Take care of my children. His voice never left me. There were nights that I dreamed in such vivid detail that when I woke, I was confused, forgetting, for a fraction of a second, that I was in my bed. For the minutes that followed, the grief washed over me for the loss of a friend who had had my back, the uselessness of my life fighting for the imperialism of a country that didn’t care for me. Part of me wondered if the dreams would change, if one day they would be the same monochrome shadows of before Somalia.

War cries rage amid Allahu Akbars, machine-gun fire roars like a raging river, bombs engorge smoke rings as they shoot into the sky, turning to dark smoke in one moment and belching flame and crackling with lightning the next. As I look around, all I see are stray limbs and dead creatures—once fine young men, no longer recognisable—others splayed like rag dolls on the morning dew.

In my isolation, I love you the most. Not when I am with you. I don’t touch you when we sleep, even when awake, and no cuddling. Only when we make love. At that time, I feel like I don’t need anything else. I love you, I whisper. In the cold silence afterwards, I wish you say it back.

Against my better judgement and Mother’s advice, I followed the love of my life to the barracks. Soldiers are never there for their families,she told me. You were never there for me,I retorted, and you’re not a soldier.

Every time he leaves for another mission in Somalia, I pray: God, let him come back alive.

“We must battle to save the Multiverse from aggressive take-over and annihilation by humans. Everything humans do is detrimental to their Universe and ultimately the Multiverse. Intelligence from the Inter-Galactic Intelligence Agency (IGIA) indicate that prototypes are at advanced stages.”
“Their aircrafts can now move between planets, their spaceplanes between galaxies,” the Inter-Galactic Clandestine Operations Commander said. “We need to send in saboteurs to make sure they crash after take-off.”

I woke up with a start. The smell of burning flesh congested the air. I did not know it was my skin singeing until I screamed in pain.
I’m dying. Oh God, please no. I can’t breathe.
My body gave to unknown force, and fell into a dark abysmal hole, head first.

“The most abused drug is heroin, commonly known as Brown Sugar. Cocaine’s there too, liquefied, commonly known as the White Wine, or just whites. Heroin, the most abused drug comes from Afghanistan. Of late Kenya is not only a consumer but also a processing hub, and the largest in East Africa for that matter.

Maisha Raha aims to create sex robots as much of a physical likeness to actual women but with more intelligence (albeit artificial) as technologically possible. My bots feel human to the touch; they mimic the movement of a real body, get real wet, and can talk to you more nicely than women nowadays. The good thing is that they cannot break up with you or walk out; no independence or anything that may disrupt the fantasy of total servitude. 

I see them go down. They couldn’t all be dead, but I want to make sure they stay down, forever. I aim and traverse the gun in the room, on the two lumps I assume to be them on the bed. And I don’t stop. Even if I don’t get them, ricochets will. I can see the door out of the bedroom; it is still closed, now riddled with bullet holes; if any of them survives, I won’t let them get to the door.

When I stand to go, the first step is the hardest, but I take it. All I am thinking is I want to get myself out of the curse of being her ‘only child’. My spirit is bubbling from deep inside. It is that liberating. I will go and forget I had an elderly mother. I won’t look back, I decide. Even when, and if, she realizes that daughters too are children who can take care of their parents, I won’t come back, I tell myself. I am getting away from the curse, taking back my life. 

“By the year 2080, our women were not marriageable,” I say, take a sip of the water placed for me on the podium, and continue. “There was a wave of misandry all over the world propagated by feminists, women leaders who instigated a revolution against the man, and government systems that sided with the woman no matter what. Women were the mouths that restored order and justice of the land, prosecutors, and executioners. In their court, men stood accused, guilty, never proven innocent. When one woman managed to create a synthetic sperm in a Petri dish, men were no longer needed. Lysistrata Uprising, they called it.”