The Book of Phoenix (8 page)

After destroying the helicopter,
the winged man flew with me for miles. I was glad for the cover of night and his silent presence. It was hard to think straight. On top of this, my shoulders and back muscles ached from pumping my wings. Yet I didn't want to land. I glanced at him every so often. He flew so effortlessly, barely needing to flap his huge wings. He was slightly ahead of me, leading the way.

Nevertheless, as soon as the blackness of the ocean came into sight, he looked at me. I looked at him and then looked away, unable to withstand his piercing stare. My heart was suddenly pounding hard. He seemed human, yet how could he be? There was something so steady about him, so even. Again I wondered how Tower 7 had captured and imprisoned him and why. Moments later, I looked back. He was still watching me.

“What?” I finally asked. “What is it?”

He looked ahead. The ocean opened up into darkness only a few miles away. I could see the lights of a large ship on the water. A luxury liner? He pointed a long finger straight ahead. I wasn't sure if he meant the ship, the ocean, or even one of the buildings.

He shot away from me abruptly and did a one-hundred-eighty degree turn. Then he flew off, back toward the city. So fast. I couldn't possibly follow him. I certainly couldn't maneuver myself like that. Not yet. No goodbye, no words of wisdom. I was alone, again. I flew on.

Minutes later, I was flying above the submerged part of the city. The tops of once majestic, now wobbly skyscrapers peeked above the dark, slow-moving water like trees in a swamp. I'd read that a species of nocturnal dog-sized rats lived in the portions of the building right above the water, and they fed on fish. They were probably out now, fishing the shallows.

I'd read that these buildings were inhabited by the poor and illegal. Hardworking people who commuted to the city using boat services provided by New York's government. I landed on top of one of the taller buildings beneath a dim light post. A baby cried nearby and someone laughed. I smelled the spicy aroma of someone cooking with a lot of curry. There was a swimming pool here but it was empty and filthy now. Beside it, plastic chairs were pushed around a rusty steel table. I imagined men sitting in the chairs as they smoked cigars and played cards and cursed and laughed. Friends just being friends, even in their poverty. No Big Eye with guns and scalpels and portables.

Several pigeons standing near the table and chairs looked at me, their heads cocked to the side. Then they went about their business of eating seeds scattered on the ground. I smiled. I had never seen these birds up close. I watched them for a moment. They strutted about but stayed close to each other, almost unconsciously. I liked the way they cooed. Clearly, someone else must have liked the birds, too. Why else would anyone scatter seeds here?

It had been hours since I'd eaten the doro wat, and I'd flown miles, yet my belly felt full. I sat down on concrete ground, feeling the breeze against my exposed back and folded feathers. My back was dry. The bleeding had stopped; the blood had dried. I looked at my softly glowing hands and the wooden box I held in them. A black pigeon with grey speckled wings walked up to me and cocked its head curiously.

“I don't know what it is,” I told it. The pigeon cautiously came closer, stepping a few paces to the left as it did so. I could have sworn it was looking at my wings with its beady brown eyes. I laughed. “I don't really know what
I
am, either. What do you think?” The bird just stared at me. Then in the forefront of my mind, I had a vision of a place that was full of sunshine. The pigeon hooted with fright, turned and ran off, rejoining the others.

I pressed my forehead. There was no pain. But my head felt vast. “Worlds!” I whispered. All the screaming chaos in my mind that stressed, dwelt, worried, lamented over what had happened to me since I stepped out of my room in Tower 7— it stopped. It was still there, but for the moment, it was on pause. I quickly understood. The alien seed was
speaking
to me in a way that reminded me of Mmuo's method. However, unlike Mmuo's nanomite communication, it didn't speak in words. It spoke directly to my mind; it touched my psyche, and its touch was magnificent.

I looked over the ledge of the building, at the ocean. Past the ship. Into the darkness. I saw images of another place. A place that was warm like New York, with the same palm trees and flooding. A place plagued with New Malaria like New York, but with people who looked like me. It was not New York. It was not even the United States. It was far. How would I get there? By plane? By the ship? Me? Phoenix, the rogue winged speciMen who was believed to have brought down the Axis and probably blamed for Tower 7's collapse as well? How would I do that?

