A Candle In The Darkness

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Admittedly, Yemi, the illegitimate son of the king, had never tried it. But then again, he’d never had to.

Even just the thought of a scream in space seemed to hit too close to the lesson of that day’s philosophy class. The teacher had been droning on about proverbs, where they came from, and how the students could apply them in their lives. Yemi shifted his weight uncomfortably in his educational pod, an ergonomic chair with a built-in display screen at eye level so that professors from across the space station could transmit and conduct their lectures.

“Of the proverbs you were tasked with studying last night,” the professor began. “What’s one that could apply easily to our lives right now?”

After a long moment of silence amongst the class members, Yemi tentatively pushed a button that allowed his teacher to hear him speak. He cleared his throat. “How about… by trying often, the monkey learns to jump from the tree?”

“Kakuhle kakhulu. Very good, Yemi. A wonderful selection,” the professor said. “Now apply that to our current lives.”

Yemi hunched a little closer to the microphone and pressed the button again. “Centuries ago, humans never would have dreamed of living on space stations full-time because the technology didn’t exist. And yet,” Yemi paused. “Here we are.”

“Indeed, Yemi,” The professor responded. “Although, some would’ve said that the technology existed much longer ago, then was lost, only to be re-discovered again. Anyone else in class have an example?”

Yemi shot furtive glances around the class at the other pods. Two students were asleep. Others were busy playing games on hand-held devices. The room monitor, holding up the wall while swiping at his tablet, was failing at the one job he had. Yemi, would’ve reported him, but being a tattler wasn’t high on his to-do list.

“Great,” the professor roared. “Then, everyone save Yemi turn in a one screen essay on their favorite proverb tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your day boys and girls. Dismissed.”

Groans erupted across the classroom as eyes darted and glared at Yemi. He deflected them all. After all, he’d done the assignment.

As fellow students bristled around him, eager to exit the last instructional class of the day, Yemi’s bones vibrated and shimmied as he struggled to stand from his educational pod. Grasping the hilt of his walking stick white-knuckled, he pressed the bottom into the pristine white floor to help him stand. He moved unsurely, aiming for the leg stabilizers that would soon encapsulate his legs up past the knee and allow him to walk unhindered.

The Trunks, as he called them, waited to the side of his chair. Shiny black metal casing with red and green fabric accents beneath, the mechanical prosthetics looked like human legs encased in robotic boots that had been opened down the front and pulled apart. The heads-up display function on his goggles alerted him with micro messages as he neared the stabilizers, guiding him in as an air traffic controller would an incoming aircraft. Sensors had been placed on the rear of his knees to communicated with the Trunks. Messages scrolled across the bottom edge of his goggles in opaque red letters. “You’re getting closer to the Trunks. Move a few more inches to the right. Now ease backward into the devices.” After more minutes than Yemi had desired, he finally backed into his stabilizers.

“Close Trunks,” Yemi demanded.

At that command, the fabric and mechanical Trunks closed around his legs, righting his posture as well. Yemi huffed a frustrated sigh, while scanning the now empty classroom and pods. Only the room monitor remained. And he did so only because of whose son Yemi was.

“I must get faster at this,” he mumbled under his labored breath as he swung his walking stick over his shoulder and attached it to a holster on his back.

And just as soon the Trunks became activated, the room monitor disappeared around the corner as if by magic. Yemi reached into the pocket of his jacket and retrieved the pain killers he’d been prescribed by his father’s shaman. They’d been seemingly a birthright, given his condition, and had gotten progressively stronger as he gained age. He tried not to take them whenever possible, tried to endure the torment in his limbs, but Yemi knew that later he’d end up at physical training and he’d be glad he took them.

He swallowed the pills with a gulp pf electrolyte-infused water from a bottle attached to his hip, took a deep breath, and stood as erect as he could. The Trunks whirred and buzzed, propelling his legs forward at a slow measured pace. Sharp pains sliced through his lower limbs as he now walked toward the door to the classroom and exited into the busy corridor. Guys and girls on hoverboards air-surfed past, nearly knocking him over, paying no particular attention to best practices, or even common courtesy for that matter.

The Trunks served Yemi’s purposes for mobility, given the distances he had to travel in this area of the space station, The Royal Compound as everyone called it. Many times, he wished they simply had wheels on them. No such luck. Walking slightly faster now, the painkillers had begun to kick in. Yemi eventually arrived at his first post instructional destination, his mother’s suite.

