La Tonya Jordan’s Reviews > One Leg on Earth > Status Update

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Before the first man was sculpted from mud, there was only water.

A mother is what is real.

No, for them, survival was immediate. Food. Water. Shelter, Breath. All demandingly, present tense. Like running water, like new clothes, tomorrow was a privilege they didn't think about.

Olabisi venture into Lagos when she was pregnant with Yosoye taught her to distrust the city. She went looking for Yosoye father in attempt to persuade him to marry her. Instead she met a Bowler Hat Man who promised her the world and delivered nothing. Olabisi has been a good mother. Yosoye has joined a church group of women who have experienced miscarriages.

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"Sir?" She turned back to him, startled. His expression reminded neutral, unreadable. Was this Who are you? as in Who do you think you are? Or more Who are you in the What kind of person does this after all I've done for you? sense?

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"Why are you saying government like it's one high concept? As if they're spirits that we can't see? Who is that government? Government is just men! Men that your oga knows, men that are his friends. You owe someone favor today. Tomorrow, someone owes you something else.

The Architect had said. Yosoye felt deceived, naive. For taking their maps as science instead of a work of dangerous imagination.

Yosoye tries to drown herself in the ocean. Fortunately, she was rescued. She is home with her mother. Tens of women jumped that with Yosoye, and the day after that, and the day after that. For five days now. Lagosians are taking notice.....Yosoye misses the women in her dreams and the women from the ocean.

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" I didn't think people could truly love me, but I thought if they called me beloved, then I could at least be adored. A prophecy, innit? If I couldn't get love, I would happily accept devotion."

Beloved shook her head. "Not just dying, Yosoye. Choosing to die. How. When. Isn't that the ultimate proof that your body belongs to you?"

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Was her poverty a sin? Were workers supposed to be erased from the futures they were creating with their own bleeding hands?

He looked up from his empty glass, looked around, and Yosoye saw what it looked like for someone else to be alone.

"I just want to know if you dream about drowning, too, if sometimes, you want to ...."

Yosoye keeps thinking of the pregnant women who committed suicide and is scared. Yosoye keeps smelling sea water. She keeps thinking of drowning. Beloved is trying to help her. She takes her to a support group for women offering affirmation about pregnancy and motherhood. Yosoye shared her experience and scared these women. These women do not bring negative energy into their lives.

"It depends," a woman across the circle said. "Is it baby two or seven?"

It was clear that this group was thinking of the suicides as abstract. Like one discussed The Economy. An amorphous force out of their control.