The mystery behind humans and their avarice for power is unfathomable. Over the years this enigma has perturbed our hearts; still no answer is readily available. For so long our forefathers have been water nomads, leaving abruptly at the sight of humans and their heavy machineries polluting our waters. It has become a habit for us, expecting them to always invade our homes once we find a new settlement. The aged ones tell us tales of how minelayer and torpedo annihilate our former homes in one strike, sending our loved ones to their early graves.
When we sleep in the deep and calm waters, they come again, encroaching our space without regard for our privacy. We scamper higgledy-piggledy, calling out to our families, carrying only the valuables: totem, spears, trove, and shell pendants. We swim farther, away from the deadly scents of humans. We watch the statues and the tombstones of our ancestors collapse to a second death. Mother says never to look back, all that is destroyed is in the past.
With tears and an unforeseen bleak future we seek for a refuge. Temporarily we find one. Though the constant inclement weather tugs at our hearts, unsolicited fears hold our entire bodies prisoner. It is no surprise that our new home is already inhabited by malevolent merfolk who do not regard that we are both autochthons of the sea. They call us spiteful names, raining invective on the leader of our tribes. It’s not our fault that our skins and flippers are in high demand by humans. After much deliberation, they grant us a temporary place to stay. We are reminded of the hegemon in charge. The mermaids scowl at us, repeatedly telling our females to stay clear of their mermen before flipping their iridescent turquoise scaly tails and dragging their mermen away as though they are priceless jewels.
I have no interest in those flirty mermen. All that matters is the safety of my tribe. The first time we saw our hosts in action, they destroyed a caisson with their weapons, leaving the carcass as a souvenir for its human owners. The ways of the merfolk are brutish. Their leader, wielding the trident, had once said, Humans do not give a fuck about you. Do what you must to survive. They have no regard for your homes. The humans sent a frogman to ascertain the cause of the damage. He never returned to his people. Our hosts called our attention once they had caught and restrained him. We saw his foot fins, flippers, lying on the ground. Mother charged at him, asking why he killed our kind and used our body parts. What an audacity, we echoed. He drowned after the gas in his air cylinder was exhausted.
In exchange for food and safety, some of us offer ourselves in pleasure to the mermen, stripping our coats to reveal our voluptuous figures for their pleasure. They take us to their chambers and ram us in excitement, not minding some of us are celibate. We do what must be done to survive. The oracle’s voice reverberates in our subconscious when we permit them entry into our bodies.
Sometimes when the waves become unusually tempestuous, the mermen swim to the surface. We are excited to bask in the stories they tell us of humans. Not all humans are bad, they say, with all manner of sincerity, forgetting they have already told us that humans are terrible. They adorn our necks with tawdry human trinkets, confess their love for us, and take off our skins so they can further dwell in awe of our naked bodies, whether we want them to or not.
One serene afternoon, the sun rises to its highest, beaming and smiling at us while we sit beneath the cerulean water. Little do we know that the rays piercing the depth of the sea are a harbinger telling us to be wary. Human soldiers dive into the water in force, looking for the frogman that we killed. They catch us unprepared, our spears are no match for their assault rifles. Few of us are lucky, swimming fast to safety. After all, that is all we know how to do—run, run, always run.
Perhaps the merfolk are right to have called us a cursed tribe. Our mothers pray fervently to the gods, wishing for a safe home. The gods answer, bringing us to a river devoid of harmful human activities. Aside from the usual fishing of the locals, teenagers swimming before sunset, their actions pose no threat. A few urinate and shit into the water, toss empty bottles of ogogoro into it. This doesn’t scare us. We already knew that humans have no respect for nature.
We have no cause to leave our home until a trace of danger raises its ugly head. Deep in the silvery-streaked, not-too-tainted water, we frolic. Tranquility towers higher than the seamount. The mollusks treat us to a melody that also serenades the sea anemones. The image of the sun is distorted from our location, but we can tell it’s happy we finally have a safe haven. Even the heavy downpour graces our homes with warmth and comfort. There’s a plonk in the water—someone has plunged in.
