Life After Death

by Sister Souljah

  “Madre, don’t worry, Momma. We love Jesus. And we know you love Jesus. Your sons forgive like Jesus taught us forgiveness. I am here because I love you, and because I want you to know that yes Jesus was a real man. The Most High created the soul of Jesus. From even before the birth of Jesus, the Most High gave Jesus many gifts, mercies and blessings. Of course, who was the mother of Jesus? It was Maryam, I mean Mary. The ONE also gave Mary many gifts and many mercies, Ah-hum-doo-lah-lah. I’m sure Jesus was very grateful to have a mother like Mary. I know I would be so grateful too, Momma.

  “The truth is, Momma, there is only ONE GOD. The ONE GOD has no partners and no children. The men who the ONE GOD created and gave mercies of great abundance to such as Jesus, Moses, Abraham, are called Prophets, not sons or daughters of the ONE GOD. I am saying this so that when you bow down to make your prayers, you pray properly and sincerely to the ONE. Many mothers are here today because they don’t have anything in the right order. While on Earth, they were sometimes saying good things but living evil lives and making wrong choices. We forgive. Think of it this way. You are asking for help, but you were asking the wrong person. Jesus walked the walk that the ONE assigned him. Jesus was a servant to the ONE. I am a servant to the ONE, so are you momma. Jesus, while he was among the Earth’s living, forgave and forgave and forgave. The One and Only God, however, is the Most Merciful and only All-Powerful, Maker of All souls, including all Prophets, like Jesus, peace be upon him.” The Spanish guy ended his talk. This time he was the one in tears.

  The Indian guy had an outburst when he grabbed the mic from the Spanish dude. “Maa, I wanted nothing more than to taste a meal that you prepared for me with the same amount of love that I have for you. Maa, there is so much that we UBS are not saying. They are hard words to hear. But I’ve learned that the truest words are hard for most to hear. But without the truest words, I fear that you will be part of the endless punishment, the Eternal Fire. I cannot bear to exist knowing that this is the end of your story. I cannot survive if you cannot survive. It would be unbearable. Maa, you see we are UBS, the meaning is ‘unborn souls.’ All of the sons standing here today, the reason you do not recognize us as your sons is because you and each of the women here has aborted us before we could have the chance to be born. We were sucked and scraped out of the heaven that was your womb. Still, your sons and daughters who you chose to murder rather than give birth to still love you and we forgive!

  “You know that idol who you place on the mantel is nothing. It is powerless. It cannot save you. And the time that you spent hating all of the people around you who worshipped the ONE and who refused to bow down or praise your idols, it was all time wasted, hatred wasted, and it hurt your soul instead of the souls of the ones you hated. It became the reason that you are here, One Stop Before the Drop. So Maa, please, leave it all behind you now. Please let’s meet in Heaven, InshAllah, and I am still wanting to taste the dal and rice and paratha you prepare for me.”

  Overwhelmed by his own words, he threw the mic down. It made a disturbing amplified noise and created a feedback.

  I thought it was foul play, saying that we cannot be forced to do anything then breaking our legs so that we have no choice but to listen to all of this blah blah.

  “Why ain’t y’all looking for your fathers!?” a lady who was obviously an African American shouted. The sobbing thousands turned their faces towards her. I don’t think the UBS on the stage could even hear her. “Nine times out of ten, your bullshit-ass fathers are the reason we aborted you!” she yelled, stirring up a commotion. One of the UBS from the side came forward. He handed her a mic so she could be heard by who I guess were the leaders on the stage. She repeated her words. Now six hundred bitches were in an uproar cheering her on. “And yeah, I might have aborted a couple of y’all. But what about the kids I did keep and raise. Raising them is how I figured out I better abort y’all.” She laughed, and her laughter was amplified across the wide field. A white woman jumped up and took the mic after a small tussle.

  “I think we have more women here today than sons as you call yourselves. I think us women should all stick together. We need to push back against anyone who wants to tell us what to do with our bodies! Our bodies, our lives! And why would we need to worship some so-called God who wants to punish us for making our own damned decisions! He is just another man telling us what to do! Our bodies, our lives! Our bodies, our lives!” she chanted, and soon most were chanting along with her.

