The Book of Phoenix

The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor Page B

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Authors: Nnedi Okorafor
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realized an unconscious part of me loathed its existence. It had been unattainable. It was not part of my world. Over eight days ago, this never would have been so clear to me, but now I was outside. Now it was. As the building collapsed, I felt joy. Most likely, there was not a soul inside it. The building would have been evacuated days ago. They had to have known it was unstable. But I loved the fact that it was I who gave it the push that finally brought it down.
    Good.
    The box, I held. There was no lock or latch. The wood was not heavy but it was solid. And a rich brown like the tree’s trunk. Its edges were worn smooth.
Do I open it?
There was definitely something heavy inside. When I moved it this way and that, whatever was in it slid heavily this way and that. It was one thing.
    I had been created in Tower 7 two years ago from the DNA of an African woman possibly born in Phoenix, Arizona. Or maybe what I was was the origin of my name. Standing out there watching the building fall, I took the idea further
. Maybe my DNA was brought directly from Africa and had nothing to do with Arizona.
I frowned as what I had been seeing all my life clicked into clearer focus. So many of those created, manipulated, enhanced, deformed, crippled people with me in Tower 7 were from parts of Africa. I’d known this by looking at people but now I wondered,
Why?
    I sighed, looking at my feet. “Fully unraveling my origins is a lost cause,” I muttered.
    But one thing I had learned was that, despite my origins and the sinister reasons for creating me, my light brought life. Though I burned, I was a positive force. It had been my light that had brought this jungle that grew in the debris. It was my light that had given The Backbone the strength to shake Tower 7 from its great body.
    And now The Backbone was offering me a strange gift. I opened the box.
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    My hands went numb. My eyes watered. The scent of leaves packed my nose. The taste of mud flooded my mouth and my entire body began to glow. The grass pushed up beneath my feet, and tiny flowers blossomed from the blade tips. The Backbone softly twisted, shedding bits of bark as it stretched further toward the stars. I heard it snapping and creaking, but I was looking at the object in the box.
    â€œIt’s a nut,” I whispered.
    Round and about the shape and size of a garden egg, it looked made of a tougher heavier wood than that of the box and the tree. Etched deep into it were mazes of lines that made circles, squiggles and geometric shapes. The black lines ran and repeated close to each other but they never touched. The designs moved in a slow dance, undulated like bizarre insects.
    Heat. It coursed through me like water, rushing up from my feet, up my entire body to my head. The heat again. Seven days ago, I had heated until I burned to ash. Now here I was again. However, my clothes still did not burn. I shined brighter through my brown skin and reached into the box and picked up the strange nut.
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    Blackness.
    Pure. Quiet. Then pricks of tiny white, blue, and yellow lights. I was seeing stars for the first time. Billions and billions of stars. As I flew through space smooth and gentle. In a vastness that made me want to weep. But I had no eyes with which to shed tears. No body with which to shudder. No nose with which to leak.
    I was traveling. I would know where to land when I saw it. My direction was clear. The pull was strong. The small blue planet. Earth. I was hope sent from afar. A beacon. Deep in the red soil. Until the right time.
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    â€œThey dug you up?” I said aloud, as I stared down at the nut. “They dug you up with the red soil and brought you here.”
That is why The Backbone knows itself,
I thought.
Alien seed
.
Alien seed in the soil of Tower 7 where scientists, lab assistants, lab technicians, doctors, administrative workers, guards

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