He pressed his palm against the scanner outside the living unit. A green digital light surrounded his hand while and pulsated. The door clinked and swished open, sliding sideways and disappearing into a pocket. Yemi stepped across the threshold and the door shut behind him. Immediately, the scent of Cleo’s candles greeted him, an aroma she called drizzle falling on gardenias. He navigated his way through the living and dining areas, and then down the hallway past guest quarters to his mother’s sleeping room.

“Molo, Yemi!” she greeted him warmly from her bed. Crow’s feet framed her amber colored eyes. “Unjani? How was your instruction today?” A smile spread across her brown face, though her hair covered half of it.

Yemi chuckled. “The same as it is every day.”

“And how is your pain today?” She opened her arms to beckon Yemi closer.

He embraced his mother and sighed, releasing all the tension he’d coiled since leaving class. “Five and a half out of ten.”

“You take your pil-“

“Yes, mother,” Yemi cut her off, annoyed at the question’s necessity and the biological need for them.

“Very well then.” His mother stroked his hair silently, without missing a beat. “And how is your spirit today?”

Yemi looked into the air to conjure one of the proverbs he’d studied. “It is the spirit that walks a person through darkness.”

His mother cradled his face with wrinkly fingers. “Well, it’s always better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”

She slowly swung her legs over the side of the bed and limped over to a large wall. Her posture was hunched as she waved a gnarled, deformed hand in front of a sensor on the wall. The once solid white wall dissolved into a floor to ceiling window exposing a stunning view of the visible areas of our space station, Earth below, and the vastness of the galaxy beyond.

Yemi approached her and wrapped an arm around her waist. Their favorite pastime was gazing into space. It offered so many possibilities. In the distance just above the gentle, blue bend of the Earth, immense Rhino Class Destroyers and smaller Cheetah and Gazelle Class attack fighters engaged in training exercises. Far below our window, ships came and went from various bays. Stout Hippopotamus Class merchant vessels. Trade frigates from other space stations. Supply tankers and transport arks arriving from Earth, carrying still mineable natural resources, and the poor souls who’d been tasked with the mining duties… primarily the underprivileged, undereducated, and convicted criminals.

Yemi’s goggles notified him of a message. His arm cuff vibrated and beeped. He slid the arm of his jacket to his elbow to unveil his four-inch-wide arm cuff. He pressed a button on the side to reveal the digital screen. The words “Incoming Transmission” blinked across the surface twice before a three-dimensional holographic image appeared, hovering just above the cuff.

“Baba,” Yemi’s voice rose unintentionally.

“Unyana. My son,” his father, Enofe, responded warmly. “How are you doing today?”

“I’m feeling better now.” Yemi tapped another button to allow him to see his father’s face more clearly.

Enofe’s aged, intelligent façade softened. “Any mobility troubles?”

“No.” Yemi sighed. “The Trunks are still working as expected.”

“Great.” His father clasped his hands. “I think there’s a software update for them, so be sure to make your way to the science and technology division.”

Yemi opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. “Will I see you today?”

“You’re seeing me right now.” His father let out a hearty laugh. The graying goatee spread with his smile.

“You know what I mean.”

Enofe nodded. “You know how busy I am, my son.” He inhaled through his teeth. “I have meetings with my ministers, new trade agreements to consider…”

Yemi huffed loudly. “I understand.”

“My days as leader of this space station are numbered.” Enofe said. “I have many plans yet to put in motion. I must set up my heir for success. Tomorrow, you’re getting supplemental instruction from my advisors on policy and leadership, are you not?”

Yemi nodded.

“One day,” his father continued in a deep resonant tone. “You’ll be counted on to lead this great space station, Mali.”

“No one is going to listen to a cripple,” Yemi hissed. “Much less follow behind someone they can walk faster than.”

Enofe’s face shifted from warm to stern. “I’ll hear no further talk like that from you. People will listen to whomever has the most interesting message. And likewise, they will follow whomever has the courage to lead. Now…” He paused for maximum effect and raised his fist in front of his face. “I know you have physical therapy and training very shortly today. Go and show them whose son you are!”

Yemi sucked his teeth. “You do realize that I’m not your only offspring in the training session, right?”

“And yet, the visions that have been visited upon me all lead to the same conclusion. That you, Yemi, not Adebayo, nor your sisters, shall one day lead this space station into prosperity. Our ancestors had enough forethought to coalesce all the peoples and factions of Africa under one tent. Country after country fell into line for one guiding purpose, Unity. Self-Sufficiency. They never would’ve been able to build and launch, much less maintain, this space station without that. They reclaimed the lands and natural resources of Africa at a time when the colonizers could not fight them. Now, we are at the intersection of every trade route.” Enofe’s lips tightened.

