They say, ‘The richer the skin, the richer the man.’ Momma says it didn’t use to be that way. In fact, I heard her telling Zainab that it used to be the opposite. That was before the Drought of 2046 and the Eruption of 2048. I hated that unit in school, they made us test over which corporations caused them, even though there was like a bajillion of them! They say due to some ancient thing called an ‘Ozone’ being gone, the Sun became so hot, it made them feel like gasoline poured on them with every rain, and a match thrown with every hot breeze. Us ochre and indigo fared decently, but the pale folks couldn’t handle all that light on their skin. “Now, they huntin’ us down for the skin we were gifted.” I shove Kendrick away with one of my bony elbows. “You’ a liar! They ain’t huntin’ like crocodiles.” DJ goes to kick a bleached rock off the trail, but misses by a mile. He’s never been the best with those long, clumsy feet of his. “They are too!” He grumbles out with a curse at the rock “Why you think all our neighbors are goin’ missin’? Why the teachers ain’t here?” My hands come to my temples, scratching away the crusted gel on my edges, anything to focus on something that isn’t his new theory. “Well, if they wanted to catch somebody for their skin, it’d be you!” I press my new boots into the back of his knee. “Ow! What is wrong with you?” I’m already running to my front door, grinning over my shoulder when he finally reaches my porch after a century. “And they wouldn’t want me, I’m tellin’ you. They’d wanted somebody dark, blue- black… like Zainab.” My eyes nearly roll to the back of my head while I shut my door. “See you tomorrow, Deandre.”
The smell of beans and corn wraps around me. “Na’Jala? Is that you?” “Yes, Mommy!” I set my bag down on the wooden table next to the front door and whine, knowing I have to pick up the pens that fell through the tiny hole in my bag’s corner. I appear in front of my mom as fast as I can, wrapping my arms around her waist and resting my head on her chest. She smells of salt and the sweet, heavy musk of cocoa butter. “You followed the path I told you about to home, right? The path with all the trees?” I nod against her skin. “Yes, mommy.” My mom scoops a portion of the hearty stew over a bed of steaming rice. “What did Zainab think of all the plants? She’s obsessed with all things green.” She asks. My mom’s laugh cuts short when I tell her Zainab didn’t come to school today. “What? Are you sure? Maybe she just talked with different people today.” Using a cool towel, I take my plate to the kitchen island and dig in. “Nope, I know for certain she didn’t come today.” The rest of the evening, my mom had this weird look on her face. Like somebody pinched the space between her eyebrows and the sides of her mouth. Even when she tucked me into bed, the creases in her face were lit blue with my nightlight.
The next day, Zainab still wasn’t there. “I think somebody’s watchin’ me when we split off.” This time, I don’t kick him for it. “What are you talkin’ about now, DJ?” His eyes are wild like always, but they didn’t look light anymore. His pupils are flickering past my face and into the leaves behind me. “I’m being serious! I thought they wouldn’t come to me, thought I was too light for what they usually go for. But it’s getting hotter, and they’re probably getting desperate.” The biggest sigh leaves my chest while my hands run through the sweat-puffy, supposed to be straight, ponytail on my head. “DeAndre, nobody is watchin’ you. You’re probably just paranoid because all the disappearances.” He stomps in until he’s in my way. Sweat rolls down DeAndre’s crumpled face like rain. “Oh yeah? Then where’s Zainab?” I shove his shoulder. “She’s probably just sick.” He shoves me back. “Or taken. Taken like how I’m about to be if you don’t listen-” I place my hands on both of his scrawny shoulders and push him out of my way. “Deandre!” I shout, my chest rising and falling like a wild river. “Zainab is fine! You’ll be fine! Youknow what? I’m leavin’” Before he can get back up, I’m already sprinting away, my mind overrun with thoughts of ‘What if he’s right?’ My mom doesn’t ask me how school was, just if I followed the trail. I tell her I did and lay my head on her chest again. She doesn’t smell like cocoa anymore. Now she smells like the lead pencils at school, and white powder rubs off my cheek when I pull away. That evening is soaked in dim navy light from not-fully closed blinds and something rumbling just outside the door.
The next day, Zainab isn’t there, Deandre’s as quiet as a mouse, and it’s time to split ways again. His hand grips my wrist, and I can feel his damp skin on my pulse points. “Na’Jala, can you stay with me? Down my path? Please?” His eyes aren’t facing me, but just past me. To the thick woods, right next to his house. “I’m tired of all this talk, DJ. You’ll be fine. I’ll see you tomorrow at school.” The last thing I hear him say before running back home is, “I’ll say Hi to Zainab for you.”
I arrive at school the next day withno Zainab, and now no DJ. My eyes fix on every window, every space between the doors, and I never find a lanky, sepia colored boy with wild eyes staring back at me. The speed I run home kicks up dust, no Zainab telling me to slow down and look at some flower, no Deandre telling me stories upon stories. “Mommy! Mommy, DeAndre wasn’t at school today!” I crash through the door like a bullet and throw my bag into a corner. I kick off my flats and run to her room. There, I find her with that white powder patted all over her skin. Once shiny chocolate, now dulled with something that smells too much like pencils and nothing like coconuts. ”Baby, I think it’s time I tell you what’s goin’ on.” I nuzzle into her side, still resting my head on her hardened chest. “You know how they taught y’all that the heat stroke made it hard for paler to survive?” I feel her lungs expand beneath my jaw. “Now, they’ve been lookin’ at us darker folks to save them.” My face jumps off of her. My mommy’s voice quivers with every word. “They need the richness of our skin to live with the Sun down.” “T-That’s their fault! That’s not fair!” She tries to put her hand on my shoulder, but I shove it off. “I know, baby. But we can’t do anythin’ about it anymore. I just need you to stay here now. I-I wanted you to keep goin’ to school, but it ain’t safe anymore.” None of it registers anymore. None of the words, none of the warnings, nothing. All the teachers, DeAndre…Zainab. “No!” I turn around and run out the door. I can hear my mommy yelling ‘NaJala!’ behind me, but I can’t listen anymore. Not when I run past DJ’s house, and I can hear his mother’s wails through the thin walls. My legs carry me into the dense woods while my arms swat away the thicker branches. I only stop when I realize I don’t know where I am. My ears pick up on crunching too close to me, and I squat down behind a tree. “Where is that little girl! I saw her run in here.” The words come from a man with pale pink skin, beady eyes, thin lips, and an even smaller nose. A man who has even smaller features is with him. But he’s different. His skin is dark. A navy blue sheet that folds over his high nose bridge. Blue-black, like…Like… My eyes squeeze shut when their heads flick my way. “She’s the darkest you can afford. Maybe if you worked a little harder, you can look like me.” Chuckles and the crunch of leaves inch closer and closer. My eyes only stay open a second. After that, everything goes dark. Dark as Zainab.
Author’s Note
We are, in my opinion, experiencing a severe drought in terms of decent quality sci-fi. This story is my take on a dystopian future where sun is just too hot to keep up with. And when sunscreen can’t block the UV, why not just wear biology’s built in protection? This is also a more literal interpretation of the theft the Black diaspora goes through. Now, with everything stripped, all there’s left to take is the skin.
About Author
Hello! My name is Jayla Lee and I am a teen writer in Texas who loves dystopian stories with political allegories and perfectly placed jokes. The piece I’ve submitted today is something I, myself, would enjoy reading. Any story with predictions of the future with present evidence sounds like a good time to me. I hope you enjoy!
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