BETWEEN THE LANDS Eric Wallace
The great ocean was cruelly calm. Calm and black. Black as the deepest shadows of a desert grave. And cunning, shooting sudden fierce shards of blinding light into the boat. Out here on the Mediterranean, Jabari thought, light was not your friend. You baked, burned, poached like a sliver of rotting goat floating in palm grease. The thin tent-cloth which had briefly shaded them had been stolen from its flimsy poles by a sneak thief of a night sirocco, leaving above only the chilly stars, then the ominous beauty of dawn, then the harsh climb of the ruthless sun. Yesterday—was that yesterday or two days ago? Three?—it was waves. Waves taller than sand dunes. Waves angrier than raging camels, waves lurching, heaving, lifting the boat, slamming it down into the concrete-hard surface, the air filled with stinging spray and spume, snarling, salty upsurges, frigid waterfalls ripping and drenching. There were no life jackets. Very safe crossing, easy. So it was said. A cruel joke. Which was better? Storms from the sea or cremation from the sky? Jabari squinted in the hazy glare, his gritty eyelids resisting, looked at his fellow sufferers. Those pressed around him came from Tunisia, Libya, Ethiopia, Chad, Niger, from refugee camps in Sudan. Drought, famine, religious persecution and war drove them like animals to the edge of the ocean, the lure of a future pulling at them from across the shimmering surface. Here everyone was, cast upon the waters of this ancient sea, with places of safety surely not so far off, perhaps a rescue vessel even closer? Rescue. Jabari bit his parched lips. There had been no rescue for his village from drought and disease, no rescue for his beloved wife, dead, his beautiful twin boys, dead. He had to move on. People said flee north to Europe. Safety, work, a new life. A confusion of so many colors. So many sad colors. You wear color for hope, for life, but the once-bright cheerfulness mocks you as you float in exhaustion, thirst. Red was especially sad. Jabari had buried Amara in her favorite red yelik, sewn and dyed by Amara herself. A bewilderment of sounds, wailing, whimpering, 99