"I’ve heard this story a thousand times.” Yemi rolled his eyes.

“Yes, but just remember, however far a stream flows, it never forgets its origin. You come from a long line of kings, longer than you kno—”

“So does Adebayo.” Yemi’s impatience grew to a feverish level.

“Ah yes, however, Adebayo relies upon strength and intimidation. And a man who uses force is afraid of reasoning.” Enofe turned his palms upward. “Only a wise person can solve difficult problems. And you, Yemi, are my wisest offspring yet.”

Yemi’s skin warmed as if a blanket had been wrapped around his shoulders. “Thank you.”

“Now, I must attend to many matters, as I said.” Enofe smiled broadly. “I love you, son. Tell your mother I said hello.”

“Actually, she’s right he—”

Enofe’s holographic image dissolved into air.

Yemi gazed at his mother’s misshapen face, no longer covered by her hair. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why he does that.”

Cleo’s smile rose a little higher on one side, the side not riddled with warts. Her huge nostrils flared. “It’s alright. I’m accustomed to it now.” She gazed off into the vast outer space, her face pensive. “I’ll never know what brought your father and I together that night so many moons ago.” She turned back to face Yemi. “But you are the most precious thing in my life. And if he believes you can ascend, I will lean into that belief with all my overweightness.”

“Stop saying that.” Yemi clenched his fist and pounded it into his other palm. “You’re not overweight.”

“No?” His mother countered. “Well, if I’m not, then I also have some swamp land in the middle of the Sahara to sell to you, as they used to say.”

Yemi laughed and embraced his mother. “I better get going. My trainer always gets so bent out of shape when I’m late.”

Yemi gave his mother a kiss on the cheek, the one with the warts. He’d always made a habit of that, so she never thought he was trying to avoid any part of her. All of her meant the galaxy to him. Every inch.

After leaving his mother’s suite, Yemi clomped and clunked down the corridors toward the royal training facility. Some corridors were long enough, seemingly endless, that they had conveyor belts to help one arrive at their destination faster. But Yemi refused them out of hand, even if it meant arriving considerably late to where he was going.

And he did, in fact, arrive late to his training session.

Bowstaffs clashing, random grunting, and the odor of stale perspiration filled the humid air, threatening to put Yemi in a choke hold before he’d executed his first lunge. Zola half-trotted over to Yemi. She wore a black form-fitting bodysuit accented by a bright, multi-colored woven inlay. Her dark braids flopped against her shoulder blades just before she rounded them up into a ponytail.

“You’re late,” she sing-songed with a broad smile that lifted her perfect cheek bones. Her full lips glistened with a near perfectly hued nude gloss.

“Sorry,” Yemi responded, staring at the bow of Zola’s lips. “I was visiting with my mother.”

“I figured.” She pointed to a corner of the large green mat that covered nearly the entire center of the floor. Surrounding the mat, various machines and weightlifting areas were heavily in use by male and female trainees. “Let’s get a move on. Your father pays me by the hour. Let’s not waste his money.”

“Trunks on or off?” Yemi asked, pointing to his legs.

“I don’t know what your other trainers let you get away with in here.” She chuckled. “But my job is help you to where you don’t need that tech anymore. Off. Off. Off.” She waved her hand while taking a sip of water from a bottle.

Yemi took a sip of his own water, and then grabbed a nearby railing. “Open Trunks,” he commanded. After some clanking and whirring, they opened. He attempted to step out of them, and almost toppled over.

“Easy now,” Zola soothed. “Mali wasn’t built in a day.”

He struggled to right himself atop his weak ankles. Acute pain shot up both legs, now sweaty from being in the stabilizers. Zola quickly hooked her arm under his right elbow to steady him. Once he stood on his own, he waved her away playfully. Not that he didn’t want her close. In fact, he was surprised his cheeks weren’t flame red from the warmth that invaded them. Zola’s attractiveness truly disarmed him on some days. Today was one of them. Additionally, if she stood beside him, Yemi could not stare at her as she demonstrated the exercises.

Zola first led Yemi through several stretching and light Kemetic yoga movements. Yemi winced and grimaced through it all. Creaking bones. Grinding joints. Muscle tremors. Enofe had demanded that Yemi be examined by everyone from medical doctors to witch doctors. The best diagnosis they’d generated was some ultra-rare intersection between new polio and hyperfibromyalgia, with bone deformities thrown in for good measure.

“Focus on your breathing.” Zola placed her palm on Yemi’s lower back to straighten his posture. “Feel your chakras opening.”

