‘Rigland’
Reading Time: 22 minutesWhat the Oil Industry Leaves Behind, Read a new short story about the oil industry, the climate crisis, and one community’s fight to survive., Future Tense Fiction: ‘Rigland,’ by Suyi Davies Okungbowa.
This story is part of Future Tense Fiction, a monthly series of short stories from Future Tense and Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination about how technology and science will change our lives.
The delegation came at dawn.
Temple Kodam was out on the westward deck an hour early, gazing at the vast Atlantic around him. The tide remained high, waves slapping against the rig’s steel jacket. A large flame fueled by a kerosene base burned overhead on the rig’s defunct mast, casting hard lines of shadow across his face.
From the twilight came a clatter, the sound of large blades whirring. Temple shook his head. Of course they’re coming in a helicopter. They had never passed up an opportunity to intimidate, to demonstrate their power and wealth. Why start now?
The aircraft perched gently on the helipad, a separate platform adjoining the rig. Blades powered down; door slid open. Men in military uniforms and black suits descended, strutting across the platform, gripping the edges of their coats to battle the winds. On a good day, Temple would take the gangway that connected rig to helipad and meet them there. But today was not a good day. Temple wanted them to come to him, show them who was actually in charge of this meeting.
As they filed onto the gangway and descended to the rig, Temple identified the visitors. The kids in brown, short-sleeved man-o’-war uniforms, epaulets and all, he was most familiar with. Navy berets, white belts, white socks. He didn’t recognize them as from Abalu, his own community, but he heard the language in which they conversed and knew they were from neighboring creek clans, anywhere from Kolo to Oloibiri. There were three of them, and the one who looked the oldest—17? 18?—carried a rifle. Temple could identify the model even this far away: the Nigerian Army’s Soviet-issue AKM, nicknamed Kalashnikov, or kala, after its maker.
This incensed Temple: New recruits weren’t meant to bear arms. Kids weren’t meant to bear arms.
Temple zeroed in on the three men in suits, who had clearly hired these teenagers as protectors. Two of them were unfamiliar, but he recognized the man in the lead as Octavio Nevin, mouthpiece for the board of Lieke & Lars Global, the company that had planted this rig in the middle of the sea. Nevin was the only face of the business anyone this side of the globe got to see, from government reps to community elders. Nevin, all mousy hair and angular teeth, broad smiles revealing long canines.
He wore such a smile now, seeming to recognize Temple even though they’d never met. His hand was outstretched before his foot hit the platform.
‘Octavio Nevin,’ he announced over the wind. ‘Mr. Temple Kodam?’
Temple nodded and shook his hand. Nevin’s grip was firm, assured. He gestured to the small white man beside him.
‘This is Barrister Hairston, from LLG legal counsel. And this is Mr. Tonari, our translator.’ Tonari, clearly a creek man, looked like a fish out of water in that suit. He nodded toward Temple.
‘I can speak English just fine, Mr. Nevin,’ said Temple.
‘Ah, yes,’ said Nevin, with a smack of his lips. ‘Forgive my presumptuousness—when you work in the interiors like I do, it becomes a habit to have a translator handy.’ He pointed at the flame torch and circled his finger. ‘I should know better, seeing as you’re the famed genius who made all this happen.’
Genius was not something Temple quite considered himself to be, but he shrugged. His people often thought of him this way. It was fair for Nevin to do the same.
‘So,’ said Nevin.
‘So,’ Temple replied.
‘Good thing you’ve done for your people, I have to say. Offering refuge in the unlikeliest of places.’ He turned around, surveyed the ocean. ‘Not sure I could ever do it, though; living out here. Something about moving from the edge of the storm to its eye.’ He angled his head. ‘But you lot know more about these conditions than I do, being so conversant with the sea and its ways.’
Temple pursed his lips. The people of Ogbialand were not, in fact, conversant with these conditions, or whatever ideas Nevin and his ilk harbored about them. They did not speak to the seas and pray for their calming (well, they did, but not in the hoo-haa-hocum-pocum way Nevin and his ilk thought). And sure, they knew their way around water, but storms were a different beast, capable of surprising and capitulating anyone.
