Ghosts
in Africa by Jennifer Armstrong and Mike Ballard
Oh God said to
Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man,
you must be puttin' me on"
God say,
"No." Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can
do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see
me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says,
"Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on
Highway 61."
~~~Bob Dylan
By the entrance of the
kraal was a fallen, sugared yellow fence. Torrential rain had killed its
substance, and the straw and grass that made it were shattered into fragments.
In his state of torpor, Tom mechanically propped his racer with its flat tire
up hard against the fence, and thought for just a while. "I'd really
rather not be here. But I am and that's all there is to it. Life is so unkind,
just like my father. My mother was nice." Right there, a stray red and
brown cockerel pecked, mindlessly, against the spindled turf, and there
proceeded to mash it with its feet. "What a strange thing a cock's comb
is. I should really comb my hair. There now, much better. What would mummy and
daddy say, most especially, daddy. It's hard being a man. It's no wonder the
hens are so impressed with them‑the cocks' combs, I mean. And how they
cackle..the hens. Of course, cocks can cackle too. It's all equal. It's all
really the same." Apart from the cow and the bell, there was no sign of
any human life there, or anywhere to be found and this made Tom feel safe and
anxious. He was safe, in that nobody could see him, well almost nobody.
Without thinking, Tom
said a prayer, and smoked the last remains of his dried‑out cigarette ‑‑ He had
saved a half "just in case‑‑". The invigorating taste of nicotine
spread rapidly throughout his lungs and found its way into his body. "'He
maketh me to lie down in green pastures'. Nice notion, especially for big,
brown‑eyed cows. Cows always lie down just before it begins to rain. Release is
such a pleasant feeling. I think that when I go back to America, I'll let my
cat and dog go‑my bird too. Then, they'll be free. After all, what do they need
me for. Sure I pet them and feed them. Well, I don't pet the bird‑just
sometimes, I put my little finger in Dodo's cage and give him a small stroke.
Birds, generally don't like to be petted. They don't mind if their mates nuzzle
up to them. I think that's true with most birds, though I've never seen a crow
or a raven bill and coo. But no matter, Dodo will soon be released, that is, if
I'm not here very long. Maybe I should get mom to do it. Ah, silly me. There
are no phones or computers out here and besides, mom is dead."
Tom blew cigarette
smoke through a pursed, whistle‑like hole he made in his lips. His lips were
thin. He didn't like his lips. He couldn't imagine a decent looking girl liking
his lips. They might like other parts of him, which, well.. that would be up
them. Visibly grinning, he thought of his penis. Why did such thoughts enter
his mind? Tom didn't know and besides, he wouldn't presume to tell girls what
they should like about him or anything else for that matter. Then again, he did
know. He was in denial and he knew that. He'd heard that term bandied about
during his Psych 101 course at UT. It'd stuck with him since. But his father
taught him about the devil. It was good to deny the devil. The devil was sin
and sinning got you "cast into 'hail'". Tom smiled again at the
thought of his father's Texan accent. Cast into 'hail', indeed. Just the
opposite‑cast into eternal fire where the marrow in his bones would turn into
molten lead and his eyes would flame in their boney sockets and the tears would
be endless‑ENDLESS!‑to infinity. And the stench of eternally rotting flesh.
There would be no end to the tortures God, the father would inflict upon him,
unrepentant sinner that he was. As hard as he tried to deny his thought‑dreams,
they just continued to pop up, like targets on a shooting range. Tom was
afraid. His own ideas were betraying him, sending him to eternal suffering,
just as Jesus must have suffered on "that old rugged cross". The
melodic whisper of voices came ringing out the open doors of that little old,
white wooden Baptist church near Pottsboro. Tom sometimes caught himself
falling asleep during the sermons of Reverend Paul. Other times, he got hard‑ons
looking over at Nancy's crossed legs. When the congregation stood up to sing,
Tom would have to hunch over a bit and adjust to camouflage the protrusion
emanating otherwise from the zippered part of his trousers.
The ash‑weary smell of
Africa, of pot‑dust smoke... which funnelled up around him formed more than a
wisp. Now, the salient odour of some dead, decaying meat, in a winds' gust,
gained a more pungent edge. The urge to get away, to go back home, came over
him ‑‑ Tom plucked a spindle‑leaf from a nearby bush, and crushed it ‑‑ then
paused for a second, "Do leaves go to heaven? His mother had once told him
that his dead cat had gone to heaven. To be sure, it was 'cat heaven'. If there
was a cat and dog heaven, then perhaps a leaf heaven would not be too great an
ask of our Father."
He knew he was a long,
long way from home... . . The very first autumn he had experienced in the US,
had been a magical one. Gold and amber oak leaves had fallen all round the
college grounds and after that little specks of dust had been gathered up by
the breeze of an impending winter storm. And in those months that followed, his
old boyhood ways had been forgotten ‑‑ so he had thought. He still remembered
them, of course. They were fresh in hi memory‑the lazy days of marbles and
running with balls and climbing trees and teasing girls. He'd found some Texan
friends who went to the same school, and so he'd lengthened out his tone of
speech into a common drawl. "Yawl come," he thought giggling to
himself. So young...Tom had only wanted to please everybody. He wanted to be
"good", in future...But his good was different from that which had
become his father's ‑‑ "and that much was certain". Now his mother
was in The Lord's good hands, there was nothing left to worry about. And
yet....How wondrous the echo of this silence. To think....there was really no
one around! Well, except Him. He was always there. That's what he'd been told,
"he knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake... Christmas,
birthdays, was a guy ever alone?"
A helicopter flew up
overhead, and rattled like rain about to fall again. Tom cleared his throat. He
still felt grateful and more alone than ever. He meandered along the path. The
path was a different one from that chosen earlier. So, only now it was leading
him over hidden boulders and rocks ‑‑ He looked at his watch and it was five to
five. "Must be the helicopter people are going home now," he thought
wistfully. His thoughts turned to Tarzan, swinging freely, securely from vines,
halting only for the briefest second on the limb of some jungle tree. He looked
around him and saw a lone thorn tree. " And Cheetah, funny little Cheetah.
What an hilarious chimp! Oh‑ooo‑hah‑hah‑hah, ugha‑ugha," he said out loud.
Tom's ears perked up.
He could hear the sound of something in the distance, which he vaguely recognised
as baboons ‑‑ he had last heard a baboon when he was still a child ‑‑ They'd
scramble for the nuts, they'd throw some more, they tore them open, with their
teeth, spat their husks. Now the memory was gone. Tom knew enough to be able to
say they were probably a tribe of baboons, waiting for him just over the hill.
That, itself, was very beautiful, and glorious. "Tribes were nice,"
he thought. "Nice and ever so natural." He liked saying "ever
so", even to himself. His mother used that expression. It was cultured. It
showed you were cultured, that you knew things and were someone to be reckoned
with. Yes, indeed it did." He felt more assured now. His anxiety had
ebbed, 'ever so, ever so'.
Everything was
stretching out into a stream of caramel, gray chocolaty colour. The sun's path
would soon fall beyond a cloud and sink much lower, out beyond the most distant
tree. So now, he had to find his own path back and out the way he came. To
ensure a short‑cut, he would boldly cut right across the bush.
