Northern_Lights_2021

41 “letewesene gīzē t’iru ḥilimochi bicha yinoruwoti ። ” “May you have only good dreams for a while” Those were the words Ayati said to me every time I left her on her hardwood porch on the outskirts of Sala, her blue-black hand usually waving slowly in the wind. It was her favorite send-off and had been for my mother as well. I took care of her now, both her and her small garden of oilseeds, the only food the land around her home could produce. She is lucky to even grow that. The floodwaters of the sea have crawled their way up her hill, stopping just before the last support beam of her porch. Each year they ebb closer, weakening the ground they seep into. I have seen her shooing them away in the evening when I row my small oar boat down what used to be a street. It is amazing how something below my feet can hang so heavy over her head. The waters have not yet reached my home in Serdo, but the rowboat is still the only way to travel. I tried to get Ayati to move, but she would not leave her oilseeds. I quietly rowed the boat through the otherwise empty streets. Grocery stores, offices, and homes were all knee-deep in water, and they groaned at their joints. The constant pressure of the summer floods choked up their foundations and bled into the ground underneath. We have seen this before in Eritrea, and it’s almost as if I see the exact same cracks crawling up the street corners and lofts. A sign. An omen. The floods are not the worst part. When rivers flood, the whole of Africa shifts. I have read the Bible three and a half times, and each time, I have stopped in Exodus. The plagues of blood and frogs are surely just punishment for Pharaoh’s resolve, but Egypt had the locusts coming. I remember reading that the people prayed for rain and tide, worshipping the flooding river like a god. They must not have seen the correlation, either that or the Egyptian Gods are late and the Christian God has poor aim. When the rivers flood, the locusts come. They come in hordes of millions, following the dirty water laden with trash, sand, and concrete. I have survived two locust plagues, but I still don’t know how Pharaoh did not release the Israelites after one. They arrive just in time to consume the small greens that grow from the damp floodplain soil. It might start slow. You might see one or two on your way back from the watering well, or accidentally lay your hand on their spiny legs as you open a garden gate or turn a doorknob. If it were just that, you might be able to convince yourself that it was just a few bugs, but the color gives it away. If the locusts were green or a dark brown, then you could sleep that night, but if they were yellow like the sand, then there would certainly be no good dreams for a while. Their carapace turns leprous and a cold gold, like shed snakeskin or the eyes of a sick child. If there was one yellow locust in front of you, there were thousands just miles and hours behind it. Fighting the faux current of the uneven street, I paddled close to the shattered glass of the grocery store. The store itself was poorly built, and the floor was a good foot below the street. The whole place was flooded and abandoned. No one has been there since the flooding started three days ago. I reassured myself as I tied the boat to the rattling doorknob and stepped into the water, making sure to move the empty floating milk cartons away from the bottleneck of the door. Stealing was a mortal sin, but Ayati needed food and carrying food from my home was impossible without its spoiling in the viscous water and boiling heat of the street. My boat was hardly watertight, but it did float. Rainf lies Kelson Brewer