“Tutu, go and find the stranger disturbing our peace this afternoon,” Mama says.
She trusts me to be careful in my surreptitious movements.
“Mama, it’s probably nothing serious,” I reply, engrossed in applying mascara. “I am certain it’s teenagers who can’t do without their afternoon swim.”
She believes in my judgment. If we are to survive here, we must lay low. Humans must not be killed. This is a rule sacrosanct to the tribes. The last thing we want is to draw fire from them. Rather than hurt them, we destroy their equipment—a strategy we learned from the merfolk.
There is another plonk. This time it shakes the peaceful waters. Imran calls my attention, says he sees a machine in the water. I lead the two teenagers in my company through the anfractuous boulders we built to conceal our presence. Living here has helped me glean information about the kind of human who comes to our shore. Besides the fishermen, teenagers skinny-dip, tourists smoke and toss their tiny cigarettes and scrunched cans into the water, and girls gossip seated on the sand, oblivious of me taking their make-up kits, no other humans have frequented the river until now.
“What do you think that thing is?” Imran asks, hiding behind a seamount jutting out of the wavy seaweeds.
“Oh no!” I say. “It’s happening again.”
”What’s happening—” Olu cuts in.
I command him to remain silent. An aquanaut dives into the water. In his hand is a sonar device. We watch him gingerly work his way around a blue bathysphere. My best guess is they are just scientists who come to explore. Nothing more. A throbbing thought jumps out of my head: Humans do not just explore the water, unless they take interest in it. Imran suggests we scare him, give him the beating of his life. Olu is quick to remind him what will happen when the diver is out of the water telling his human-group about a bunch of selkies who attacked him. Olu is one of my bright learners; he has quickly understood the secrets of surviving in the deep.
The aquanaut completes his connections. As soon he leaves, I advance towards the bathysphere, scanning the wonders of human creation. Eureka! I mutter, when I find the main camera that would have allowed the intruders a complete view of our home, breaking it with a stone.
The council calls an emergency meeting. Amidst the fears being hurled around I try to find words of hope. The children are already clinging to their parents. The stories of what humans have done to our kind bring them a full course meal of nightmares. Even the plants shrink, recoiling at the mention of humans. I see mama’s flippers quiver.
“No evil will come to us,” I say, to allay the fears of their troubled hearts. “I will come up with a plan to drive them away. We will keep our new home safe.”
They believe in me too much for me to fail them.
Later that night, when everyone is asleep, I creep out of my space, swimming all the way up. Slowly, I stick out my head, looking left and right to be certain no human is at shore. I know it’s stupid, but my coming out here almost every night has become habitual. I strip off my coat, place it atop a scraggy rock rooted close to the shallow waters. Naked, I step from the waves and lie back on the sand. The feel of earth on my body is enchanting. Face up, I stare at the sparkling shy stars peeping from their cocoon: incongruously, the constellations form what appears to be a man, kneeling to propose to a selkie. This is a scene that plays in my head. Our kind are betrothed after birth. Ladi, the selkie I am betrothed to, is patient enough to wait for me till I am nineteen before we are joined in the ritual of selkie-man and wife. The waters climb on each other. At intervals, the foamy water touches my skin before retreating and joining the rest of its body. Humans are blessed creatures. I wonder why the ground they walk on is not enough to quench their pleasure. Perhaps they are solipsistic.
I am still basking in the tranquil breeze when a faint patter on sand contaminates my peace. I jolt up, scamper and hide close to a shack. A young man approaches, with dark-skin that beam in spotlight of the full moon. He stands akimbo, facing the water. Around his neck is a strap clipped to a digital camera. He takes few shots, walking into the water, snapping the rock and the sky. From where I hide, I pray he doesn’t find my coat. When he leaves, it’s the cue for me to leave as well. I run to get my coat, don it with shaky hands, submerge deeper away from danger.
