X-raying 2 stories gunning for 2016 Caine Prize

Recently, the shortlist for the Caine Prize for African Writing was released. Among the five stories listed are Tope Folarin’s (a former winner of the same prize) ‘Genesis’ and Lesley Nneka Arimah’s (a former regional winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize) ‘When a Man Falls from the Sky’. When a Man Falls From the […]

Recently, the shortlist for the Caine Prize for African Writing was released. Among the five stories listed are Tope Folarin’s (a former winner of the same prize) ‘Genesis’ and Lesley Nneka Arimah’s (a former regional winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize) ‘When a Man Falls from the Sky’.
When a Man Falls From the Sky
This year’s contesting stories for the Caine Prize for African Writing can best be described in the words of one of the judges, Delia Jarrett-Macauley, who noted the amount of “risk-taking in both subject matter and style”. Lesley Nneka Arimah’s story is definitely one of them and arguably has taken science-fiction notches higher. It’s set in a world where people measure grief; actually see it in a person for what it is and try to fix it. It took reading this work multiple times to grasp these details.
The story opens with controversy over the use of Furcal’s Formular, a grief formula to make the human body defy gravity, and for physical endeavours, such as flight. On television, Nneoma watches the granddaughter of Francisco Furcal, the author of the formula, try to defend him.
This controversy starts when rumour spilled that Furcal’s Formula was wrong. And then a man fell from the sky. 
At age fourteen, Nneoma became a mathematician when she had her first encounter with the formula at school and since, could see a person’s sadness plainly. The Centre trained her until she could as well remove people’s grief. They also changed the fortunes of her family. So this was what she did for a living; tending to wealthy families who lost loved ones and are grieving.
So here she was, before a group of students of around thirteen or fourteen years of age, to give a lecture on her profession and a boy dared to say what they (and she) were doing was wrong and that his dad says “that you shouldn’t be stopping a person from feeling natural hardships.” and “that’s what it means to be human.”        
Noting from the boy’s wrist that his father was a lawyer and he was from a privileged class, Nneoma shut him up.
The lack of wealth was not the only boundary to getting the kind of treatment Nneoma offered, being a citizen too was a requirement, she explained to a Senegalese girl who had a history of suffering. The world had changed for the worse: North America was covered in water and a sea had replaced Europe. Russia was a soaked grave. The girl was a survivor of what was called ‘The Elimination’, a period when a mysterious illness wiped out millions and cabinet members were murdered in their sleep. She was on a scholarship to the school for displaced children.   
This is an End of Time story or of apocalyptic era, if you may, of a disaster-ridden world where people are overwhelmed by sorrow. Nneoma is one of those dedicated to ease suffering, by allowing themselves eat the pains of others and quietly let the memories disintegrate. But it seems this may not be hundred per cent successful, because the memories may just return, and with it the hurt and the grief. Kioni, Nneoma’s girlfriend and co-worker is an example of this when she came, haggard, torn and bloody, an old version of herself. And she was screaming “they are coming”. Apparently, all the grief she had eaten were haunting her. In a nutshell, the grief eaters had become victims of every grief they had taken away. Perhaps, it wasn’t theirs to get rid of mathematically.
Genesis
I read this story with trepidation. I still have memories of ‘Miracle’, the story that earned Tope Folarin the coveted Caine Prize for African Literature in 2013. So, I was afraid for him -afraid to be disappointed. Would he pull it off again? Not necessarily the win this time, but whether he will deliver the goods like he did with ‘Miracle’, capture my attention and make me swallow each word hungrily. I chided myself, consciously pulled away from ‘Miracle’ and focused on ‘Genesis’, a narrative of a Nigerian family that moved overseas in search of greener pastures.
The story is narrated by a boy whom, Mrs. Hansen, a white woman in his neighbourhood, promises he will serve her in heaven. He is excited. But when his father hears this, he gets angry and explains to him that he will serve only God in heaven. Folarin reveals little as the story progresses, until the very end. It’s this suspense that kept me reading and trying to figure out where the story was headed. Why would a white lady say to an African boy he could serve her in heaven? At the end, its revealed Mrs. Hansen subscribed to an old notion in the Mormon Church that black people, sons and daughters of Caine, could only get into heaven as servants. Then, there’s the hilarious episode in school where white children touch the boy’s skin and expect his black skin colour to come off. This is an oral tale I am familiar with, so seeing how it was applied in this work was a thrill.
When the family of four came to the United States, they were hopeful and had a picture of what their future should be. There were happy times, but everything seemed to come to an end with the crumbling of that hope. And it began when their expectations were not met and life seemed to become another routine far away from Nigeria. Perhaps, it was when their father, an engineer, opted to work as a mechanic, or when their mother became mentally ill and beat the father and soon turned on the children.   
It is actually not clear, up till the end of the story, whether it was the mother’s sickness or the loss of hope that led her to take them to a shelter. Perhaps this assignment is the reader’s. In fact, it wasn’t clear to me, up till the very end, whether the shelter was a psychiatric hospital or not. If it was, how did the mother get custody of the children? Or did they (the authorities) perceive it will help her recover? But again, perhaps the boy’s voice explains the way events were narrated. One thing was however clear-the mother was mentally ill and that’s the only reason why she would pinch the boy hard and think he was her husband. Soon, he becomes his younger brother’s protector and takes every punishment without cause. It’s heart-breaking the way the children learn to remain quiet and in their silence, try to understand what their mother is going through.
In the end the mother attempts to commit suicide, but survives. After she had recovered, there’s a court case that obviously had to do with custody and the children chose to stay with their father.