Калеб Нельсон (Caleb Azumah Nelson)
Caleb Azumah Nelson
O P E N WAT E R
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
About the Author
Caleb Azumah Nelson is a twenty-six-year-old British Ghanaian writer and photographer living in South East London. His photography was shortlisted for the Palm Photo Prize and won the People's Choice Prize. His short story
'Pray' was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2020. OPEN
WATER is his first novel.
For Es
There was an inevitability about their road towards one another which encouraged meandering along the route.
Zadie Smith
Prologue
The barbershop was strangely quiet. Only the dull buzz of clippers shearing soft scalps. That was before the barber caught you watching her reflection in the mirror as he cut her hair, and saw something in her eyes too. He paused and turned towards you, his dreads like thick beautiful roots dancing with excitement as he spoke:
‘You two are in something. I don’t know what it is, but you guys are in something. Some people call it a relationship, some call it friendship, some call it love, but you two, you two are in something.’
You gazed at each other then with the same open-eyed wonder that keeps startling you at various intervals since you met. The two of you, like headphone wires tangling, caught up in this something. A happy accident. A messy miracle.