Rosewater

I can read minds but I still don't understand women. Or men. Humans. I don't understand humans.

The idea of a singular hero and a manifest destiny just makes us lazy. There is no destiny. There is choice, there is action, and any other narrative perpetuates a myth that someone else out there will fix our problems with a magic sword and a blessing from the gods.

Right. Fantastic. Now I'm supposed to do something heroic, right?" "Please. For one thing, you're not the type. Second, I am tired of women and men of destiny. The idea of a singular hero and a manifest destiny just makes us all lazy. There is no destiny. There is choice, there is action, and any other narrative perpetuates a myth that someone else out there will fix our problems with a magic sword and a blessing from the gods.

It is never a good idea to cause pain to angels.

I find that the older I get, the less I care what people think about me. I only care what a small number of people think, and that number is dwindling daily.

Bola knows I am single and has made it her mission to find me a mate. I don’t like this because … well, when people matchmake, they introduce people to you whom they think are sufficiently like you. Each person they offer is a commentary on how they see you. If I’ve never liked anyone Bola has introduced me to, does that mean she doesn’t know me well enough, or that she does know me but I hate myself?

The Yoruba say ‘o d’oju ala’ when someone dies. I will see you in dreams.

No good thing renders its possessor happy, unless his mind is reconciled to the possibility of loss.

Oyin Da’s mind is as elegant as a French horn, thoughts moving in whorls and evoking fresh mint leaves.

What you think of as yourself is actually many things. At the core is your true self, of which you may not even be fully aware. Wrapped around this are several false selves that are used at different times in different situations, social selves that serve the function of translating your true self to the world. We swap between these effortlessly as we grow up, but they are elaborate fictions. Or they are real but alternative selves. It depends on where you stand epistemologically.

In her mind I read that any community can be assessed by the way it treats women, not something I have thought of before.

Maybe humankind was meant to be sick from time to time. Maybe there is something to be learned from illness.

It is a certainty, not just a conviction, the way believing in God is a conviction, but believing in gravity is a certainty.

I keep turning over, although I am not nauseated. No gravity per se. I hope movement isn't by swimming motions here, because I cannot swim. Am I dead? Is this the hell of people who cannot swim?

A bolekaja rolls by, all the passengers glaring at each other. A bolekaja is a modified Mercedes 911 truck used for mass transit. The word means “disembark so we can fight” because the passengers are tightly packed and always aggravated.

...even the Gujarat-bot dreams of electric sheep.

I let go of the tenuous control I had and scream into the void. Without lungs you can scream forever, and I do.

The Machinery are a bunch of fuckwits who believe that the human body is best conceptualised as a machine, and that if behaviour is stripped down to only what is functional, a higher form of humanity will emerge. This means actions that lead to the fulfilment of their basic needs only. Disease is a malfunction. You can see where this goes. They’re boring as hell, they only speak to convey information and they are more inflexible than actual machines. They are said to be good spouses and accountants. The one beside me has a distinct self-image, fully identified as a machine. He repeats to himself mentally, ‘You are a machine, you are a machine.

This is a psychofield, a thoughtspace, essentially unstable. While most people conceptualise thinking as this straightforward linear thing, I see ideas spreading out into alternatives before one is selected. In this place every notion can potentially become reality.

I can’t,’ I say. Her mind closes like a shutter, with finality. I wish, at that moment, that I had said something else.

I see a waning gibbous, battling bravely to be noticed against the light pollution.

come to a stop in front of the most prominent structure, a clock tower with no clock. There is a painted-on clock face. “It’s odd here,” says Korede. “Every hour someone climbs the belfry and paints the correct time. There is no bell in the belfry, but a rod with a loop of wrought iron marks the spot where one might have hung. There is a strict rota for this, adhered to quite rigidly by the townsfolk.

I am tired of women and men of destiny. The idea of a singular hero and a manifest destiny just makes us all lazy. There is no destiny. There is choice, there is action, and any other narrative perpetuates a myth that someone else out there will fix our problems with a magic sword and a blessing from the gods.

The driver drops a suit on the bed. "Put this on." "I don't dress like this, man. Thanks, but can I see what else you have?" The driver's eyes narrow. "I'm just kidding. How the hell do you guys make it through a working day? You're all so serious.

What you think of as your self is actually many things. At the core is your true self, of which you may not even be fully aware.

Get better today than what you were yesterday.

Weren’t they after me?” “No, Kaaro. Aminat has her own story; she is not a supporting character of yours.

His second wife is enormously fat. She literally looks like a monument to greed. Beautiful face, though.

Think of something you love, something you hate, something you fear, something disgusting or beautiful. Something you find impressive.