They weren’t living on this rig because they wanted to—they were living on this rig because LLG’s exploration activities had spilled oil into their waters, pumped soot into their air, scraped their skies of protection, rendered the land of their ancestors uninhabitable. They were on this rig because of the very activities that had occurred on this rig, and if Nevin had any shred of self-reflection, he would see that.
‘Innovative, too,’ said the barrister, looking around. ‘I hear you have farms up here?’
‘Not yet,’ said Temple. There were plans, but he wasn’t about to tell them any of it.
‘Anyway, while we’re here,’ Nevin said in a casual manner, as if they were friends, ‘perhaps we can take a look at the property? See what you’ve done with it since we left.’
Temple hated the way Nevin said that word. Property. Almost as if he was insinuating that it wasn’t just the rig that belonged to LLG, but the people it harbored, the work of their hands. But Temple swallowed his discomfort and waved them forward. If there was going to be any room for negotiation, he had to offer a bit of rope.
A year and a half ago, the tempest arrived.
Abalu was no stranger to storms. Many a great storm had been foretold for centuries, by weathermen who spoke to the gods and spirits of their ancestors or weathermen who looked at the swaying stone or weathermen who spoke to scientific contraptions and devices that allowed them to speculate and predict. With a combination of knowledge from all possible sources, the people of Ogbialand had always found ways to circumvent the waters whenever they came. In the earlier days, they would sleep in trees until the waters subsided. In later days, they climbed to higher elevations and waited out the floods in prepared shelters. In recent days, they built two or three floors above ground and avoided keeping valuables on the ground floor. Upstairs was not a matter of affluence, but survival. Only foolish people built bungalows.
This storm was to be different.
They had received warnings through the usual channels: first, from the tales of their forebears, who warned of a storm so great its waters would never recede; then from the town announcer, informing them that said storm was indeed coming; then from radio and TV broadcasts, followed by mobile alerts and social media blasts.
Every family packed what they could. They didn’t wait to see if the state and federal governments would make good on their offers of support. Past experience had taught them that no one cared for their well-being in any way that mattered—not the governor, not the president, not the international organizations. The only people they could depend on were themselves.
The people convened at the town hall to be addressed by their Obanema, His Royal Highness Fine-Country Awo, Oke XII. Outside, the warnings of the forthcoming storm had already begun. Mango and plantain trees swayed gently, ceaselessly, nervously. The hall was hot, lit by wick lamps, the power tripped off ahead of the forthcoming flood. It was hours until dawn, but all were wide awake, the chatter incessant.
The Obanema laid out straightforward plans. Every person was to head to the nearest creek, take any available boat or canoe and head for Ogiri, the nearest community with which he had communicated. They would be taken in for a few days, then would have to find their way from there on.
The people of Abalu headed for the banks in a caravan, kerosene lanterns lighting their way. The shore was littered with vessels of all shapes and sizes, bobbing restlessly in anticipation of the storm. They filled the canoes and boats, headed for this new life of uncertainty, unsure what the morning, and the future beyond it, may bring.
All except one man.
Inside, the rig looked nothing like its brutalist exterior. It had taken the refugees years to finally make it home, cozy and warm and intimate. When LLG had decided to abandon this rig and move its oil-and-gas exploration activities elsewhere in the region, the company had stripped the location of all useful material—not just devices and resources, but also things it surely had no further use for, like wall insulation and electrical outlets. Almost as if it wanted to ensure that this place would be completely uninhabitable.
But LLG hadn’t planned for Temple, for the knowledge he’d garnered, and his ability to find solutions in the toughest of circumstances. No insulation? Harvested and dried plant fiber could do the job. No outlets? Wire the solar inverters directly to extension boxes.
The inverters, now running, allowed for a few lightbulbs to be turned on at a time. If LLG wanted to see what they’d made of this place, he’d rather they see it all. The tiny cabins, crammed with small families. The former communal areas—game room, movie room, gym—now converted for open living by the newer refugees. All a bit overcrowded, sure, but not just with bodies. Love, too, was crammed in here. Handmade belongings the refugees had fashioned after losing everything to storm and flood. Woven mats, woven bedding, woven toys. The newer ones had brought, from land, the resources handed to them by relief agencies that had visited after the flood: nonperishable foodstuffs, writing materials, books, medicine, first-aid kits.
