Page 70 of Death of the Author
Then her adult mind kicked in, asking the tougher questions. She hated roller coasters, so could she really tolerateanylevel of g-force in her body? No matter what Preston said, no matter what experts predicted, she was still a paraplegic woman, and few like her had ever traveled to space before. And those few were top-level engineers who’d made it through the NASA gauntlet of excellence.
She heard the door to Msizi’s office open.
“Msizi,” she called to him, twisting her desk chair around.
“What, Zelu?”
“Come here!” She laughed, waving him over.
She put her head in her hands as he stood behind her and read the email. She didn’t want to see his face. “Read faster,” she groaned, grasping the chair’s armrests.
“I didn’t know they were interviewing me for this when I spoke with them,” he said.
“What?” Zelu gasped. “They called you?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been asked by a million journalists about you. What was one more?”
“Foolish man.”
Msizi rubbed his beard, looking hard at the screen. “It was your dream before you fell out of the tree.”
“Yeah. But I gave it up.”
“Did you, though?” he asked, looking down at her searchingly. “Didn’t some poet say, ‘What you seek is seeking you’? You manifested this.”
She said nothing. She didn’t have to. He knew he was right, and he already knew what she wanted.
“You do know that I’m as much a part of this as you,” he said, sitting on the couch. “If you go up there, I’ll behere. Those you leave behind will suffer most.”
She chewed on the inside of her lip as she studied his face, watching every minor muscle working, hoping to understand what he really wanted. “So you think I should first discuss it with you?” she asked. “Then with my parents and my siblings? Then maybe my agents and publisher, too? Maybe even post a survey on social media about it?” She was on a roll now, fueled by remnants of anger she couldn’t extinguish no matter how hard she tried. “But they’ll all just say, ‘Fuck that, we don’t care, where’s book two?’”
Msizi’s eyes hardened, and he looked down his nose at her. “Not your family, not your agents, not your fans. Me.”
“It’smychoice.”
He laughed. “Sure it is, Zelu. Everything is.”
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“You decide,” he said, waving a hand and moving to stand up.
“What doyouthink I should do?” she asked, this time more earnestly.
“Oh, I think you should totally go,” he said.
This derailed her completely. She’d been certain they were about to have an argument. “Wait, what?”
He opened his arms like he was surrendering himself to her. “You are central to my life and I know you. If you want to do this, then that’s the best thing for you right now. You want to leave the Earth, and this is your shot. That fucking white guy billionaire read you perfectly.”
She frowned, unsure why she felt crushed by his words, even though it was what she’d wanted him to say. She looked at the grain of the wood floor instead of his eyes. “Man, these rich white men keep coming out of the woodwork and changing my life. What the hell?”
He snorted. “Yeah. You seem to be experiencing some bizarre aspect of American privilege.”
They both laughed. She pinched her arm and laughed again.My God, what is this going to do to me?she wondered. But it wasn’t a bad thought. Itwas a thrilling one. Her future was full of stars. She was ready for another change, a shift, an evolution.
Zelu’s phone buzzed. She was grinning as she answered it, excited to start relaying her news. Then she paused as she listened to what was said to her. The smile slipped from her face.
Just like always, it took only a second for her life to completely fall apart. Arm. Leg. Leg. Arm. Head. Pulled asunder. Crushed.
