Page 28 of Death of the Author

28 Desert Wind

Zelu was getting canceled.

She didn’t know when she’d started crying. Maybe when she was in the green room. Or maybe as she’d held on to Msizi for dear

life as they’d left the studio. Her faculties were so scrambled that she could barely control her exos. They’d taken a cab

to a car rental agency. Now Msizi was driving, and Zelu didn’t care where he was taking her.

For a while she sat in complete silence, her cheek pressed against the window. When she could finally form words, tears flew

from her eyes as she screamed, “What was that? Oh my fucking God. What was that? Oh my God ! And fuck social media and its army of NPCs!”

Msizi glanced away from the windshield for a moment to look at her but said nothing.

She remembered the film ( Yankee and Dot! Ugh! ) and another wave of anguish and revulsion rolled over her. She pressed fists into her eyes and groaned loudly. Behind her eyelids she saw images from the movie and her name in the credits. The characters’ very American voices rang in her ears, reciting butchered versions of lines from her book. Wrong part of the world, wrong ways of speaking, wrong ideas, wrong, wrong, wrong. And millions of people who’d never even read her book were about to watch it and love it and think that was what Rusted Robots was about. The skill of the filmmaking was undeniable. The studio had produced something visually beautiful, engaging, and

memorable—and thoroughly wrong . Why option her book instead of starting fresh? The film had taken her creation’s name and erased her. Now her “fans” were

canceling her, too. She undulated in her seat, wishing she could leap from her body and zip into outer space, never to be

seen again.

She tried breathing exercises, but she couldn’t breathe. She tried visualizations, but she couldn’t visualize. Her cell phone

buzzed and buzzed on her lap. Her agents wanted to talk to her. These were the people who’d kept her in the dark, breached

her trust. Now they really expected her to attend more meetings and do more interviews?

The Yebo app pinged to alert her that her heart rate was elevated. It suggested she do meditation exercises.

Msizi touched the car’s screen. Then he said, “Call Jackie.”

Zelu still had her eyes closed, but she listened to the phone ring through the car’s speakers. When Jackie answered the phone,

Msizi exhaled with relief. “Cousin,” he said. “Thank goodness.” They started speaking in Zulu, and just the sound of it soothed

Zelu. She’d asked Msizi to teach her a bit of it once, but he was always impatient for her to get it right and never around

long enough to practice consistently with her, so they hadn’t gotten very far with it.

When Jackie began to sing the South African lullaby “Thula Thula,” more tears rolled from her eyes. But they were calmer tears.

It was such a beautiful song, and Jackie had a beautiful voice. He sang for several minutes, until the panic attack fled from

her, a dissipating storm.

“Zelu,” Jackie said on the phone.

“What?” she whispered.

“Open your eyes,” Jackie said. “I’m all the way in Chicago, but I know you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut tighter. “Can’t.”

“You can,” Msizi said beside her.

“Open your eyes,” Jackie urged again.

She cracked her left one open, then the right. She looked around. Outside the window, there was nothing but flat desert and

stars above. How long had they been driving? Where were they going? All she knew was that she was still in the fucking United

States and that was not far enough. She nearly squeezed her eyes shut once more.

“Don’t close them again,” Jackie said.

This made her laugh. Jackie was a physician and he was Zulu, so of course he was psychic. “Thank you,” she murmured.

“Hanging up now,” Jackie said.

“Thanks, Jackie. Have a good night,” Msizi answered, and clicked the phone call off from the touch screen. “Wish I could sing

like that, but I can’t,” he told Zelu.

She laughed, tired and achy. “You brought me out here. You’re taking care of me. Who else would have known to do that?”

“True,” he said.

“Thank you.” She sighed, embarrassed at being so emotional. “I dunno, Msizi. Fact is, I’m responsible. I was lazy and stupid

for opting out of being involved with the movie.”

“Live and learn,” he said. “Live and learn.”

She side-eyed him, noting that he hadn’t told her it wasn’t her fault. “Where are we going now?” she asked.

“Joshua Tree,” Msizi said. “We are going to see Marlo and Wind. Seems a good time for a visit.”

“Who are Marlo and Wind?” Zelu asked, sitting up straighter.

“Business associates,” Msizi said. “Met them in Cape Town and we became good friends. They invested in Yebo. Sometimes when

I come to LA, I drive here and stay with them for a few days.”

