Natura: Uhuru Genesis

LOU

LOU

2. CRYPT BOY

Forgive me. My heart is an endless elegy.

My heart is the ash every house of God leaves behind.

- Joshua Bennett "The Sobbing School"

Lou Onika has stammered longer than he can remember.

It's always been there; that frog in the throat. It trips a word on the heels of another, and then the tangle begins. They tangle and lob over a tongue, which seems abruptly swollen. As a child, it made him think of a scrabble game. He'd imagine he was holding a tile, and screwing it clockwise, hoping it wears at the edges; hoping it goes through a round peephole. Sometimes, it'd be so bad, nagging him till his eyes squinch shut, and his mouth balloons.

His elementary teacher once picked him, to tell the class a story. It had to be a folklore, a sword and sorcery, or even a cyberpunk fairytale. It could be anything; anything, but one with an ebony hero. He'd thought about his green scrap book, where he drew depictions of what he read on the e-book slate; the hidden one, hidden behind the broken mahogany shelf, at the back of Flea Stone library. He'd even sketched Gale Hawthorne, carrying Primrose, as they cheered Katniss on. Gale was his cult hero. In him, he saw a part of himself. Like Gale, he was always the one who gets left behind.

But when the teacher reminded him, no ebony heroes, it wrenched his gut, so much that he found himself choking. The choking stayed a practical joke, for everybody's pleasure. He was at the brunt end of harsh laughter. Even later, when he snuck away with a friend, to snack on discarded chicken wings at a dumpster of a nearby arcade, it ended up a choke-fest. Security had found them, squatted, gobbling. He'd asked them what on earth they were doing. Bystander boys were already snickering, their pants wet. One glimpse of them, and his speech was gone.

The stutter in speech is a part of him. It's there when he is upset, or nervous, or happy; but mostly nervous.

So, when he follows the Japanese woman inside the fabulous mansion, with her fluorescent-eyed companion, he feels his throat start to make its tiny, winy protests.

Half-moon pendant bulbs, in the entryway, stud the pastel walls, shading his own skinny arms livid. Basha comes after him, into the living room, the floor lamps highlighting tips of her braids, curled over her small ears, turning them an atomic tangerine color.

On any occasion, if the neighborhood guys dared him to talk to the Japanese girl, Sonia, perhaps ask her out to Tin Bar, just around the corner, he'd not. One quick observation of her whiplash sass, and his confidence would pop like a stabbed party balloon. If he tried, his throat would catch.

"The vanishing word" that's what his school bully called it; the other kids copied.

So he stays quiet as the girls argue, lest he gets the vanishing word. And of course, if arguing was a ship, Basha – who, just a minute ago, was almost bursting to tears, but has dramatically recovered – would be the captain of it. "Me, I doubt it can be a trap, sha!" She argues, with no one in particular.

"Obviously it is, little girl," Sonia, who, on the contrary, might be the pirate of that same ship, whips her head back at Basha. Basha shoots her an evil look, "don't be such a hobo. Maybe they knew you're a thief, and would see it. Otherwise, why would Ba'nova men text each other in a weird language for no reason."

"It's proto-Bantu, miss. The language," Anansi amends.

"Son-nia, it is n-n-not t-texting," Lou can't help it. But he's careful to avoid Sonia's gaze, so he keeps his eyes warily on the buttons of her trench coat. They're crusted with gemstones, he guesses. "It's s-similar to an old gadget they u-used to c-call a fax. Only, it w-was bigger. I r-read about it in t-the l-library. S-s-secondly, the l-language is not w-weird, it's ancient."