An army vehicle zipped
through, as if above those close‑by tufts of vegetation. Like Tom, it was
moving southwards. It jettisoned the breeze, as it were: The breeze bounced off
it. Then down it went, along the road Tom had been travelling, an hour or more
before. A sharp reverberation as it passed was seemingly caught up by the
nearest grass and re‑echoed. Tom looked up and fell down, scraping his knee.
"Damn." he said out loud. A khaki apparition vanished, just at the
moment he glimpsed it. Was it ever really there? He looked at his knee. It
bled, ever so slightly. Everything seemed slow; like in a dream. He felt unsure
and yet on the verge of battle. What kind of battle? He did not know. There
were battles all around him, all the time as he grew up. It was normal. "Tom,
Tom, the butcher's son, lost a ring and away he run," he thought as his
head jerked. His eyes opened. They shut again. They opened again: He felt a bit
tired. He had been walking so far, now. He had come around full circle.
He climbed up to the
road and took his bearings southwards ‑‑ ever southwards. Warmth and
destination were there. Up above, a group of eagles soared. Tom had his
notebook, and he'd drawn a sketch of these birds in it. The sun was part of the
sketch. And, we were all a part of it, and had our origins from it. And when
the sun finally departed, it always left a feeling of peace, as though in
special tribute or in consolation. "Amen," he thought, bowing his
head. "Mustn't sleep. No. Too dangerous. No, I'm fine."
He'd learned enough about
mechanics in a funny lakeside place back home, and about throwing flat‑faced
stones in a way that skimmed the water, whilst looking for fish. He'd done that
in Africa, when he was left alone for the best part of the day. Out of boredom,
mostly, he'd learned to turn a pine stick into a fishing rod, attach fish‑bait
upon a makeshift, barbed‑wire hook. He swung a thorn stick resolutely as he
walked along the road. It was his stick ‑‑ he'd plucked it from the tree, all
alone.
He travelled along
these roots and stones. Nobody had told him that these could be the wrong
shoes. . nobody had told him just how dark it gets ‑‑ or how suddenly the night
falls. Tom jiggled his rucksack, which was made heavier by the pressure. His
father had been right ‑‑ he had said, "Watch out for those . . . who'll
lead you up the garden path! 'Rock of ages, come to me'." Songs made him
feel more like he was with someone else. "The Lord is always with
you," his mother had told him. "There are no monsters. The Lord will
watch over you and see that you go to heaven, when it is your time." There
was a movement in the bush. Tom was afraid. It wasn't his time. Of that he was
sure. "But then, what if the creature in the bush was a rhino. Would a
rhino know that? Would a rhino know about the Lord and his plans?" Of
course, God moved in mysterious ways and the rhino would know in his own
inscrutable way. This thought did not comfort Tom. He picked up his pace a bit,
even though the pack chafed his shoulders and his lungs began to burn.
And now the night had
closed in. And he breathed the chill; and all his breath had turned into white
smoke.
The night was reaching
in to rob him of possibilities, and his missions . . . its cold hand of
darkness reaching in ‑‑ Perhaps, soon, day would come along to . . . re‑invigorate
us all? The darkness covers everything and returns all to its embryonic shapes.
It makes all frenetic activity depart with its hushed and hushing authority.
The cold was making him cough . . . Perhaps only the dryness of his breath was
making him cough, now. He had to slow down. His body was giving out. Soon a car
would pull up, if only he was lucky. A friendly face would take him to the next
stage: show him where he had to go. Tom believed in fate: It was as much a part
of his belief as breathing was a part of him. "Now I lay me down with
sheep." Sin... blasphemy! That is what father would say? "We are men,
not sheep. Now, where did I put my woollen jersey? Where is my shepherd? When
is the man coming with a gun? Where is the highest bidder, for my life? Where,
indeed, is my son's penknife?"
Next, Tom made his way
towards the nearest hut, in a random detour. A red and brown cockerel cackled,
flapping 'cross his path, emitting a threatening, gargling sound. The shadows
stretched. He poked his head in, knocking a bit of grey dust from its entrance,
"Anybody home?" But the sleeping, creeping shadows inside the silent
hut were deeper. It was warmer there inside. The hut smelt like stale corn ‑‑
and spittle that had been re‑swallowed, two, or three, or more times, until it
had finally turned sour. Dark wooden embers; dust and coal, were scattered
within the cold structure. The floors were cow‑dung, the walls of brighter
clay. Tom pulled his penis out, unconsciously, and began to play with it. It
was rare to be alone for such a long time and so safe. . . He now felt safe,
within the heat and darkness of the hut. Tomorrow, he would head south again.
In the meantime, there was Leslie. Leslie in her red plaid school skirt with
her white cotton panties on. "Leslie, will you take off your
panties?" Tom thought of ripping them off, no sliding them down and
sliding in and out and in and.. "Leslie!" he cried. And then it was
over. He wiped his hand on his trousers and drifted off to sleep... in the
belly of a leopard.
A car started or so it
seemed. Milky white stars...and then some light. Tom opened his eyes. Some
light was bouncing off the grey walls of the hut and an engine came to a stop.
A flashlight bumped its way up to the hut. Crunching gravel under feet. The
light shone into Tom's face. "Anybody here?" the voice asked?
"Nobody here but us chickens," Tom returned with his boyish grin.
"What are you
doing boy? It smells like a sperm factory in here."
"First of all,
I'm not a boy. I'm old enough to drink and vote and I'm a graduate of the
University of Texas."
"How did you get
here?" the soldier asked.
"I rode my racer.
But it got a flat tire."
"So?"
"So, I walked. I
forgot to bring patch and glue."
The soldier scratched
his head.
"I'm visiting my
old homeland, sir" Tom continued.
"You'd better
come along with us," the soldier answered. "And don't call me sir.
I'm a corporal."
"Yes sir",
Tom said. "I mean.."
"Never mind. Just
get in."
The purring of the
engine which had picked him up and carried him thus far had made him feel like
he was a lion cub, inside a lionesses' womb ‑‑ A child of Africa, not in this
land for long. Alone‑except for four ghostly shapes of others around him. The
boy struggled, under the weight of the most tiresome engagement: SLEEP. Why was
he struggling? He ought to be more alert. Three hours past‑‑ they approached
Town.
The familiar voices
broke through the drought‑‑" My people live around here ‑‑ Perhaps we can
drop him out down there?" So ensued a general shuffle of silent assent.
Something was resting on him ‑‑something that he couldn't somehow shake it off.
It wound around him while he rested, like a python. And, it had seemed, in that
long journey, like it had always been this way. Except now, in Africa, the
child in Tom was free. The memories were not strong enough to resist the
violence of bright, arousing day.
And the car, at that
point, really seemed to be a leopard, purring up the long dirt road, and it
slid under a porch light coming to a still rest within a breeze. And feeling
more alert, Tom, happily, at last, stepped out for a look. The moon loomed down
full, its face, round, smooth ‑‑ and small. He kicked the dust off hiss boots,
as if awake. The Ghost‑spirit knocked against the door. It opened‑‑ Tom was
alone, with one of four hallucinations. First was there a small woman‑‑young‑‑
with her dark hairs brushed softly, low, against her brow, and then a man in
his late thirties, followed by a hairy, long‑slithered face: The dog's name was
Peter Pan. The hallucination said, "We just found him walking down the
road; we thought he might be lost‑‑ ...would you take care of him ? ‑‑his tone
was soft, and kind. Inside, it was stark, with wooden shelves and a belching
'fridge. The floors were cold, uneven; seemingly melted with old footwork‑‑and,
probably young feet ‑‑ A kettle rocked sedately in its cradle on a gas stove.
