remembering the flowers.
“And then what happened?” I asked, yet fearing his reply.
“They got us,” he replied morosely. “There were so many of them milling out, running after us snails, picking us up like so many loose potatoes – and not just us, but also our friends, we never stood a chance, not any of us. It was horrible, I tell you, real horrible.” Then he stopped talking and stared at me. I wondered why he was doing it. Then he continued with his story, saying, “They got us all, every last one...”
“If they got you all,” I asked quizzically, seeing a whole in his story, “how come you are here, talking to me, and not in the stew pot?”
“I, I, I – was dropped, that’s it,” he said, quick-wittedly. “One of the HU-MAN THEINGS – a woman – dropped me, slime you know,” he said with a mischievous wink.
Knowing that some HU-MAN THEINGS, particularly women, have an aversion to slime, I found myself all too easily believing Myles slippery, slimy words.
Without allowing me time to respond, Myles said, “It was horrible, I tell you, falling from so great a height. Look at that,” he said, lifting his head. “See that scar?” he asked, “I got it from the fall, so I did!”
I spied a small mark under his chin.
His slippery words, having done their job wonderfully, bamboozling my brain into believing all that he was saying, Myles went in for the kill. “And now my poor children are orphans.” Having said that, he began wiling like there was no tomorrow.
“That’s awful,” I replied, forgetting the fact that in order to orphaned BOTH parents had to be gone, no father or mother.” Myles nodded. “And how many are there?” I asked.
“Fifty-three, at the last count,” he replied, his chest puffed and proud.
“So many mouths to feed...”
“Yes,” he agreed.
“How many boys and how many girls?” I asked, continuing with the topic.
“Males and females? What do you mean how many males and females?” Myles asked me suspiciously, thinking the conversation had moved on to another topic.
“Your children,” I said, “how many boys and girls do you have?
“Twenty-three boys and thirty-nine girls,” he replied.
“That’s sixty-three,” I said, confused.
Myles, having none of it, bursting into slippery, slimy sobs so loud they might have resurrected the dead, never told me the true number. “At this very moment,” he roared, “my poor wife is most certainly stewing in a pot, and if she is not there she has most certainly already been eaten!”
Feeling like a cad, I mumbled, “Is there anything I can do?”
Seizing the moment, his opportunity, Myles said, “You can give me some money...to buy my orphaned children some food...”
With absolutely no hesitation, I bent down and stuck my head into my pocket, searching for my wallet. “Ah!” I said triumphantly, through my clenched teeth, “I’ve found it!” My wallet, however, dangling precariously from my mouth, was soon gone, for Myles, the giant brute of a snail slithering towards me at breakneck speed had swiped it. “What are you doing?” I asked the snail with my money.
“But they are so hungry...” he said surgery and slimy. “I will need all of this money just to keep the wolf from the door... Surely you can see this?” I believed him; I totally believed what he was telling me. Then he dropped it, the giant, African land snail dropped my wallet...
Leaning down, stooping his head, to reclaim it (and my money) within his razor-sharp teeth, I saw it, I saw his own wallet, his big, bulging wallet, fall out of his pocket and onto the ground. Even though he also had seen it fall to ground, Myles ignored it.
I thought you said that you had no money?” I asked the giant, brute of a snail.
“That’s right,” he replied, brazening it out, “I haven’t got a penny.”
My eyes having finally opened to his lies, I said, “What’s that, then, scotch mist?”
Being in a corner, the rat of a snail made a desperate lunge for the two wallets, trying to scoop them up from the ground with his razor sharp teeth. I, however, was having none of it. My goat being up, I rushed on a slime trail par excellence, faster than I had ever moved in my life, headlong into the affray, snatching the two wallets from under his startled nose.
“What, what are you doing?” he asked, eyeing the two wallets with some considerable concern, “You have got my wallet!”
Shaking the wallets, I replied, “And you had mine, if you care to remember!”
“But, but...” he sobbed (this time they were for real).
“But, smut,” I scolded, my heart now closed to his utterings.
Decency; my own decency getting the better of the urge I had, wanting to punch Myles in the face (assuming I had hands to punch him with, that is), I threw his bulging wallet back at him, saying, “Heaven knows where you got all that money...away with you before I change my mind!”
The snail, grabbing hold of his wallet in his ever so sharp teeth, made an ignominious and speedy escape.