In all their years of knowing each other, he’d never mentioned these people to her before. But that was just how they were. Msizi didn’t have to divulge everything about his life to her, nor she to him. They just had to trust each other and be trustworthy to one another. She settled back against the headrest and stared into the darkness. Msizi opened the front windows to let in the breeze. The cool, dry desert air smelled distinctly herbal. She was a child of the water, and normally she avoided the desert, but tonight wasn’t normal. She touched the car’s screen and put on a mix of classic Kendrick Lamar songs.

The drive lasted another two hours, and in the last thirty minutes it started to look like they’d jumped a line and driven

onto another planet. Miles and miles of open, completely barren land. She knew this only because she’d found a flashlight

in the glove compartment and aimed it out her window onto the side of the road.

They turned onto a long dirt road. “How do you even know where to go?” she asked. “It all looks the same.”

He gave her an obvious look and she rolled her eyes. Msizi always bragged that he was a human GPS. And it was true; he never

seemed to get lost.

They rolled onto a gravel driveway in front of a large ranch house. It was built from smooth pale stone nearly identical to

the rocky land around it, making it look carved from the desert by nature. Blue flower-shaped solar lights ran along both

sides of the driveway like an airstrip.

“Do they know we’re coming?” Zelu asked.

“Yes,” Msizi said as he pulled the keys out of the ignition. “I texted them when we were at the car rental place.”

“Who exactly are they again?” she asked, peering out at the large house.

He laughed and just shook his head. “Friends. You’ll see.”

She switched on her exos as Msizi got out from the driver’s side. When he heard them power on, he turned his head and asked,

“You all right?”

“Yeah,” she said, sounding more dismissive than she intended.

He closed the door. She paused for a moment and then got out, too. Her exos touched down on the gravelly surface, quickly

adjusting to the rocky terrain. Msizi was plugging the car into an electric charging station she hadn’t noticed they’d parked

beside. “Nice,” she noted.

“The whole house is solar, too,” Msizi told her. “They’re completely off the grid. Even at night.”

It was dark, but the solar lights illuminated things just enough that she could see that the house’s entire roof was covered

with solar panels.

They walked up the driveway, her exos crunching against the gravel. It was crazy quiet here. So quiet that she could hear

chirping insects, the brush of bird wings, and the whistle of the wind with stark clarity.

The front door opened. “Welcome!” A heavyset black man with smooth skin, a shiny bald head, and a long salt-and-pepper beard

braided at the tip appeared at the foyer. Msizi went over to hug him. When they pulled apart, the man looked at Zelu with

a kind smile. But his eyes were intense, and they moved over her from top to bottom. It was like being in front of an X-ray

machine.

“Hi,” Zelu said, “... Marlo?” It was a guess; Msizi hadn’t told her who was whom.

“Indeed, I am.” His voice was low and rumbly, the way she imagined a dragon’s would sound. Zelu liked it very much. “Finally,

we meet Msizi’s genius writer!”

“I’m definitely a writer,” she said, shaking his hand. Strong, but it didn’t try to squeeze her to death.

The woman she presumed must be Wind stood a step behind him. She was a very dark-skinned black woman, and she wore a long,

flowing blue dress and sandals. She carried a tall glass of some green liquid in one hand, and her other hand was on her hip.

“And you’re Msizi’s,” Wind said.

Zelu met her eyes straight on, and Wind did not look away. Normally the direct eye contact startled people, but Wind wasn’t

fazed. Zelu looked away first.

“Come on in,” Marlo said, standing back so they could enter the house. “Let’s get you settled.”

Wind and Zelu weren’t going to get along; Zelu was sure of it already. Once inside, Msizi and Marlo went to the back porch to catch up or smoke or drink beer or stargaze or whatever the fuck they were going to do. Zelu was left alone with Wind in a spacious living area.

Wind took a sip of her drink. The silence crept in. Zelu had no energy for chitchat tonight. She just wanted a little something

to eat and then a shower and sleep.

“If you want me to bring you something to eat in your room, I can,” Wind said, almost as if she’d heard Zelu’s thoughts. “But

I’d prefer it if you had a bite with me.”

Wind was clearly sizing her up, and Zelu was in no mood for it. “No thanks.”

“Well, that’s kind of rude,” Wind replied flatly.

“Do you know the night I’ve had?”

The other woman raised her eyebrows. “I heard you just attended the premiere of a blockbuster film based on your book and

then had a journalist ambush you in an interview. That about right?”

Zelu briefly closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. “Fuck that journalist. And the movie’s a disaster! They set the movie

in the United States, when my book was set in Nigeria.”

