Other Worlds Were Possible, page 30
Five little ducks went out one day,
Over the hills and far away.
Mother Duck said, "Quack-quack-quack",
But only four ducks came back.
They repeated this song five times, until “No little ducks came back.” Then they turned to face the Woggy, in the most haphazard of fashions; giggling and rubbing their bellies.
Kitten also giggled. Only her laughter was not so childish. It was a mouthy guffaw; one which permeated her gums, and allowed the air to rattle around between her teeth.
“Little ducks are yummy… But not as yummy as Woggy hands!”
By the time she had finished speaking, she had grabbed hold of the man’s wrist, and plunged his hand into the water, which had just begun to boil. The man did not notice straight away, and so he offered no response. But this soon changed. His eyes pulsated; more through fear than pain. And he attempted to remove his hand.
His efforts were futile. He lacked the strength to resist. And another two women were holding him in place. Two children were propping them up.
He inhaled the soup, which smelled of himself, and wailed:
“What… want… you? What… you people… want?”
Kitten frowned. She felt she had been asked the most obvious question in the world. Something akin to, “Why do you breathe?” or “Why do you drink?”. At first, she did not believe it deserved an answer. Then, supposing that something must have been lost in translation, she had a change of heart. She opened her mouth so wide that her tonsils were visible. And she adopted the voice she used whenever she spoke to an infant:
“Why, we want to eat you, of course. We want to eat the Woggy, so we can absorb the Woggy powers, become Woggy-strong, and repel you nasty invaders.”
The man would have turned ghostly white, had he not lost his colour already. As it was, his appearance barely altered. His eyes were still pulsating. His hand was proceeding with its vain attempt to escape.
The meeting place was fragrant now. You could taste the stock, which floated atop ribbons of air; thick, warm, sweet, leathery and human.
Bluebird removed the man’s hand, banged it down on a rock, collected a sharpened stone, and used it to slice through the skin. The man did not react at first, refusing to believe what was happening. Then, he fainted. The women had to lift him over the smoke, to revive him, before Bluebird resumed her task.
He whimpered:
“Have… forgotten… you are?”
It was impossible to tell if he was struggling to speak because of the pain, because he had lost so much blood, or because he was not yet fluent in their language.
“We watch… Err… study… We study you… You no… spank… own children… You don’t spank your children… Good God… woman… come senses… come! Behave… act… normal.”
Serenity was the first person to unscramble these words, and the first to respond:
“Spank our children? Upon our sacred ancestral mothers! Who would do such a thing? Sweetest cousin: We aren’t brutes. We’d never hurt one of our own.”
“You… no… spank. But… cut… hand! You… eat… people?”
“By the good earth! Ho ho ho. We don’t remove our own hands. We’d never eat ourselves!”
The man did not reply.
“Our welcome guest: Please allow us to explain. Our habits must seem awfully peculiar to you, in much the same way as your habits seem so outlandish to us… Now then, we don’t believe the earth is ours to own and exploit. We consider the earth a treasure; a gift to be preserved for future generations… Whereas you and your sisters… Sweetest cousin: You threaten everything we hold dear. You’re waging a war on all the children who’re still waiting to be born; stealing and destroying their birthright… Please try to understand: We aren’t spanking you. We’re only neutralising you. We’re protecting our unborn descendants.”
The man did not reply.
“You should be happy. We’re sending you to your ‘Heaven’. If it’s as good as you say, if it’s better than the real world, then you should be eager to get there alive.”
“You… me… punish! I… no… do… wrong. I… obey… law.”
“Sweet stranger: We don’t know of this ‘Law’. And this is no ‘Punishment’. We’re not a brutish people, who have to resort to violence to stop our sisters from doing harm. We don’t need to be forced to do good. We aren’t so wild as that… This is a ‘Protection’. We’re protecting the children of a thousand generations to come; protecting them from this wave of Woggy violence.”
“Stop!”
“Why?”
“Why?”
“Sweet stranger: Why should we stop?”
“Information… I… have.”
“Go on.”
“Not… you… here… safe.”
Serenity gestured for the man to continue.
“I… follow… no… alone. Come… me… with… man. Stay… me… to… watch. If… move… If you move… then… me… follow. Me… report… new… location.”
Serenity nodded.
“Other… man. He… help… go… for. Man… soon… again… come. Come… here… with… horses. Come… here… with… men. Come… here… with… guns.”
Serenity raised his eyebrow.
“Stop!... Please!... Stop!”
The group convened a meeting.
***
The votes had been unanimous…
Everyone agreed that they had to move. If the Woggy militia was on its way, it would have been suicidal to remain.
Everyone agreed that the clan should split in two. The first group would head east, leaving a couple of members with each clan they passed. The second group would travel in the opposite direction.
It had not taken long. Half their peers had already left; a bittersweet moment for Sunny, who had been forced to split from Hope.
“I’m telling you: I promised to mother your baby,” he had insisted, sucking back the tears.
But Hope had been firm:
“It doesn’t matter. Even if you came with us, you’d end up with a different clan… And anyway, your niece is going to need you.”