It had made its contents dry.
Tom could taste this
sweet smell of ancient herbs. The boy regretted leaving behind his brightly
coloured racer. It was the one thing he prized highly, that he had brought with
him from the States. ‑‑ he hated the thought it might rain overnight, and all
the paintwork would suffer. It irked him . . . more than the fact he had been
'tricked' by a bunch of "apparitions" to participate in a journey to
'who knows where'.
He felt his body being
very purposefully jiggled. "Hey you. Wake up. Is this it, son? There
aren't many houses out this way."
"Yes sir."
Tom got his knapsack,
exited the car with a wave, watching it until its lights finally disappeared
and all that was left was the distant growl of its engine. At least Daina's
place hadn't changed.
The woman clucked and
scurried and found pillows, sheets and blankets. The room was large ‑‑ too
large to hold one person ‑‑ and tthe ceiling was tall and high. A silken web of
mosquito netting was draped around him. Tom felt he was a spider, caught by
another spider, under the watchful eye of a fly. Then the late hour arrived.
When daybreak came, it left a hole in everything ‑‑ a mellow, quickening light
that nothing could hide inside. Breakfast was pan‑cooked flapjacks, bacon, jam,
and eggs. Tom removed the netting that had until this point contained him. A
whole new world of possibilities had just opened up.
He sucked in the
milky, hot, tea. Michael Leary ‑‑ she, Daina‑‑ called him "Laz" for
short‑‑sat smoking in the kitchen. Later on, Tom found them seated out on the
green lawn, with their dog, Pan. Pan eyed this boy, with one of his translucent
gazes and sidled up to him. Tom offered him the remains of his egg. He had once
used to keep some scraps for his own puppy, a Great Dane, called Marshall.
"Little Marshall," Tom had called him, but that was when Tom had been
so much younger.
"It's warm out
here, and everything is suddenly quite still" he thought. The African
habit of seeing the outside, and not the soul, at all... was all "a
lie". Daina, spread out languidly on a deck chair, followed him with her
eyes. He fell into reverie, whilst eyeing Daina's legs; an almost milk‑chocolate‑brown.
Her skin was of a well‑fed cow, glistening with either brill cream or a
delicate version of crushed sunflower seeds. Meanwhile, "Laz",
shuffled back and forth and here and there, in his broken boots. And then he
stopped and propped himself, right shoulder against a wooden beam. As if all
this gentleman was. . .was leaning there in one place against the porch. And
then, he sat again, sipping tea and looking for all the world like a man of
leisure as he leaned back into a closed eyed position.
Laz was a game‑keeper,
from way back ‑‑ knew the hills and every animal by name, and was still
sleeping on his armchair. Daina smiled ‑‑ she seemed reluctant to participate
but loomed there in the shadow‑morning‑light. "Laz", however, was far
beyond , so far, he didn't care ‑‑ almost beyond the essence of a man, he
twitched his whiskers, softly, as he remarked on the dew. Midday, next the
evening soft approaching, he would tighten up his collar ‑‑ always was trying
to adjust it to avoid sunburn. He even swatted flies away from his face, with a
low, digestive, grunt. A man tormented by the cold, but refusing to admit it.
Light always tormented his day but evenings were the best by far.
Daina re‑crossed her
legs, and smiled in a conspiratorial way at Tom. She slithered her body down
the chair into a more relaxed position. The boy felt the morning sun bite into
his brow. He paused. Now his tea was getting cold. In the heat of day, Daina
slid off her silky slip coat, and dove into the pool. Tom lay right back on an
armrest; closed his eyes, in half response ‑‑ "Daina.... When I leave
here, I'll collect my things, come back for you. You needn't be afraid. I want
to protect you from ALL of the dangers."
Tom knew Laz was
leaving to go to his game reserve in the bush the next day. Daina would be all
alone. "You must go back to your Leslie," she said, at last,
subduingly, ‑‑Since there's nothing real for you here...Alone, out in the
bush."
The air was getting
colder. Suddenly, for some reason, Daina's voice almost seemed reproachful:
"Do your parents know where you're about? ‑‑Do they even care?"
Daina's nose was a wrinkled freckle‑patch of ‑winsome‑ satisfaction‑‑ "you
might be too heavy to be carried..." Daina's dark brown hair hung around
her face, as she examined Tom's injured knee. Her eyes developed a quizzical
appearance, laughing at him.
"Laz" was
cat napping. He snorted in his sleep, as if registering a movement, somewhere,
out there in the bushland. He let out a whispered snore, as if in a huge relief
that a certain danger finally bypassed him and left him safe. He sunk deeper
into a reverie, as if on cue. As Daina watched, his breathing turned more
rhythmic, and so was silenced ‑‑ as if with bandaids.. Daina reached over,
gently, and offered Tom a elasto‑plaster, to cover up his searing leg‑gape.
"Only my father
is still alive. My mother died when I was five..my father said... a car crash
in London...she slid into a telegraph pole, on a track of icy road‑‑nobody
could have seen it coming.."
Tom leaned back in his
lawn chair. A light dawned somewhere, but it was far away, too far away for all
the weight he now must carry. The light paused. Trapped within a shadow, panned
between two shifting clouds. His tea was getting cold ‑‑ a signal that the partnership
must now subside.
And now the sun was
beating down perpetually, the clouds began crisscrossing . . . it reminded him
of daybreak, dreaming: The knowledge of an infinite horizon : And the child‑like
hours slipping away disappearing into the world's hidden ideas, to be condensed
one day above a mountain range, and fall again, ever recycled, as
precipitation. This dream was one which, fortunately, could last forever.
"But ‑‑ a‑grasping at dreams, a life could slip away! But to lose them,
that would be tragic, truly tragic. What am I going to do?" he thought.
But no answer came. Only blankness...tabla‑rasa that's what his mind's eye saw.
Why didn't God ever tell him what to do? Not like prayers about tending sheep
with his rod and his staff, but real things. He'd never had a rod nor a staff.
He didn't even know what the heck their function was in terms of sheep herding
or why anyone would be concerned with them in this day and age. Why didn't God
tell him about real things, instead of just having his disciples write down
those parables? Parables were nice, but they could only go so far. And Tom was
here, in Africa, very far from home. There wasn't an olive tree in sight.
A dust storm whipped
up everything and forced the leaves and twigs into a spiral. Before too long
his friends would make tracks and reach him. Everything was encapsulated here
and lived on its own terms, as if forgotten by all time. Soon the sky would
open up and rain would fall ‑‑ a rain which would drench them all,
delightfully, intensively to the bone.
