Butterfly Fish

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A green palm wine bottle rolled on the wet London Street. Its movements were audible gasps made of glass. It didn’t matter how the bottle had arrived at its location under the curious yellow gaze of the lamppost or whether the messenger had been a postman delivering for both God and the dancing devil. The image unfurling inside the bottle shimmering like moonlight trapped in glass mattered. Lick the edges of the picture presented and you could taste the sour, sweet traces of palm wine and trap your tongue in a different time; 19th century Benin, Nigeria.

A court was on display. An emerald-eyed man and a young woman attired in traditional Nigerian cloth were before a more ostentatiously dressed committee who bore glum expressions. The woman’s head was bowed and she clutched a pink beaded bracelet, rubbing it repeatedly between thumb and forefinger. The man spoke in a calm, measured tone, his fate already hardened inside the Adams’ apples in the room. An arm was raised, heads snapped up. Then the image in the bottle spun like a revolving door. Dust swirled, and a bushy path emerged. The man and woman were being led by soldiers who could perform the nifty trick of building distances between bodies in close proximity. The heat was thick and intense. Fallen branches lining the twisting path cracked loudly. Buzzing mosquitoes were winged witnesses. Reluctant to draw blood they formed a black net above the bobbing heads.

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