Hello?
Telema’s voice had the crystalline quality of all telecalls, clean and stripped. Aniedi missed her real voice, deep and rich, with a laugh waiting to bubble behind each sentence. Now that Telema had moved north, this was the only way they could communicate.
I can hear you. You were talking about sandstorms? Aniedi responded
Yes! They’re wild. I got caught in one on the way home from the market the other day. If you don’t cover up properly, the sand finds its way up your nose and down your throat … like this.
Telema senseshared a dry, constricting feeling that gripped Aniedie by the neck and invaded her nostrils. Aniedi hacked out a cough.
Wow. That was horrible.
I know, Telema said. Aniedi could barely hear the warmth of humor humming behind it.
Anyway, Telema said, I have to go now. I have a meeting in five. My alarm just went off.
Okay. I’ll talk to you later. I miss you.
I miss you more!
A neat click in Aniedi’s mind let her know that Telema had left. She sighed and switched on her oculars, scrolling through a stream of videos: a woman with a shrill laugh making a garri-based protein porridge; a singer with too-white teeth sensesharing the cool, smooth feeling and citrus scent of their new face cream; a teenager fishing through a flooded street for metal sheets to build a shelter; a woman advertising a soot-proof streetwear fashion brand. Aniedi was bored.
She could reach out to another friend, one who lived closer, but even when she was in the same room with those ones, they never spoke in analog. There could be five people in a room telesharing and not saying a single word to each other for hours on end. Telema had been the only one who understood that Aniedi enjoyed speaking. Her mother had been fascinated with language. She’d always say to Aniedi, “It’s more than just communication, messages saying go here, do this … language is how we understand ourselves. It is why we go here, how we do this.”
A neat click in Aniedi’s mind let her know that Telema had left.
Aniedi’s mother was the last person she knew who spoke Iko, their native tongue. She had been frustrated at having to learn it as a child, but now she missed the shapes of the words. She had been teaching it to Telema, but now she couldn’t. The teletowers could transmit thoughts and feelings directly, with no need for the meanderings of language.
Aniedi flipped through teleshares and stopped on one with a woman in a stained shirt rubbing her thumb on the glossy green skin of a tiny pepper. Aniedi’s mother had kept a small garden, and after she died, her plants had dried up in the shadow of Aniedie’s silent grief.
Sow.
Aniedi was startled by the voice. It had a depth that most telecasts did not. She heard in it the gravel of an aged smoker and the urgency of a command. She scrolled through her log, looking for the source of the message and finding nothing but her last call to Telema.
She gave up and let her thoughts drift elsewhere. She went instead to a telestore and typed in: Seeds.
The teletowers could transmit thoughts and feelings directly, with no need for the meanderings of language.
*
The scentleaf seeds arrived in a flat, glossy everything-proof pack. Aniedi tore it open gently and sniffed it, then immediately felt silly. Scentleaf was the last thing her mother would add to the pot when she made pepper soup. It always reminded Aniedi of rainy days and recovery. These seeds, however, smelled like dust and plastic.
Aniedi stood cradling the pack in her palm, then she opened up the cardboard box it had come in. She hadn’t ordered the planter and edible-looking soil the telestore had also recommended for her, so she had no idea what to do next. Her mother’s makeshift garden had lived on their windowsill when Aniedi was young. Along with scentleaf, she had planted long waxy pepper, skinny aloe vera, and, once, a dwarf yam the size of a large sweet potato, its body branching out in half a dozen directions. She’d stare at the milk tins and beer bottles, cracked plastic buckets slowly being pried apart by searching roots, smile sadly, then draw Aniedi close and say, “Back home, these peppers would grow as long as your arm.”
“Why can’t we grow them that long here?”
“They’re doing their best with what they have, darling.”
Talking about home was always hard for Aniedi’s mother. Obiowo was a small, unassuming town, and their family had lived there as long as anyone could remember. The old traditions regarding family land were still upheld there. At the end of every year, people returned home to their family land with offerings for their ancestors. It was a time when people drew from the deep wells of wisdom of their ancestors, asking for advice, guidance, and blessings for the year to come. Aniedi had seen telestreams of children projecting report cards and gold inter-house games digi-medals onto the gravestones of their great-great-grands and smiling gap-toothed smiles as the spirits fawned over them. The teletowers were incapable of capturing and carrying the voices of the departed, so sometimes uploaders would add subtitles so watchers could see what the ancestors were saying. Aniedi had always been grateful for them. Her and her mother had never gone to Obiowo. There was no point. When Aniedi’s mother was a teenager and teletowers were still a rumor from the city, her uncles had signed a contract “leasing” their family land and allowing a teletower to be built there. Since it had gone up, the family hadn’t heard a single word from their departed.