... The Earth can only
spin so far, and then it must recline and tumble! A revelation, to be sure. As
his father used to exclaim, "The world's going to hell in a
handbasket!" And it was! Tom's mind's eye could see it or humanity, more properly,
writhing there in one giant handbasket, no longer capable of even turning in
their graves, being carried off by demons to that final day of judgement, Jesus
up there on his floating throne, no longer the gentle Jesus, the baby Jesus,
the helpless Jesus. No, this time, he was the muscular Jesus‑‑ the judge, like
the kind who wear those funny dark napkins on their heads as they hand down
death sentences to the black sheep of humanity. He would come to wreak
vengeance on the unrepentant. It was his right. He'd given them a chance and
they'd flubbed it and he consigned them to the gates of Hell. Funny how Jesus
and the Devil worked this sort of division of labour, what with Jesus doing the
pointing and Satan ordering his minions to drive this or that herd of sinners
into the flames. Thus, one never really ever faced death, only eternities of
heaven or hell or, if you were a Catholic or a Communist, long transitional
periods of purgatory or socialism.
"Tom, how long do
you think you'll to stay here?" said Daina, unexpectedly ‑‑ "we don't
want you wandering all over the place ‑‑ there are dangers here. Wild animals,
in particular... Laz killed a leopard only last week."
The realisation he was
on his own and in danger, poured springs of cool and tepid water over Tom‑‑
reviving him: ‑‑"I have Leslie waiting for me, back in QueQue ‑‑ she's
alone: I'm heading back , to bring her something special." Tom thought of
Leslie's smile and how she would grin when she saw him again. It was all warm
and inviting. Yes, to Leslie's smile. No to her hot body. Yes to her
intoxicating toes: No to her forehead, which was too broad. Yes to her
willingness to engage the forgiving embrace of unconditional love. No to
actually embracing her. After all, there was the hot body to worry about. Tom
was afraid of being burnt. And he would be burnt, he would surely be burnt, if
he gave in to sexual pleasure. The road to hell was paved with pleasure's
lures.
"Lurid woman! Out
of my head," Tom shouted.
"What?"
Daina asked.
"Oh,
nothing", Tom said sheepishly.
A bush fire, that
morning, had swept its way across the farm; yet pre‑burnt areas had saved them.
Daina's gold‑brown eyes flashed inwardly, in the certain knowledge that
boundaries were changing, squaring, losing form. Her own body was losing form.
Age was relentlessly beating her down into a kind of shaplessness mass. She
imagined herself growing old, lines becoming ever more deeply etched into her
forehead. "Repulsive", she thought and frowning, she decided on
diversion, picking up the old SPIEGEL catalogue her cousin had mailed to her
from Chicago.
Yet grass seed dusted
and swept across the land ‑‑ and Tom remembered Leslie with her violet eyes and
golden hair, cascading, as it were, around her body. "Here's a cigarette
for you: Don't lose it!‑‑ and remember, to take a map and write down where
you're going!" she told him. The fresh cigarette Leslie had given him
would soon be ashes. He'd taken it without a thought. He KNEW Leslie had a
taste for all forms of corruption ‑‑ ‑‑cigarettes would be her tender ‑‑ or
meagre, 'offering'. His father and god, who art in heaven, would be displeased,
as women were a menace to the nice. "Even had proven that," he
reflected. His penknife was nice. In spite of this, he wasn't happy, especially
about the dullness of its main blade.
Nothing would be
allowed to become jaded, dull or green ‑‑ . . . But everything would most
certainly be perfect, somehow, someday. Though, through its own natural course.
Leslie had been in agreement with this sentiment for she too believed in his
father. Ah Leslie...he remembered that time when she had nodded, and passed him
a pencil‑thin joint, and a roll of silver paper from her ciggie box. As a
couple, they had escaped all crispening dryness, and any near disaster.
But Tom was anxious.
He suspected Leslie might have returned to Vermont by now. His travels had
taken ever so much time. She would probably get married, have three kids, and
die there, as she always told him she wanted. Tom just wanted to return to her
now‑‑ instantly!
But more than that, he
wanted to collect, and dust off, his new bike, which for sure would 'of gotten
"all messed up", "worsened for the wear". Surely, he could
get patches, glue and a pump from Daina and Laz. Then, he would take just a
little more time. He would ride to the place his mother had been married in.
Sure, it wasn't something she could ever thank him for (an Irish way of
thinking upon it, he flashed) which was impossible now, although he wished she
might. He didn't want thanks ‑‑ he wanted kisses, even if they came from a
ghost. "Doesn't everyone want that unconditional love?"
For Tom, warm, plump
faces of girls, like Leslie, were thoughts to be desired ‑‑ and anticipated as
well. For they promised freedom from these incessant yearnings for his mother's
forgiving kiss, the sickly sweet smell, the veil, the altar, the church, its
whiteness, so crisp and cold and pure like the driven snow. Was this not the
greater sin?
That night Tom slept
well. In a way, he felt as if he'd confessed to himself. A desert rain would
interrupted the simmering humidity. Yet he awoke with a start. He was decided.
He would be paying a visit to the cathedral where his mother had been married.
"You are the sort
who looks like he LIKES the sticks and mud!‑‑ You should enjoy the journey
!" Tom's father had said before he left Texas, for Tom was sure, even
then, that he would be making this pilgrimage. Tom's father's dog had loped up
at the sound of the human commotion between Tom and his father that day. He dog‑
smiled and dribbled all around, smearing blood dropped saliva in with the red
slimy residue on his canines. Miraculously, it fell down the cracks of a rotten
boulder and dropped into the earth. It seemed like the world laughed at this
sight‑‑ the sky emerged‑‑ a bright penetrating blue ‑‑resilient in its smile.
This ever so vivid
memory of Tom's came out of nowhere ‑‑ It made him shudder. In a flash, Tom
recollected another vision and this one was equally horrific, yet, in a way,
pure. There he was, right near the place where his father, George, had
sharpened a large butcher's knife on a rock, just outside his shop in the city.
Most of George's inspirations had come from the rock, for the rock was true.
Yes, that's what George was always saying, "The rock is true."
Unchanging, it was stable, dependable, a thing of wonder and mystery. Language,
truth and logic, his father had a way of precisely separating them.
One day, he had said
to his son, "Tom, take your mother's wedding band off her hand, and go and
get it enlarged ‑ She is telling me it now cuts into her circulation." And
Tom was glad to help. His mother's skin was alabaster, and so soft you could
see her blue and purple veins protruding, threaded throughout her fingers like
a spider's web; perhaps it was her English quality? ...a certain
"displeasure" of the sun? "It burns me so," she used to say
to him. The milky mildew texture of her features were shocked against existence
in the waves of African Sun which had penetrated, leaving hints of cracks and
lines to come. Tom's father had sharpened a large butcher's knife on his rock.
It was just outside his shop in the City. His father was most definitely not a
traditionalist, but he had made an exception in this case ‑‑ due to his disdain
for the peculiar 'buzz' of electrical devices. There had been a 'buzz' one
night. "Impurity!" Tom had heard his father yelling at his mother in
their bedroom as he lay awake in his room, his eyes moving anxiously back and
forth under their lids.
She had died quite suddenly.
Her death had come soon after George and his son had finally migrated back to
civilisation ‑‑ It was not entirely unexpected. The lies she had been told
about the mildness of the Texan heat must have taken their toll.
