Southern Gradient

Nasıım walks through the nave of the shadowy church, his boots clapping against the laced rug that covers the aisle. A chandelier hangs high but only somewhat illuminates the arcade of cobblestone columns and the men and women in tatters who sit beneath it. They all gaze at Nasıım Mbensa, the pensive man in the green beret as they know him. He does not look back into their eyes until he reaches the altar, backgrounded by a colorful apse of Messianist paintings from long ago.

There, he surveys his audience: a congregation of fetid, bruised refugees—the kind he used to be a few decades ago. The glow of the chandelier highlights his medium complexion—his high cheekbones—his baggy eyes from the nights he toiled, both in his homeland and here in Naizerre. Pastor Mätâdi stands to his left, dressed in his usual black robe that manifests his corpulent figure. To his right is former Colonel Abie, still wearing the colors of the Naizerri uniform as well as stern glower that was typical of him.

Mbensa raises both of his hands towards the crowd. “Nzoni gango,” he says, the crowd greeting back with “balao.” “Seeing that about everyone is here,” he starts, “Mätâdi will begin prayer.” He steps aside and lets Mätâdi claim the floor. Everyone bows their heads and recites the Lord’s Prayer from the Holy Book, except Mbensa and Abie. Messianism reminds them too much of the struggle that they’ve escaped from long ago…a struggle that the first world does not know and is not meant to. A Kanadian wouldn’t know ndâmasüa about sweatshops.

The prayer finishes and Mbensa returns to his place in front of the silver altar decorated with flowers and candles. “I, as a traditional animist, don’t believe in the same God you do, but whatever powers that be…they be on our side. Last night was a miracle mission, treacherous but nonetheless another blessing unto Ubgandia.”

“We smuggled fifty-eight slaves into Naizerre, one of our most successful exoduses,” says Abie in his rich deep voice. “Thank you, Mister Temitope,” the bald man was smiling from within the crowd, “for allowing us to use your trucks for this undertaking, and thank all of you for taking us one step further towards a repressionless Ubgandia.” The crowd snaps quietly in substitution of applause.

“Aye, Colonel Abie. The path ahead is turbulent, especially as the Hems grow wise to our tactics. We lost several volunteers that night. It seemed soldiers were camped in the mountains where we were. Families of the casualties will be compensated; your blood did great work.”

“We need better camouflage,” a woman speaks up from the crowd. “I saw a couple of caves to hide in during our last run.”

“That could work…if META doesn’t give them drones.” The outlanders erupts into babel. They have all heard the news about the Somaad application to the association. Mbensa commands the volume to lower with his hands. “I am as outraged as all of you. Free trade of products reaped from bleeding is a step in the wrong direction. That is why we must all do our part in telling Mboto Jones not to say ‘aye.’ I do not know how many of you can pay bus fare, but next Sunday you will find me in the square of Togbata making myself heard in front of the masses.” He garners a round of snaps.

“I’m going there too!” a man says.

“Me three,” says a woman. In moments about a dozen people stand up and volunteer.

“I’m glad to see that our morale is as much as our thirst for justice. While the rest of the world does not take action, ladies and gentlemen, we do. It doesn’t matter how many bullets the Hems send, how many drones they send,” everyone starts snapping, “or how many dogs they send. We will not rest until the Somi Union ceases their wicked ways and until every slave in a factory or on a plantation is free and equal.”

Nasiim carries a lantern as he creeps through the dimness of the jungle; the verdant canopy above him filters only some of the storm’s deluge. Nasiim looks back at his comrades: Colonel Abie and a troop of volunteers. Some were carrying machetes and handguns. All move as a unit, their moves calculated and their mission clear. However, their mission is different this time, as the grenades around Nasiim’s belt and the bazooka on Abie’s back show.

They soon approach their destination, amidst a clearing down the knoll. Smokestacks of the factories breathed smog; the windows of the mills glow with warm amber and reveals the silhouettes of menials. Tonight would be their exodus. With a whistle, Nasiim summons the colonel to the front of the party; he aims his bazooka at the corrugated roof.

A grenade rockets into the roof of a mill, letting out a boom that rivals the thunder of the rain in amplitude. Alas, Abie falls forward, his back riddled with bullets. A spray of gunfire erupts from the trees, the growls of amphicyons accompanying the ruckus. Nasiim shoots blindly at the canopy, but he takes a wound to the shoulder and retreats further into the jungle.

