On the Wave to Africa
By Shinka Black
The strong arms of the sea clasp our desperate vessel and pull us into the watery bosom. It’s a cold embrace, and an unwelcome one too. But very much anticipated. This is the storm that’s supposed to come before the calm. This is the reason why many of my people would rather stick to old ways and beliefs, stay by the shrinking oases, and spill their own blood rather than venture out into pastures with promise. Dark Continents now turned beacons of light. The Sahara is thorny still but only because it is now rosy. What a vast land of paradoxes.
We’re men of the desert, the sand dunes may hide traps, but these waves reveal them, yet they are more inescapable. This umpteenth wave reveals God in his greatest glory, the devil at his demonic darkest. The men shout stern orders to go below the deck at the boys, the boys’ inexperience makes the orders seem foolish and suicidal. We were warned before that our stubbornness wouldn’t cross the desert with its random sandstorm after a sandstorm, yet here we are.
“My God,” breathes one of the older boys, his arm stretched towards the horizon. He has the map of Africa tattooed on his right triceps. My gaze follows his bulging biceps, his able arms, the tips of his trembling fingers. The gigantic wave approaching the small vessel is recorded as fire in the eyes of the expert men. If you peer closely into their faces that is, a thing which only I can. But boys will be boys, they still see the approaching danger as a mere adventure.
“Does anyone here not know how to swim?” the self-proclaimed captain of the vessel asks, his eyes darting about. They momentarily land on my thin frame, particularly on my chest as if to verify either my ability or boyhood. I shake my head. But I should’ve nodded. I’m not a good swimmer. Where I come from only boys are allowed to strip naked and swim and they’ve never given me a chance to be one.
A python kills its prey by strangling the life out of it. A python’s winding embrace is the last thing any living creature would want to wind up in. That gigantic serpent, its liquid doppelganger, descends to decimate our precarious boat. The engines splutter and cough. The engines die. Voices spread onboard an order to jump towards the watery grave or redemption.
Merrily the boys follow the long-awaited order. Cautiously the men do. Someone pushes me off the rails as off a cliff as I ponder which way to perish is the better one. My left knee knocks against metal. I splash painfully into the python’s deathly cuddle. Immediately I’m frantically waving my arms to stay afloat. Voices come and voices go. I think so does my life. The border between life and death is razor-thin, my mother once told me.
“When you get to Africa, you’ll find more opportunity than you can ever find here,” she said when I decided to join the dangerous voyage. Of late boats have been wrecking or being deported en masse. Many perished before they smelled the greener pastures of the once Dark Continent. Then she handed me a gold ring that has been in her family for generations, “And you’ll need this.” I received it with a promise to return it back which mostly insinuated that I must return.
I can feel the ring tied in a knot around my waist. The symbol of the promise I gave my mother to stay afloat and alive come what may. To reach the shores of Nirvana. To smell its air. To see the smiles its people wear upon their faces like crowns upon kings’ heads. To behold the buildings as shiny as the backs of pythons, as tall as pythons held vertically by their tails. To escape the dangerous writhing of this deathly snake presently holding my life hostage.
Towards the belly, I’m sinking at the behest of gravity. Gravity the muscle of this particular python’s esophagus. Gravity and complacency. Complacency born and bred in the family. I won’t die like my brother did, like my cousin did, like many others before me have. The land of my dreams is just a short swim away. I refuse to die before I see the land of opportunity. The blossoming Sahara, the blooming Kalahari. The mighty Kilimanjaro, the beautiful Drakensberg. I will escape these watery gallows, not wallow.
Until I hear a voice say, “Jambo.” Until from the flying cars I’ve read and dreamed about I see elephants and rhinos teeming in the jungles.
Desperately I wave. I flap. I dig. I push. I pull. I twist. I do whatever it takes. My lungs are full of salt. My ears twitch. My eyes itch. My body is fatigued. But if I stop struggling even a little bit I’ll drown. The dreams encapsulated by my female body will die with me. I’m not going down like my brother did, like my cousin, like that distant friend. I’ll be the first girl to ever enter the promised land like this. I stare at the tattoo on my wrist, one similar to what the boy had on his triceps. Nature won’t cut the veins of my wrists and bleed my aspiration out so to speak.
On the surface, I gasp for fresh air and perspective. All around me float bodies. Bodies that no longer speak or shout. Bodies that no longer dream. Bodies without souls. Boys. Men. Collateral damage in my quest for freedom. In my quest to reach the land of Mansa Musa. Bodies sprawled and cold. Bodies both young and old. Bodies that set out to be free yet are now bound by the deathly cord.
“Another wave is coming,” someone screams from behind me. It’s him. I turn my head to behold one of the older boys, one of the most adventurous. Perhaps as adventurous as I am if he were a woman. The boy with the tattoo, the boy who thankfully pushed me when I hurt my knee. I smile at him before I see The Wave gathering a tsunami behind him. Growing taller. Eating well like they do in Africa so that its growth is most rapid. The boy continues, “Don’t fight this one, it’s taking us there.”
His arm without the tattoo points southwest and I look. In the distance I see towers. Thin as threads from such a distance but spiraling majestically upwards in the Sahara haze. The Burj al Africa, and her sisters. I’ve seen it. Even if I die, I’ve seen it. I’ll tell my brother about it, and my cousin, and that other uncle. I’ll tell them how beautiful the motherland has become. I’ll tell them that …
I feel for the ring dangling from my waist but it’s no longer there. I feel myself rise as though to be discarded into the dustbin of death. But this wave though mighty is gentle, exactly what the Africa ahead is. The boy is no longer there. The floating bodies have been buried, may their souls rest in peace. There’s more gold in Africa than is found in a billion rings. There are boys in Africa than my lust could perversely begin to imagine. Then there is more. The waters might be turbulent but I’m at peace. I can only smile as the latest wave takes me there in a tight but friendly embrace.
Dreamland here I come. Jambo Africa, Jambo.
Shinka Black’s story was the winning entry at the maiden Arise Africa Writing Contest.
About the Author: Shinka Black is a Zimbabwean writer with a bias towards telling the African story. He loves telling stories driven by strong relatable characters. He is in his elements when the genres of concern tilt towards drama and mystery.
Black is a graduate of mechanical and computer engineering. He loves people, pets, a good book, and the woods.