“There are black people in the United States, too.” Wind’s voice was matter-of-fact, but Zelu swore she heard the edge of

a smile in it. “Why can’t you give us a bit of the action?”

“Are you serious?” She shook her head, tired and wanting nothing more than to be alone. “Where is the room I’m staying in?”

Wind led her down a hallway and opened a door. Zelu entered a large room with a king-size bed in the center. A fluffy white

canopy hung above it like a cloud. On the walls were colorful paintings of robots and dolphins. Beside the bed was an old

clunky wheelchair they’d somehow found for her. And on the nightstand was a small meal of fried chicken, jollof rice, plantain,

and a huge bottle of water.

Zelu looked at Wind, shocked. “What the hell? You psychic or something?”

“Bathroom and shower are right there,” Wind said, pointing to the door on the other side of the room. “I’ll see you in the morning. Maybe you’ll have stopped feeling sorry for yourself by then.”

Before Zelu could even respond to that, Wind had shut the door. “Bitch,” Zelu muttered to herself. She threw her purse on

the bed, looked around the room, and scoffed, annoyed. This room was creepily perfect. She hoped this had to do with Msizi,

rather than these people stalking her online or something.

She undressed, sat on the bed, removed and plugged in her nearly dead exos, and ate. The food was perfect, too; how Wind had

made sure it would still be warm when she ate it, Zelu didn’t know. She used the wheelchair to wheel to the bathroom and brushed

her teeth, plugged in her phone, brooded as she looked out the window into the pure blackness for a while, and then went to

bed. She was asleep within seconds.

When she awoke, Msizi was beside her. He was deep in sleep when she wheeled to the bathroom (which, to her surprise, was fully

accessible) and took a long hot shower. He was still sleeping when she finished. She dressed, got into her exos, and left

the room. The house wasn’t wide, but it was long, and it took her a while to make it to the kitchen. Wind was up already,

standing at the stove.

“Morning,” she said as she cracked an egg into a sizzling pan.

“Hey,” Zelu greeted her, still wary as she walked farther into the room.

“You hungry?”

“I can eat,” she acquiesced.

“Good. I already made you an omelet,” she said. “Msizi said chilis, tomatoes, and chicken. That correct?”

Zelu laughed. “Yeah. Exactly.” She sat at a beautiful live-edge wood table beside a large open window. Outside was miles and

miles of desert. In the distance, she saw the shape of a mountain.

They ate together in silence, gazing out at the horizon. A long-legged bird with a big brown tail dashed by. Zelu gasped and

pointed at it. “Oh my God! Was that a roadrunner?”

Wind laughed. “Yep. Welcome to the desert.”

“I’ve been to deserts before, in the Middle East. But I’ve never seen a real-life roadrunner!” She was fighting the urge to shout “Meep meep!” like the Looney Tunes character would and to ask about tumbleweeds. Then she paused, suddenly self-conscious as she felt Wind observing her. She settled down, looking back at her food. “Sorry if I broke the morning silence. I’m... like that, too.”

Wind nodded and said nothing. Zelu frowned and didn’t say another word for the next twenty minutes. As she ate, she stared

at the dry land with its stunted, prickly bushes and cacti and roadrunners and lizards and dust. How did things live here?

She wanted to ask how they even managed to get running water in the house, but she kept her mouth shut. Wind got up to make

some herbal tea and handed Zelu a mug. Zelu blew on it and sipped slowly. This was peaceful. And that was pretty remarkable,

considering she did not like Wind at all.

“Want to go for a hike?” Wind asked, squinting out the window. “It’s still early, so not too hot. Plus, it’s overcast today.”

“Is... I dunno if I can,” she said, twisting the mug in her hands. “I’ve never done that with my exos.”

Wind cocked her head. “You mean you’ve never taken those off-road?” She sounded affronted.

“I’m not an outdoorsy person,” Zelu snapped.

“Are you scared?” she asked.

Zelu looked Wind squarely in the eye, anger boiling in her belly. Who did this woman think she was? “Yeah!” she declared.

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I am! You think you can peer-pressure me into risking my life? I’m not a teenager.”

Wind laughed, totally unbothered. “Touché.”

Zelu really disliked this woman. How dare she laugh when she had no idea what Zelu was going through? “You don’t know what

it’s like to be me,” she said darkly.

Wind stood up breezily, bringing her mug to the sink. “Come hiking with me. If you don’t, you’ll just end up on your phone

and start looking at bullshit.”