  “I reject that! I reject that!” she screamed. Then the chanting of the crowd switched to “I reject that! I reject that! I reject that!”

  One of the handsome Black sons stepped forward and spoke. “The focus of the raid that happened Earth hours ago was on our mothers. We sons used our combined mercies to make it happen. Most of our mothers have already received our mercies. And once we utilize the third mercy it is our last chance to have any contact with you at all. Our strategy was to each use one mercy to address a large group of mothers all at once. We believed that if each mother saw how many women had fallen for the same evil and made the same choices, it would cause you to stop, think, reflect, and then choose the right path, which wasn’t happening when we engaged you one on one.

  “We sons also love our fathers. UBS are eighty-five percent love. For the UBS gathered here in this section, fathers are not the focus of today’s mission. However, there are one trillion UBS. One trillion of us who have been aborted by our mothers who we forgive. The three hundred and fifty sons gathered here today are only a handful. The majority of UBS are right now bowed in prayer asking for mercy for their parents’ souls.

  “This battalion you see here are the UBS working the west side of the Last Stop Before the Drop. There is another UBS battalion on the East side addressing fathers the same way we are addressing you, with the same truth that we are sharing here. Fathers will have only one way out of the Last Stop Before the Drop same as you. They must humble themselves to the ONE who gave them life. Same as you! There is no other way for all men, all women, and all civilizations. All of the pain that each of us from various nations have experienced. All of the evil, racism, hatred, and hurt. All of it was a test and a punishment for humanity’s rejection of the ONE who created all. For humanity’s lack of gratitude. As punishment to the arrogant, the bold, the niggardly, the spiteful, the forgetful, the worshippers of all that should never ever had been worshipped.

  “And, there are five UBS battalions at war in the air right this minute with the devils who are fighting to win back your souls,” he explained, and that set off a loud clamoring of chatter among the women.

  I don’t know if they were excited the way I was. It was just confirmed that Dat Nigga was at war. He was fighting his way back to get me. That’s the only reason he hadn’t showed up yet. Probably all of the women here had somebody they were waiting on to come get them. I am sure that none of their men are as loving and reliable as Dat Nigga.

  “Time is running out. We will conduct a roll call of all the mothers. When you hear your name, by the mercy of the Most High you will have the strength and the ability to please come forward to meet your unborn son or sons. Once you are in the presence of your son or your multiple sons, because some of us are actually brothers, you must decide if you will walk on the straight path and make a sincere effort to change for the better. If you choose good over evil, right over wrong, we sons will lead you to a beautiful masjid, where you can shower nicely. A wide peaceful space where you can self-reflect fully. A place with sincere teachers who will share with you from the Book of Guidance. We will distribute you clean new garments, and you can prepare your sincere prayers in a safe place, as mothers and as women, not as pets or animals or prisoners. And within the mosque, there is continuous light, warmth, and welcome.”

  I listened carefully to the most important parts. When they call my name, my legs would unlock and then I must make a decision. However, they were not going to call my name or even know it. I was just at the wrong p
lace at the wrong time because Succubus put me there. There would be no way for any of these other bitches’ sons to know who I was, or to have known that I was locked there in the creature factory, warehouse, whatever.

  After hundreds of names were called out, I heard my name. My legs unlocked. I did not walk to meet any bogus person who claimed to be my son. None of these dudes were any of the women’s here sons. If a bitch aborted you, that’s it. And apparently there’s at least a trillion women who agree with me. There’s a trillion UBS, which equals a trillion abortions. Truthfully, as good as I am in math, my capacity of understanding stops at billion. I don’t know the name of the next set of numbers after billions. I don’t know where in the number line trillion falls in. I got common sense, though. So I know it’s a whole lotta motherfuckers!

  Before my name got called out, which I never expected, I had already charted my way out of here in my mind. Now that my legs were mine again, I was on the move. If I cut through the left side of the endless gathering of women, I could stand closest to the perimeter of it all. If Dat Nigga shows up, and I knew he would, he would be parked all the way on the outside a short distance from wherever the UBS were doing their thing. He liked to keep a low profile, even though he always pushed a high-profile whip.

