The Pearl
by Hiba Ali ︎︎︎The pearl had slipped out of the shell and into the little girl’s hand. She and the pearl were babies no more than two. The little girl has dropped the pearl, now, lost and it had started rolling, through the ground, toward a lake, to the river, to the ocean. Turning over and around, the pearl thought about the shell, the maternal, clam-mother, that had been its home, it rolled and rolled and rolled, thinking about the clam-mother that had created it and birthed it. The clam-mother had shivered through the pains of creation and child-birth of the pearl. Thinking about the origins of the pearl’s birth, the pearl thought about the ocean sediment that had gotten lodged inside the clam-mother, the pearl imagined the clam-mother feeling the irritation, an intrusion pulling in from the outside. The sediment consisted of fragments of other beings, and gems like Tanzanite and Aqeeq [quartz].Small fragments are all that the clam-parent shell needed to birth a brand-new being. As the pearls layer grew, one upon the other, the clam-mother became estranged upon themselves. The developing pearl could hear the clam-mother’s thoughts, “Who is this developing inside me? Who is this creature? Will it hurt me?” Previously, the clam was used to being enveloped by the freedom of the wind, the seeming endless deliciousness of sediment and ocean brine that flowed past. The different gyres of the Swahili-Indian ocean allowed it to be so, the waves would come sometimes slowly and at other times, they would come with great gush and verisimilitude. The clam would move scalloping by with great enthusiasm. Though, this was not to be anymore, since the pearl had lodged inside it, the clam had a duty enforced upon itself to take care of this being. It wasn’t so much a divine right but a part of a compulsory technology. The clam thought, “I must grow this abomination, so it can be expelled." The clam had been really good about not getting any piece of ocean detritus get caught in it and in the strange case that did happen, the clam was quick to spit it out. But this one, this unfortunate pearl, the sediment of old beings and gems, had sneaked in and made host where it was not welcome, so the clam does as they do. The clam became an infrastructure of birth, release and amnesia, the forgetfulness that comes with the traumatic process of pearl-birth. So, day by day, it would try to hurry the process and eat what it needed. Yesterday, it was motia [jasmine], that a divorcing bride in Karachi threw into the Arabian sea. Next, sand sediment splashed by a camel. The camel with their attendant, a descendant of Indian Ocean sailors, was giving visitors of the Swahili-Indian coast camel rides. The camel has generously flicked a large heap of sand inside the clam-mother’s mouth. As the clam-mother busied themselves with choking down the sand, a young Indian Ocean dolphin thinking of clam as a toy, flicked it across the water in Ziwa Kuu [deeper and deeper depth] water until the pod [the pack of dolphin] were on Pemba. There, the sediment contained particles of old mangrove growth shared by both coasts and the water here was turquoise. The clam was happy to lap up the rich sediment. The clam heard a traveller sing to ocean, with the heated scent of camphor and ylang ylang being offered as they sang. In their low vibrato, they mentioned their queer loves, dedicating a nasheed [Islamic hymn] to them. They sang about the prophetess and divine goddesses and called upon the spirits of sultanas [queens, guardian angels] dropping rose petals into the water so that became accented by floral essences. The clam luxuriated in these sensorial experiences; it had never thought that pearl-birthing would lead them to such great journey. For a small period of time, they came to accept their bulbous self and revel in rich sensuous world before them. Then another wave came in from the bamboo oar of a catamaran on its way to Kerala and the masuum [Swahili-indian ocean wind pattern] of the ocean current pulled them there. The clam wondered, what will become of me and this pearl?