Aniedi wondered sometimes if she would have turned out a little less lonely, a little less adrift, if she’d had that experience. She rumbled through her drawers and found an old jar that had once held pepper sauce. She rinsed the dust out of it and then paused, realizing she still didn’t have any soil. She sighed in disappointment, wondering why she had wasted her money.
Fill it with water.
Aniedi jumped, startled.
Hello.
There was no answer.
Hello, Telema? Was that you?
But she knew it wasn’t. She hadn’t heard the beep of a telecall request, just the same familiar voice. She walked slowly to her sink and half-filled the jar.
Now some seeds.
Aniedi dropped a dozen or so seeds into the water.
Good.
Who are you?
Aniedi stood waiting for an answer, but it didn’t come.
Please … tell me who you are.
You know me.
Aniedi waited for another answer, but it didn’t come.
Please … tell me who you are.
You know me, my child.
*
Aniedi woke up the next morning wondering when she would hear the voice again. She had asked out loud over and over again for the voice to tell her its name, but she’d gotten nothing but silence. She heaved herself out of bed and spent her morning catching up on work writing telecast ad scripts, trying to make them short and catchy, as her manager always asked. It was mind-numbingly dull and slightly infuriating, but it paid her bills.
She wandered into her kitchen around noon looking for something to eat, and that was when she caught a glimpse of the jar from the day before. She walked over to it, picked it up, and was shocked to see little sprouts trailing from the seeds. Aniedi was taken aback. Whenever she’d tried to help her mother garden, it had been catastrophic. She smiled softly at the jar of seeds and set it down gently. They would probably die in a day or two, but it was nice to see them at least try to grow.
Aniedi fished out a cashew bar for lunch and went back to work. That evening, when she came out of her workspace looking for another meal, she was greeted by a lush bush of scentleaf as tall as her forearm. She gasped and took a step back, almost tripping.
She hastily loaded up the telestore she’d ordered the seeds from and scanned through the instructions to see if these were some mutant strain that grew in hours, but the instructions clearly stated that it’d take three to four weeks for her to see leaves start to sprout.
Aniedi heard the beep of a telecall coming in and accepted it absentmindedly.
Hi! Telema said.
Hey, Aniedi answered, still distracted by the scentleaf plant.
What’s going on? Why do you sound like that?
So, I planted scentleaf seeds
Awww. I love the optimism!
They … grew.
That’s … unprecedented.
They grew a lot. Aniedi shared a picture of the plant with Telema
Oh wow! That’s amazing. When did you plant them?
Yesterday.
Oh. That’s really amazing.
I think something is wrong.
Why would anything be wrong? Maybe the seeds are one of those enhanced …
They’re not. I checked. And I … I’ve been hearing voices.
Telema was silent for a second. What kinds of voices?
Just one. But the voice said … she said I knew her.
Did she sound familiar?
I don’t know. I don’t think so.
You’re sure this wasn’t a telecall?
Telema, it wasn’t a telecall! There was no beep.
So what was it?
I don’t know.
The conversation moved on to other topics—Telema’s research and her annoying coworker and other mundane, realistic things. But Aniedi could not stop thinking about the voice. While she listened to Telema drone on about different types of rocks, she found her way back to the telestore and ordered a pack of pepper seeds.
*
Aniedi came back to a house bursting with red and green and yellow peppers. She’d dropped a handful in the new planter with the soil she’d had the foresight to add to her order this time. The peppers were small as her thumbnail, large as her fist, slim as her fingers, and gnarled and misshapen, folding in on themselves like glossy cloth.
Telema, Aniedi said when she answered, it happened again.
The plant thing?
Yes, Aniedi nodded, even though Telema could not see her.
Okay. So I’ve been thinking. Apart from telecalls, how can someone transmit thoughts to you?
There’s no other way. It’s impossible.
Not entirely.
What are you saying?
The ancestors. They don’t speak aloud. They send messages directly to our minds.
My ancestors have been silent for decades, Telema.
Yes, but what if they’re speaking now? What if they’re calling you?
This just doesn’t seem very likely.
I know. But it’s not impossible. You need to find out, Aniedi.
How?
You need to go home.
*
Obiowo was not Aniedi’s home. It was barely her mother’s. She stared out of the window of the mag train at rolling hills of green. She’d never seen so much grass in her life. She was used to the metal and concrete and dust of the city and the persistent smell of chemicals and smoke from unidentified sources that leaked through masks, no matter how strong. It always felt like something was burning in the city. The air here, though, was crisp, like something new. In the corner of her eye, her implant let her know that it was 86 percent safe to breathe and she could take off her mask if she wanted. She kept it on. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken her mask off outside.
Aniedi had reached out to all three of her uncles before making the trip. Uncle Erin didn’t answer. Uncle Effiong dropped off the telecall once she mentioned coming to visit. Uncle Etim was the one who had finally sent her a maplink to the family land, saying he was sorry he couldn’t come with her. He sounded sorry. And ashamed.