I stood very still. The pigeons behind me were quiet, too.

I decided in the same way that I decided I wanted to escape Tower 7, on impulse.

I spread my wings. I ran and then flew, catching a gust of wind that lifted me into the sky with an ease that I didn't have the first time. Several pigeons flew with me, but they turned back when I reached the water. And that was how I started flying across the ocean. Maybe a part of me was like Saeed and wanted to die. Maybe. But it was more than that.

 • • • 

The first few days were pain. I did not need to eat, urinate, defecate, or sleep. Hours after I started my journey, I felt the box warm in my hands and then my entire body grew brighter, and I warmed, too. My stomach gurgled and then I felt it do something very strange. It tightened up, hard like a stone.

At first I thought the alien seed had done something to my body. But as time passed, I realized it was more likely that I had done it to myself because the seed had shown me how. While flying I had unknotted my stomach using sheer will. As soon as I did, the pain was so terrible that I quickly re-knotted it.

So the pain did not come from my stomach, bowels, bladder, or a lack of sleep. It came from my shoulders and back. I needed to build up muscles, and I had to do it while crossing the ocean. To fall into the water was death by drowning or worse. I had no time to test just how waterproof my feathers were.

I flew through the pain, and for days I could think of nothing else but flying southeast and not dropping into the ocean. I put the alien seed inside my dress where it rested close to my heart. It was like a mysterious navigation device, showing me the way in my mind. The only respite I got were the times when the wind carried me. My wings were powerful. I was made to travel long long distances. Who knows, maybe I even had albatross DNA mixed with mine. And like an albatross, I quickly learned how to fly without flying. When the wind was right, I could fly for miles and miles without doing a thing.

When the pain finally stopped, I could notice the ocean. Its vastness. In the day, the blueness. In the night, the blackness. All that had happened was and seemed so far away. The world was different here.

Hours before I saw the coast of Africa, I saw just how different the world was over the ocean. I was watching a storm churn miles away, riding some of the resulting winds, when I happened to glance below. Here, the sun was out, the water was clear, and I was flying high, so I saw the thing in its fullness. Its giant red body was bulbous like the sack of a jellyfish, but the skin looked thick and tough like an elephant's. It had three massive tentacles that it used to propel itself forth and an equally massive round head with squishy yellow swiveling bug eyes. The creature was the size of thirty houses. Large houses. It was not a giant squid or any kind of cephalopod. If anything, it looked mammalian.

The creature looked up at me with those yellow eyes, staring for a long time. Its eyes were so huge, that I could clearly see its black pupils fixed on me. I had no idea if the thing could leap, so I flew higher. It watched me with interest for a while and then eventually sunk back into the deep.

I couldn't have been gladder to see the coast of Africa. The first meal I had in two weeks was given to me by a kind old Sierra Leonean woman who spoke perfect English and wasn't afraid of women with wings. It was fried fish, fresh baked cassava bread, and thick tasty okra soup. As I ate, she said, “You will need this, I think” and held up a garment made of coarse blue cloth. She called it a burka, and it fit over my head, covering me from head to toe, wings and all. I knew what it was, for I'd read about Islamic traditions.

“I respect the religion,” I quietly said. “But I don't . . .”

“Take it,” she insisted. “You will need to pick and choose who sees what you are. The burka is freedom.” She wrapped it tightly, put it in a satchel, and I took it. I knew she was right. I slept for two days and then after meeting her entire family, I set off, again.

 • • • 

The tree grew wide, tall, and crooked, as if it were dancing very very slowly. It had long narrow leaves and its branches were heavy with bunches of shea fruits. I wouldn't have known what they were if I hadn't run into the young woman who could speak English. This was a farm where the nuts used for shea butter were made.

The seed had led me to a Northern town in Ghana called Wulugu. Within Wulugu, it led me to the middle of a shea tree farm not far from a small village. To this large tree. There were people in these farms working. How strange I must have looked to them, for this was not a place where there were many Muslims, and here I was in a full burka, all alone. My folded wings, which I'd pulled closely to my back, made me look like a crippled hunchback. Beneath it, I wore my heat resistant white dress, now tan and stiff with dust, sand, and sea salt.

