There are being no more humans now for long time, but I am being fine with this because I am not angering so much anymore. It is not anger like hot thing under my skin that is eating me from inside. It is cold anger, like something hard that is making my step heavy and is making it hard sometime to lift my shoulder, like I am being stuck with my arms hanging at my side or my neck turned a certain way and it is taking much effort and cracking to be fixing myself and still walking. But the cold anger is also pushing me forward. It is what Xifeng is once telling me is called determination.
I am wondering if I am having more determination than my other synth brother and sister, because I am walking and I am passing by their body that is lying in the red dust in pieces and I am asking myself how I am still walking and they are not if we are being the same. I am puzzling this inside my brain when I am realizing that I am walking past an Enyemaka.
She is frozen where she is standing and her arm is stuck like she is still being in the middle of walking. She is like someone is pressing pause on a recording and never pressing play. I am seeing rusting on her body like rash that is spreading over her chest and her legs and part of her face and I am looking in her face and I am seeing no light in her eyes. I am standing in front of her and hunching my back over even if it is paining me so I can look at her face more fully, and I am waving my hand in front of her face and trying to speak words from inside my brain but she is saying nothing. I am feeling no reaction from her. Then I am taking cord from the back of my neck and I am plugging it into Enyemaka and at first I am not knowing why I am doing this. Maybe I am thinking that she is not all the way expired, and I am hoping to give her some of me to be having in her last moments. Maybe I am not wanting to be so alone so I am simply spending time talking to someone who is not here like I am seeing other synths doing before they are expiring. Maybe I am soon expiring and my body is knowing this before my brain is knowing this.
But I am sitting with Enyemaka and I am thinking and I am seeing huts and tents that are being made and there is a Terminal that is creating network for the camp that is having shower and pulling energy from ground to be watering plants in greenhouse and giving power to tablets and devices for children that are being in school and I am knowing that I am in a camp and that the people in this camp are being called War Girls and I am standing by one of the tents and I am watching a little girl facing bigger girls and they are pushing her shoulders and I am feeling in my body that I am wanting to run and protect this little girl because I am knowing her and I am loving her and even now I am wanting to make sure she is shaving her head properly because it is getting hot and I am not wanting the heat to be trapped on her scalp and paining her. But I am watching the bigger girls pushing the little girl and I am not doing anything and I am wondering why I am not doing anything and then the little girl pushes the biggest girl and is throwing her onto the ground and stuffing dirt in her mouth and the other girls are running away but the little girl is doing revenge and then, when she is running out of breath, she is standing up again while the girl that is bullying her is coughing dirt from her mouth and crying and the little girl is saying nothing but I am feeling warmness in my heart and I am walking to her and I am asking her, What did I miss? even though I am seeing the whole thing and then I am telling Ify, I have some time before my next run. Do you want to see the water again? And she is nodding her head yes and grabbing my pant leg and burying her face in its dirty cloth and I am putting my hand to her head and massaging calmness into her.
Moving thing is taking me out of my remembering, and when I am looking up, I am seeing light that is moving back and forth in Enyemaka’s eyes.
I am smiling but I am not knowing if I am smiling at the remembering or if I am smiling at Enyemaka, who is not expiring yet.
I am still connected to Enyemaka so I am not using words but I am showing her that I am scared. It is feeling like I am telling her color and picture and feeling rather than saying I am scared because saying I am scared is not feeling like I am telling her the whole truth. I am waiting for Enyemaka to tell me that I am to be doing my duty, that this is yet another thing I am soldier in, that I am to be serving memory and thinking of everyone—my brother and sister synth and also the Enyemaka, who are creating library of memory for everyone so they are not forgetting what is happening.
But Enyemaka is not saying anything to me. She is sending me color and image and feeling that is telling me I know. And at the same time, she is telling me that it is okay for me to be scared. Because I am not seeing where we are going. And it is being normal to be scared of the unknown.
And part of me is wondering what is happening to Enyemaka to be talking like this. Is not normal.
We are the same, but we are different, Enyemaka is telling me and I am knowing that she is telling me this about all her sisters. The Enyemaka are all Enyemaka but they are also different Enyemaka, and I am seeing that they are like synth because they are all being connected and feeling what the other is feeling and sometime even thinking what the other is thinking, but they are speaking to my brain with different voice, different collection of image and feeling and color.
Are you scared too?
I don’t know fear. But I am learning what creates it. And I understand that telling falsehoods is part of the equation. Sometimes, when faced with fear, we lie to ourselves and to others to lessen that fear or to erase it completely.
Lying? Who is lying?
They are. And she is pointing to the Enyemaka ahead of us. There is no oasis.
Fear is making me feel like I am at the bottom of the ocean.
They will keep walking until no one is left. And all the Enyemaka hold the memories of Biafra inside them.
Why are you telling me this?
But Enyemaka is not answering. When I am getting hold of myself again and able to move, I am disconnecting my cord from Enyemaka and coming to my feet, but before I am leaving, Enyemaka is grabbing my wrist tight, so tight it is breaking the gears and the plates, and pieces of me are falling into the red dirt. Then Enyemaka is using her other hand to reach into my outlet and she is using drill and she is paining me.
“What are you doing?” I am screaming at her with my voice that is breaking because I am not using it often and because it is dry and because I am not normally needing to use word when talking to Enyemaka, but I am screaming because I am wanting to know why she is doing this thing but also because scream is feeling like the only thing I can do.
You have data that we need. I can’t let you leave. Enyemaka’s eye is glowing red, and it is like she is losing who she is being just now. And I am turning and I am seeing silhouette of other Enyemaka coming near, and Enyemaka is breaking my outlet and pulling my cord out and I am fighting and screaming, but she is grabbing my cord and jamming it into her outlet and I am seizing and I am knowing that she is taking my data so she can be leaving me to be expiring in the dirt and I am not wanting to expire, I don’t want to die, please don’t let me die, but Enyemaka is not listening to me, then
metal is cold and wrapping around my wrists and my feet is dangling in the air. I am turning back and forth slow, but that is the only way that my body is moving. Everything is feeling dry and stiff, even the blood that is coming from my nose and gash on my head.