Hymn of the Drexciya

I put on my uniform and looked at the reflection staring back at me. I wore all white, a contrast to my dark skin, and I put my braids in a ponytail. Wearing my hair down is inappropriate according to school regulations. I tuck the cowlick behind my ear into a braid. The cowlick is a split hair that everyone in my family has somewhere on their heads, and though tucking it into my braids only temporarily hides it I still do it because it’s more comfortable to know other people can’t see it. The collar was itchy on my neck, so I scratched it, but it wouldn’t dissipate. I scratched deeper and deeper until I smelt blood. Still, the itch was never satiated. I kissed my mother goodbye and headed down the street to the bus stop. Our bus looks different than the other busses, at least on the outside. The interior is a banana yellow, but the inside is a midnight black. I like the bus; it is unique and gives me a feeling of difference and community with all the other students that ride it but sometimes it is weird. Why is this bus different than the others? No one seems to have the same answer. Her name was also a point of speculation. Every bus had a different name on the side. This bus’s name was Meermin. I chuckled to myself. Sometimes it's easiest to make a joke of the things you don’t understand. Thoughts like these circled my brain like sharks to a boat.

I got on the bus and saw all the other kids laughing and talking and sleeping and listening to music. The bus is only filled with black kids, not because of a law or anything just because we all live in the same neighborhood and go to the same school. The only white person on this bus is the driver, Mr. Rice. Mr. Rice was one of the most outwardly friendly men I had ever met. Sometimes it was even a little weird. My mind wandered further as I put my headphones on and stared at the window. Our neighborhood feels out of place. The school is nestled into the bustle of a small-town inland, but our houses lined an absurd cliff. The bus drives down a narrow, unpaved road carved into the inside of the cliff the houses are built on, so the bus has to drive slowly, but it’s a great view. The water violently crashes against rocks, as if attempting to destroy them but the rocks never break. I will never get used to the long and windy road, hundreds of trips down it never make me feel less disoriented. I closed my eyes and turned up my music, attempting to slow the symptoms of the bus ride. We had only driven for a few minutes before I felt it. Something about the atmosphere on the bus changed. I opened my eyes and looked around. Everyone was still doing what they were doing before I closed my eyes but still, there was a change. I was disoriented for a moment, my body and my environment seemed to disconnect I went up to Mr. Rice to ask if something was wrong. He looked at me funny and told me that everything was quite alright. The kids started to stare at me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to happen. I sat back in my seat, changed the song I was listening to and began to close my eyes. Just as my eyes fully closed, I felt the bus tip sideways and children start to scream. I opened my eyes to see the ocean reaching closer and closer to my window. I flew out of my seat and my head hit the roof of the bus. Everything goes dark.

When I wake up, I am surrounded by the faces of other panicked children on the bus. It takes me a second to gather my thoughts. There was a pounding in my head that put pressure on my eyes. Am I hallucinating? I remember the bus falling off the road. How am I breathing? I get up from the aisle and look out the window. There is no way. All I see is blue stretching for as far as I can see. The air has been trapped inside the bus. The air has been trapped inside the bus! This is great! And then I look to see all the miserable faces around me. Then I realize it. We don’t have much time before we run out of oxygen. The realization knocks the air out of my lungs. I struggle to breathe. A girl comes up to me and tries to calm me down. Her friends whisper behind us that me freaking out is wasting valuable oxygen. I look around. We are split into many tiny groups, each arguing what we should do. I hear a group saying that the best decision is to kill off those who are injured to preserve air until someone saves us. Two other groups argue that we should open the windows, but for different reasons. One says we shouldn’t delay the inevitable, we are as good as dead anyway. The other argues that the air is going to run out eventually so we should try and swim to the surface. I don’t realize what I’m doing until cold water hits me sharp in the stomach. People start to scream. A girl pushes me hard into one of the seats. I feel the air being knocked out of my lungs. I gasp trying to fill my lungs up before I have to abandon this sinking ship. The bus fills up with water until the entire thing is submerged. Everyone opens their windows and begins to swim. I swim out seeing brighter waters above me, or is it below me? I can’t tell which direction I’m swimming anymore. I try holding but the pressure in my chest is overwhelming. I try and ration the air still inside of my lungs. I hate that girl for punching me. If she hadn’t hit me, I wouldn’t be in this situation. I finally succumb to my bodies instinct to breath and it burns. My entire body feels like it is being branded. Things begin to fade. I begin to sing songs in my head. Hymns my mother taught me, that her grandmother taught her. The song calls to God to come and save me. Will God save me? Why would he let this happen? I cannot ask for help if I don’t help myself. I swim towards the light, which keeps shifting just out of reach. I feel the last of the air in my lungs escape in a giant bubble and drift towards my feet. Had I been swimming deeper this whole time? My heart began to slow, and pain circled throughout every fiber of my being. And in front of my eyes, my feet changed into a beautiful tail. I begin to transform. Scales grow on the side of my neck and I am not struggling to breathe. Tendrils of water weave through my braids and in one pulling motion my hair is freed, unfurling into beautiful coils around me and relieving the pressure from my head. Beauty and power replace pain and I begin to swim. I feel a freedom I have never felt before. Suddenly I see them. There are others in the distance that look like me. They swim around a palace made of ivory. I hear them sing the sweetest hymn I’ve ever heard. They sing the hymn of the Drexciya.