out to be. People appear and disappear, those are just two ends, counterparts of each other. It hurts to lose people, but it’s good because they go somewhere better. Somewhere they’d prefer to be rather than in this wrecked world. They become souls. And in the end, souls are invincible.” Invincible. That’s how I felt as I devoured the man’s life and took in his last breath. The dirt on the tip of my fingers soiled the skin around his neck, gripping him harder than my hold on to life. Afterward, I revolted back to the sound of my heartbeat. A language that still ran wickedly through my systems. I embraced home . . . “Run, Klaudia. Run!” The words lodged inside my head ever since I heard them. That final voice. The last trace of my mother tongue. And I savoured it while loathing the burning memories it brought back to me, even after a fortnight had passed. Despite that Sodom was scorched, its existence still soared in my cannibal blood, sprouting full of life. The places, the soil, the air, the water, the people, and most especially the dialect that rolled off their mouths. There was a conversation I longed to have but had no one to have with anymore. A speech I could offer to my like-minded friends, now a prayer whispered to myself repeatedly. Words I could say but could never say again. Because only my Sodomites understood. My voice was now left rotting over my throat and the only proof of its existence was the ashes on the ground, which I was too scared to touch. Perhaps the dead grime would feel my soul and hear the beating of my heart, figuring out my ethnicity right there and combust me to my demise, like it should. I didn’t want to join them. As much as I loved the people who were now buried below, I loved staying above and alive more. So I lay down on my back, eyes on the sky, and swallowed back that familiar bittersweet taste of iron running down my maw. It was as close as I could get to feeling them. And it tasted like Gomorrah. Like pure home. A bite of belonging. Gomorrah . . . At least I had a memory embedded within me as I edged towards my inevitable extinction. The blood in my mouth played its part in taking me back. Back in to the kitchen filled with Mama’s melodic laughter, and out from the backdoor where Baba seesawed furniture from dusk till dawn. The taste of blood, unlike no other, sailed me back onto the bosom of my golden-gowned lover, a replica of Aphrodite, the two of us dancing amidst a crowd of pairs, eyes and teeth set alight by the bonfire. Her apple scent swirled in the air every time she twirled in her white dress. A place where my thoughts were a serene void and happy women equalled a happy life. I fell back into the arms of cadavers who loved me for who I was, not a divine being who despised me for how they created me. That’s what I thought about when the last red crane descended, marking the end of a prophesied storm of fire. |
Immaculate Halla is a writer from Tanzania who is passionate about storytelling. An alumna of Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop for African Writers 2023 who was shortlisted for the The Toyin Falola Prize 2024.
Some of her work can be found on Writers Space Africa magazine and African Writer Magazine. |