Céline smiles, and in it, Ify sees all the camaraderie that has built up between them over their four years studying and living together. Céline had come from Francophone West Africa only a year before Ify’s arrival and had lived with an Alabast family but was the only Earthland African in their neighborhood unit. She’d only spoken in occasional snatches of story about what she’d had to endure from her white classmates, from her white neighbors, from the authorities—always white—who would hound her family and check her immigration status. It had not been easy. But it had made Céline the perfect companion for Ify. Four years had made them family, so close that they shared every defeat and, together, basked in every victory.

“J’suis fier de toi,” Ify says, without the aid of her translator. I’m proud of you.

“Ah, look at you, meeting me where I live.” Céline shows her teeth, then pulls Ify into a soft but strong embrace. When she breaks away, she says, “Promise me you will visit. You will not find better fried plantains in all of outer space.”

Without warning, tears brim in Ify’s eyes. “I promise.”

CHAPTER

2

I am telling this story to you, but I am telling it to myself too. I am telling it to myself because it is important to be remembering. That is what the robot say who pull me from underneath the mountain of bodies where it is so hard to breathe that my chest is paining me fierce. It is like knife in my chest over and over and over, and I am not knowing for how long I am lying like this. But I am remembering that the first thing I am seeing is tiny hole of light coming from sky. Everything is shadow, and this is how I know I am being covered. And I am first thinking that this is what night is. That it is just blackness with tiny hole of light. But it is bodies. Many bodies piled on top of me. And then I am remembering the bodies are falling away. It is sounding like someone is dragging their foots on the dirt road, then it is sounding like a shirt rustling in wind, like someone is wearing a shirt too big for them and running down dirt road, and when I think of this thing, I am thinking that the person wearing this shirt should be giggling. I am liking the sound in my brain.

As more and more body is coming away, I am seeing that light is bigger. Big big. So big it is paining my eyes to look at. I am wanting to raise my arms to block out the light, but I cannot move them because there are more bodies on top of them.