  “Ms. Winter,” I heard a male voice calling me. I didn’t answer right away. I was thinking about if it was to my benefit or not. I kept weaving through the enormous crowd. Figured whoever it was I could lose him easily. I felt him following me, though. I didn’t look back. After swerving and zigzagging, I felt his hand grip my right arm. I turned. Don’t like nobody touching me without my permission. It was a young guy, maybe sixteen or so. Instead of a sash of bullets, he wore a colorful strap that held his drum close against his body. And a backpack on his back. When he smiled his teeth sparkled. The whites of his eyes were like beams of light. I had never seen those type of lighted eyes. Well, only once, Midnight’s eyes were like this. He was the only other one. But, I was trying not to think about him anymore for obvious reasons.

  “Siddiqah said you would take this path out of the gathering once your name was called,” he said very politely like he was trained to speak a certain way to adults. I don’t even think of myself as an adult. I missed turning into one from eighteen forward. Fifteen years on lockup since then. So, I feel like those years don’t count. I’m really like nineteen right now. A nineteen-years female who died young.

  “Siddiqah?” I repeated, like it was a question. He ignored my pretending to not know that it was the name of Bomber Girl.

  “Yes, Siddiqah. She really loves you,” he said. I wasn’t used to dudes who talked openly, frequently, and freely about love the way these UBS dudes did. I assumed he was one of them, but since his outfit was a little different, I wasn’t sure. It’s a strange mixture, these nice-physique young men with sharp, handsome looks and strong voices, but who keep using words like forgiveness and love. They got that rough exterior thugged-out look. Bullets and bombs, cooled-out uniforms and even drums gave them masculine sex appeal. But then their manner of speaking and word choices, topics and style doesn’t match up.

  “She sent you a gift,” he said as he removed his drum strap, rested his drum on his kicks, and reached for his knapsack behind him. He pulled out a package wrapped in paisley tissue paper. As soon as he pulled it out the scent of her hilab went rushing up my nostrils. It was a beautiful extremely relaxing scent. I imagined it was her knockout potion. Once you inhale enough of it for long enough, you somehow give her anything she wants. Ha-ha. It was a delightful thought, except when I thought about whether or not she had ever used it on Dat Nigga.

  “Here. Take it. She wanted you to have it.” He held it out for me to grab hold of. I didn’t. Instead I asked, “What is it?” When he unwrapped it and held it up so I could fully see it, it was so amazing that I instinctively pressed my face into the expensive fabric. Then I took hold of it.

  “She said to show you the label because that would be so important to you.” So I checked the label, but I did not have to. It was designed by Tom Ford, oh my. A regal black layered pleated Chiffon I Rule the World dress. It is delicate, elegant, and feminine. He pulled out a next item wrapped in white wax gift paper. He didn’t bother handing it to me. He began carefully unwrapping it instead. He handled it as though there was something alive inside. Or something precious. It was a Burberry tapered trench. The color was pearl. And I loved that it caused me to think of that pearl door in Midnight’s house. I had the urge to put it on and return there just to lean up against that pearl door with this designer trench on and nothing else.

  He unfolded the coat carefully and was holding it up by the fabric shoulders.

  “She asked me to help you put it on.”

  I removed the white mink. Now that I had worn it unexpectedly to the Rally of the Sons, it was time to put it in storage. Only a broke bitch replays her fashion. No matter how expensive or limited edition it is, once you flash out in it and exhaust that one appearance, one event, day or night wearing it, lay it to rest.

  He pulled out a wide, taut fabric shopping bag and placed my mink in it. He sat the bag down and helped me to put on the pearl trench. It fit. It fit perfectly. He pulled one more thing from his backpack. I laughed soon as I saw it. It was a pair of high-top black Prada kicks. Not what I would ever imagine matching up with the mean-ass dress and the bad-ass coat.

