The Slum

By Mehreen Ahmed

Bees have stopped pollinating in a while. Queen is dead. Which transpires into a clueless world without hues, sights and scents; flowers, all gone, without this symbiotic relations? In a time like this, I’m pushed off into the farthest boundaries of the seas, because the government knocks down our slum to acquire new land. Land is scarce, and I have been driven out with all the other slum-dwellers. Our shacks are levelled to the ground, and our spirits are crushed.

In a phoenix-like existence, the sun rises even as we speak, I see lights peep through the lush forest around the deep seas. I make an ark where I sleep, I call it sea-dwelling. An expert ark-maker which I become from building a long ark, it must be so — really long — to house all these slum dwellers. This skill is a lifesaver, I make new arks from mending broken adrift on the edge of the sea; paint it blue over solid wood, until this transforms into living art. Every time a hut is bulldozed, tall towers are constructed in its place, I appear before the homeless to welcome them into my ark, an opportunity to fob art with skills until the blue ark glows at midnight like a jewelled spec in the dark.

Ark dwellers don’t pay me. Not enough at least, to make a living elsewhere or to build a solid house on an isolated island, maybe; papers, leases — documents, etc, etc for all that’s worth. One thing though, displacement leads me to learn an unforgettable art — the skill of building ark. As one day, I decide to join the builders’ group with my top earned skills. Builders gladly hire me. I perspire, however, a promising future lay, I paint, lay bricks and woodworks, and build facades to develop newly vacated slums. 

All in good time, a few men from the ark come along putting a claim to the land, because this is where they belong, shacks once theirs. The ark is not their place; they’re no seafarers. I look at them, not hide in shame. Distancing from them is not my game, I look for a ruse to unslum them. In a bid to phase out ark living, I save up enough to buy out builders, push boundaries to pull em’ up; unabashedly altruistic, I build them co-ops. Homes for my bees with Queen rules from the midriff.

About the Author

Mehreen Ahmed is a Bangladeshi-born Australian novelist.

She has published eleven books and works in Litro, BlazeVox, Chiron Review, Centaur Literature, AntipodeanSF, to name a few.

While her novels have been acclaimed by Midwest Book Review, and Drunken Druid Editor's Choice, her shorts have won contests, Pushcart, James Tait, and five botN nominations.