The corpse of Abie fades into the darkness and rain, and so does the fiery mess of the factory, but the threat of execution still hangs high like the vines. Nasiim and his comrades are scattered, leaving him as game for the predators’ appetite. He hides behind a rubber tree on the incline of a hill. He pants as he hears the crackle of weapons near. Soldiers shout orders in Sgu Hema, a language he's long forgotten. In this rain, he can't distinguish blood from water—or rain from bullets.

The sound of breaking leaves head towards him and he scurries up the hill, but bullets break his knees. He tumbles backwards into cecropias and kapoyr trees. He lays on the floor of dirt, his panic to flee overpowering the pain of knees; but before he can even begin to crawl, he meets the muzzle of an IA2 with his forehead. He clings onto the leg of man, fumbling for a knife.

But the man pulls the trigger.

Nasiim jolts from his bed to the sound of an alarm. Six o’clock. The rising sun brightens dimly the tattered apartment bedroom. He scratched his bald scalp as he switched on the luminaire next to him. He strolls over to the window (wearing nothing but boxer briefs) and pushes the curtains aside, seeing the sun rise from the silhouettes of tall dipterocarps and even taller concrete masses.

As he eats burnt toast with apum jam in the kitchen, the landline rings from the counter. Pastor Mätâdi, probably.

“Yeah Jerome?” he says when he answers.

“Mo lango nzoni?”

“Eh, my sleep could be better I suppose. Why?”

“We’re waiting.”

“You’re already there?” Nasiim’s eyes widen as he paces to the other side of the beige kitchen. “I thought we agreed on eight.”

“People can’t wait,” Jerome chuckles.

“Tell them I’ll be there as soon as possible,” he says, trotting back into the bedroom with the phone.

“You want me to tell Abie to carpool?”

“Sure, sure. I’ll call you back when I’m on my way.” After hanging up, he grabs a white t-shirt and jeans and heads to the shower.

The green jalopy slows as it approaches a concourse of picket signs. Vehicles honk on the avenue by the parliament, clamouring picketers blocking both sides and waving fiery signs and effigies. Mbensa exits the car, his eyes widened. This many people could never fit in a small ass church.

They wade through the picketers and make it to the marble steps of the parliament. Mbensa looks over his audience cheering his name. He squints his eyes as he meets the noon sun; it makes his forehead drip with sweat. Abie stands by his side with a wife beater and a stone glare forward, not towards a particular object of his sight.

Mbensa smiles upon the picketers’ commotion, the seeds of his rebellion, and salutes. His supporters reciprocates this respect, saluting him back. “Today," he barks through the megaphone slung around his neck, "we don't disappear into the jungle! Today, we set aside all fear and apprehension! All hope and procrastination! Today, under the same, blazing sun, we unite against our enemies, and see that they perish in their own darkness! The Somaad will perish in its own darkness—its own murky jungles of deceit!

“Today!,” he raises a sealed envelope in the air; the crowd erupts with ovation. “Today! We make our voices heard! With one resounding shout! One to shake the mountains! One to flood the plains! One to burn the jungles! Men and women of all races, will you join me?!”

Volumes of supporters swarm the marble steps, shoving to put their letters in the large mailbox on the sidewalk. “Justice for the Tambo,” they chant. “Death to the Somaad,” they chant. Every time a beige, stained envelope makes it in, the audience roars in zeal.

“Now! Follow me!” Mbensa marches down the avenue, and his followers march with him. Officers—wielding litupas—were quick to place metal barriers around the demonstrators’ path. Mbensa ignores them, for revolution has no barriers. “Attention protesters,” an officer shouts in his megaphone from a police cruiser. “This congregation is unlawful and disturbs the peace of the city. We command all demonstrators to disperse immediately.”

“There is no peace. There was never peace!” Mbensa shouts, raising the volume of his megaphone a notch higher than the officer’s. “There was never peace since the Hems took my family’s land! There was never peace since my brethren were sent to toil in distant, urban mills! There was never peace since the impoverished half of the Somi population was struck down by the Hems’ power theatre that is their courts!

“You want peace?! You must struggle! Without struggle—without sacrifice—without torment—without pain—there will be no peace!”