Back in bed I think of the human. Something about him is different.
Panic clouds the waters and carves unequivocal fright on everyone’s faces the following morning. Black oil meanders atop the water surface, blocking the soothing warmth of the morning sun. No one knows what it is. But we fear such a substance will be toxic enough to kill us. Someone calls it black shit.
“The devilish humans will never know peace for invading our lands,” another cries from the crowd.
Murmurations agitate the serenity. Mama holds me closer, scared that the curse has finally taken its grip on us.
“What do you suggest we do?” a council member questions.
All eyes are glued to me, waiting for a miracle answer. Dread crackles in my veins, whispering words of capitulation. Truthfully, I am void of an answer.
“You are the one who has spent the most time on the humans’ land,” another says.
“I can’t tell you what that substance is,” I reply, gulping some of the fear clogging my throat. “Humans will not stop driving us out of our homes. The only way out of this is to fight back. First, I will study them.”
They all stare in befuddlement. Some of their mouths are ajar, trying to grapple with the gibberish I just uttered. How can I compare a selkie’s strength with a human’s? Their deadly weapons and war tactics? They will strike all of us down with a single barrage from their automated machine guns. The cowardice of the tribe’s response irritates me—running away was always their way out.
I know the challenges facing me. My skin will desiccate if I linger on land for long after taking human form. Humans might discover my true identity, enslaving and interrogating me to give up the tribes’ location. Human food could cause my stomach to swell, stiffen my innards, exploding from inside to cause an untimely death. But this is an inevitable mission, I think, and one that must be taken. Mama’s teary eyes don’t change my mind. Ladi’s sweet words of conviction only brush the threshold of my consciousness.
I study the human for each of the four nights that he comes to take pictures. The black oil continues spreading across the water. The children are the first to experience wheezing. Something in the substance is baleful to their health. The time to act is now. The entry plan is this: Ladi will take custody of my coat and wait for me in the early hours of the morning where I will meet him to return to the deep.
“Be careful, my daughter,” Mama says. “Humans possess dark hearts.”
The oracle puts a unique shell pendant of intricate markings around my neck.
“The gods will keep you safe, child. Go in peace,” he says, placing his adorned staff on my back while I genuflect in front of him.
I hand my coat to Ladi. He kisses me, wishing me luck on my quest. My heart beats irregularly when I think of this foolhardy mission. I can feel it attempting to force its way out of the cordoned barricade, separating itself from the other organs. I remain in the water, a scuba mask in my hand, with a bikini and lappa over my body—clothing I stole from careless humans.
I notice the human engage in his usual activity. He touches the black oil, rubbing it against his fingers.
“Help! Help!” I scream, acting theatrically as if trying to stay afloat.
He hears me scream and drops his camera, comes rushing into the water to save me. He pulls me out, lays me flat on the sand. Rushing words drop like pellets from his mouth.
“What is your name?” he ask with a charming tone.
Lounging in his aura, the chill and plush of his hands, I pretend that I’m unable to speak. His eyes remind me of the coral eyes of a merman I once fucked.
“Can you walk? Let’s get you to safety,” he says.
He loops his camera around his neck, helps me up, and slings my right hand over his shoulder. I look back, squinting, to find Ladi watching us. As the human takes me further, Ladi becomes blurry and distant. Soon I lose sight of him.
Sizzling sounds and a pungent smell kick me awake. What surrounds me isn’t the feel of water on my skin, elodea beautifying the walls of my room, or a seahorse waking me up after I overslept. Around me are books hilled on a brown table, a kaleidoscope of rectangular pictures—both colored and black and white—of water and sea animals pinned on the wall. Wine bottles of various sizes are collected in a corner on a wooden stand, and a camera lies on a single cushioned chair. A tomahawk hung askew almost squeezes my heart with trepidation. There are other items I can’t identify. My senses nudge me back to reality—I’m sitting on a bed with a cotton quilt, and wearing a shirt with the slanted, scribbled words, I am married to the sea.