Zelu blinked, realizing for the first time that she hadn’t given the stupid film, the media, any of it a thought since she’d woken up. She’d just been eating a delicious omelet, being annoyed by Wind, and staring at the weird desert. “Damn... you’re right.”

“So let’s go,” Wind urged. “We won’t walk anywhere too uneven.”

Zelu didn’t have any hiking clothes, but Wind had plenty. When they came back into the main living area in their sportswear,

they found Msizi and Marlo setting up a temporary office on a table with their laptops. Msizi looked up and smiled when he

saw Zelu dressed in Wind’s T-shirt and shorts.

“Don’t take her anywhere difficult,” Marlo said.

“Of course not. I’m taking her down the easy path,” Wind replied as she grabbed sunscreen from a cabinet. “Maybe when the

technology improves, we’ll try the tougher stuff.”

Zelu scowled at her.

“Oh, relax, Zelu,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re too sensitive.” Before Zelu could respond, she turned back to Marlo

and Msizi. “All right, we’re going.”

Zelu gave Msizi a look that said Can you believe this woman? As she followed Wind out.

“Have fun,” he called with a wink.

Wind informed her that the beginning of the trail was a five-minute walk away, but when they reached it, the path looked just

like all the land around them. The only difference was that there were fewer rocks. Zelu’s exos made crunching and grinding

sounds as she hiked, but it didn’t feel as jarring as when she walked on concrete. It was about 10 a.m. and with the overcast,

the eighty-five-degree temperature and strong breeze felt quite pleasant.

“How far are we going?” she asked after fifteen minutes.

“Why? Are you winded?” Wind said over her shoulder. It wasn’t her words that annoyed Zelu; it was the chuckle afterward.

“No, I’m not ‘winded,’ Wind. I’m just asking because of the sun.”

“It’s overcast.”

“For now.”

“Why are you so negative, always focusing on the worst?” Wind asked, bounding onward and forcing Zelu to keep pace. “Look at your life. You’ve written this crazy novel that has somehow caught the zeitgeist. I read it myself; it’s brilliant. You did that. You’ve got these two-hundred-thousand-dollar robot legs because you’re Zelu Who Wrote Rusted Robots . The film adaptation of your novel came out two nights ago. So what if you’ve been ‘canceled’ on an app? You were sticking

up for yourself—isn’t that worth it? Plus, social media isn’t the real world. This is the real world. So, Zelu. What. Is. Your. Problem? ”

“Why don’t you stop talking,” Zelu muttered. “I don’t even fucking know you.” She felt a rush of frustration as she tried

to push away the truth of Wind’s words. She couldn’t take them in, she couldn’t sit with them, she wouldn’t. No , she thought. Just no.

Wind didn’t turn around, but her voice carried toward Zelu on the breeze. “Yet I’ve cooked you two meals you’ve loved, prepared

a room to your liking, and read your novel.”

Zelu gritted her teeth. The hike went on, and they continued to bicker like this for the next two hours. Zelu thought it would

never end; her skin was coated with a sticky film of sweat and dust, and she was so tired. Then they reached the cliff. Zelu hadn’t even realized they’d been walking uphill. Her exos had performed flawlessly.

“Whoa,” she whispered as she slowly stepped toward the edge. The desert spread before her with such strength that for a moment,

she felt dizzy with a rush of vertigo.

“Check this out,” Wind said. She was already standing at the edge, looking down.

Zelu stopped a few feet back, afraid to go any closer. The drop was probably more than fifty feet, and only cacti and scrubs

padded the ground below.

“Come closer,” Wind said.

Zelu shook her head. “I’m scared.”

Wind nodded and turned back to the view.

“I’m...” Zelu didn’t know why she felt the need to extrapolate. “What if my exos malfunction and they keep going when I

mean to stop?”

“Have they ever done anything like that before?” Wind asked, her back to Zelu.

“No.”

“Then why would they now?”

Zelu shrugged, unable to explain. Wasn’t that just how her life went? And if something bad happened, she’d have only herself

to blame.

“Those exos got you all the way up here,” Wind said gently. “They’ve carried you all over the world for about a year now,

and you still don’t trust your robotics. Interesting. You’re an interesting person, Zelu.”

Zelu looked down at her exos, coated with dust from the long walk. Her legs, socks, and shoes were dusty, too. She gave more

trust and respect to that which could not support her than that which could.

She hardened her jaw, squared her shoulders, and stepped onto the edge beside Wind. It was a stunning vista, golden light

spilling from gaps in the clouds like rays from the heavens. Patches of sun and shadow moved across the vast desert floor

like the shimmering scales of some mythical creature. Zelu took a deep breath, the now hot air crisp in her nostrils. They

absorbed the view together in silence for a few minutes.