Temple took the men past the education center, where the walls were littered with chalk drawings. Small children were being ushered, by volunteer educators, to begin their school day in what used to be the rig’s cafeteria. He took them past the makeshift clinic, populated by the few elderly needing care, tended to by volunteers who worked in shifts. He took them to the kitchen, bustling with preparations for a large breakfast of akara and corn pap. From there, to the commissary-turned-pantry, and the little indoor gardens where vegetables and spices were grown. Then, around to the south end, showing them how the solar panels and other accoutrements—clotheslines, open-flame torches, a few boats for going to land every now and then—were hooked up.
The one place he did not show them: his workshop.
They’d walked past it, too, the old fire room. Nevin had asked what was behind the door.
‘Nothing that concerns you.’ Temple could not bring himself to dull the sharpness of his tone. Everything else, he could manage to be diplomatic about. This was personal.
‘That precious, huh?’
Temple smiled. ‘With all due respect, Mr. Nevin, I can’t say you would know what is precious if it stood in front of you and shouted.’
They were back outside. It had been a good decision to leave the man-o’-war recruits here. Most of the refugees had been too busy to notice the suited strangers. But a couple had, particularly the elders who often joined Temple in making decisions. One of them, Mama Nabai, had stealthily accompanied them back, following at a distance, and now stood watching the rest of the conversation unfold from afar.
‘So,’ Temple said, once they were back on the platform.
‘So,’ Nevin said.
A gust of wind snaked between them.
‘You know why we’re here,’ Nevin said.
‘Mm-hmm. But I want you to say it with your own mouth.’
Nevin made a click with his tongue, then said, ‘Hairston, if you will?’
The legal man put his hands in his pockets. ‘As much as we appreciate the work you’ve done, and are sympathetic to the human needs of those who have sought refuge here, unfortunately this platform remains Lieke & Lars property, abandoned or not. Therefore, what you’re doing here qualifies as illegal squatting.’ He put up a hand, as if he expected Temple to stop him here. ‘Now, I don’t want you to think we’re heartless. We do understand that you need a place to live until you can find somewhere new for your community. So we’re happy to let you stay here. But not for free, of course. We’re a private enterprise, after all. We do business. So we’re happy to do business with you.’
Temple waited to be sure he was done, then said: ‘You want rent.’
Hairston lifted his small shoulders. ‘You call it rent, I call it compensation. Same difference.’
‘Mm-hmm.’ Temple looked away from them, out to sea. ‘And you have a figure in mind.’
‘We have papers drawn up. An agreement for you to sign. We’re happy to negotiate terms.’
Temple chuckled. ‘Terms.’
‘Conditions for your continued occupancy.’
Another chuckle.
‘Is something funny?’ This was the man-o’-war recruit, spoken not in English, but Ogbia. All this time, he’d been watching Temple, his gaze dripping with disdain. He shrugged the rifle off his shoulder, held it at the grip, pointed lazily in Temple’s direction.
‘What did he say?’ Nevin asked his translator, but Temple had already moved. He went straight to the boy, grabbed the rifle at the nozzle, pressed it to his chest.
‘Whoa, whoa,’ Nevin was saying. ‘What is happening?’
‘What is your name?’ Temple asked, matching the young man’s Ogbia.
The boy, confused, jittery, eyes moving from gun to man, man to gun. Behind him, his comrades, equally frozen.
‘Your name, recruit,’ Temple repeated.
‘Itabai,’ the kid said.
‘Progress,’ said Temple, the English translation. ‘Is that what this is to you? Progress? Sacrificing us to these mosquitoes who suck our blood and the blood of our land?’
The boy worked his jaw a moment, then replied, angrily: ‘You did it first.’
That, Temple could not dispute. He could not deny the anger the boy held, and he could see it etched on the faces of the kid’s comrades. Perhaps they were right, and perhaps they had every right to be angry. But not in front of them.
‘Do not point a gun at your own people,’ Temple said, ‘unless you intend to shoot.’
