THE LIGHTLESS Character Profiles #1: Jomo Nnamani
Twenty-three, Jomo had come to Sorrowville four years ago after leaving Quadrant One’s largest city, aptly named Immense. Back then he was a cab driver, and had become disenchanted with city life. His parents had died when he was young, and his relatives were mostly estranged, living in other Quadrants, and never reaching out much beyond the anniversaries of their deaths.
His days were for drinking, and his nights for work. Given his profession, this deadly combo could only last so long before something awful happened. That awful something happened on an icy January night, when he was driving through the city, after dropping off his third client for the night. This night, however, he had loaded up more than usual, and it was all he could do to keep his cab on the right side of the street. The city’s lights blurred, and the traffic around him seemed to pile on top of his car. As his head was spinning, his body numbed and hot, he veered across the street into oncoming traffic. Barely missing a car there, he instead floored it into the lobby of a hotel.
His injuries treated, job lost, night in jail served, and fines paid later, and he realized he was ruining his life. This wasn’t what his parents would’ve wanted for him. He felt guilt for the first time since he could remember, that he wasn’t invincible, and that he was not only lucky to be in one piece, but that he hadn’t injured or killed anyone else in the process.
Trajectory Altered by Happenstance
While searching for work one day soon after this, he came across a troop of L.S.O. officers outside of one of the city’s largest office buildings. They were consulting with the city’s mayor, as the defenses in Immense were due for either an upgrade or maintenance. The officers were talking about installing electronic posts that could emit waves to repel Leviathans, and was showing the mayor where they could install them along the sidewalks. Jomo had a wanted flier in his fist for a restaurant a block down, but slowed himself to a crawl in order to continue eavesdropping. LAAM officers had come here plenty of times before, but never L.S.O. officers like these: they were outfitted in tactical gear he had only ever seen on TV, or in video games, and their trucks were eons beyond what the local LAAM offices had at their disposal.
Within his amazement and eavesdropping, Jomo heard the mayor bring up a group of Shapers from Sorrowville. She called them the Refulgency, asking the officers if they had heard of the group. The officers said that they had, and that they had been in contact with their organizer in order to broker a deal, as the Refulgency had been snagging jobs from them for some time now. The mayor said she was considering working with them instead of upgrading defenses, in order to cut costs, that she believed in what they were doing: living natural lives, helping people, and giving people who had no home a place they could belong. The L.S.O. officers told her the Shapers were Old Ways Shapers, tree-huggers, and that she was ignorant for believing they could protect her city better than they could—they didn’t even always kill the Leviathans they rounded up, instead paying L.S.O. to take them back through the Great Partitions. The mayor told them next that the L.S.O. was simply too expensive, every year their costs for defense increased, and while Leviathans were coming through more often, she believed her city far enough away from the Great Partitions that they would be able to make due with what they had.
Jomo mulled over what he had heard. This Refulgency sounded more than intriguing, it sounded like exactly what he needed to reinject purpose into his life. He wasn’t helping himself much being here, pissing his life away, and spending time in the wrong places with the worst people. This place wasn’t who he was, it had made him into its own filthy image. He took one more look at the flier in his hand, then at the mayor as she bid the L.S.O. a good day, thanking them for coming but that she wasn’t buying what they were selling, then he tossed the flier into a trashcan. If the mighty L.S.O. could be turned away due to this Refulgency, they must truly be doing a lot of good in Unfeasted, and that was exactly where Jomo needed to be. Unfeasted could be a cruel, frightening place, so this glimmer of hope Jomo was unwilling to turn his back on. If he was chasing another dead end, at least he would know what to do once he got there: drink until his newest mistake was passed over by the next.
Sorrowville and Riya
A long bus ride later, and Jomo had arrived in Sorrowville. Not many buses came and went from this small town, and it was an immediate inversion of the bustle and hustle Jomo was used to. While private and commercial livestock farming had been illegal for anyone operating outside of the L.S.O., Sorrowville’s edges were golden fields of barley, wheat, and corn, and the greenery here seemed almost artificial, the sheer amount of trees, rolling hills, and crisp, blue skies. Jomo had forgotten, he had forgotten what it meant to breathe, to really breathe good, open air.
He had sold what he could, broken his lease, and left whatever he couldn’t fit into a backpack. This wasn’t the first time he had done something like this, as he was originally from Plummet Swamp, west of Immense. He had never been this far north before though. With haste he searched for this Refulgency, and it didn’t take him long. The town proper was rather small, smaller than he had imagined. He had only strolled down the dirt road past a few stores and scattered houses, until finding a buzz of busy people around a community center near the front of the town. Not everyone was clad in Old Ways Shaper clothes, but many definitely were.
The closer he got the louder a woman’s singing became. The people here were all bringing food from various places in town, kids and dogs tagging along behind them. Jomo read the red-painted words on the front of the building, “The Refulgency”. Greeting some of the people, as he made his way up to the stairs, his eyes fell upon the woman who was singing. He would come to find out her name was Riya, and was instantly enchanted, and little did he know at the time but she was enchanted too. After meeting the Refulgency’s leader L.E., and her righthand man Sean, he was permitted to learn the Old Ways, and to one day become a Shaper, after he had proven himself a contributing member of Unfeasted, one who could and would do good above all else. Riya and Jomo met, three months later Jomo was a Shaper, eight months later they were married, and nine later their son Chiumbo was born.
Learned From Mistakes
Jomo left behind the nastiness he had become in Immense, and with Riya and the Refulgency’s love and support, he never touched the bottle again, nor did he have to fill in the holes in his life with vain attempts at feeling better in the short term. Not everyone is capable of changing their lives for the better, especially when they only have themselves to fall back on, but that’s what makes Jomo, Jomo, he is someone who had and has that capacity within him. While nothing’s perfect, Jomo and Riya were damn near close to it; they had real love, not just young love, but the kind of young love that even young lovers eventually get jaded to. She would sing to the people of the Refulgency all the time, but when she sang just for Jomo, while they held their baby boy, he could’ve sworn he had died and this was what living inside of an eternal dream felt like.