"Don't lose that
ring! It is important ‑‑", Tom remembered George yelling at him. But Tom,
feeling the heat, as if in a whirl of steam, he had dropped it. Down. Next to
the rock, it fell, where it had slipped. He had been wetting his pen knife in
order to make an incision in his overalls. He had only been testing the blade.
He like testing his blade for sharpness. Then, in the sweat and heat Tom lost
his clarity of vision. Damnable sweat! Salt water, not gentle, like tears or
baby shampoo. It irritated his eyes to distraction. And what bedlam there had
been when he confessed to his clumsy crime! Hellish denunciations were to be
endured‑‑ until his father found the golden ring ‑‑ whereupon he scolded Tom
for being so careless. It was at this very moment, the moment of Tom's most
extreme humiliation that George forgave Tom. Quite reluctantly and with
profound forbearance, he had advised, with rich, rump‑textured tones, "My
son, I love you, and sometimes you do behave just like Tarzan's Chimp ‑‑ but we
must also forgive the chimps my child!" Tom had been eight.
The next day, Tom only
wanted to say good‑bye; just once and for all excuse himself to both Daina and
her husband. Yet his shirt was on the wrong way round. He was no Tarzan.
"Tarzan never wore shirts anyway," he said under his breath.
"You are really
not leaving are you, Tom?" You KNOW I'll be alone," Daina said.
The fire ‑‑ the heat ‑‑
had been dismissed as part of nature's fury ‑‑ a natural disaster. The
blackness of the land was already flecked with green. ‑‑Sprouts of life were nature's
own. And all of a sudden, everything seemed ever so far off and yet so close.
For it was Leslie he had loved. And, Tom remembered well this time of year, and
how it felt when they had first "made love".
The deciduous trees
had whistled and echoed, just like they did today. Tom had gone down the bush
path to meet her, his palms sweating through his pink, clenched‑up fingers. It
was a secret meeting. They had conspired together, like thieves in the night.
The sun skimmed along her form, all along the dull bush path, a yard off.
Summer colours chimed with insects, intersecting, flying, buzzing, crawling in
the wet, green hedges. Shimmering lights appeared. The sun had masked her,
shuffling up the garden path‑‑ he pulled her tightly to him. He'd let his
tongue penetrate her open, inviting mouth. He laughed with her; touched her
lips, caressed them, sucked them, licked them.
No, that was a
fantasy. He should admit it. The truth would set him free. He must confess, if
even only to himself. No, instead, she "leaned back" and he took her
breasts in his mouth, tipped them onto his tongue on every pass. He'd noticed
the sounds around him were becoming bigger, coherent. "There was a rhythm
to the Earth," he remembered thinking that, "and a song".
That was the same day
of the evening when they'd passed each other one of Leslie's ciggies as they
sat at the beach campfire. What a strange night. In the corner of his eye he
remembered catching a meteorite, time‑travelling the night sky ‑‑ and he had
been awestruck.
And as he looked at
her, her smile, twisted, her laugh echoing in the flickering light. At that
moment, he just wanted to . . . . . . . . smoke some more, look up at the
constellations of the night and then to continue to hold her. And Leslie had
whispered in his ear, " Tom, I am a cool, nectarine drink‑‑and I let you
suck the nectarine from me, although I didn't suck the nectarine from you‑‑not
this time anyway ‑‑ I still remember the crashing ocean on the beach, and the
blur and the haze, of your leaving me."
What did it all mean?
Tom could not fathom it. It seemed so like a dream at the time ‑‑ but it was
not just another haze of the unreal. She'd said it in the aftermath of a day of
social hieroglyphics: Such things as the clothes we wear, the way we brush our
hair, the way we clean our teeth at night, or fail to do so and must try and
remember in the morning...all these elements that must brush us away. "I
still remembered holding you around your waist", she breathed, " your
belly firm and supple, and your cock soft and warm as a dream. The perfect
shape."
Then the
transformation. In a motion dream. The beach, the line of sand dunes ‑‑ still
warm, all in motion.
" It seemed to me
we were creating soft waves," she had said to him once.
"You were determined;
funny‑‑making our whole lives seem gratuitous.
"Soft
penetration; deep arc.
"The night
slipped by ‑‑ we slept as we had never slept ‑‑ under the influence of a heavy
drug.
"I would have
sucked the warm pollen from you if only I could have," Leslie swooned.
Tom grinned. It had
finally come to him. He knew what pollen meant.
"Another night ‑‑
and hope was closing in on us," she had said. "We had to live on hope
instead of some bread of hope; we knew this was just around the corner.
"We knew an end
was just around the corner,
"~~ and so we
couldn't even say "good‑bye. We simply threw up in a separate veggie
patches; and departed."
What had she meant by
this? Oh yes, the Jameson's made us ill.
"Instead, we
might have jumped into the soft flowerbed and let the green sea swirl us far,
and far away!"
Indeed, upon the
grasslands, Tom's mind had erupted, separated so to speak. He had seen Her
ghost, locked frantically into another time. It had been then that he'd broken
his hold on Leslie. His mother intervened. The sickly sweet smell. What was it?
L' Air du Temps Parfum left long unused on the bedroom shelf? It had been her
favourite.
Yes, it was then that
they'd drifted, fallen apart.
"Leslie!"
Tom had sighed‑‑ and coolness faded over the greens. He stood alone again,
beside the path, sucking in soft tears against his hot cheeks. He remembered
his mother. Oh poor mother. She had found the crumpled conveyance from his
father. He could see her. She held the onion skin paper between her silky, quivering
finger bones. The writing in it didn't make any sense.
"The Earth has no
heart. It has a big, frightening cock, instead." He knew it now. Day would
come, and Death would come ‑‑ three things. Mean time, NIGHT would shield him
and protect his dreams.
And Leslie, she had
shrugged her shoulders, as if she hadn't actually expected anything, right from
the start. She tried to get started, but.... "Tom? What is the matter?
...You have . . . problems?‑‑ Is it ... HOME?
"Oh! Tom? What
will you do? Will you stay? ...or will you go back home‑‑ now?"
It was all too much
for poor Tom‑‑the voices echoed, softly, in his head as Leslie quaked softly ‑‑
her mascara soon stained by random‑flowing tears ‑‑tears which would go on , up
to NOWHERE, recycle, sift over the Earth in pain, and roll into the Sea.
"My mother!"
Tom had said, finally.
"What?"
Leslie replied.
"I just wanted to
Say.. I wanted to SEE where she lived, how she was married.." "‑‑How
she lived?"
Leslie's learned
school teacher repartee was precise and to the point, "Oh, Tom!"
Tom could see her now
when he closed his eyes. Leslie was packing up her things: the books, the
brushes, the little curly paper winds she had used to do her hair.
"I'd love to stay
and chat, Tom, but you seem to be entangled in so many things; and it's too
much for me right now... Everything has lost its balance , Tom ‑‑ we must keep
ours, as solitary individuals‑‑ and if you do not find your dreams, make sure
they will see to it, we are punished! We are so lucky to have had this time,
together, and we simply cannot hope for more than this .."