Armored policemen with hide shields and litupas approach the river of demonstrators. The civilians throw cans, balë–balë bottles, and pebbles. Mbensa stands there at the front of it all, looking the echelon in their eyes. He spits on one’s visor. The policeman bucks Mbensa back with his shield, and the mob goes ham.

The sheriff repeats his warning: “Attention protesters, this congregation is unlawful and disturbs the peace of the city. We command all demonstrators to disperse immediately.”

“Never!” Mbensa shouts.

The echelon of officers goes forward, bucking the rioters back with their shields. Some attempt to beat against the shield but to no avail—and to the surprise of pepper spray. The riot is eventually forced back to where they started: by the steps of the capital. Nevertheless, Mbensa still stands brazen in the front—until they detain him. He strains the cuffs to no avail as the policemen throw him in the cab and drive the opposite way of the crowd. The Tambo advocacy, whose hearts beat as one, still chant his name as he disappears through the fog of tear gas.

Nasıım Mbensa gives a wry smile.

Argent Mbo doesn't return one.

The interior minister stares at the rebel through the rusted bars of the cells, reserving his words for when the guard comes back. He compares his pristine Oxford and tie to Mbensa's freckled tee—his snakeskin penny loafers to Mbensa's leather sandals, with which he sits on the clay floor, his back laid on the cinder wall behind him. One leg of his is arched upright, the other is arched but sideways, laying on the floor.

Mbensa is of a lighter tone, akin to the bronze, brazen Hemi Argias that seem to make a hobby of stomping around the basin. Ironic, really.

The only similarity between them, Mbo concludes, is their baldness.

The jailor comes with the key. "Do you want to use the ngbanga room?" he asks.

"No."

"We could at least give you a guard's protection while you–"

"No."

"Very well." The jailor fiddles with the lock with his key. "Ring the bell if you need something." He points to the bell high on the wall, along with the string attached.

When Mbo steps in, the jailor closes the door, locking it.

"Wow. You're a brave man. Where's your badge?" Mbensa says, still smirking.

Mbo adjusts his circular lenses and squats in front of him, his soles flat on the ground. He doesn't want to crease the penny loafers.

"You know why I'm here, kepaka Mbensa."

"To ride my dick? You know I'm not no bati boy."

Mbo pinches the bridge of his nose. "I assumed you'd come to your senses after twenty or so arrests. I was wrong."

"Says the man with too much bravado for a bätängö–yê."

"What? You think I'm afraid of your rabble rousing? The little cult you built up in the church far west?"

"How do you—"

"No. I don't even care what môbängö you're making up. Just know that your actions have—consequences. I hope your master will take you back."

"If you send me away, I'll come back. Maybe with a tattoo, maybe with blood painted on my face, maybe with a few missing teeth…"

"A shame what you've become, kepaka Mbensa." Mbo stands up, dusting himself off. "Saved from the slave mill, a stellar professor from the west, and yet you whine and bitch about what Tsango not do." He slowly paces back and forth from wall to wall. "Is an open border not enough for you? Must we pillage Hemt as a pagan sacrifice?"

Mbensa rises from the floor and approaches Mbo. One is slightly taller than the other. "If you're a little nyi, and your babâ keeps doing lïndängö to your bati, and your neighbor say 'you can run away to us if you don't like it,' but you can't 'cause babâ keep you in a ngbö, where the only kâsa is his këngë, what do you do?" Mbo stands there, stunned. He doesn't even comment that Mbensa was spitting in his face when he spoke. "You think that an open border is enough? You think all the little Ubgandian boys in the sweatshop can fly over the South River with a unicorn? What a sümä that is! He's just as bad as Okeke."

"Bêkü, kepaka." Mbo finally says. "You think this be done in one day? Bigger fish to fry. Your pout parade will not make things quicker.",

"How do you know?"

"Tsango has not uttered a single word about you." Mbensa avert his gaze. "No one knows your name, besides the moniker 'crazy bald guy yelling at the capitol."

"Every Tambo knows my name. Every slave knows my name. Is all that matters to me. I don't need no press sniffing my purü."

"I'm sure the Tambo will get to know you more—back in the Somaad." Mbo rings the bell for the jailor.

"I'd rather Tsango got to know me more."

"I do find it interesting, though," Mbo says as the jailor opens the door. "You look more like a Hem than a Tambo. What's up with that?"

"Piss off."