He let go of the nozzle and turned to face an alarmed Nevin. The translator had stopped translating, which was useful. Better for Nevin to have missed that last part.
‘There was a time,’ Temple said, ‘when I thought we could trust our government to make you do the right thing and dismantle this rig once you were done sucking our lands dry. But even that you could not do. You want to punish us further by forcing us to look at the cause of our destruction. That’s the kind of wickedness you represent.’
‘Hold on, now,’ Nevin said. ‘Let’s not point fingers—’
‘We will go for eviction proceedings, Mr. Kodam,’ the barrister said, ‘if we cannot reach a lease agreement.’
‘Whatever you have in those papers, we cannot afford. Not a single naira or dollar. If we could, we wouldn’t be living here.’ Temple pointed to the rig. ‘These people have lost everything. The stormwaters are still out there, swallowing our houses.’ He pointed to Nevin. ‘If you want us to leave this place, you will have to come and take everything from us again.’
The delegation left without further discussion, moseying back to the helipad to join the pilot, who’d never left her seat. The blades whipped up a frenzy, and up they went, into a morning sky that was now bright, blue and hopeful.
Mama Nabai finally came over to where Temple stood, watching the helicopter disappear into the distance.
‘They will come back,’ she said, almost a whisper.
Temple was not a big man. Small, wiry with rounded cheeks. He cracked his neck by leaning his ears into each shoulder. He blinked a lot. And yet, for such an unassuming man, his actions on the night of Abalu’s exodus—eschewing the Obanema’s directions to migrate to Ogiri—spurred some chatter.
The Obanema, Fine-Country Awo, stood atop a large canoe, angled toward Temple’s boat. He was dressed in his official regalia: robe, wide hat, heavy coral necklaces, an exquisite cane. His feet were bare. Temple, set up a fair distance from the community’s push-off point, was double-checking the outboard motor of his canoe. Fine-Country’s long gaze found him and stayed there.
For some reason, Temple did not find enmity in it. There was obvious disapproval in that gaze, sure, but it was not as adversarial as he’d expected. He tried his best to ignore it anyway, continuing to work on his boat, willing his trembling fingers to stay still.
After the chatter had dwindled, two elderly women peeled from the crowd, amidst whispers, and approached Temple’s boat. An unlikely pair—one tall and plump, the other smaller and thin—likely in their early 60s.
‘You’re going somewhere else?’ the first woman asked.
‘We don’t want to go to Ogiri,’ the smaller woman said. ‘They don’t like us there.’
‘She left a man there,’ the taller woman offered, gesturing to her counterpart. ‘He may still be alive.’
‘Eii, Mama Nabai,’ her comrade said, ‘don’t be telling people my business.’
‘He has to know why we’re following him,’ Mama Nabai said. ‘And if you don’t want your business to be everywhere, stop leaving husbands.’ She returned to Temple. ‘Now that you know Kopiamu’s business, what say you?’
Temple regarded them carefully, then shook his head. ‘I can’t take you. Sorry.’
‘We can pay. We just want to know where.’
‘I’m going to the LLG rig.’
The women squinted. ‘He’s serious,’ Kopiamu said.
Mama Nabai nodded. ‘It seems.’ To Temple, she said: ‘They call you the genius of Abalu.’
Temple shrugged. ‘Mm-hmm?’
‘I hear you fix things. You fix up the place?’
‘Mm-hmm.’
Mama Nabai looked to her comrade. ‘Well?’
Kopiamu’s eyes widened. ‘You want to escape water by running from land to ocean?’
‘It’s safer out there,’ Temple said. ‘Rigs are built to withstand windward and water pressure.’ He angled his chin toward the town. ‘Our houses don’t have protection. Exploration has flattened our cover.’
‘Then you should not have helped them,’ Kopiamu shot back.
Temple pressed his lips together.
‘If I have to choose between a displeased husband and living on a ladder in the sea with this betrayer, I’ll take the bitter man any day,’ Kopiamu said, embracing Mama Nabai. ‘Be safe, my sister.’
Mama Nabai nodded. After Kopiamu returned to the crowd, she said to Temple: ‘I lied. We don’t have any money.’