Then it was as if something switched off in her brain. All the events of yesterday flooded through her again, and fury coiled

in her stomach, made her skin hot. “I hate that journalist!” she suddenly shouted. Her voice echoed across the landscape. Wind flinched, surprised by the sudden disruption

of the peace, but Zelu didn’t care. “I hate all those people on social media! I don’t care if they bought my book! They don’t

know what it is to be me !” She hesitated and then looked out at the land below the cliff, and screamed, “That fucking movie had my name on it!”

Tears stung in her eyes. Her lip was trembling. The muscles in her back ached from the physical activity.

Wind whooped. “Scream it louder, Zelu!”

Zelu didn’t know if she had the strength. But she took a deep breath and shrieked with everything left inside her, for the

entire desert to hear, “THAT FUCKING MOVIE HAD MY NAME ON IT!”

Her voice rolled across the land. Her words echoed back at her over and over, softer each time.

She stared at Wind, this woman she didn’t particularly like. “Who the fuck am I, Wind?”

“Whomever you choose to be,” Wind said sagely. “Write what you want, woman. Walk how you want. Love who you love. Speak your truth. Be good and roll with life. You can’t have or control everything or everyone.”

Pretty words, but Zelu hated that Wind made it sound easy. “You don’t even know me,” she grunted.

Wind threw her hands up like she couldn’t believe she had to explain this. “Msizi and Marlo are best friends, and I’m Marlo’s

partner. Your man talks. And be glad he does. The fact is, I know you plenty.”

“Well, I don’t know you !”

Wind put a hand on her hip. “So?”

Zelu opened her mouth to say something. She closed it because she didn’t have anything to say. The moisture in her eyes grew

thicker, threatening to spill over again.

“No, don’t do that,” Wind said firmly.

Zelu sighed, wishing she could just let her body drop and curl up in the dust. “I don’t think I’m strong enough to be who

I am.”

“Stop thinking about it. Just do it.”

Zelu wanted to laugh at this strange, wise desert woman. “Who are you?”

“A black physicist from Florida who loves the dry heat.”

Zelu huffed, turning back toward the view. “Is it hard to be you?”

“Not anymore,” she said. “But getting here was. I’m fifty-six years old.”

“What? Really?” Zelu had been sure that Wind was a year or two older than her, if she was older at all. Suddenly she understood

why she didn’t like Wind. The woman saw right through her in a way that most did not. Some of that definitely had to do with

her age.

Wind chuckled again. “Wow.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

A breeze swept up from below, washing over them and cooling Zelu’s skin. Wind stretched her neck out and smiled into it. “It took me twenty-five years to get to this point. I used to work for NASA. Still do sometimes, but I let things go, put things into place, made the hard decisions, and moved. I did it. It was scary, difficult, my family thought I was crazy, even Marlo needed to be convinced. There was so much to do to get where I wanted to be. But eventually, I got here. One thing at a time. Perspective.” She nodded to herself. “Don’t get lost in the woods, Zelu. I think that’s why Msizi brought you here, to the desert. So you wouldn’t get lost in yourself.”

Zelu watched the dappled light glint against the silhouette of the distant mountain. From here, it looked like a deep purple

mound curling into the sky. This place was anything but the woods. It was so bare you could see for miles and miles.

“Perspective,” Zelu said.

“Yeah, perspective. Anyway, enough thinking. Let’s head back.”

By the time they made it to the house, it was nearly 2 p.m. They didn’t say much more to each other, and that was nice. Zelu

would never have imagined that so much wildlife thrived in the desert. They’d even seen a forest-green snake try to ambush

a quail. There was an ebb and flow out here that was really magical. Who’d have thought? In this giant expanse of rock and

dirt that seemed to stretch on into infinity, Hollywood felt worlds away. Still, Zelu knew she couldn’t make a life and thrive

here like Wind. She’d only long for a body of water, for the constant movement of the waves, the sound of the water breaking

against the shore.

They stayed with Marlo and Wind for a week. However, Zelu knew that she had to return to the human world. By the time they

left, she still didn’t much like Wind. But she was ready to answer her agent’s phone calls and get back to the world of her

books. The film was not her story, but at least it was something that gave people joy. It was a worthy sacrifice... maybe.

Plus, as everyone kept reminding her, her book was still her book. The weird, magnificent thing she’d pulled out of her brain had started this all, and that would always belong to her.