by Edwin Zishiri ’25
DADDY
A small devastation is the sound that Daddy made when he put the cup down. He was always putting that brown cup down. That brown cup with the rotten, brown afterlife in it. That cup that he took with him to the park with the lavender flowers and big oak trees and put dirt on while strangers watched. Daddy was a man with big pants and bigger shirts and the biggest feet. You could go for a smothering in the fabric that made those clothes. They covered soft skin and silly secrets that everybody knew, and inside Daddy was a deep cave that a roaring belly laugh sometimes managed to escape from like the rabbit escaping the death.
A small devastation is the look Daddy didn’t show Mama when she’d say “I love you honey.” He used to show her that look when the cup was clear, and the days were too long, and the light behind closed eyes was still bright after staring at the life-giver. He used to show her that look when all the seats at the table were filled, and there was no place for nostalgia. When promises were potential and not broken like the grandma shards that blew in the wind after she put the roaring fire on.
A small devastation is Daddy being just like Grandaddy. It follows then that sameness is a small devastation. When Daddy was a child he swore up and down and left and right that he would never be like him. That he’d be different. That he’d be the one to “break the cycle” and never pick up the cup in the first place. That he’d be a cool father and look twice at the beings and things and time he brought into the world. But alas, a small devastation is the look Daddy showed little Bubu that he was too tired to give you.
BUBU
A small devastation is little Bubu, potential filled, falling higher and higher. It is little Bubu breaking the things that weren’t and mending what could have been. Little Bubu, with a big button nose and duck feet. Small clothes and porous body that broke too easily when unplaying with knives. A little boy with a small frame and risen soul that flew until it didn’t. Bubu was always picking up that brown cup when Daddy would send for more. That brown cup with the rotten, brown afterlife in it. That cup that he took with him everywhere after Daddy put dirt on.
A small devastation is little Bubu playing with the bubbles in the tub while Mama went to check on the chicken that was always too dry. The chicken that Daddy washed down with the death bringer in the dirty brown chalice. “Pop” went the bubbles like the ones in the brown cup. “Pop” went the bubbles like hope escaping a heavy heart. “Pop” went the head when the lights went out and death fireworks came for little Bubu. The unintelligible death fireworks came and they went, but they did not come for Naija.
NAIJA
A small devastation is silent Naija. Naija spoke six languages yet nothing escaped the mouth. From the curiosity she learned Japanese, German, French, and Arabic in addition to the native Shona and English she was raised in. A talkative child, the silence inside the outside grew as she aged. Repudiated for talking too much or for being too loud, she learned to let the silence inside speak. Silence protected her. No more “shhhhh” when silence spoke first. Nobody could beat her out if silence came in first. Silence silenced the burden bringer, so it was towards it that Naija turned when Daddy took the dirt shower that he never cleaned up.
A small devastation is the silence that masked the mind activity in Naija. The thoughts tumbled and rolled and twisted. They came up for air only to be dragged back down again as more arose from the forceful psychic depths. They were selfish and so they brought everything down too. The ideas and thoughts and dreams and words found Naija as the slave catchers found and captured the Black freedom seekers. The activity was Black, the mind was Black, and the conceptions within were all Black. The silence too was Black and it was to the blackness that Naija turned when Daddy took the long nap in the ground. The greedy silence sought more gruel, so the silence came for Mama too.
MAMA
A small devastation is silent Mama. Mama the preacher. Mama the affirmer. Now a small, silent Mama. Mama was the only woman preacher in any spherical corner. The spherical place with free and unfree grandmas and streets named after mulattos. The spherical place where unfreeing land exchanges hands from the priceless to the historically commodified. That spherical place ten whole feet below sea level where the unliving forces interfere with the living. The place where the melting happens and unhappy, paradoxical collisions occur with the understanding. Inside Mama the God spirit burned like the incinerating fire. It burned like the fire that took Grandma and made her into grandma shards. The spirit was loud and enveloping, but like man, the silence snuffs out all flames.
A small devastation is the way Daddy would see Mama hold the men gazes when she fancied them fleetingly. It is the way she compared Daddy to the “better” men she denied for him. The way she kissed the teeth when she witnessed the cup being put down again and again. A small devastation is the way Mama thought she knew that she deserved better, and how she told Daddy like a bad-news-bringer to the healthless. She was always speechful, always with something to say. A small devastation is the way she read him for filth whenever he fell short, though he stood tall and Mama loved with no conditions.
The Mama love too is a small devastation. It is a small devastation to be loved despite the flaws rather than because the flaws. Mama loved Daddy in the first way, so silence came after, in second like the first loss. Silence came like a thief in the night, snatching up words from the Mama mind-purses. A small devastation is no more I-love-you’s because the ground ate Daddy for lunch while strangers watched and the silence took the place. It’s the way afterward a man could get whatever he wanted from Mama, even though Mama don’t play. But alas, a small devastation is the marriage they couldn’t wait for because they couldn’t wait for me.
I know not why they couldn’t wait for me, the devastated and the devastation. I am the silence and the fire and the cup and the dirt. I am Blackness and the force that rends the past into the present, permeating silence. I am a historian, looking forward to the past. I make sense with devastation.