This is happening. I am actually in a human’s home. He appears, smiling, holding a tray of sweet-smelling food in his hand.
“I see you are finally awake,” he says, placing the tray neatly on the bed.
I withdraw, staring into his eyes without speaking, maintaining a grim demeanor.
“My name is Koyo. You called out for help last night. What is your name? Where are you from?”
My attention is glued on the tray in front of me. Humans really know how to care for a guest. Koyo takes a bite, buttressing in action that his intention is not to poison me. I have seen this food before. The merfolk had a library before it was destroyed. Being an autodidact helped me garner all the needed knowledge. Koyo must paint me as a glutton after I devour the meal without civility. The hot tea scalds my tongue.
I spill out the cooked-up story for his perusal. My name is Vivian. My family and I were on a boat cruise when we had an accident. I swam away from the fire as far as I could before you found me close to the shore. The ploy works. He believes every word I say, assures me he will look for my family.
Dusk descends like a fog while I immerse myself in combing Koyo’s room, flipping through his books, scanning everything that might give a direction on how to stop the pollution in our waters. I find nothing useful. At least nothing that indicates the reason for their inhumane acts.
Noises slither into my ear from outside. I grab Koyo’s brown pants and go out to see for myself. The throng of humans engaging in their ceaseless talk spooks the living daylights out of me. Blend in. Remain calm. They ignore me, spitting rains of fury about how the government has given permission to foreigners to exploit the crude oil in their land. The exploration has led to the contamination of the lakes and rivers, destroying their staple means of livelihood. They too are beginning to suffer the same way we do. For the first time ever, I feel sympathy for them. Koyo is among the fuming villagers, airing out his grievances. I dodge him, making my way to the shack, waiting for Ladi to show up with my coat.
The tribe finds my words incredulous when I narrate the happenings on land. Some of them say I am growing a soft spot for the humans, defending their actions. Olu and the others are glad to see me, asking if the humans hurt me. Ladi’s hug almost asphyxiates me. That night as I lie in bed, I bring out an orb which I stole from Koyo’s room. Marooned in it is a small wooden ship having dummy sailors. I shake it, excited at the bubbles dancing about. Koyo clings to my mind. His hair, those enchanting eyes, pointed nose, the stubble. I have never known a fine human-man act with such benevolence before. I shove away thought of a blissful ending with him. Falling for him will place a grave curse on the tribe and bring ignominy to my family.
It is expedient that I return to the humans. Ladi frown against it, but he dare not counter the words of the oracle. The mission, our safety, our home is of utmost priority.
Koyo’s mouth is ajar when he opens the door. I can’t fathom if he is delighted to see me or vexed that I stole his orb and left without a word. He invites me in, asking where I’ve been. Succinctly, I tell of my adventure to the neighboring village, hoping to question anyone who might have seen my family.
“Why is this orb so important to you anyway,” I say, when he requests I give it back.
“It’s an heirloom,” he says. “Come let me show you.”
We walk past the walls of his room, covered in beautiful pictures. He speaks of his love for nature, particularly the sea. I ask about the tomahawk. He brings it down, places it in my hands. The weapon chills my veins. It was a gift from his grandfather. Having fed my eyes on so much, he sits me down. He bed pulls out a fusty box with inscribed images of whales and dolphins from under the bed.
“My late grandfather said he bought this box at a dockyard on his first trip to Zanzibar,” he explains.
Contained in the box are sea shells of various colors still smelling of freshness, shot harpoons, a diary, miscellaneous water artifacts, and a photo album full of sepia colored images of his grandfather and other people. The eleventh page arouses abhorrence in me when I see seals caged in a trammel on top of a boat. As if to further ignite my ire, there are pictures of sealskin layered on the floor as men celebrate around this priceless material. It makes me cringe.
