“Sogolon’s son had a slow and difficult childhood. At the age of three he still crawled along on all fours while children the same age were already walking.”

-Sundiata, D.T. Niane

As a science-fiction writer I see myself as the biographer of the death of masculinity and the corrupting mutation of femininity, trends implicit in Modern life, which should inevitably evolve into a pure hive mind.

As a horror writer I deal primarily with the soul-extinguishing nature of civilization, which can abide the individual as nothing other than an enemy.

As a non-fiction writer, my primary focus is the alienation of the individual and the state-sponsored aggression against that alienated person.

While discussing an interview one of my research associates had with a Nigerian sedan driver, I found myself firmly in the third stream of my writing flow, but unable to shake the first and the second, so will therefore render this brief account in prose, as it perfectly illustrates the theme of DoomFawn as a book.

He had a Masters degree in Engineering from the University of Portsmouth in Nigeria, but here, in this country, he was a sedan driver, an upscale sedan driver, serving the professional class, predominantly. This country was good for making money, but his daughter and sisters had found it difficult to adjust, having no friends among the African Americans. But this woman, perhaps seemed different somehow. Or was he simply musing pointlessly again?

He pulled up before the towering building that accommodated many apartment dwellers, as it loomed high over Saratoga Street. The remnants of the heaping snow remained in dirty little piles, mostly gone now. A sodden sky sprinkled his windshield as his wipers worked and the young light-skinned woman signaled him with the hand that was not covering her wig with her purse. A boy and two girls, all younger children between four and eight, crowded about her in her blue dress suit.

The four of them crowded into the backseat and he was off, taking her cautiously, with her precious cargo, as she diverted her attention from the children to her smart phone. He noticed that she wore no wedding ring, which would have been a grand exception in this land.

The boy, seated on the far side of the back seat, then began engaging him in conversation. Adedamola responded in a grandfatherly way, answering the boy’s questions concerning the weather, the handling of the automobile, the nearness of their destination and other such questions that young boys habitually ask of men in any land. The mother had no conversation other than for the party on the other end of the phone, and to bark at him, “Here!” seemingly irritated that he was waiting for the space clearing ahead, so that he might pull over and permit her and the children to offload safely.

She seemed adamant that he was somehow attempting to defraud her of a fraction of a dollar, so he complied with her wish and stopped, set the flashers, took her payment, and then got out, escorting her and her children to the sidewalk between the two cars in the parking lane.

As they walked off, her dragging the little boy and the smaller girl as the third, older girl, turned and waved with a pensive smile, he smiled widely in return and waved as he crouched a little to be nearer her level. Turning, the little boy saw this. His face widening into a smile, he pulled away from his mother, ran up to Adedamola, and kissed him on the cheek. The girl who had waved seemed happy, but unsure, and the smaller girl was merely bemused, testing her mother’s grip on her little hand.

The mother then shouted with a low, scolding breath for the boy. He returned to her tentatively, reaching his hand up to her absently, still smiling slightly at the man he had just befriended. The mother then seized him roughly by the arm, just above the elbow and began slapping and punching the boy as he dangled helplessly, one foot touching with the toe of his sneaker, as he pirouetted in pain, twisting beneath the raging women who thrashed him like he was an enemy. The older girl’s smile turned to mouth-covered worry as the boy’s dissolved in pained betrayal. The savage woman did not look at Adedamola, but continued to scold and beat her boy as she dragged him inside, with the two girls following, observing in a detached way.

Adedamola straightened himself up, taking a breath before returning to the car, feeling as if he had been punched in the stomach, appalled at what cruel creatures these pampered people have become.