Tevun-Krus #76 - AfroFuturism

Home Again - A Short Story by @sleepingdraco

Note: This story is Part 3 of the Tales of Dr. Drake. For Part 1, see One Populace (featured in TK75: SolarPunk), and for Part 2, see Reentry (featured in TK74: A Very Superhuman Christmas).

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Julia set down her bag just inside the door of her tiny studio apartment. It looked like a foreign landscape to her, a hazy memory like a fragment of a dream. She knew she owned all of the mundane items that caught her eye as she scanned the room, knew they were hers, the sofa that turned into her bed at night, the small white modern kitchenette with her great-great-grandmother's cobalt blue tea kettle, a bamboo folding screen behind which lay a small desk and dresser, the magnificent view from the 157th story overlooking the Green City in the Sun. Nairobi, her home since starting graduate school just over five years ago. She felt like a ghost here now. Her hands brushed the top of a silk pillow. She reached down and squeezed its cool, soft surface, then collapsed on the sofa and buried her face in it. Julia didn't think she was crying but soon the fabric wet clung to her cheek.

She struggled to internalize the gravity of her actions but remained numb. Her brain couldn't seem to process thoughts logically. Reality continued to flash before her in single frames, impossible to string together, as it had since she landed on Lacedain, the sole survivor besides the embryos and ship's robotic captain. How had she escaped? What had she done? She picked up her home communication tablet and attempted to connect to her sister. No response which wasn't surprising. Her sister Kia lived a chaotic life and could be anywhere in the galaxy. She looked through her contacts and found Shay. Few of her fellow classmates remained in Nairobi, but Shay grew up here, and as a natural leader would never leave. Her ancestors had fought for independence over a thousand years ago in 1963 during the Mau Mau uprising. Subsequent generations of her family had followed in one another's footsteps to run the United Nations Environmental Program. Shay had decided she would earn a Ph.D. and carry on her mother's environmental engineering legacy by the time she turned five.

No response from Shay either. Julia stared at the blank tablet for forty-five minutes. Suddenly she felt the need to flee, to do something, to feel anything and forget the disaster. She stood up to leave and caught sight of herself in the mirror. Red Lacedain dirt was smudged across her face and stuck in her hair. Reluctantly she dragged herself to the shower stopping in front of the fridge on the way and found a beer. It tasted marvelous, crisp and cold while the hot water beat against her back. She stood in the shower for another forty-five minutes, a luxury afforded her by the solar-powered water recycling program pioneered by Shay's mother in Nairobi and responsible for Africa's rise as a world superpower.

Julia's head buzzed slightly as she pulled on jeans and a clean white t-shirt. She slid on her favorite sneakers and glanced at the tablet. Kia and Shay had left identical texts, You're back! Where are you?

Gunkles. She replied to both. She needed another drink.

Two metro stops away, Julia descended into Gunkles subterranean crypt-like locale. Just off-campus, the bar drew older and alternative students as well as a unique and interesting intergalactic clientele. Always dark and busy, but never crowded, Gunkles offered solitude in its shadowy corners or drunken intellectual conversation and lively debate around communal tables. One could also enjoy both at the same time by partaking in the latrinalia scene in the all-gender, all-species bathrooms. Gunkles, always understated, didn't need to brag of its reputation of hosting possibly the most literary intergalactic toilet graffiti in the universe.

Today Julia sought more booze and a corner to herself. Comfortably settled in a dim section of the bar on a large oversized worn red wingback chair, she sipped a cocktail and tried to relax. Scanning the room she noted a group of students drinking pitchers of beer at the largest table. They seemed so jovial and care-free. A group of workers all wearing dusty worn heavy canvas pants appeared to be well into a celebration, likely having just returned from a mining distant planet with enormous paychecks.