Yemi fought hard to stay focused. His skin tingled where she touched him. Warmth spread. Pain dissolved.

After the warm-up, Zola led Yemi to the saltwater pool to engage him in non-weight bearing exercises. He stepped into a hexagonal gear-changing pod. Upon shutting the door, a privacy feature activated. The clear walls of the pod instantly darkened to disallow light from the outside to get in. The interior lights gave off just enough illumination for Yemi to change from his form-fitting suit that was intended for general intra space station travel to his shorts intended for swimming.

Yemi exited the pod and hobbled ten feet to the training pool where Zola awaited him in the water. Yemi took off his augmented reality goggles and descended the stairs into the warm, lightly salted water. He closed his eyes and reveled in the feeling. His body even responded by providing one of the first truly painless moments of his day.

“What are you doing? Sleeping? Praying?” Zola joked.

“Visualizing.”

“What?”

“I’m envisioning a future where none of this is necessary,” Yemi whispered, almost to himself.

“Oh, so you’re trying to conjure me out of a job.” Zola laughed. “Well, visualize these exercises we’re about to do. I know this is your favorite part of training. And maybe, just maybe your father won’t fire me.”

“You might as well just fire yourself,” a deep voice reverbed from a statuesque, passerby. Prince Adebayo. “He’s never going to get better. You’re wasting your time.”

Fury coiled within Yemi. His fists clenched beneath the water.

Backed by three of his training partners, Adebayo folded his massive arms. “Yemi, you’d be better off fertilizing botanicals in the Serengeti back on Earth. What’s left of it.”

“Stop it,” Zola interjected. “Move along before I tell the Queen.”

“My mother will hear of no such thing,” Adebayo quipped. “You know why? Because you actually enjoy this miserable, endless, thankless job you’ve undertaken.”

“I do, indeed,” Zola fired back.

“And if you tell my mother,” Adebayo’s smile turned menacing. “I’ll have you removed from this post so fast you’ll think a cheetah ran past you and spun you around.”

“Enough!” Yemi found his voice.

“Oooh,” Adebayo chuckled. “What have we here?”

“The king’s blood runs through both of us.” Yemi’s eyes bore holes in Adebayo. “Does it not?”

“Too true.” Adebayo massaged his goatee. “But only my mother gives birth to real men.”

Yemi instinctively moved through the water toward the stairs. Zola grabbed his wrist.

“Don’t stop on my account,” Adebayo’s voice deepened. “We can always settle this misunderstanding in the old manner.”

Zola stood fully in the water. Her sinewy muscles rippled as water droplets fell to the pool. “Adebayo, do not misunderstand my kindness as a willingness to endure your hippo dung! You and I both know you don’t want to see me on the mat.” She pointed to the exit. “Now leave us in peace… or you and I can settle anything you want.”

Adebayo threw his hands in the air. “Alright now, we were just having a little friendly banter. No need to hyena me in front of my friends.” Adebayo threw one last side-eye at Yemi before walking off.

Zola and Yemi finished the training session as scheduled. The water had felt so good, was so revitalizing, that Yemi was halfway back to his quarters before the aches returned. And then his thoughts turned to Zola. What a lioness she’d been. It was easily the best part of his day, seeing her. Warmth akin to an embrace radiated through him when he thought about her. Then he looked downward at the mass deformities hidden by the Trunks and remembered, it was her job to be nice. In addition to praying for a life free of pain and deformity, Yemi desperately wanted an existence in which he could stand up for himself.

He paused in the long corridor he’d been walking through. Subdued, warm lighting illuminated his brown skin as he placed a hand upon the window. Soft, melodic percussion oozed through the speakers spaced along the ceiling of the corridor.

Directly below the space station by about 250 miles or so, the African continental expanse spread. The Sun’s gaze appeared to have been dragged off the continent to the left, casting light upon the Atlantic Ocean and lands to the west. Intermittent lights flared and twinkled across the now darkened African land mass, signaling the old concept of night. On the space station, however, day and night were simulated to resemble the old ways, to create steady measurements and understandings of time.

Yemi watched as the miners, laborers, and criminals returned from Earth in the stocky Elephant Class transport ships. The miners and laborers made a good paycheck, but it was dirty, dangerous work, made ever more so by the very fact that made the space stations a necessity in the first place. Earth had become nearly uninhabitable, irreversibly so. The nations of every continent bonded and pooled all available resources to launch these space stations to preserve life. But some natural resources still existed, so hence the miner and laborer endeavors. Yemi shook his head, considering the fact that he’d never last in such professions. He was thankful every day for their tireless and treacherous work to help keep the space station afloat.

