The Deep

I AM THANKFUL FOR THE ocean, from which life springs. I am thankful for the ancestors, who lived, which is all any of us can do. And I am thankful for our vast human history, wide and various enough that there are legacies of triumph for every legacy of trauma. Everything is always changing, which means nothing can ever be hopeless. The battering rush of tides shapes and smooths rock, carves out new lands.

“Come,” said Yetu. Oori followed. This time, the two-legs venturing into the depths had not been abandoned to the sea, but invited into it

The living put their own mark on the dead

It wasn’t all pretty, but it was hers. If it was a choice between the History and emptiness, maybe Yetu wanted the History. She’d always complained that the rememberings erased her, that Yetu didn’t exist because the ancestors took up too much space inside her. That was all still true, but what did it matter whether she existed if she was alone, if all that was around her was abyss?

Who each of them was mattered as much as who all of them were together. For so long, the wajinru hadn’t felt like living creatures to Yetu. Just a mass that fed off her rememberings for their own benefit. But like Yetu, they were their own people too. They’d not asked for the emptiness any more than Yetu had asked for the History.

Anger was our favorite emotion. We were at home in it. It gave us purpose

Nothingness was a fate worse than pain.

At least with pain there was life, a chance at change and redemption. The rememberings might still kill her, but the wajinru would go on, and so, too, would the rest of the world

Yetu shook her head. “You’re the one who’s leaving.”

“No, Yetu. You’re the one who’s not coming with.”

With Oori, she always wanted more, desperate for time together, for
conversation, for closeness. The depth of want seemed endless