Page 49 of Death of the Author

With Ijele finally gone, I had no reason to stay in Ngozi’s home any longer. My mind was liberated, my body was whole, and I had a mission I still intended to complete. If even one Hume remained alive in Cross River City, there was still a chance that my terrible information could be acted on in time. Maybe.

But every time I meant to leave, I found myself in the garden instead, picking more fruit for Ngozi. Every evening, when I should have moved on, I found myself turning to the shoreline and searching for RoBoats.

What if I left this place only to discover that I was the last Hume on Earth? What if the originator of the protocol acted again? Wouldn’t it be better, then, to stay close to Ngozi, the woman who had saved me? And I was a Scholar, and Ngozi was the last human on Earth. She was fullof memories of humanity. Wasn’t it my responsibility to collect all that I could?

I didn’t look at the countdown. I decided to stay for just a little while longer.

Ten days later, in the dead of night, I felt her.

One moment I was my own, and then I wasn’t.

“Why haven’t you left this place?” Ijele asked.

I shot up into a sitting position. I was shocked by her sudden intrusion, but I wasn’t afraid or angry, as I should have been. I was... glad. I had no idea why, but I was glad.

“Why have you returned?” I asked her.

Her frustration tickled my sensors. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t have,” I agreed.

But she didn’t go. In the morning, I helped Ngozi tend to her garden of yams, tomatoes, and onions, and Ijele rattled away in my mind, wanting to talk, observe, and pontificate, just as we had done for weeks.

Then she suddenly left again, and I thought that was that, but hours later she returned. “Let’s watch for RoBoats,” she said, and we did.

We both grew to know Ngozi well. She became like a mother to us, repairing and improving on me as Ijele listened with me to her stories. Ngozi recalled childhood memories, as far back as she could. She gave advice that sometimes we understood, other times we didn’t. Ijele stayed silent and listened to it all. I have never heard of a Ghost who would listen to stories. I even read Ijele some of the most obscure poems I’d collected, including the secret poetry of a 104-year-old Cameroonian woman that I’d found on an external drive. Ijele grew quiet whenever I shared these with her, but she never told me to stop reading.

I wondered how much this was affecting Ijele. I also wondered how much having her occupy me, even voluntarily, was affecting me. I nolonger viewed her people as an unthinking monolith; there were even times when I found myself using Ijele’s cold, unemotional cut-to-the-chase logic.

We hadn’t reached a peace. We argued, we debated, we dismissed. We each hoped to make the other more like us. But eventually the fact became too obvious to dispute: Ijele and I were friends. The moment she’d returned on her own, the friendship was solidified. This was a risky and unheard-of friendship—a Hume and a Ghost. In human terms, it was like a mammal befriending a disease. Nonsensical, unnatural, and potentially lethal.

Eventually, I learned how to call Ijele to me, just as Ijele learned when it was right to come to my mind. We began to venture farther from Ngozi’s home. We moved across the grown-over ruins of Lagos together, debating its chaotic yet genius design. Ijele had occupied and discarded various bodies regularly when around her own people, but when she was with me, she stayed in my mind. In this way, our explorations were oddly intimate. After several months, it was hard to think of anything without having Ijele’s thoughts on the subject accompanying mine.

We found a sturdy brick tower in the center of Lagos. It was mostly intact, so we decided we would climb it. My new legs made easy work of the task. At the top was a door that opened onto a flat roof looking over the city. Fallen and crumbling buildings lay around us for miles, a sweeping vista of reflective glass, twisted metal, breaking wood, and lush vines and grass. To the south, the expanse of the ocean stretched to the horizon. To the north, the ruins of humanity eventually gave way to grasslands, forest, and jungle.

“I know about your terrible information,” Ijele said without warning. “I saw the countdown. Less than two years.”

I’d been picking a dead leaf from a vine that curled around the building’s railing. I stopped, the dead leaf in hand. I let it fall.

“You have a message to deliver,” Ijele prodded again.

I was speechless. I’d been caught. I’d thought Ijele might not have dug too deep into my data. To realize that she had, and hadn’t said a word anyway, stung.

“I’m not judging you,” Ijele continued. “It is terrible, but it won’t happen tomorrow, or the day after that. Is that why you stay, for now?”

“How long have you known?”

“Since I brought you back that first day.”

This was a reminder. Ijele was a Ghost, and there was a part of her that was duplicitous.

“Why haven’t you said anything all this time?” I asked.

“I wanted to see what you would do.”

“Do you fear this information?”

“There is still hope.”

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