“Are you ok?” Koyo asks, noticing the scowl on my face.
I allow my anger to deliquesce, segueing to something else.
“I am starving.“Do you have something I can eat?” I say, smiling sheepishly.
Koyo stands up, heading towards the kitchen to serve me a rechauffe. He inquires about my family. There isn’t much to tell. He will call me demented if I reveal my identity to him.
“I saw some people gathered on the road the day I left,” I say. “They seem furious.”
“Their means of livelihood has been threatened. The government permitted an oil company to extract their crude oil, but the aftermath of this action is ruining our lands. Have you seen the water recently?”
It’s apparent that we and humans are facing the same challenge. The question nudges me, chimes in my head—what can I do about it? We spend the rest of the day touring the village. Such peculiar monuments humans have. He buys me a swellegant flannel dress. We head to a local pub for a plate of pepper soup and palm wine. The palm-wine makes me a little dizzy. We listen to tales about the tradition of the land from grizzled old men.
Shit! I mutter.
It is difficult to escape from Koyo when all he does is stare and lace my fingers with his. Passing towards the beach that night on our way home, I know Ladi will be waiting with my coat. He quacks at me. Koyo hears it, too. I disentangle my fingers from him, allowing him to take pictures of me. Click, click, click. The shutter sound mixes with the whispering night breeze. I begin to remove my dress without shame, climbing out of it, walking to the beach.
“Someone might see you,” Koyo says, looking back to be certain we are the only ones present. By the time he returns his gaze at me he has lost me. Beneath the rippled waters I tell Ladi of the mission, reminding him that I have to spend more time with the humans to gather enough information to report to the tribe. Annoyance clouds his face. He grabs my hand, forcing me to go down into the deep with him. I struggle, break free of his grasp, bobbing to the surface to the sight of a distressed Koyo.
“You scared me,” Koyo says, panting. “I thought I had lost you again.”
I rise, dawdle towards him, allowing him an undiluted stare at my naked body. He hands me my dress, we go home with my head on his shoulder. Days roll over days. Crude oil extends to the river and lake, slowly becoming a scourge. Humans can no longer go fishing. Koyo explains the adverse effect of this, how poverty and crime are the result of this unfortunate situation. I attend the community meetings with Koyo. The villagers agree that the foreigners responsible for this mess must pay for it.
I rest on Koyo after we pleasure each other, playing with the hair on his chest. Later, a sharp noise wakes us. We look from the window: a man carries a boy. A small hand dangles, lifeless. Sympathizers follow them, ululating intermittently. I watch the burial rites. The boy is buried near the riverbank, so that his soul can transcend to their afterlife without being a vagrant. Koyo rushes back home to get his camera. Every click brings bitterness to my heart, drowns me in a gloomy pool. Pictures capture the emotions the heart cannot speak, Koyo says. He is so engrossed in seizing these moments that for a minute I imagine he is oblivious to them.
When the sympathizers leave for their homes, Koyo simmers, ire erupting from him. A boy died today, most likely from swimming in the poisoned water. Who will be next? The tribe will suggest we take our leave once I mention this to them. We who inhabit the deep are prone to suffer. A final goodbye to Koyo is soon to come. A fisherman claimed to have found the boy’s cold body on the wavy water surface. I know better than to think the child’s death isn’t cause by someone from my tribe. Patiently, I wait for the night to come.
Night. Koyo is snoring when I leave and shut the door carefully.
“I knew you would come,” Ladi says, face caked with evil grins.
I look back at the stretched darkness draping the entire village, snatch my coat from him, plunging into the river. On our way home I ask if he had a hand in the child’s death. His response is indifferent. It has to be him.
