Sky-Water

Conakry: The City on the Coastal Shelf

The elevation above the trench forest made it difficult to breathe, and the steep incline of the road didn't help. Cold sweat dampened my shirt as I made my way up the winding, Conakry road carved into the rock face; I enjoyed myself, nonetheless. Even if I did have to stop to rest at every sharp turn. Being back in Conakry was thrilling.

I sat down on a well-worn rock next to the quiet road and slid my backpack off, being careful not to jolt it around as I brought it in front of me. Inside, my damselfly dragon, Odanatan, clung to a twig in a small cage I had built especially for this journey. Last time I visited Maypop, I told her all about him and she begged me to bring him for her to see. She was fascinated by anything I brought her. Her eyes would get so big and her mouth would drop open in a gasp. No one else was as animated as she.

But Odanatan did not enjoy the trip. Inside my backpack, he clung to his twig so tightly that his tiny talons left scratch marks in the black bark. His lidless, compound eyes, though always the same, seemed bigger and wider than usual. And his tiny, crocodile-like mouth slumped in a frown. As sad as his misery made me, I found solace in knowing that he was too sick from the altitude to start a fire. My worst fear for this trip was losing everything to a backpack fire.

Next to his cage, I had a jar full of rich, black earth. It was such a simple thing; no one would ever consider it a great gift except Maypop. I wasn't sure what she would do with it--if she would rub it on her skin for the feel of it, or if she would eat it for its nutrients--either way, I knew she'd love it. But there was something else I wanted to get her.

The main market sat directly in the center of the vertical port city of Conakry, with several smaller markets on the way up, which sold mostly food. These smaller markets were nothing but strips of low tables on the side of the road with the sellers sitting on the ground and leaning against the fence that kept them from falling over the edge of the cliff to the bottom of the forest below the city.

There was nothing of interest in these lower markets, so I took out my bottle of water and drank the last of it before putting the empty bottle back in my bag and getting up.

Above me, the main market sat on a wide cliff that jutted out of the rock face. It loomed over the road, casting a shadow on everything below it. Beyond the edge of the cliff, additional room for sellers had been built on using long, metal beams half buried into the side of the continental shelf. On top of the beams, platforms, built out of a mix of wood and metal, made room for more market tables. From where I stood underneath it, the massive size made me feel uneasy--as if the whole cliff would collapse on top of me.

Just before I took the last turn out from under the shadow of the market and climbed the last steps to the market square, I stopped and re-adjusted my sunglasses, clipping on an extra layer of tint. Until that point, I had been in shadows that were comfortable with just one layer of protection. But out of the shadow of the cliff, even through the thickness of the sky-water, the sun hurt my eyes. The second layer of tint was much darker than the first, but even that wouldn't be enough to keep my eyes from aching as they adjusted to the light.

The market square looked like its own city within the city, with crowds of people moving around in flocks of rich, colorful clothing. They flitted from table to table, talking in multiple languages--some I knew, others, I only recognized. On the rock face just above the market area, the most extravagantly built and vibrantly painted houses and apartment buildings sat on man-made platforms that gave them the room to have a spacious interior as well as a dominating view over the rest of the city.

My uncle owned an apartment there, and gave me a room to stay while I attended school in the city. Each day after school, I would lay out on the balcony for an hour or so, staring up at the sky-water and watching for the shadows of whales and shimmering schools of fish pass over. I would have stayed out longer, but the light hurt my eyes, even through my sunglasses. Still, it was an incredible view to behold, and I looked forward to laying out again before I had to leave Conakry the next day.