Yemi continued his mechanical clodding on to his quarters, dodging the hoverboarders. He pressed his hand against the scanner outside his suite. The door wooshed open and then closed behind him, completely dividing him away from the percussion that had been playing outside in the corridor. The silence nearly caused his ears to ring. He ambled through his front living area to his bedroom where he removed his Trunks. A sigh of relief escaped his lips. The trunks were indeed a necessary evil. Removing them at the end of a long day was an event he very much looked forward to.

With his walking stick, he limped with slight aches to the shower to wash off the remains of the day. The warm water reminded him again of Zola. He quickly ushered those thoughts from his head. Such feelings were unproductive and unnecessary. His hands ran timidly over the wrongful bends and protrusions on his body. Even the best surgeons had not guaranteed successful realignment of his body, while some had warned of permanent damage from prospective surgeries to cure Yemi. One prevailing thought had been to attempt a procedure once Yemi had ceased growing. Their chances of success increased if a surgery were not hampered by new malicious growth. Yemi was nearing the time he’d waited for his entire life. That, and his eighteenth birthday was right around the corner, not that one had anything to do with the other.

After his shower, Yemi wrapped himself in a robe, grabbed his walking stick, a family heirloom crafted from an African baobab tree, and stood at his floor to ceiling window to space. He gazed upon what was visible of Mali, the great African space station. In the far distance, the tops of other stations were visible. He could barely see the South American and North American stations. Six stations in all encircled the aquamarine globe. The great exodus, they called it. The last gasp of humans on the planet Earth to save their lives from ills they visited upon themselves through greed and lack of anything resembling foresight.

Yemi’s hands trembled atop his walking stick. The enormous weight of an iron cloak from his ailments revisited him. His muscles spasmed like he’d been in a boxing match with is hands tied behind his back. He stumbled back to his bed and collapsed in exhaustion. The day had finally caught up to him. For a moment, he considered taking more pain killers. Every god and goddess in the Yoruba pantheon knew he wanted them, but his willpower won over.

He closed his eyes momentarily, wondering if he should simply give into sleep, or push himself to read and old text of stories his mother had given him that he enjoyed so much. His desire to read was being physiologically overridden. His eyes remaining closed, he then fell, as one would through a trap door, into a deeper sleep than he’d anticipated.

The sudden sound of the door to his suite wooshing open, pried his eyelids open against their will. He slowly turned is head toward the sound of footsteps approaching. Four darkly shrouded members of the king’s guard quickly swept into the bedroom like shadows.

“The king is dead,” one of the guards said. “Enofe is dead. You’re in danger. We must go.”

“Wait. What?” Yemi mumbled, half-asleep.

The men grabbed Yemi from his bed, threw a dark bag over his head, and carried him away.

“My walking stick! My Trunks?” Yemi inquired.

The guards remained silent as they forcibly removed him from the suite. With no sense of direction, he had no idea where he was being taken, or why the bag over the head had been necessary. The men did not speak during the entire journey. After a long while, the traveling stopped. Yemi was lowered from the position he had been carried in for so long. Someone turned his shoulders and pushed him forward. He stumbled and fell.

No longer encumbered by an array of gripping hands, Yemi tore the bag off is head. Yemi’s eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness of his surroundings. He’d been thrown into a banishment pod, the type of vessel used to exile people hoped never to return. Two Extravehicular Mobility Suits and helmets huddled on the floor. The smell of musty socks and mold stung his nostrils. “What is the meaning of this?”

“You and the old king shall meet again,” one of the guards hissed. “I’m certain of it.”

Another guard took Yemi’s walking stick from under his cloak and threw it into the pod. “You might need this.”

“What about my Trunks?” Yemi asked.

The words had barely fallen from his lips when one of the guards slammed the door closed. The airlock hissed, and soon the pod was ejected into space. A scream involuntarily formed in Yemi’s throat but failed to emerge. No one would have heard it anyway. The space station grew distant in the tiny window of the pod. A rogue tear crested the corner of Yemi’s eye. The continuous rotation of the pod made Yemi’s stomach jump to his throat. He stumbled backward and fell against a mass he’d previously thought were supplies. A familiar scent of gardenias whiffed past his nostrils.

A muffled grunt rose from the mass.

Yemi’s core twisted toward the sound faster than he realized how painful it would be to do so. Wincing from the pain he just inflicted on himself, he uncovered the huddled mass in the corner of the vessel. It was his mother.