I dropped to my knees and began to dig with my bare hands. All day, I had eaten nothing but a few bananas that I'd plucked from a tree hours ago. My belly was empty. I had no money. I did not know what I would do after this. I was still glowing, though my body remained cool. But none of that was important. This nut. This alien seed was the focus of all things for me.

The dirt was red and moist just like the dirt at the base of The Backbone. It was easy to dig here. I dug a hole three feet deep and by then, I had an audience. I decided to give them a show. I shined brightly through my burka and giggled as all the trees and plants including the one right in front of me began to stretch, their leaves unfurling, their stems expanding. Some people screamed, but most of them sighed and murmured with awe. Some brought out portables and took pictures. While they watched the plants grow, I brought out the box with the seed and gently placed it in the hole.

As soon as I did this, I felt it go out. The light within me extinguished. The plants around me stopped growing impossibly fast. Just like that. It was such a relief that I sighed and leaned forward. I could feel the seed sucking and sucking the glowing life-enhancing energy. I could have sworn that I even heard the “clop” of the box closing. I sat up, looking at my hands. They did not glow with even the hint of green yellow. I touched my back. My wings were still there. Stronger than ever. Begging for the sky as something deep in me begged for justice. Justice for what had been done to me and all the other prisoners in Tower 7, in
all
the towers. Would I still burn and come alive? I would find out.

I stood and faced the people gathered. A woman came forth laughing something I did not understand. She switched to English and said, “Welcome.” Then she hugged me. Then a man joined in. They all hugged me. I hugged them back.

One must stop time to listen to a story.
The storyteller starts it again.

She starts it in her own place, in her own moment, in her own point of view. As long as you listen, she is in charge of your destiny. You and the storyteller share everything, even your existence.

Listen . . .

I started picking up the local accent. I could never fit in, so that wasn't the reason. I just liked the sound of it. I missed my love Saeed, my friend Mmuo, the other Tower 7 prisoners who weren't so nice to me. Speaking like the Ghanaians reminded me of them all. Plus, after all that had happened, it felt good to be different from what I had been, yet the same. That which was me would never change. That which was me could survive death. Over and over.

I was Phoenix.

They called me
Okore
. It meant “eagle” in Twi, though I felt my wings were more like an albatross'. But there is no word for albatross in “Twi,” so Okore was fine. I was picking up the language quickly. I could speak it better than most, and it had only been some months. It was part of my acceleration. This was good because otherwise, I'd have been a problem there. The language of a people is sacred. It is their identity. Though most Ghanaians spoke English, it was good to know the native tongues, also. To lack the ability to communicate on multiple levels always means trouble. So, for once, I was spared.

But then again, I came into this village in the people's favor. When I had buried the alien seed at the base of one of their oldest shea trees, just before its strange light left me, my light had fortified all the trees of their farms. My timing had been perfect because it was harvest season; the trees were heavy. So with the coming of “Okore” came great abundance in Wulugu. Even after my life-urging light was reabsorbed into that seed and I'd buried it, the trees' fruit continued to multiply and swell, steady and strong. With me, came abundance. By the end of market season, the people of Wulugu were flush with wealth.

They built me a small two-story house and even equipped it with a solar panel, so I had enough electricity for dim lights. Some women helped me cultivate a garden. The people invited me to their meetings, marriages, parties, and burials. For the first time, I was part of a community. I relaxed, putting America behind me. What a weight that place put on my shoulders; a woman with wings should never be so burdened.

It was through the people of Wulugu that I learned what a “jelli telli” was. While I was in Tower 7, no one ever showed these to us. Our rooms—no, our cells were too small, so there was no need. We always watched small screens embedded in the walls or through our e-readers. Nevertheless, jelli tellis had been around for years.

Jelli tellis were rectangular sheets of highly elastic optic-gelatin that could be stretched to cover an entire wall. You then clicked the golden button on its tiny round remote, there was a tinkling sound and the most realistic image ever seen materialized. The village had two jelli tellis and on weekends, everyone would gather at the community house to watch noisy West African 3D movies. Once in a while, they'd screen an American one, too.

