Flesh & Code(Ep. 1)

FOLARIN SAT at his Immutable Citadel, clueless of what to write.

He was a swarm of raging nodes in a decentralized hive. But at which rogue validator would he direct his sting? Who deserved his anger? His blood pulsed like errant gas fees over his eyelids and forehead—like ant trails on the blockchain's rugged terrain—yet that wasn’t enough; he couldn’t generate the proper proof of expression.

That was what galled him the most. He had not the right Soulbound Identity of words.

A black boy had been killed, again, and he had to remind himself he was no Batman, no Captain America, nor even the Black Panther—which was his favourite—who would enforce decentralized justice. Yet one thing he was good at was writing. Now, though, he was beginning to think he wasn’t. He’d won the Caine Prize in 2037 and the Commonwealth Prize for short stories in 2039. He’d broken records as the first African to win the Russian Award, да, and his heart yearned for a chance to restore things; back to a time when his name reverberated like a well-signed block in the ledger of culture.

He did not have a verified on-chain credential—or any legal certificate—to keep him in the US anymore. In simpler words, he was blacklisted from the centralized system. An extra thanks to the new government, a relic of centralization that had little use for strangers, as they’d call them. Mexican immigrants were now regularly threatened by American civilians. “We will build up this wall,” they’d say, as though they hadn't before—an attempt to corral free agents in a trustless system.

What was the worst that could happen?

He’d probably expire in America or end up staking his time in a day job—or perhaps the lucrative Night Nodes would pay more. He’d heard the Night Ones brought more tokens, but he never waited to ask what the Night Nodes truly were.

He was frustrated and dejected and angry, as always, but he never knew how to allocate his rage in the ledger of life. Folarin never knew how to execute a proper transaction of revenge—he never did. Not when Maami had been burned from his life in Okítí Púpá, not when Auntie Bisola later confessed she’d witnessed the Bábáláwo deploy a cursed smart contract of evil upon her for having too many children while she had none. Folarin still didn’t understand how three boys could be considered “too many children.” He never executed a countermeasure when a rogue driver in Lagos crashed into his legs, crushing them like corrupted data packets. He never did when his WAEC result—the prestigious proof of an excellent secondary education—was forged for another candidate, rendering his on-chain record void.

He never did anything, really. He was beginning to think that was the problem—that he was never proactive enough, or as Maami would say, “o ó já si! You never initiate a transaction!”

Folarin wheeled himself to the desk, his hands ramming hard against the wheels. He wasn’t heavy—well, not that heavy. One month of being cooked up at home was showing in the increased token weight of his body.

Thoughts of that hot afternoon attacked him; his twin brother, Olanrewaju, had been forked that day. Shot. He never wanted, and probably would never, commit that block of memory to public record. It was also the day Heather offered herself to him—a brief, volatile transaction of passion where his rage was transferred into raw, lustful energy. Now, she too was gone. They’d broken up soon afterward.

Everything was gone, really. His brother, his fiancée, his passion, his unending love for writing, his legs—and all that remained was a fading hope token. How he hated that term, hope. Hope made him linger in the bathroom, singing algorithms of lost dreams; it made him lose himself in ridiculous fantasies, wear his shirt on the wrong side, and laugh a crisp, rich laugh—a pungent, ridiculing laugh at life’s immutable errors.

Folarin glared at his computer screen, the ultimate validator in his decentralized life, and it glared back—its interface flashing like a rogue smart contract: "THE LEDGER HAS MARKED YOU AS LOST."

Worst-case scenario, he’d pour his anger into the blank desktop screen, pounding on the nearly fading keys of his keyboard like he was trying to rewrite a failed transaction. He remembered how he’d almost pressed “reset” on his system during the summers past. He never wanted to trigger that final command again. He paused, rubbed his eyes, and dipped his head in a brief subroutine of sorrow before re-engaging in a silent showdown with the screen. What would he write about? How would he compile his thoughts? What tone would the decentralized narrative take? Would he be flagged by the on-chain regulators if he published it? What more did he have to say about systemic racism—a systemic bug in the ledger of society?

Folarin cradled his face and cried for a few minutes before clearing his throat. He looked at the yellow curtains—lifted by the warm autumn spirit, as if they were guided by a soft consensus algorithm—and then back on, in enviable gentility. They danced and rocked as though mocking his incapacity to validate his own existence.

He scoffed.

He caught sight of the trees outside his window—the very ones he’d positioned his reading desk to monitor their digital bloom—and watched as their leaves, now orange, yellow, and gold, cascaded in a glorious, decentralized dance onto the flourishing earth. Folarin smiled sadly.

America was beautiful—even if its centralized code was riddled with bugs.