“Niece? I don’t have a niece. I…”
“Just look at Harmony’s midriff.”
“Oh.”
The conversation had passed by in a flash. Hope had already jogged off, baby in arms, to catch up with her mother and siblings. Sunny was standing with the other half of their clan, who were itching to leave themselves. But he felt utterly alone; sucked into a vacuum, from which he was unable to escape.
He could not abandon his mother and sister. But he did not have it in him to abandon Hope’s baby. Torn, his body pulled one way, and also the other. An invisible force stretched his skin beyond its limits; squishing his stomach, and squeezing his bowels.
But there was no time for self-pity.
The earth quaked beneath his feet. At first, he thought it must have been a symptom of his own imagination. Surely, it was his legs which were moving. The earth did not wobble.
A smattering of leaves fluttered down from their branches, swaying this way and that.
A few pebbles shimmied across the earth.
Sunny’s perception warped. He no longer knew what was real, what was imagined, or how he was supposed to tell the difference. Could the ground actually be moving? For real?
The vibrations did not abate. If anything, they became more pronounced; accompanied by a thunderous rumble, which grew louder and louder, to the very point of muteness. Everything turned so dark, Sunny had to look up, to check that the sky was still in position. And the smell! The sweetness was sucked from the air; replaced by the aromas of vinegar, molasses and leather.
Their group had been surrounded.
It seemed so obvious now: It was the Wogies’ horses who had made that noise. The ground had vibrated, because it had succumbed to the pounding of their hooves. More than fifty Wogies were looming high, sitting atop those creatures; polluting the air with their stench, and darkening the light with their shadows. They looked like silhouettes; sitting on silhouetted horses, holding identical guns.
Sunny turned his head, allowed his body to follow, and attempted to decipher each face. Here was a man with manicured whiskers, which grew sideways, before curling upwards at either end. Here was a man with a currant-shaped wart on his nose. Here was the nightwatchman.
Sunny had to scrunch his eyes, before he could process what he was seeing. The nightwatchman… One of his kidnappers… He was! He could not be… But yes, he really was! The truth could not be denied: The nightwatchman was one of the Desert Wogies. His kinfolk had saved his life! And this was how he responded? It defied all explanation.
Sunny continued with numbed disbelief…
He saw a man who had wrapped his face in cloths. He saw a man with an impossibly large forehead. And he saw a man with no hair.
They were all men. But this was hardly surprising. Sunny had never seen a female Woggy. He could not be sure if they existed.
Sunny panned around to a young man with mismatched cheeks. He moved on to an elder with uneven eyes. And then he spotted someone he recognised. Someone with a sparkling tooth. Someone with the same facial hair as his own.
No, it could not be.
Yes, it was!
“Hunter?”
“One and the same, my brother. One and the same.”
Sunny lifted his gun.
“Ah, ah, ah… Don’t be so hasty. We’ve come here in peace.”
Sunny did not pull the trigger. But neither did he lower the gun.
“How could you?”
“How could I?”
Sunny nodded.
“How could I what?”
“How could you betray your own people?”
“My people-o? My people are here, by my side.”
Sunny frowned.
Hunter continued:
“This clan. You think I’ve ‘Betrayed’ this clan?... Oh brother! This clan sent me into exile. Everything I ever did, I did it for them. I brought them so much meat. More than anyone had ever brought them before. And did they say ‘Thank-you’? Did they smile? Did they show a little respect?... No, brother, no!... Do you know what they did? They banished me! Wow! And when I returned, laden with gifts, they banished me again!
“Brother-o: These people aren’t my clans-folk. It’s an undisputed fact! Clan doesn’t banish clan.
“Look around. These men are my ‘Family’ now. Fellow citizens. Subjects of the state. The Sons of Empire!
“And look at me! Just look at me, in these marvellous clothes. Here on this horse. Here with this gun… I’m not betraying my people. These are my people. And we’ve come to civilise you savages.”
Everything was beginning to make sense: Hunter had only released Sunny so he could follow him, locate the clan, and kidnap them all together.
What had Sunny done? Why had he been so trusting? So naïve? He should have realised Hunter’s plan. He should have led his captors astray; sacrificing himself, to save the rest of the group. But no. Half the members of their clan were about to be murdered, and he was to blame.
He wished the earth would swallow him whole.
He touched the trigger, but did not squeeze. His finger reverberated; caressing the trigger, before ricocheting back the other way. He supposed the gun might fire at any moment. But he could decide if this was a good thing or not.
“Brother-o. Oh brother. If you shoot, we’ll return fire. We’ll shoot every member of your clan. And we’ll force you to stand there, watching on, as the blood trickles out of their bodies.”
Bang!
Sunny’s head turned heavy, and his finger pulled tight.
He could not be sure if he had intended to fire that shot. But he knew why he had fired: He was unaccustomed to threats. Hunter may have threatened his kinfolk, when he was attempting to impose the Wogies’ blankets and guns. And Father Ralph may have threatened their tribe, whilst addressing the Tribal Council. But they had done so in an abstract fashion; warning of the terrible things which might befall them, sometime in the future. No-one had ever singled-out Sunny, looked him in the eye, and said: “If you perform this act, you’ll be made to suffer right now, in this specific way.” The sheer indecency of it had overwhelmed him. It was not just his finger that had tightened around the trigger. Everything had tightened: His muscles and his organs, even his capillaries and veins. His lungs had compressed so much, he had almost forgotten to breathe. His heart had clenched so abruptly, it was a wonder it was able to function.