These last words fell
away into a whisper. They drifted off‑‑ these sounds of their conversations
faded and were gone. And Tom, reflecting back, was certain now‑‑what had been
said could not be easily undone. A master, a peasant... a north wind
sympathiser...His thoughts of Leslie stopped. He was ..virtually
"gone" from her now...back to the place where he'd left his bike ‑‑,
to rust and fall apart in the rain, unprotected and unloved and with a
flattened tire.
Grass always grew
green under his Father's feet: The Earth degrades. His father had said this was
its natural pattern. But ‑people_ WILL spring up from it. And for his father,
degradation always brought the hope of something newer. Love was surely a cold,
hard stone ‑‑ an amethyst. No, the resemblance to the softness of .. the
dream... a cow's heart, a pulsating, red, sacrifice: A soft intensity. The life
once given could not easily be taken back.
Tom remembered his
father giving him cows' hearts to play with, collected from the weekend at the
slaughter yard ‑‑ which Tom was expressly forbidden to visit. Goats' hearts
too, accumulated from the weekend's work. And offal, plenty of offal. The soft
vibrancy of their liquid surface‑‑an artistic curiosity. A delicate boy (from
his mother's side), Tom doted on the funnels and the passage which lead ‑‑ one
way or another ‑‑ into the pumping valves and out again, and from the other
side. The intricacies of life...a soft jewel, a forbidden present. His dreams
were detours through this heart; a means to pass the time: A gift. The earth
was less kind to women. Africa was dry as dust. His mother knew that.
When the pain started,
Leslie stopped. And where pain STOPPED, there, Leslie could come into fruition
again. And thus, was everything predicated on pain ‑‑ a STRONG definition and
logical, too! Nobody could argue with it!
"Good‑bye Leslie ‑‑
I have already loved you!! Toss up your freckled nose!"
And Leslie....
"You cannot see
it, Tom? Your mother's country set the stones for you to follow. Now you follow
them everywhere. You follow in the way of women who have gone before, and you
don't know 'Why',"
Tom chortled, looked
down and began to walk back in the direction of where he had left his bike.
Leslie saw her blond boy disappearing off into the distance. Caught up in a
storm, pursuing cobbled stones along a dirt road. He disappeared: a slouching
heap of bowed‑over bones, "who will soon be reclining over his fucking,
precious bike again. Human genetic material, it was," Leslie thought,
"heading south on some guilt infested oedipal pilgrimage,"she
shrugged.
Tom's blond hair
disappeared into the grey....she had pulled a stray one from his chest. It had
caught up against her neck , inside her collar, as they'd said "good‑bye".
He was too pale for this country ‑‑ Almost a ghost now . . . blended white with
light grey on the old tar road. Yet: "Something in the wind loves
him?" ‑‑ she sighed. She knew this was untrue, but it made her feel good
to think it and to think it honestly.
The night was ebony.
It had suddenly turned inky, and seemed as though it would remain so for the
duration. Still, Tom found his racer, sooner than he thought he would ‑‑ under
a tree. Twisted and grey, unloved by the earth , as if spewn out by a demon.
There was no hope ... here, he thought. Besides, the gravel hurt his feet. He
got on his bike and peddled as fast as he could, south, to warmth, ever south,
to the bright, to the light from above.
He found his way to
Fort Victoria and met up with some locals. There, if he decided to, they would
share some beer. He'd liked frothy maize beer when he first had tried it ‑‑ it
was .... intoxicating. And it made him forget his more morbid thoughts. The
ghosts in the chapel were dead, and so were his ancestors. "Let them bury
themselves," he mused. Years and years of dead bodies, straining, linking
to each other under ground, all the way back to the bottom of the earth and the
beginnings of time. So, were his thoughts on living and on being alive.
After Fort Victoria
and his hangover, he took the right fork in the road out of town. He bent the
bow against his former path. "I'm going home to Love," he told
himself, his headache throbbing. "Ah! the warm nested cradle of my
expectations! The past of brave Old Souls, giving warmth to frozen, hidden
hearts." These were the stories his mother would have told ‑‑ she was up
in the sky, and looking down on him. (No longer a frozen heart.) She loomed up
graciously, with the hot smell of brandied spirits. The thought of brandy made
his sick to his stomach. The ancestral spirits would be his guides. They could
soothe into a liquid form, a lost heart.
A black cloud, an
ancestral thumb, a snub nose, a hairy soft, inviting toe, warmed itself on the
horizon. A stray storm cloud, merging obliquely with the grey, beneath a
reddening sun: Profuse with life, some storm birds ‑scampered‑ upwards, arched
in rows over the sky, in search of succour, life, the wind in his face, his
bicycle arching along...
"I am going to
the chapel, to find my mother," he'd announced ‑ to Leslie. "MY past,
and My life......." ‑‑ There is warmth here, in the cradle of mankind
.."and such cool air!" "We are never alone, when we at peace
with ourselves," "We find this peace, and that will make us
free." ‑‑ the rhythm of life, falling, rising, the soft pulsating of life,
the dull zip of the bike, and clinker as he altered gears . . . . the
efficiency of a Western lifestyle...Sundays, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger
King, McDonalds, Walmart, Big John Mazmanian, Funny Cars...
Back home in West
Texas, his father wielded his long, baton‑stick. Tom‑Thumb, the sheep dog
nudged George's arm. Thumb had always been a good replacement for his son or so
George thought. He'd had to be. George stroked the corn‑silken hair of the
grateful porch dog. ‑‑ Musing‑‑ Tom had always brought his school work home,
and was always quiet and respectful. He was the very model of a perfect son.
His hair was so long and brown. The unexpected attention which had just come
made him pant‑‑ he was the perfect model of a perfect companion.
George threw the ball,
as he soliloquised: "My son, you are the loyal 'pal': I love you!"
"Your energy
surely knoweth no bounds ‑‑ hence I love thou!"
"Whenever ‑
(that's at any time), I throw a ball , you must come bounding up; your hair is
as if on fire, in reflection of the glaring sun! When you bring back the ball,
I will feed you and take care of you and you will thank me with wags, just as I
thanketh the Lord with prayer." And yet....these words had always been
plain enough to see : "You are NOT good enough!" If ever he should
show a trace of waywardness or unpredictability, he'd brought himself in line,
and humbly conceded, what was important in this life was to be "good"
‑‑ his Father smiled in fondest memory.
Old crimes were easily
forgiven. When Tom played his basketball, he had a firm strong, body. Sinewy
even. Not flabby like today. He was a creature to be seen ‑‑ with his alabaster
white skin , "his firm and lengthy body, stretching...stretching... for
the hoop.... He brings it back, I pat him well, on the head....Oh, your mother
used to say you would grow up to be a big, strong, boy," his father
muttered, resolutely‑‑ patting the silky creature next to him, gently upon the
head‑‑ "And she was right!" Oh, if your mother didn't know it ‑‑ she
was ‑‑always‑‑ right!! So far right was she,, she died on the blade of her own
belief in me."
The boy had understood
this was just George's way of just consoling himself: his dog, his ball, his
mutterings ‑a mental and emotional barrier against the recall of her loss.
