"Um, okay," is their most common response.

 

Actually, here is a guideline:

You can call me this if you are an acquaintance. You are someone I know professionally or a stranger I don't wish to know any further.

Call me this if you feel comfortable enough around me. We are friends now. It may also mean I am comfortable around you.

Only permissible if we are related by blood.

 

I don't always know how to introduce myself. My friends recognize me as Akofa but I always go by Afifah at first encounters. I never made an effort to ask someone to call me Akofa. They'll do it when they're ready. And by ready I mean they have heard someone call me Akofa and get confused.

 

My name is Akofa Afifah. Nice to meet you.

 

Fifteen months ago I was not. I did not hate you, baby boy. I just wished you would have been a part of my life when I was already done with my quizzes and papers and prom decor projects and university admission essays. Were you born tomorrow… or the day after tomorrow, you wouldn’t feel a thing, baby boy. No one would call you a mistake because everyone would be dead.

 

But you were not a mistake. You have never been and will never be. You are a gift and I promise to keep it that way. You are a gift that I would cherish in any form or condition.

 

“Hello?” a frail old woman answered on the other end of the call. I hold my breath. My heart skips a beat. She is still alive... my mother. It’s been months since the last time I talked to her. Wish I had jumped off the tall fence sooner so I could hug her before it was too painful to breathe the air. But it’s fine! My mother always told me to make do. 

 

This woman used to tie my shoes before I went to school. I still don’t know how to tie my shoelace now, which was why I wore velcro sneakers in high school. I made do.

 

Velcro sneakers are nice. My late boyfriend let me wore them in the dark. When mistakes were made. And my mom’s love for me started to fade. I was also a mistake for making the mistake. 

 

My baby boy has not stopped crying since our trip starts. It’s been days. Have I been gripping him too tight again? He probably cannot wait to see his grandmother as much as his mommy.

 

“Miss, I can’t continue no more. Can’t drive through the barricade. Red area, ma’am. Are you sure about this?” the driver says as he pulls over. I nod with a smile. I hand him the 400 dollars I promised him for driving me and Fin my babyboy across the country. I get off the car with Fin and a pair of shoes I got for my mother. I want to be with both of them when the world falls apart.

 

As I walk closer to our house it gets harder to keep looking straight. It is hard to do so when your head feels as light as cloud and your toenails are falling apart. The excruciating pain is real and I bite my lower lip to hold my crying. I’m dragging Fin by his leg and his crying stops. No one cries now.

 

 

 

Now I’m only a couple blocks away from mom, but I’m already losing my hair and my face is burning.  In a few seconds my hands will be numb from the pain. I should have worn a hazmat suit.

 

Knock, knock. I knock Fin’s plastic head against the window.

 

Her suit looks funny and why is she on a wheelchair… Alas! She has lost her legs. She must have been outside far too much.

 

Knock, knock. I knock Fin’s plastic head harder against the window. This time I squeeze his tummy too hard I hit that crying button. “My babyboy, patience..” I whisper to him as I pat his back, consoling him. I guess he is immune to the air. My babyboy is strong.

 

My mother turns around. She sees us but does not budge in her wheelchair.

 

Before my left arm falls off, I wave the sneakers, my gift for my mom, in front of the glass. And before my mouth melts off I try to squeeze a scream, “Please.. please let me in!”

 

The amount of toxic air I have inhaled has depleted all of my energy. Fin slips out of my right hand and stops crying. Ah, Fin.

 

It was a usual morning. Out of reflex, I peered at my phone. It lit up with an e-mail notification from my own address. This is strange. Extremely questionable. I couldn’t recall sending a self-mail, but I may have done something silly in my sleep. My fingers couldn’t resist the urge to click the curious message. 

 

No subject, and no other message but a link to an online meeting room. As my curiosity clouded my head, I clicked it with no hesitation at all. 

 

The meeting was to start in 1 hour. I thought of the possibility of having sent the invite in my sleep. I usually did that… People have told me it was unusual. And I agree.

 

One time I walked into the kitchen and spilled cereal all over the floor.

 

One time I slipped out of my bed and almost crushed my cat.

 

One time I walked out of my house and woke up in a pool of blood. It was three years ago. I bathed in the blood of my own husband. The grief never abated ever since.

 

“Looking forward to our meeting.”

 

I almost choked on my morning coffee. Where did the voice come from? Most importantly: why did it sound exactly like mine?

 

She was woken up by the ray of sunshine that peeked through the small gap in her blinds. She wanted to keep sleeping and rewind the moment last year. Maybe she could’ve uncommitted the murder… She pulled the blanket over her face and tried to fall asleep again.

 

“Can you please stop being miserable and join the call? Gosh… all the time… Wash your face and drink some water.”

 

Sitting up in sheer horror, she shouted, “WHAT WAS THAT? WHY DO YOU SOUND LIKE ME?” Her phone was on silent. How did a voice note automatically play like that? Not that she remembered having recorded that… but then again she did weird things in her sleep.

 

She did as the curious voice instructed her, nonetheless. After 10 minutes of trying to connect to the call… She was finally in the meeting. She squinted her eyes at the screen of her laptop. The connection in the country does not work well enough for video conferencing.

 

“Hello,” greeted a woman in her forties, which she learned to be the host of the meeting from the text description in the left corner of her video. She gaped at the similar facial features the two shared. It was so uncanny it was scary.

 

“What the hell?” The voice came from another face that bore even more resemblance. This one looked younger than the host.  Words could not explain how perplexed she was feeling. She creased her brows and got up to bring her laptop to the kitchen.

 

This 43 year old woman saw her youngest self pacing to the kitchen, trying to get better internet. In 2018, the WiFi did not work. It was one of the million reasons she had decided to move the next year. “The living room has better connection I promise,” she told the young woman. She was 23 years old but she looked in her late thirties from her grief and sorrow. There was no color in her morose face.

 

“What is going on? Why are you in that house?” This time the middle self was talking. “How’s quarantine?” the 43 year-old asked the younger woman. She knew there was a pandemic outbreak at the beginning of the 2020. Gaining no response from the confused and scared 25-year-old, she continued without answering the question, “It’ll get worse before it gets better.”

 

The past, the present, and the future were finally in the virtual meeting room. The past and the present were equally bubbling with questions, wondering if this was their somnambulism. On the other hand… The future, as someone who arranged the meeting, smiled. She knew too damn well what she was about to tell them would bring nothing but closure, relief, and happiness at last.

 

“We did not murder Adrian. Tony did,” the future declared. “We won the trial yesterday and now he’s serving a life sentence.”