Mama is disappointed at my inconsiderate attitude, ranting about how I abandoned the tribe to spend time with the humans. The council commands I never see Koyo again. Other members of the tribe spare no time in expressing loathing towards my love for humans, saying I forgot my origins, reminding me why I was sent up there. I try to reason with them, emphasize the need to linger more with the humans, devise strategies to curb the pollutions ravaging our home. My opinions fall on deaf ears. The most important thing of all is protecting our home. For how long are we going to keep abandoning our homes once we feel threatened? This is the crux of my argument to the tribe. The oracle know my words to be true. After all, he breaks bread with the gods.
“I am pregnant by the human,” I say, further aggravating their disgust.
Silence moves as an angry bird, flapping its wings. Mama falls backward. Deep in her eyes I see a volcanic steam of ire she had never shown before. Everyone avoids me, moves away from my presence. Olu pats me on the back as he leaves, an expression of disappointment on his face. The tribe has forgone the mission of protecting our home, they are getting ready to leave. As always.
Being ostracized from the tribe is an inevitable punishment for my act. At least I get to keep my coat and spend more time with Koyo. Sunlight angles in from the windows in his house, providing warmth on my feet. I’m curled up at one corner of the bed, thinking over my actions, wondering if Koyo is worth all of this. Then I hear it, the sound of feet trampling on the ground waking the sleeping dust. I peep and see some see people brandishing cutlasses, axes, and knives. My first thought is to go out and find Koyo. I am new in this settlement—where could I possibly go to look for him? I touch the shell pendant around my neck, praying to the gods for the bravery to face the hurdles on the road. Koyo rushes in and grabs his camera.
“Let’s go,” he says. “There’s something you have to see.”
When we get to the beach, my eyes fall on a sight my mouth couldn’t express. The beach is thronged with both young and old. Part of the water is bloody. A sperm whale, presumably dead, lies in the water. Humans spare no time in cutting their chunks of meat from this helpless beast. The glee in their faces evokes rage in me. My guess is this meat will be a consolation for their days of not fishing since the black oil attacked their livelihood. Dead squids and few fishes fall out of the whale when a boy plunge his knife into its belly. The tribe must have been long gone. Koyo covers all of this with his camera. Sometimes I wonder if his penchant for pictures is a mere hobby, or if he wishes to keep them as a trophy rather than use them to help the villagers.
No single human in the beach shows a hint of remorse. Now I see the reason Mama doesn’t like me mingling with them. The ones who have a basin full of whale flesh leave and others return, looking for a spot to cut their own share.
That night I spoke with Koyo, telling him how those people do not feel bad for their actions. I tell how I lost my family due to the environmental hazards of humans. I want to express a deluge of my revulsion for them. All of their actions from inception have been geared towards polluting the sea, lakes and rivers. Do they even consider the creatures living beneath? Perhaps they don’t realize that their smug attitude would wreak great consequences on the sea dwellers.
Koyo is rapt. He has never found me to be a loquacious person. I admit I am a bit verbose.
“You sound like you are friends with a mermaid,” he says, making a jest. “It’s a good thing you mentioned it, I think I have gathered enough pictures to tell the world of what has been happening here. First, I need permission to post the picture of the dead boy,” he says, with regret and hurt in his voice.
Dawn push away the stubborn darkness refusing to leave its space. We go to the late boy’s mother, seeking her permission to share the burial pictures.
“Shey dis one go bring my pikin back,” she ask, tears streaming down her face.
Koyo comfort her, assuring her that the pictures might be a first step in curtailing the actions of the company responsible for her misfortune. She gave him the go ahead. Koyo shares the pictures online, alongside the hashtags of various environmental bodies and news agencies, calling for the need to save the sea and everything that lives in and beside it. At intervals we check for the feedback on the pictures. The engagements are coming in.
After all that has happened, we think the gravest of disasters has already passed us by. We thought wrong. This is just the beginning. People start to fall sick. The majority of them are the consumers of the dead sperm whale. I need no soothsayer to tell me that the whale must have been poisoned by the black oil. The sea and river are no longer habitable for fishing and swimming. It has become a black murk of wastes and dead animals blocking the flow of sunlight and air into the deep. The tribe is right to have suggested we leave. I pray they are safe wherever they are.