Tom had often known
humid days like these ‑‑ clouds hung low air soft and silky, and yet defined...
enough humidity to rain ‑‑ but still the crisp, and countervailing force,
prevailed...breathing in refreshing air, refining it, through the earth. The
cool and gentle, probing fingers , reaching up to life. He was reborn again ‑‑
a MAN on a bicycle now ‑‑ he was still a dreamer, on a sea of shaky clouds and
ice. This dark could do this to a human; if he is enough of an intrepid
dreamer. The coolness wiped away sullen, drooling clouds let forth the
possibility of early morning rain. Like Tom, the hyena could be seen, soon
lapping up the traces of the morning's spoils, ingesting the sweet carrion
through its lulling glands, along the track it follows. Tom absorbed the air of
the explorers ‑‑ Sucked it down, ingested it. Threw it up, for it had
intoxicated him. Until he was but a fractured, memory‑remnant of the Western world
‑‑ Still, part of Africa, and therefore in a categorical and finite sense, not
yet civil, holy. The bike felt good under him, sturdy, balanced.
He owned no real home,
not any more, yet he followed a dream, the will of an apparition; the dream of
a man with a raised and pointed spear. "That other life is not for you ,
Tom. Here you might breathe". . . .the warm thought exposing his fears,
unveiling his dreams. " . . .If you must breathe at all" . . . The
warm tongue of the hyena freshens over frosted and cold scent glands. "Our
ancestors will always reach out to us through their will." Tom's ancestor
had heavy boots, and whimsical eyes. His ancestor gazed soulfully up to the
skies, and laughed a little. His boots were red and overlarge. His eyes were
overdrawn, and startled looking.
And then, he felt a
presence, as if he was no longer alone, zipping along on a lonely, African dirt
road. He was somewhere..out beyond an old farm gate on a small kraal , tucked
up and cordoned off, in a rambling, abandoned section of a farm. The sky slunk
in heaviness with its humidity and yet the air remained clear, the firmament
appeared black with sparkling specks of ivory; paused to dust off feet, a
detail of childhood which Tom repeated. Looking up at the sky, looking at its
solid, shimmering sackcloth and translucent panthers, moving in the night, Tom
felt a bit nervous, frightened....The kraal smoked . . . dust flew: Ashes, wood
smoke, dead bones, and the smell of cooking hen. He saw no lights, except a
shiny flicker of a mud hut wall; its circularity gave it some harsh form. It
was a home ‑‑ a break from his long journey.
A dust track led him
so ‑ far‑. ‑ it was cold! ‑‑the sweat, the silence, made it damper ‑‑ turned to
freezing under all the wool against the skin. ... As he approached this
structure ‑‑shadows began disappearing into nightfall‑‑. Seeing the body of
shadow against other shadows. That was the time he remembered: "Come here
Tom!!" ‑‑ the way his mother used to say it. He chased her ghost along the
hills' slope...
"Yeessss,"
the voice queried in flat song. Ah yeess. Alright, you can sleep out here. If
you are not cold? Well, fine."
"I've come down
here to find my . .bike," Tom said, holding his racer.
The man stood near the
grass fence, holding in cattle, smiled and pointed to Tom's bike.
"Tom, Tom, the
butcher's son" went through his head at that moment. And then, he spied
the man's cattle. He enjoyed watching the animals shivering off the mosquitoes.
He set his bike against the fence.
The man led Tom to the
hut. Hushed whispers.
"Who were
they...these? Apparitions...? Parents? Teachers?" Tom was unsure. There
was time enough for slowness, for a fumbling‑‑ a match‑a paraffin light flares
up a dull pink and orange. Flashes of light around the hut revealed shifting
body patterns, almost shapeless up against the shadows, twirling 'round the
wall. A soft interchange ensued .... "but still, they seem only to last
forever", Tom thought, why he did not know. The forms stopped and simmered
as the light was turned suddenly away. And then him, the masked shaman appeared
and as quickly, he disappeared. Then he appeared. Only to disappear again.
Just outside, the sky
was black again, cold as coal. The air inside became filled with forms that can
only be felt as you approach them‑‑rocks and huts and trees. These seemed as if
to reformulate themselves as they were passed by, as by a twirling cycle into
blackness, nothingness.
Tom abruptly left
through the hut door. And the grass outside was cold and silky, crumbling, soft
with the plenitude of night‑formed dew. The trees began to circle round them,
for others had exited shortly after Tom and the man who had tended cattle swung
'round his lamp. Tom was shaken into life by the very depth of nothingness.
Bodies seem to follow, trickling. Something moving in the void, losing their
shape in everything else, as they passed by. He pretended that the stars were
Cops, and began shooting at them with his index finger, systematically.
Their brave
reflections broken down, were reconstituted, broke down and reformed, as if
their souls were rocks and trees and air.
The shaman put the
lamp down on the formless earth. It shaped a glow, became a greenish light,
moving forms of sand and gravel. And nobody spoke. They did not speak. They
guffawed instead. Again, they moved. They climbed upwards now and the guide was
on the point of disappearing. His swinging paraffin lamp still marked his
solitary form, an almost gesture‑less form of irradiation emerging, punctuating
the darkness. It spilled, heaping onto the rocks and the trees, which were now
up, away, like helium balloons, released, free. Tom continued to grapple with
the earth, lifting the gravel with the toe of his shoe. New emerald green
shoots had appeared between the shreds and spokes of yellow grasses. Up above
the hill, the sky cracked open. There was, as it would seem, a plenitude of
bright light.
No, it had been merely
the light from another lonely campfire. Tom walked toward its inviting light.
And here were shocked, white faces, laughing, talking, whispering up into the
sky. He breathed out sighs of relief. ‑‑"Come. It's warm here in the
campfire light. The body can recuperate all its gathered sweat and tears,"
a British voice said. Night sheltered everything. There was no one else for
miles.
Shallow grins returned
to lightening flashes of recollections, slunk low beneath the dreamer's hollow
surface. Faces which had been invisible were now brought to mind. The dust that
fell was flat: ghostly, cold. Smoke let out an age old smell‑and flavour‑‑ from
a far‑off thatched‑roof chimneys. The tension eroded all desire for light
touching ‑‑ Fingers slithered off ...into the blackness. Tom sighed. The grass
was also flattened, and nothing answered his lament.
Then, somebody let out
a cry. A cackle. Followed by a joke. The muffled huffing of compressed
emotions, expressed as a solitary whimper of aloneness. Tom's life had been
until now.... laughter, a sense of elevation....
"How did you get
here?" a voice asked. He had no idea how far he'd walked and ridden his
bike. His legs were aching: His brain was throbbing, in the dust and heat.
"How did you get here?" Tom asked. "We hitchhiked down from Vic
Falls, after our bus broke down," one voice said. "So we decided to
go South. We travelled here in every sort of vehicle. "Why are you
here?"
"You'll
understand properly, in good time," Tom replied. "No, I mean, my
mother. Her wedding chapel. I'm here to find it."
"Here?" a
voice came.
"No, not exactly
here," Tom replied.
At that point, the
conversation dropped off. The sky was still thick as hessian for all of its
release, as if holding down the earth in static lack of motion and oppression.