‘I know.’
She stared at him. ‘Try not to take their harsh words to heart. Some of us don’t know how to speak the difficult things our minds and bodies carry. But all of us are trying.’
Temple nodded, done with his task. He pulled at the motor, which roared to life.
‘I don’t know if I can help you,’ he said, washing his hands in the creek. ‘But I can tell you this: I’ve gone out there for months, since the predictions started coming. Every single thing I own, I’ve used, sold, traded, and I’ve set up the place so that even in the toughest storms, it offers protection.’ He slowed his washing to look at Mama Nabai. ‘There isn’t space for many, but there is space for more than one. If you want to come, there is space for you.’
Temple enjoyed these trips from the rig to the mainland, past what was left of Abalu. The ocean’s rise-and-fall against the boat, the stillness of the creeks once they’d left the ocean and ventured into its streams, running engineless, paddling to save fuel. What he did not enjoy was the permanent blackness of the creeks, the stench of slimy crude oil that licked against the boat and stained it a dirty deep-yellow. This wasn’t new—thanks to companies like LLG, oil spills had long been rampant in the region. But the storm had taken those spills and multiplied them exponentially, destroying more midstream infrastructure within a few days than in the past 10 years combined. Every facility, processing plant, and pipeline system had been hit, dumping untold barrels of their crude product into Ogbialand’s waters.
It was so bad now that Temple couldn’t even tell when they’d arrived in Abalu. The stormwater levels were so high, the surface so black, that there was no longer any demarcation between where the creeks ended and the land began. Corrugated roofing sheets, the tips of hardwood trees, strung wires of electricity poles: all peeked above the surface, choked to the neck by inky water.
His boat-runner made a despondent click of her tongue.
‘We are never coming back,’ she said in Ogbia. ‘Never.’
Temple was inclined to agree. A month ago, he’d traversed this exact route. Zero change in these stormwater levels since then. There was no indication that they would be seeing the land of their forefathers for quite a while. Even if they did, who wanted to live in a town drenched in oil?
They went past Abalu and headed for Ogiri, where the remainder of the Abalu people who weren’t on the rig were situated. Last he’d heard, most were still yet to leave after fleeing there prior to the storm. The Ogiri people were getting agitated. To quell any possible conflict, the Obanema had moved his seat to Ogiri, which was why Temple was headed there.
When they arrived at the banks, he stepped off the oily water and onto oily land. Under the watchful eyes of Ogiri inhabitants, he found himself splaying his hands, almost as if to say, Look, I come in peace.
He was quickly informed by an elderly Abalu refugee that the Obanema was not there.
‘A boat took him out to your sanctuary,’ said the woman. ‘You must have missed each other.’
This surprised Temple. Fine-Country had never set foot on the rig. If rumors were to be believed, he’d planned never to do so.
The elder regarded Temple as if he were hard of hearing. ‘Have you looked around?’ she asked. ‘Have you counted the numbers? Have you seen our empty houses, our hungry bellies, the fear when thunder strikes?’ She cocked her head. ‘You have won, genius of Abalu. The Obanema has located a new sanctuary, abandoned and empty like yours once was. He wants you to make it into our new home.’
Temple had never made it to secondary school, but a decent primary education ensured he was fluent in the foreigners’ tongue as well as his own. That was of little use out here, though, where only a few paths existed for a young man like him: lumbering, canoe carving, palm cutting, fishing, or farming. An absent father—from a city yonder, past state lines Temple had never crossed—and no relatives on his mother’s side ensured that he got no apprenticeships. His mother, rest her soul now, brought him along to her trading stall every chance she got. But what good was a fledgling young man at the market, wasting away at the grinding stone, milling customer orders of melon and tomato and pepper?
The only sensible path was to join the man-o’-war recruits, who seemed to be the only ones allowed into the domain of the foreign companies and their unimaginable wealth. Every young man in the Niger Delta who wanted to leave but could not afford university had three choices: disappear to a place more carnivorous than here—a city like Lagos; stay and join the local man-o’-war brigade, stationed in Yenagoa (and gain access to the oil and gas companies and their money); or stay and join the local agitators who fought against these oil and gas companies, hoping to hamper or stall their activities.
