What happens to society when police and security forces become privatized? What if you found out that your classmate's body had been possessed by an unknown entity?
The intrepid heroes found in Bwandungi's science fiction and fantasy stories will ha...
The sharp sound of a single bullet hitting something made of concrete echoes on Nazzi Street. Strangers come searching for ghosts here, where narcoleptic buildings separated by festering alleyways engulf entire generations of families.
The irregular thunk of poorly shod, desperately running feet follow. No door opens. No curtains rise up, only to quickly fall down.
Mothers nod to their children. A reminder to lift their hands to their ears. Fathers tense their shoulders, waiting for the last bullet, and the blaring horn that will command them to leave the warmth of their homes to take in the dead. Their tension is rewarded.
A short sharp blast takes down someone who screams, "Fuck Police." Agonized screaming. Another blast. A hollow silence.
Mangi opens her door. She is the matriarch of her female house. The men are dead. Jalou lies in the middle of the street, his face slackened from defiant terror. His father picks him up to take him home, his body shakes with noiseless sobs. No noise. Not at night. The street sensors, listening in, would send automatic messages to Police. Another troupe would be dispatched to handle them, and garbled auto-speech hurled at them would announce diminished rations and early curfews.
Mangi pulls the hose out of the recess. There can be no blood. She watches the pained faces of patriarchs who have known this pain, searching the street for bullet casings, or armed with street brushes, ready to scrub Jalou away. The cabinet maker rushes out with one of many plain coffins he has been forced to make. A temporary receptacle before the mandatory scorch that will reduce a full, obstinate life to a pile of ashes.
Mangi's fingers move quickly beside the hose, just before she turned it on. The movement is quickly repeated beside broom handles, quickly tucked into pockets, turned away from the camera. It is all they have. They clean in silence, bloody water splashing on the bottom of trousers, driving it to the storm drains.
Jalou is gone, doors swallow dwellers, and just before Nazzi Street goes dead, the 11:45 pm gong clangs. Mangi looks around, making sure all the doors are closed. Then quietly shuts her own.
Inside, her family's wide eyes search for news in the lines of her face. She shakes her head, then uses it to gesture to the basement.
A pile of dirt-encrusted spoons rest on a worn table. Each family member will get one. Even two-year-old Yoi. This is for her. Especially for her. Mangi pats each member on the shoulder as they receive a spoon for battle, then get swallowed by a yawning hole in the floor. At the end of a long tunnel, they scrape away at centuries-old sediment, their tunnel weaving towards other tunnels in other dark houses on Nazzi Street. It will take a few years, but they will make it. They will make it or die. They will make it together, or they will all die.
The Sun rises, quickly chasing the gloom of night from the street. The buildings are alive with carefully engineered happiness, forced cheeriness bursting in every greeting. Police demands it. Children skip mechanically to school.
Jalou's father waves at his neighbour with enthusiasm. But Mangi heard the break in his voice that was quickly covered with a cough, she saw the redness of eyes that had not stopped weeping. She saw his hands mimic the movements of her hand the night before.
Fuck Police.
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