Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Emezi Akwaeke

Author:Emezi, Akwaeke [Emezi, Akwaeke]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography, Adult
ISBN: 9780593329191
Amazon: 0593329198
Goodreads: 55877915
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Published: 2021-06-08T07:00:00+00:00

Dreams | Dear Katherine

The bar is outdoors, by the sea. It’s dusk, and the beach is nothing more than the dark and hungry mouth of an ocean, in that way where all the sand is black, and the water is ink except for the bone-white break of surf. The waves sound like death. The people in the bar are terrified and silent. The man I’m waiting for is on the beach, pacing like a boast through the sand. I climb on one of the wooden tables while the owner of the bar looks over at me, his face creased in worry.

“I’m going to kill him,” I tell the owner. “If you want him alive, I suggest you get to him first.”

He nods, concern spreading thickly around him. The man on the beach thinks of himself as bloodthirsty, thinks of the fight to come as one that belongs to him already. I look like a small woman. He is certain I can’t hurt him. The owner, however, knows I’m a god—there’s no bloodlust that can match mine. I’m considerate for allowing him the option of preventing a murder in his place of business, but the sentence still tastes true in my mouth.

I’m going to kill him.

I pace along the wooden tables and whistle, the tune echoing through the stretch of hungry air before me. I am swinging a weapon in my hand. It’s an unidentifiable blur, but its weight is familiar and comfortable. The man on the beach waits for me to come to him. I want him to come to me instead, to walk his body into my waiting hands. I’m a little nervous, the way you get before something magnificent happens, adrenaline coursing through my flesh like arousal. I start singing: a ghost of a song, a dirge. Everyone in the bar is frozen, barely breathing from their fear. I’m used to that. It’s how they should be, around me.

He’s taking too long.

I taunt him aloud, calling him a coward who’s afraid to face a woman. I’m not a woman, but that’s not the point. It works—such strategy always works with men like these. He comes up the sand like a bull, snorting and enraged. The owner of the bar jumps into motion as well. I—the god—do not move. I only crouch slightly, grinning, heat in my hands, waiting for his flesh to arrive so that I can destroy it.

This is where the dream stops.

I startle awake with bloodthirst fresh under my tongue, my arms humming with excitement, rich with no fear, knowing I can’t be killed. Power echoes through me like a song, but it begins to fade away even as the morning fades in. Reality feels like a sour disappointment, but I remember, Katherine. I remember how it felt, and I know it was true. Maybe not in this life or this dimension, but it was true, and I miss it so much.

Even in this reality, some of me believes I am invincible. I think of it

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