He and the four visitors to Africa shared toasted flesh, though it was gray and
slippery, inside. And with rivets of pink and white, still not well‑cooked. Tom
ate anyway, for that boy was hungry. He ate the charcoal and the raw bits, too,
slurping and licking it, until there was nothing left. "The flames are
going out. Maybe some kind soul will fetch us soon..? There are only thorn
bushes around here!" a woman said.
"I'll look for
more wood, further out!" A body was departing, features flurried... in the
flickering... Tom saw it was Leslie's. But that could not be. Leslie was gone
or rather, he had left Leslie long ago.
And then the sky
rained blood on them, heavy, cold and thick, putting out their fire and
scattering the visitors towards whatever shelter they could find. Tom ran into
the night as well, his imagination charging at full steam. The flash of
disintegrated comets, falling in pools of love, into the desert passed before
his mind's eye. They felt it as warmth ‑‑ that they were ghosts of
missionaries, and starlit and crazy, ‑‑ ghosts of freedom fighters ‑‑ The cold
did not affect these crazy apparitions, nor did it make their teeth chatter.
The earth was not so parched that it soaked up the rain, but it rather let the
streamlets flow out around, gushing down and swirling its way around their
bodies, cutting ice into their spine bases..
"I'm so tired . .
.frightened, and now my shoes are soaked." Hushed whispers followed. A
form in human shape appeared, stooped; fumbled for a match to strike a paraffin
light. It flared up a dull pink and orange.
The figure flashed the
light around the faces, revealing shifting body patterns, almost shapeless up
against the shadows, twirling 'round the thorn bushes. The forms stopped and
seemingly simmered as the light was turned, suddenly, away! A hand fell on
Tom's shoulder, "I have come to get you now!" ‑‑ the witchdoctor's
echo resounded; at this moment, soft and hushed. Each followed by holding on to
a long stick, to keep their paces solid, steady, and together ‑‑ a game he had
often played with Mother.
"I seek my
mother's Spirit‑‑ ?" Tom replied with shaking tone.
"We will speak to
her, for you!" the voice sounded assured, compliant.
"I thought I
might have lost my precious bike," Tom confessed, with his shamefaced
earnestness‑"also my air gun." For he'd just remembered he'd misplace
that as well.
"Ah, we will be
the ones to help you find it."
The trees appeared to
circle round the couple, as Tom's guide swung 'round the lamp. Shaken into life
by the very depth of nothingness, bodies seemed to flow, as if by a trick, or
magic element. The forms now lost their shape in bush and trees and as they
past by, the light echoed, spilling into rocks and trees which were now some
distance off. The air contained a silence, once again ‑‑ tracks of missing
birds. Huts, brick hostels, and chimneys ‑‑ all transposed in light and golden
flashes from the lantern up above. A dog sniffed them there; growling huskily.
The cur slunk in those shadows ‑‑ almost a part of those shadows, and not real,
skulked under the clamour and fatigue. It followed Tom, and snapped at behind
his ankles. The cold air cut his gut. The man in the humidified hut shook up
blocks, holding them vehemently, in cold contempt, viewing his new guests with
shocked suspicion. Throwing a gash opened glance at them, he smiled. The man's
thorn‑stick poked the boy; just like a cold thing, in the ribs, provoking a
warm, alcohol‑sensation. Tom thought his heart would leap on to the stick: It
didn't.
The witchdoctor
shrieked, guffawed; yearned, and cried: "You are not ...afraid..?"
"Don't speak ‑‑ Drink‑‑!" A hot pink liquid gushed, clung to his
veins , stung his lips as it passed. The face became more frightening, intense,
more quizzical, emphatic: "You like...?"
Tom swallowed.
"I want to
fiinnnnd maaeey way to go baaaack hooome!" cried Tom, his voice meandering,
and quivering.
"Your mother left
you!!But first, your father murdered her!!" the witchdoctor cackled, quite
hysterically.
The temperature
immediately sunk. A dog howled. Tom laughed and shivered as well and time
slowed for what seemed centuries ‑‑ as the ghosts and forms of the present time
receded.
As the air cleared up,
the smoke dissipated, and everything was sharp. The apparitions became strong
again, solemn, and tangible.
"Go back quietly ‑‑
I will come again for you!"
Tom walked alone, back
to the abandoned hut‑‑ and tucked himself inside , under hessian blankets.
Snuggled in a corner, found a space and dreamt of Leslie, thought of Leslie,
sucked her golden nipples and then awake, thought of life and death, which was
like the blackness outside, would never reach them, inside in this coolness, in
this snugness. Death had taken her‑‑his mother, his father, how could he‑‑ he
knew, kept her safe, inside a cave, and safe from his father's rage. The
sinking feeling ‑‑as if he'd become so accustomed to the vaporizing feeling of
the soul, AS IF nothing was solid, as if everything he'd been told must be a
lie and was gone, suddenly! All had been vanquished in the breeze of the now
calm African night, which penetrated into the broad mud hut, through an open
door. It gave him peace ‑‑ which was all he could hope for in the silent night.
"It was DARK ‑it WAS freezing ‑‑ We almost ‑got‑ lost but then the
villlagers found us!" he'd tell his all his acquaintances back home.
"The apparitions from the witch doctor came and rescued us." "‑‑BUT
‑‑ before, I fell and cut myself ‑‑ And LOOK ‑‑ I've even got the scar to prove
it...." And outside, the night was still pitch black. And Tom, resting,
half awake, half rested, transfixed by its stillness, he was finally lulled to
sleep again.
This was a true sleep,
deep sleep, transfixed in the bosom of Leslie. Leslie's thighs, so deep and
welcoming. His dreams were not thwarted ‑‑ he was IN them, feeling them,
feeling the warm flesh body actually surround him. Soft, and yet so warm, the
depth contrasted with the silky surface, so: dreams of newness, starting, and
beginning again.
Immediately there were
strong, half muffled voices, in another language. Yiddish? Not English‑‑African.
A furious dialogue resounded: Incoherent to him, in his now half frightened
slumber: LOUD, an interchange that went on over , and over, following the same
pattern. And then, ever so silent.
The sun came up some
days afterwards. George Miller stood near the hut and surveyed his son's long,
fallen body, notebook in hand, writing with meticulous care. It was a sharp,
bright day, and light flooded everything ‑ more brightly, he thought, than
anything he had ever seen!
As far as the body
went there was not a scratch on it... Almost a perfect corpse, George wrote to
himself. Except for the root of the neck , where the blade had severed it clean
through, it was still perfect‑‑ a token of snow in this strange African bush.
"It was a clean
kill." George would give them that. No human sacrifice could have been
more pure, he wrote. ‑‑ It was still ... quite disturbing. But, in a pleasing
sort of way. "One becomes a thing and feels pleased with these things,
after a while. His will be done," he mused.
Tom hadn't managed to
fulfil his mission: After all.... "Tom ..... had no lover: no wife!! He
...had only the soft pallor of his alabaster skin... I too wanted mother. I
found none. I did find a chapel though. My cock has gone ... to roost with
Jesus!"
Cold, black raindrops
started falling.
"It was all
natural, a God given cycle, it was. First day, then night fell:‑‑ BANG ‑‑ as if
it were an executioner's blade....Thus ‑‑ nightfall," George thought.
"The sacrifice was done."
Dogs which scavenge
had already come and then gone.