No one ever asked me where I came from or what I was. I wore the clothes of a Muslim woman. There were not many in Wulugu, but there were enough. No one bothered me. People assumed that I was hunchbacked and that was fine, too. But that didn't keep the men away. Within two months, three men I saw regularly at the market or the community house proposed marriage to me because, they said, they had fallen in love with my face. My
face
, can you imagine? I was much more than my face. Only one man truly understood this. Kofi Atta Annan. His father had named him after the UN diplomat who spearheaded the riots in Nigeria and Ghana over a century ago. For Kofi, I would take my burka off if the time came. That time was today.

 • • • 

He lived about a mile away from me. His home was small and had running water. He was also one of the few who could afford fuel for his generator. That's more than one could say about most of the people here. Even I went to the well and carried water home every morning with the rest of the women.

It was daybreak and the roads were empty. I'd woken up knowing what I wanted to do. So I'd bathed with my last bucket of water, dressed in a backless yellow sundress, covered up with my black burka, ate some buttered bread with sardines, and went to find Kofi before he left for work. Kofi was the town doctor. The
only
town doctor. His days were always long.

I was excited. Finally Kofi would know. What would he say when he saw that my hump was actually a set of wings? The thought made my heart flutter. I didn't love Kofi as I loved Saeed. I didn't think I'd ever love a man the way I loved Saeed. But Kofi was a lovely man. To look at him, even from afar was to smile. He was tall like a tree, and had a strong clear voice. If the great winged man I freed in Tower 7 were to speak, I suspected he would sound like Kofi. And Kofi was kind. When he treated his patients, he asked how they were feeling, he asked permission to touch, he truly cared about their well-being. He was the opposite of the Big Eye who had taken care of me in my first life as one takes care of a cow they will slaughter at the end of the year.

With Saeed, we could only be together during those times when we were eating a meal or given social time. Saeed once told me that for hours he used to pretend he was talking to me while he sat in his room. I never told him this but there were many nights where I would dream about him talking to me for hours. I wish I'd told him that. We had so little time together.

With Kofi it was different. Freer. He was there that first day when I arrived. And he was the only one who actually
saw
me bury the alien seed. Everyone else was in awe of the plants and trees growing right before their eyes. But it was
I
who fascinated him. Days later, after I was settled in the house they gave me, he approached me in the market and introduced himself. Then he asked, “What was in it?”

“What?” I asked.

“The box you buried.” He paused, rubbing his chin. “I don't know what I saw. It was green, glowing. I still wonder about it.”

“If I tell you what it was, will you then go and dig it up?”

“No,” he laughed. “Whatever it was, it's clear it belongs there.”

“It does,” I said. I paused, looking him in the eye for a moment. I was wearing my black burka, so only my face was exposed. My wings were aching from being tucked close to my body for too long. I needed to get home soon. “And that's all that really matters.”

His smile broadened and he nodded. “Ok,” he said. “Well, welcome.”

“Thank you, Kofi.”

I went to him first. I was bored, and I'd decided that I liked the sound of his voice. He was seeing to patients when I walked in. There were over twenty people waiting for him, and he was sweaty and looked exhausted. However, when he saw me, he smiled a big smile. That was when I fell for him. When I saw him smile, despite all of the stress and work he had to do. He smiled at me without really even seeing
me
.

“Even a doctor needs to eat,” he said. “Wait for me.”

I laughed and said that I would. I quickly went to the market, found the woman who sold cooked food and bought us some jollof rice, two oranges, and two malt drinks. I returned, sat down and waited for two hours as he saw to each patient's health. Each time he touched a patient, he asked for permission first.

When an old man with a heart condition insisted that he would keep making his wife cook him soup with palm oil, Kofi asked him about his grandson. The man's face lit up and then the man quickly understood Kofi's point: If he didn't stop eating foods high in saturated fat, he wouldn't have much more time with his grandson.

I watched Kofi sing to a boy as he gave the boy twelve stitches on his leg, and I watched Kofi diagnose a woman with New Malaria in less than a minute. He was kind, gentle yet firm—all that the Big Eye doctors were not. When the last patient for the morning finally left, he looked up at me and said, “Just you sitting there made it all easier.”