Most took the man-o’-war option, often returning after a year or two in clean brown fatigues and with a surprising amount of money and gifts for their people. Temple had no people to speak of, but that only made this path more appealing. However, a stroke of luck at 15 presented him with a better discovery: an aptitude for building things.
He’d never thought of being a mechanic’s apprentice as a gateway to the world of science. He stumbled into it only after failing at everything else. A former neighbor with a soft spot for his mother put him in touch with the most seasoned mechanic in the community, a wizened man who fixed all kinds of engines: boats, generators, trucks. He started Temple on cleaning duty, then upgraded him to oil-drainings and filter changes. One day, he introduced Temple to the workings of engines, and inadvertently, to physics.
Temple found his hands and brain in a symbiosis he’d never realized. Fixing the engines wasn’t enough to satiate his curiosity, so he made stuff out of workshop scraps—toys of metal and rubber that wound and jumped and dashed. He handed them out to the kids in the community, who adored him. The mechanic, noting that Temple could read, fished out ancient textbooks from his own days as a student who never made it to university. Temple inhaled them like fresh air. He attempted the university entry exam and passed with some of the best subject scores in the state.
But the university board proved unwilling to waive the secondary certificate requirement, so it was back to the workshop for Temple. And though there was much to do in Abalu—hooking up electricity for elders’ compounds, offering building instructions for sturdier boats, devising weaving patterns for hardier fishing nets—he wished for a future beyond this community that, since his mother’s death, had begun to feel less like his own.
So, at 17, when an opportunity arrived to join the man-o’-war brigade—a pathway to gaining a certification that would enable him to reapply for university—he took it.
Temple did not ever intend to hold a kala.
After preliminary training in Yenagoa was done and he’d begun wearing the brown fatigues, it was time to be shipped off to first assignments. He crossed his fingers hard, hoping to be sent somewhere he could attend university part time while carrying out his duties. But when he was summoned to his commander’s office and mentioned he was from Abalu, the man nodded and wrote two words: offshore protection.
This, it turned out, meant being a maritime bodyguard of sorts, escorting oil-and-gas workers on their trips to and from the rigs. Young men like Temple, cheap and local, hand-picked specifically to foil attacks by local agitators who often trained their sights on midstream pipelines. The companies pacified the recruits with niceties onshore and offshore. At a New Year’s Eve celebration, Temple received his first-ever wrapped gift. He got to ride on interesting vessels, including in a helicopter, where he almost swallowed his tongue.
Occasionally, the offshore engineers would chat with him and be blown away by his knowledge of engines. A few broke protocol and took him along to their jobs, granting him access to the inner workings of some of the most intricate machines in the world. These experiences filled his time on the rigs, and tided over his growing impatience about his university aspirations being placed on hold until this assignment was over.
Simultaneously, he attended arms training boot camps, using flimsy wooden guns chipped from years of use. Then one day, out of nowhere, Temple was handed a real kala—one with weight; one that dared its holder to make ra-ta-ta decisions with it. He stood there, numbed, while the commanding officer explained that the rifles would never be loaded, but were simply to dissuade agitators.
After the final boot camp, Temple boarded a boat back to Abalu. He swapped places with a recruit charged with accompanying a visiting Dutch engineer who wanted to meet with the Obanema to discuss, on behalf of Lieke & Lars, plans for new pipeline installations. Temple cared nothing about the visit; his mind was occupied by his first homecoming since becoming a fully uniformed recruit. His bag was filled with gifts for the mechanic and his family—the only people left who cared about him, and he, them. It was customary to offer something to the Obanema too, a symbol for giving back to the community that raised him. But Temple reckoned he had already given back tenfold more than this place had ever given him. Time to move on and never look back.
When they arrived in Abalu, a large crowd of community members was gathered at the banks. They’d learned of the engineer’s arrival and were there to prevent the meeting from happening.
The engineer, agitated, snapped at Temple: ‘Please do your job.’
Temple stepped out of the boat to face his people, and only then did he realize he held the new rifle in his hands, pointed in their direction. It dawned on him, in that moment, that he was the first recruit from this community to ever return with a weapon.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘Make way.’