The trigger released the spring, which jolted the hammer, hit the flint, ignited the gunpowder, and propelled the shot.
Sunny watched that metal ball as it flew through space and time; creating a vortex of air, which rippled with visceral light.
He could see the Wogies’ reactions. One man closed his eyes. Another gasped. A third man repressed a smile.
Hunter ducked, and the shot flew over his head.
Perhaps it would have missed, even if had he not reacted. Perhaps it would have hit its target.
No! What was Sunny thinking? A person could not dodge a flying shot. He must have missed. Had he meant to miss? He had not even meant to fire. But he had. And now he would be made to suffer.
Hunter swung a leg over the horse’s back, and disembarked in a single fluid motion. He landed with his back to the horse, turned inwards, and sauntered across to Sunny.
A smug, Machiavellian grin was smeared across his cheeks.
“Sunny, oh Sunny. You had one shot and you missed. One shot! You had to make it count. There’s no room for error, when one only has a single shot.”
Hunter tutted to himself as he progressed; taking languid steps, to prolong his theatrics. Every now and again, he stopped tutting, and shook his head; as though both actions could not be performed together. He paused, looked around, shook his head, took a couple more steps, and then stopped for a second time; tutting, veering off towards their mother, pivoting back, shaking his head, and moseying across to Sunny.
He removed the gun from his brother’s grip.
Sunny saw no reason to resist. The Wogies would have shot him dead, had he attempted to reload that weapon.
“Brother-o: Would you care to follow us home? To step into a brilliant new life, in a bold new world?”
It was a rhetorical question. Sunny was not expected to answer. Nor was he given the chance to reply. When Hunter had begun to speak, around half of his comrades had climbed down from their horses. By the time he had finished his question, those men had grabbed hold of Sunny’s peers. Now they were attaching leg-cuffs to their ankles, and connecting chains to those cuffs; binding the clans-folk together.
They connected the chains to a couple of horses.
“Giddy up! Tallyho!”
The horses shook their heads, warbled their lips, sprayed saliva to both sides, and trotted back towards the town; leaving their prisoners with little choice but to jog behind, lest they fall and be dragged through the scree.
THE END OF HISTORY
The dampness hung in mid-air.
It was probably morning, but it could have been the afternoon. They were back in this underground jail, shrouded by darkness, unable to see their hips.
“Hello.”
It took a while for Sunny to realise that it was Serenity who had spoken. He had almost forgotten that Serenity had remained with their half of the clan. It must have been the stress. He was struggling to recall who was here, and who had fled with Hope.
“Hello,” his mother replied.
“What’s the plan?”
“We don’t really have any options.”
Serenity paused to think, before striking upon an idea:
“How about a story?... Yes… Okay… Once upon a time, a clan of goats decided to climb their favourite cliff. On their way, they were ambushed; surrounded by a pack of buffalo-people. You should’ve seen those creatures! They stood upright, on legs like yours or mine. But they had torsos like the ones you might find on a buffalo… Now, those buffalo-people hadn’t eaten for days. You could hear their bellies rumble. You could smell their thick saliva.
“Upon the good earth, those goats were almost certainly going to die. What could they do? The buffalo-people had powerful arms and crazy teeth. You know the type: Pointy, serrated and sharp. But the goats were weak. Those buffalo-people were compelled by hunger and desperation. The goats were covered in the juiciest meat you’ve ever tasted.”
Serenity stopped. Nobody could tell just why he had fallen silent. It was too dark to see what expressions or gestures he might have been making. But it was impossible to ignore the silence, which rattled around the tunnel, rebounding off the walls and bouncing off the ceiling.
An anonymous voice pierced that oppressive silence:
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. Sistren: I have to admit that I was inventing the story as I went. I need a few moments, to think up a happy ending.”
“I know! I know!” A young child shouted with glee. “I know what happens! The goats get really, really big. They grow teeth which are more massive-er than a shark’s. And they roar so loud, the cliffs all fall to species, come tumbling down, and squash those naughty buffalo-people. Then the goats go and eat some moo grass.”
The silence was as brief as it was warm; heated by the onslaught of laughter, which reddened the most solemn of cheeks.
Serenity’s words danced atop the fading rhythm of that laughter:
“Ho ho ho. Yes. Wouldn’t that be lovely? And we should implore the ancestors to make it happen. Come on… Altogether… Yes, that’s good… Keep meditating… Channel your collective spirit…
“Sisters: I do think that we also need a backup ending, just in case the ancestors can’t help. They’ll do their best, but they aren’t almighty… How about this? One of the goats surrenders themselves on behalf of their clan. ‘Sweet buffalo-people,’ they say. ‘We can see you’re hungry. But a single goat will satisfy you for many days to come. Please just eat one of us, and allow the rest of us to live.’”