From that day on, we ate lunch together nearly every day. We began to meet in the evenings to go on walks and stargaze together. Kofi never asked me about my “hump.” And when I kissed him, he kept his hands down. He kissed me with his lips and only his lips. Saeed and I had kissed several times, but those kisses were always rushed. The Big Eye were always watching; they never let us get truly close. With Kofi, I was free and there was more. I wanted more.

I passed the bicycle shop where two young men sat beside the bikes. They both carried guns, though they kept them out of sight. Kofi, who knew them well, told me so. One was so dark-skinned, you could only see his bright eyes in the warming darkness. I raised a hand and waved and he tiredly waved back. His partner was asleep. The roads were lumpy from water damage, but nothing nearly as bad as the streets back in the United States.

I passed the mosque, a great sandstone edifice that looked more like a sand castle than a place of worship. The two-story building was over two hundred years old. However, since there were so few Muslims in Wulugu, the morning prayers brought more ghosts than people at daybreak. The imam who lived in there was said to be a descendant of the sheik who built it. He once told me that this sheik was sure that this village was built on sacred land and that was why he built the strange mosque here, despite the lack of a Muslim community.

I think the imam's ancestor somehow knew what was buried at the base of that tree. Or maybe the tree wasn't there when the alien seed fell into the ground. Regardless, I think he knew something. And I think he was honored by, rather than afraid of, that knowledge.

I passed the spot where the men sold calling and e-port cards, portables and the ugly bulky old cell phones they called “battle commanders.” I passed quiet homes, and then a small stretch of farmland. In the distance you could see the greyish green cell phone/portable tower, which had several vulture nests near its top. The villagers were both thankful and annoyed by this tower. They loved their portables and cell phones but felt the tower was an eye-sore and probably zapping them with all sorts of “nonsense.” They also weren't surprised that it was occupied by vultures.

Finally I could see the hospital down the street. Just past the one and only hotel. I took a deep breath. What if he screamed and ran away when I showed him my wings? What if he was disgusted? I hoped he would not drop to his knees and make the sign of the cross, like the men in the alley back in the United States. I was no angel. I pushed these thoughts away and kept walking. A bird hooted from nearby. The air was warming faster now. I loved the weather here. The breeze was always heavy, humid, and smelled like a million green leaves. The dirt was red and rich. Trees grew well here, when the floods weren't washing them away.

I froze. Everything stopped—my fearful excitement, my enjoyment of the morning, my legs. I stood there, in the middle of the empty water-damaged road. I felt like vomiting. My wings twitched beneath my burka. Sitting in the parking lot of the hotel were three trucks. Black and shiny, except for the spattering of red dirt and mud on their tires. Large fresh-looking Toyotas, one equipped with an antenna that reached high up. All carried the same large white emblem on their sides: A hand grasping spears of lightning.

I remembered. Oh I remembered all of it clearly. Not even death could take the edge off of it. In my two years of life, before my escape, they had done things to me that I now understood were evil. Before I started to heat myself, they would place me in a heated room and watch me sweat and wheeze for hours. In my second year of life, they started burning me. With hot needles, then larger broader instruments. On my face, belly, legs, arms, they burned every part of me. I knew the smell, sound and sight of my cooking flesh.

However, I kept healing. Eventually. Fast and scar-free. Never pain-free. Despite all the books I had consumed, at the time, I thought what they did to me was normal. There was no story that featured anyone like me. And I'd never been outside. I had no way of knowing any better, until I met Saeed. Or maybe my mind opened up when I began to love him.

I still wondered what they'd done to Saeed. I know they did worse things to him. Mmuo had told me a little. Electric shock, poisoning, disemboweling then reconstructing. And they would not have used numbing medicine or anesthesia on him. That would interfere with the “test results.” I'd asked Saeed a few times but he refused to tell me details. “You don't deserve that,” he said. “You are so young.” He was right on both counts. But I still wanted to know back then. To know someone's pain is to share in it. And to share in it is to relieve some of it. But all he said was, “I survive. I always survive it.” Yes, he had survived, up until he decided not to.