From the station, Aniedi followed the directions to the land. Everything in Obiowo seemed smaller, shorter, like shrubs compared to the city’s towering concrete trees, homes stacked higher and higher on top of each other to escape the stench of the ground.
The streets here were clean, between boxy houses painted in pale hues of green and blue and yellow, like something out of a children’s telecast.
Aniedi had been apprehensive about coming, but when her implant pinged to let her know she had arrived at her location, she was slightly underwhelmed. It was just … a piece of land.
It was a field of grass growing out of deep brown soil and the lean teletower, reaching into the clouds like a silver beam from the sky, or a leak from the bottom of a star. Aniedi watched, unsure from the concrete pavement. There was a short wall around the field. She traced it with the toe of her light-grey shoe.
Do not be afraid. You belong here.
The voice was stronger here. She felt it reverberate in her chest and echo through her entire body from the ends of her ears to the tips of her toenails. She hesitated before climbing over the fence.
The moment Anieidi’s feet touched the ground on the other side, she was lost. Aniedi gasped for air, drowning in a sea of voices.
… and that is how my useless son broke his leg trying to steal a … Your sister is going away. She won’t be back for a while, but she has to do this. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you anymore … The funeral was a disaster. Only half of the guests got drinks, and let’s not even talk about that horrible coconut rice … Remember to call when you get there … Grandma’s guava tree is fruiting again … Eteka came home yesterday, and the children haven’t stopped smiling since … I’ve been wanting to tell you … How many times have I warned you … Make sure you remember … Mummy, Mummy I’m so sorry, but he’s dead … She had twins! … Aunty KK, tell us a story … I need you to remember … She’s fine. She’s doing well … Has everyone eaten? … Remember!
They invaded her head, her chest, her stomach, the marrow of her bones, filling her with memory. She collapsed under the weight of it all—the sorrow, the joy, the life and death and story of a family she barely knew—her family.
“I remember! I remember!” Aniedi gasped for breath. “What do you want from me?” All you have to do is remember. And restore.
“I don’t know what that means!” Aniedi shouted at thin air.
It must fall.
*
Aniedi spent the night at the only hotel in Obiowo. The woman at the reception was kind but too curious, and the thought of being asked any questions in the daze the voices had left her in was unbearable, so she all but ran to her room, where she could try and piece together her thoughts.
Aniedi knew her father’s family well. Her Aunty Gloria had spent many weekends at their house when her father was still alive, and she remembered visiting her grandparents who lived across the city at least twice a year. Aniedi had asked about her mother’s family a few times, but the pained look that always appeared on her mother’s face when she did was enough of a warning to make her eventually stop.
The waves of voices washing over her had terrified her in the moment. It had felt like she might burst and the messages would leak out of her, bleeding back into the ground or trailing into the wind to be carried to who knew where by the teletower. The teletower.
It must fall, they’d said.
They wanted it gone. It had somehow silenced them, caging their voices and tying them to the land. But Aniedi had no idea how to do that. She had no one to ask. It occurred to her that there was probably a telecast that could at least tell her how it was done, how teletowers were taken down. She searched “how to tear down a teletower,” but the search was immediately flagged, flashing red lights invading her vision.
Of course, she thought, there was no way that kind of information would be made so easily available. She would have to figure it out herself. Something else occurred to her. Or maybe not.
Telema?
I’ve been waiting for ages for you to call! How was your trip? What’s Obiowo like? Did you manage to find the family land?
I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner. It’s been … overwhelming.
Aniedi explained what had happened, and Telema listened intently, humming at intervals.
Well, what’re you going to do, then?
I’m not sure.
What exactly do the voices want you to do?
They spoke a lot about … remembering. They spoke about my family … so many things I didn’t know. Things I couldn’t have known. They told me to remember and restore. And that the tower has to come down.
How would you even tear down a teletower by yourself? Those things are huge!
And it’s definitely extremely illegal.
Well, they were very specific about that point. They said, “It must fall”
Ah, then they should tell you how to tear it down. Unless they want to stand up and bring it down themselves.
Aniedi was silent for a moment. What if that’s it?
You want the spirits of your ancestors to rise and do the job themselves?
Not exactly, Aniedi said thoughtfully.
*
Aniedi went back the next day with the weight of assurance resting on her shoulders like an unfamiliar comfort. As she stepped over the fence, the voices returned, but calmer. Where they had been a consuming wave before, they were a warm splash, washing over her affectionately.
Welcome. Welcome back.
Aniedi dug into her pocket and removed the iroko seed, the size of a pinhead. She walked to the base of the tower and placed the seed where metal met soil. She did not need to do more than this. The land would reclaim for itself what had been taken.
Aniedi dug her fingers into the ground. In its embrace, her own voice would one day rise up and call out. She hoped whoever heard it would answer in turn.
The land would reclaim for itself what had been taken.