I allow one of Koyo’s neighbors to plait my hair when the sun is about setting, though part of its yellow ring is yet to leave the vast sky. Five people approach us. Their dress indicates they are not from around here.
“Hello,” one of them says. “My name is Matilda. I was told I would find the photographer who took these pictures.”
She holds out some of Koyo’s pictures, printed in color. I still feel the remains of queasiness, seeing the skeletal frame of the dead whale.
“We are representatives of an international body protecting communities suffering from environmental hazards. We want to help bring an end to this menace,” Matilda says.
I feel my body swathed in joy. Someone has come to our aid. They meet with Koyo, asking him to enlarge the pictures and pass them on while they take the necessary actions. The only thing the government did was temporarily close down the oil extraction project. The villagers know how it will all play out—once the heat of the moment is gone, the project will resume.
The moon appears as a crescent in the dotted sky. Koyo is fast asleep. I visit the river, bend under the red tape barricade used to restrict people from going beyond. It smells of putrid fish. I extend my walk into the stagnant water, pushing my feet through the obstacles of dead things. I sing to the river, its stench filling my body with disgust. We selkies communicate with our voices no matter how far away we are. Uncertain if my call will be acknowledged, I keep singing, stretching my voice far into the sullied air. My message is clear to the tribe; we are on the verge of victory, completely halting the project that has rendered the villagers jobless and made us lose our home. I wait for a reply from a member of the tribe, but their voices are silent.
Reporters of different television and radio stations set their equipment in front of the village square. The village had met, decided to march to the government house. In the hands of the village leader is an international signed petition demanding the government shut down further operations, demanding payment of damages, and demanding the guaranteed safety of the waters.
While reporters are questioning Koyo and the rest of the community, I sense I belong here with them. A huge part of me wishes the tribe was here. Then I feel a tap from behind: It’s Olu, and he’s smiling at me. Mama and the rest of the tribe are present, too.
“Ladi did a great deal of work in convincing us to come back. He reached out to the merfolks. I don’t know what he did, but his words swayed them to come join in the march,” Mama says. “He didn’t kill the child. The child was already dead when he found him.”
My distant relatives are prepared for this peaceful protest.
“Mama told me you deserve the praises for bringing the tribe here,” I say to Ladi.
He shakes his head in disapproval.
“I simply gave them a reason to keep their faith strong. Ever since your ban I waited for your song. The night I heard it from the ripples of the water, I knew I had to do everything to support you. Besides, I was tired of always having to find a new home.”
I want to hear the words about his innocence of the dead child. I ask him.
“I took offence when you found love with the human. I wanted you to be as angry as I was. But I am no killer. The poor child died when he went swimming that night. The spillage must have made breathing difficult.”
We file out en masse, holding placards and pictures. The humans sing in their native dialect, and the vigor in their voices cuts through the rising dusts and the levitating aura. We sing as well, in ours.
I am sunbathing in the beach when people point at a creature in the water. It’s a seal, and the seal is Olu. People are taking pictures of him. Olu sees me, and calls to me before submerging into the deep. Fishing has not fully resumed. Our cries and demands yield results. The villagers received part-payment for the damages, and operations are permanently suspended. The water has not yet fully cleared, though we are hopeful that it will soon.
Koyo offered to help Olu get a job when I introduced him as my brother. But Olu’s bond with the sea has not let him fully decide to start living on land.
“If I didn’t know you well enough I’d say you share a common affinity with the sea,” Koyo say, holding a necklace having a blue pendant he bought for me. I wear it around my neck, next to the shell pendant.
I giggle, shrug, and rub my protruding stomach. In few months I’ll birth a child. Eventually I’ll have to tell Koyo the truth. I hope that when I do, the affinities that we share will be enough.