  “Siddiqah said she saw the most incredible pair of heels that seemed to be made for only your feet. But then she said she bought these kicks instead. They are more suited for you because you like to run away, according to Siddiqah,” he said, looking into my eyes with his lighted eyes. I turned back towards the stage. The line of mothers going to meet their unborn sons was crowded. But there were many women who remained seated. Perhaps they were like me, wanted to leave what was done, done.

  “She’s not here at this event. She’s on the south side fighting the devils.” Me and him stood silent for a bit, even though we were surrounded by more than a thousand people chattering and milling around, and of course the boom of the speakers as more and more women’s names were being announced. Instead of saying thank you, which would have made me feel like I owed him something for delivering it, and owed her something for giving it to me in the first place, I asked him, “Are you her man?”

  “We are both UBS, Siddiqah and I. Because we are unborn souls, we cannot have the kind of man-woman relations that you and our father had.”

  “Our father!” I repeated.

  “Yes, his name is Sean D’Costa, but you know him only as Boom.”

  “I know your father?” I said.

  “Of course you must. Siddiqah and I are twins. You are our mother, Boom is our father. You killed us both when you were eighteen. But we both love you and we forgive you.” I dropped the shopping bag.

  Beep-beep. A midnight-blue BMW 7 series pulled up and sounded a powerful horn. It caught more than my attention. But the young drummer didn’t turn back to see who it was. He was still staring at me.

  “Ma, let me help you put your kicks on,” he said. I was like Ma! Still, I squatted. He moved his drum to the side. He removed his jacket and laid it on the ground for me to sit on. I sat. He removed my boots carefully by holding the back of my thigh and the back of the heel at the same time. A careless rough nigga would of yanked them off recklessly. He wiped my feet with his hands even though they were somehow already clean. Then he loosened the adhesive strap and the Prada laces and put the right kick on my right foot. It fit perfectly. “Hold out your other foot,” he instructed me. As I did, I saw Lucifer 66 get out the BMW, looking irritated and impatient and staring straight at me. He was standing outside of the green atmosphere beneath the blackness. He was not far off, but too far for me to throw my voice and let him know to give me six minutes and I would come right over.

  “You good now, InshAllah,” the drummer said, and stood up. He folded down my red thigh-high boots and placed them in the shopping bag, buf
fered by the wrapping paper. He was preventing the mink from getting soiled. He was thoughtful and charming like Poppa. He was not deep-black skinned but he was beautiful like Midnight. He stepped back to admire me while handing me the shopping bag. “Perfect. The trench looks cleaner, more modest, nice quality. Besides, with the mink everybody knows it’s you. Sometimes it’s better to slow it down, play it cool.” He said and smiled a million-dollar smile. Because I was looking at the young drummer, I didn’t see Dat Nigga running forward so fast he seemed to be flying. Apparently some other UBS dudes did. They intercepted Dat Nigga like they were missiles and he was the bull’s-eye. His body blew backwards with such force from the impact of the hit that he flew over his car and must have landed there. When he dropped down it must have shook the ground because out of the blackness arrived tens and tens of soldiers, who came so swiftly they had to have been there all along, camouflaged.

  The young drummer snatched up his drum and began drumming furiously. It was no longer music. It was a war call. UBS who had been guarding the women flew up and turned into globs of light. They attacked without hesitation the soldiers moving through the black atmosphere who could hardly be seen because they were all black against a black backdrop. Obviously the UBS could see them, though. When they hit one it exploded. And in what would be called the sky, but is nothing like the Earth’s sky, explosions were happening everywhere. The UBS were so fierce and aggressive though, they never let one black soldier into the green atmosphere. Instead they blew the black blobs up in their own black territory. Half of the six hundred women were way across field from the line-up to meet their sons and to decide which path they would travel on. I was where the action was. A whole bunch of bitches still seated in the field were just staring up like they were watching the fireworks display at Universal Studios. I calculated that the ground was safe except for the falling flames that landed creating patches of fire on the black side. I picked up my shopping bag, dashed from the green side to the black side, passed the BMW. I had to rescue Dat Nigga, who showed up to rescue me.