"She smiles. It never gets old to her, the act of growing something for the first time. She remembers sprinkling the tiny dry seeds onto moist soil and leaving the planter, a rose-gold tin out in the sun. She wonders what the tin used to be, in its past life, a hundred years ago. What it was first filled with, all the things it’s carried and will carry in the future. For now, it carries fragile life."
Set in New Delta, a city rebuilt on drained swampland in former oilfields, the protagonist, Chioma, is expectant and is caught up in labor during a violent, unpredicted storm linked to bioengineered periwinkle grass.
Set in a coastal region, the story explores how marine technologies, specifically the use of energy-intensive drones for precision kelp monitoring, undermine the very benefits they aim to deliver.
The futuristic city becomes a utopian gaze, setting the stage for us to rethink and see urban planning as an intrinsic aspect of climate justice.
Set during a pandemic, the isolated and frustrated protagonist is primed for manipulation. Boredom and dissatisfaction clash internally with his low self-esteem and the very human desire for contact out in the real world. The downward spiral of negativity, conspiracies, and social media are a hotbed for disaster.
'Humans had managed to build a community up here, where no life was thought to be possible. It had been thirteen years since the Call, thirteen years since the oceans had swelled and a thousand species had ballooned overnight to titanic proportions, replacing humankind as the apex predator of the world.'
This story is centred on Eketi, whose career as a journalist hit a dead end, forcing her to take a fellowship she earlier won as her only alternative for immediate survival, as she ponders her way forward in life.