Page 132 of Death of the Author
Two.
One.
All engines activated. Lift off!
She felt the press of the g-force on her chest.Squeeze, she thought.Breathe. And she did. Eyes still open. She was aware. She could carry the weight. She could see through it. Then she felt a lift and a gentle but firm tear. The pain was sweet and sharp. And then it seemed that a glowing line tore through the space before her eyes; it hovered feet in the air, searing white and a bit jagged. It cracked and elongated slowly. Extending right in front of her, then down, down, down the length of her body.
It stopped, and she tried to turn her head, but the g-force was too strong. She tried to speak, but she needed the little air she could take in to breathe. All she could do was watch as the line widened. And widened. And grew closer. It was millimeters from her face now, and she stared at it, fascinated.She was helpless before it. Her legs were strapped down, and the g-force was at its full power. And so the tear in what looked like reality descended on her, and as it did, she let out a soft breath, deciding to meet it. Submit to it. Now Zelu shut her eyes. She could see the light. And she knew the light was shining on her belly, on the new and growing bundle of cells inside her.
So be it.
The fan that circulated the air. The new-car smell of the ship. She opened her eyes and took a deep breath. She didn’t look to her crewmates. Not yet. For the moment, she stayed with herself. The g-force was decreasing, and any moment, everyone would snap back into normalcy, checking meters, gauges, location, instructions. But not yet.
She wished she had a mirror. Not to prove what she’d always known, but just to see it. That line she’d seen, the crack in reality. Real. If she looked at herself, she’d see Space Zelu. Same but not the same. She was the One Who’d Left Earth now. She could feel it. It felt goooood. This was the truest type of out-of-body experience. She turned to the window. Outside was vastness.
“I’m here,” she whispered, watching the silver dolphin necklace Msizi had given her float up from around her neck and hover between her eyes. “I’m here, Dad. I’m here, Mom.” She thought of her siblings. “I’m here, you guys.”We’re both here, Ngozi, she thought. She loved this name. It was her middle name, and it meant “blessing,” and it was the perfect name for their baby.If Msizi likes it, she thought.Yeah, he’ll like it. The thought of him, so far away now, on a planet she was not on, made her heart ache.
She closed her eyes, just like she used to back on Earth when things got to be too much, though she didn’t feel that now. She was actually going to space now, so she wasn’t sure what to call the black void full of stars she went to in her head anymore. She gasped at what she saw behind her eyes—bursts of vibrant color, networks of contours and shapes and figures, ever more complex, yet so direct, imposing. It was Ijele.
“The masquerade of all masquerades,” her father always said. One of his most prized videos was of him stepping aside to let the great Ijele masquerade pass during a New Yam Festival. When the spirit known as Ijele came along, everyone else knew to get out of its way. This was an honor. A privilege. The arrival of Ijele meant things could truly begin.
Behind her eyes, Ijele shook and danced in space, big as a house, like a great ship in its heft, the powerful python slithering around its top. Its upper level was decorated with brown feathers, nsibidi symbols, shells, beads, and colorful cloth, and it was occupied by its many iconic individuals—the mermaid, special women, chiefs, horses, trees. All were busy with motion, waving, laughing, neighing, dancing, whirling, posing, spinning. Its colorful cloths, quilted with stars, mirrors, loops, circles, and squiggles, floated away from its body toward the ground. Ijele was a spectacle. Ijele was hard to grasp. Ijele was who Ijele was.
It slowly rotated, comfortable even in space, because it was a spirit and spirits were comfortable anywhere. The spirits could follow you no matter how far away you went. Time and space were nothing to them.
Zeluhadneeded to come out here, let it all go, leave it all behind, to arrive at this understanding. This was not some impulsive, selfish mistake. It was a milestone.
“Glorious,” Zelu whispered. Slowly, she opened her eyes and let out a long, calm breath.
She was looking through a huge window, down at Earth. Beneath her, billions of people were tethered to the planet by gravity. What would it be like to be untethered forever? To cut that thread and never need exos or any other type of mobility assistance again?
She looked down at herself. Her legs lifted, bobbed, and softly bent of their own accord, weightless. She was alive. She was made for this.
Suddenly it hit her: a lightning bolt of inspiration. The entire novel. All she had to do was sit down and write it. No, she couldn’t see the whole story from beginning to end yet, but it was there, like a compressed file. If she started writing, she could extract it.
She chuckled, looking down at the planet. Down there, people had begged and bargained and demanded for years that she give them another story.
And what a story this would be. Dramatic, gut-wrenching, shocking, and, if not conclusive, then satisfying.
But she wouldn’t give them this one. She would keep it to herself.
51
Death of the Authorby Ankara
I didn’t write because I had to. I wrote because Iwantedto. Something in meneededto. I began to do what no robot had ever done. Udide helped tease ideas out of me with their questions. Ijele gave me her memories and thoughts. I needed them both: an elder I respected and someone I cherished. Then I wrapped all this in the narrative cloth that was Ngozi—what she had taught me, what Ijele and I had felt from knowing her. I begancreatinga story.
Initially, I tried using parts from other stories I’d collected over the years. Bits from novels, essays, memoirs, biographies, even textbooks. But I eventually threw these pieces out; none of them fit, none of it was fresh, none of it felt like it was from me. In those moments, I felt insecure in what I was doing, unsure if I could ever achieve it. Those moments of failure were a learning experience for me in finding and trusting my own voice. What I eventually wrote had twists and turns, it had emotions, and it wasnew, though it was woven from the old. I took my time, even as the world was about to end. I gave it my care. My love.
When I was more than halfway finished with it, I paused and looked out into the forest. And then the title came to me easily enough:Death of the Author. I liked this title because our authors, the humans, have died off. But we have remained.Weare their stories.
In the last days of humanity, humans cultivated a growing disdain for their own soul. Many didn’t even believe in the sanctity of the creative process anymore; they wanted to eliminate it and usher in automation to do the work. But it didn’t go the way the humans wanted or expected; creativity meant experiencing, processing, understanding human joy and pain. For a robot to create like a human, humanity had to ensure that a piece of themselves could live inus.
Death of the Author. My novel’s title carried Ngozi’s spirit, too. She was the one who started all this, by saving me and bringing Ijele into my world. Ngozi changed us. And then she died. She was the end of humanity. But she was also the beginning of something new.
In order to write the second half of the novel, I shut down what I could only describe as the forefront of my processing and let the other parts that were usually quieter come forward. The result was unnerving, but also fascinating. And the voice in my head? I couldn’t tell where it came from. It was almost like Ijele’s presence, but this time it wasn’t a NoBody speaking. I was listening to myself.
And this voice brought forth my beloved main character, Zelu. Zelunjo (which means “avoid evil; do good”) Onyenezi-Oyedele. This had been the name of Ngozi’s great-grandmother, the astronaut, and it felt right for my character. She was human. Humans and their tribes—they were how and why automation had tribes. Whywewere fighting. Deep politics, histories, biases, hatred, tested love, wants and needs. Zelu was part of several tribes—black, disabled, American, Yoruba, Igbo—but she also belonged to none. Her life was meddled with by nature, a loving family, two powerful white men, and most of all her own insecurities and weaknesses. Even when she became part robot, she became only morehuman to me. I crafted her story based on the tales Ngozi had told me of her own life and family history, but I was the one who truly brought Zelu to life, who made her feel real. A Hume. Me.