Abalu, once looking to the companies and their representatives as necessary evils—and the practice of sending their children to suckle at their teats as a pragmatic way of seeking progress—had never seen this. Turning their wards into bona fide soldiers? Turning them against their own people? And Temple, of all people, accepting, spearheading, pioneering this new role?
The crowd lost it.
After that day, it remained unclear for a long time if the crowd had come prepared with projectiles, perhaps reserved for the visitor from LLG. But once Temple turned toward them with the kala, clad in the brown fatigues of the enemy, the crowd let loose.
Cocoyams were the first thing thrown. Chopped plantains next. Everything else followed: stones, sand, branches with leaves still on them. A few threw their shoes. Some spat, hurled insults like daggers.
Temple didn’t know for sure how the gun went off, where it pointed when it did. But suddenly, the steel in his hand shuddered, recoiled, and a blast cut his hearing, leaving a whine in his eardrums. The air smelled of burning metal, oil, and smoke.
He stared at the rifle, incredulous. Loaded? How?
The crowd was running, scrambling to safety. There was no blood, no one hurt. But another graver damage had been done.
The engineer stepped from the boat, patted Temple on the back. ‘I’ll tell your Obanema of the good work you’ve done here today.’
For years after, these were the last words anyone on this land spoke to Temple.
When Temple returned to the rig, Fine-Country stood alone on the helipad, his usual posse nowhere to be found. He was dressed in ordinary clothes, shorts and a T-shirt. His head was bald—Temple had never seen him without his wide hat.
He went and stood next to the Obanema, staring out to sea, the wind whipping at them both.
‘My people are inside,’ Fine-Country said.
‘They’re enjoying the place.’
Temple gulped, said nothing.
‘I hear you’re teaching people how to make things.’ Fine-Country squinted, crow’s feet gathering at his eyes. ‘Science and such.’ He turned to face Temple. ‘That’s why I came here. I want you to teach the Ogiri people, too. I want everyone to know everything you know.’
Temple shook his head slowly. ‘It’s … not that simple, Obanema.’
‘I’m aware.’ He sighed. ‘LLG tried to take this place back?’
‘Yes. I was just at Ogiri to ask you to talk to them.’
Fine-Country nodded, inhaled deeply. ‘No.’
‘Sir?’
‘No, Temple Kodam. There will be no talking.’ He placed his hands akimbo. ‘You know why no one spoke to you for years?’
‘I swear, I never meant—’
Fine-Country placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘I don’t need an apology, Temple.’ He pointed to the rig. ‘They don’t need it either, or they wouldn’t be here.’
‘Then what do they want?’
Fine-Country jabbed a finger in his chest. ‘For you to carry our interests in your heart, even when it’s not the best choice for you. Shooting at us on LLG’s behalf is the opposite of that.’
‘I’m … sorry.’
‘And so am I, Temple, that you bore the burden of that alone for so long. Because it was me who sent them out there.’
Temple’s eyes widened. ‘Sir?’
‘I’d convinced myself that agreeing to the governor’s mandate to allow LLG here was an investment in our future. I thought: They’ll build schools and roads. But a people’s future is a bad thing to bargain with. I realized that too late. So I sent that crowd out after that engineer to end it.’ He sighed. ‘I should have gone myself. My cowardice broke you, and then this community. For that, I am sorry.’ He looked to Temple. ‘But now, we have a chance to do things differently, to be better leaders.’ He put out an inviting hand. ‘So, no more talking. Only doing. For the future of Abalu.’
Tears welled up in Temple’s eyes. His shoulders shook. There was no sound, no whimper, only a slow expulsion, as he received the Obanema’s hand in his.
Back inside the rig, he went past what used to be the common areas, where most of the families were now set up; past the Ogiri delegation, now huddled together with their long-lost Abalu friends and family; past the small gathering of prospective apprentices, from Abalu and Ogiri both, of all ages and genders, waiting for Temple to pass by so they could follow him.
Past the past, past the quarrels and stern rebukes, the invoking of ancestors to punish Temple for what he’d done; past the guilt Temple carried for years before the storm, and for months since, weighing on his shoulders and his heart; past the bad blood, the abrasion, the pus-filled sore; past the past.
To the future; to the old fire room, now Temple’s workshop.
The apprentices stood at the door when he unlocked it. He pushed the heavy door in, and they waited—for him to lock it as he always did. But this time he left the door open.
One by one, he turned on the little battery lamps, let them shine on all the equipment, the devices, the hand-drawn plans, the scale models of future projects, some of them spinning, animated. At the center of this all was his crown prize, the largest model of all.
It was a replica of this very LLG rig, but different. Windmills made of scrap metal spun from imagined cranes. Trees and shrubbery made from green paper littered the rig, particularly on the helipad, where a farm thrived under a transparent cellophane biodome. An electricity-generating waterfall, made of cotton threads, fell from the highest point of the rig, into the sea.
The apprentices’ eyes lit up, synapses firing, the future unraveling in their minds. This is why we call him the genius of Abalu.
But Temple had only one thought: He finally had an answer for Octavio Nevin.
The LLG delegation came as they did last time: before dawn, in a helicopter, three suits and three man-o’-war officers. These new officers were adults, all bearing rifles, and were not from the local man-o’-war pool. The translator was different. The barrister was different. Only Nevin and his long canines remained the same.
But everything on the rig had changed. Temple no longer stood alone to welcome them. Mama Nabai stood next to him this time, not far away. On his other side stood Fine-Country, in full regalia, with shoes. And behind them stood all of Temple’s new apprentices.
‘I suppose you’ve given our proposition some thought?’ Nevin asked.
‘Mm-hmm.’
‘Can we do this inside? Over coffee or something?’
Temple shook his head slowly. Nevin shrugged.
‘Have it your way.’ He nodded to the legal man, who stepped forward with a small binder, within which there was a stack of perforated sheets held in place by metal rings. Temple opened the binder, but did not read the words. Rather, he had two apprentices hold the binder open.
The legal man was handing the Obanema a pen, but Fine-Country wasn’t looking. Instead, he pinched the rings apart, separating them with a snap. Then, one by one, he and Mama Nabai pulled the papers out of the binder, rearranged them neatly, and handed them to Temple, who received them, then walked away from the group.
When he got to the edge of the platform, he leaned over the protective railing, extended his hand over the water, and let go. The papers flew into the wind.
He returned to the group, retrieved the binder, and handed it back to the perplexed legal man. Nevin had turned red.
‘So this is how you want to play it.’
‘No,’ said Temple, stepping forward. ‘Here is how we are going to play it. We will find every abandoned rig that exists on these waters. For every home taken from us by your actions, we will take one from you in return. We will take your instruments of death and make them beautiful. Your guns will become flowers. We will make a future on each new flower, and we will hold on to them all for as long as our generations need them to grow and thrive. And you who have looked away from our suffering—you will look away, too, from our thriving. You will pretend not to see, and we will pretend that you have not invested in annihilating us. And though all will not be well with the world yet, we will both pretend that it is. For now.’
Wind snaked between them. Nevin worked his mouth, trying to find words. After a lengthy silence, he turned to his group.
‘Let’s go.’ Without glancing back, he took the gangway up to the helipad.
The helicopter rose in a flutter. Mama Nabai stood with Temple and Fine-Country, watching it disappear.
‘They will come back,’ she said.
‘Mm-hmm,’ Temple said. ‘That, they will.’
Read a response essay.
Read More From Future Tense Fiction
‘Yellow,’ by B. Pladek
‘Galatea,’ by Ysabelle Cheung
‘Universal Waste,’ by Palmer Holton
‘A Lion Roars in Longyearbyen,’ by Margrét Helgadóttir
‘Bigfeet,’ by Torie Bosch
‘Intangible Variation,’ by Meg Charlton
‘The Preschool,’ by Jonathan Parks-Ramage
‘Escape Worlds,’ by K Chess
‘I Know Thy Works,’ by Tara Isabella Burton
‘The Big Four v. ORWELL,’ by Jeff Hewitt
‘No Regrets,’ by Carter Scholz
‘Little Assistance,’ by Stephen Harrison
‘Void,’ by Julián Herbert
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