The moral of this story is as follows....
If you blindly and unquestioning believe everything that you are told, you deserve everything that befalls you.
THE END
Wot and Nott: Walking with Statues.
Blood, Rhyme, Steam and Stone
January 1st
When the mother of all battles was finally over, and Miafra defeated, everyone in Onisha rejoiced, celebrating far into the night. Around glowing campfire embers, music was played, songs were sung and old friendships rekindled. Despite having suffered so much, while trying to oust the man who would be a god, everyone thought it was the best day of their life.
Far away a portly Outlander, helped by a beautiful, almost godlike young lady, struggled to bring Nott to his senses. The vision he had seen, within the ceremonial fire greeting the New Year, had shaken Nott to the core. “I saw him!” he gasped. “I saw Miafra, as large as life. Wot; will we ever be rid of that terrible man?”
“Hold on a minute,” Wot answered. “We don’t know it was him. It might be that overactive imagination of yours, playing tricks, again.”
“We don’t know?” Nott replied, aghast at what he had just heard. “What do you want, a photo maybe? And as for my ‘overactive imagination,’ I don’t recall you complaining when I used it to trick Miafra into summoning the combined powers of Light and Darkness, to destroy him.”
“Now listen here…”
“Take it easy, both of you,” said Kakuri, butting in, trying to calm them. “You’re achieving nothing, acting like this.”
“But,” said Nott.
“No ifs or buts – either of you,” she insisted. “It’s time we returned to Onisha City.”
“It’s an awfully long way,” Nott grumbled. “It’s a pity we dispatched old Dragonfly.”
“There are more ways of getting around Onisha other than giant insects,” Kakuri told him.
“Other ways?”
“Yes,” she answered. “There are old ways, many of which I am only beginning to understand.”
Intrigued by what she was suggesting, Nott said, “Tell me some more.”
“Come; follow me,” she said, heading away without telling him,
The Daughter of Suru
Following Kakuri down the small hill, away from the Minna with the ceremonial flame still burning within it, Wot and Nott entered the forest. Battling their way through the densely packed trees, shrubs and prickly vines, trying to keep up with Kakuri, it was hard going. “This is ridiculous,” Nott whispered. “You’d think we are in a race.”
“Give her some leeway,” Wot answered. “She’s been through a lot, these last few days.”
“Hmm,” Nott answered, grumbling under his breath.
Thirty minutes later Kakuri finally stopped walking.
Pointing ahead, to a clearing within the dense forest, Wot said, “Look, she’s stopped!”
“And about time too,” Nott answered.
br /> From a distance away the Outlanders watched Kakuri with interest, for she was acting in a most unusual way. “What on earth is she doing?” Nott asked.
“Shush, she might hear you.”
“But what is she doing?” Nott asked him again.
“Something.”
“Something? What sort of an answer is that?” Nott griped.
“Just watch her,” said Wot. “I don’t have the answer to everything, you know.”
As the Outlanders watched, sure that Kakuri had no idea they were spying on her, they were intrigued when she arranged a number of stones into a loose circle. When she had completed this task, she set about smoothing the soul within it. Having done that, Kakuri stood back admiring her work. “Come closer,” she said, waving to Wot and Nott. Embarrassed that she had seen them, they tried to act busy. “Come,” she called out again, “we have a date with the wind.”
Entering the clearing, Nott said, “A date with the wind? I think the girl has a touch of the fevers.”
Wot said nothing; he was far too intrigued by what Kakuri was doing, for words.
Stepping into the circle, Kakuri said, “Please join me with this circle of stones.” Wot willingly entered. Nott, however, remained stubbornly outside it.
Gesturing for him to join them, Wot said, “Come on; step inside, Nott.”
“Before I go stepping into that, circle thing,” he answered, pointing suspiciously at it, “I want to know what you intend doing with it.”
Laughing, Kakuri said, “Okay, Nott, I will tell you…”
Minutes later, when Kakuri had finished telling him what she intended to do inside the circle of stones, Nott entered it. “Let’s get on with it,” he said, urging her on.
“Earlier,” Kakuri began, “I told how I can remember the old ways, the magical ways my forebears embraced. I don’t understand how this is so, but it is. Moreover, I realise that I must also embrace it, because in so doing we have our best hope, perhaps our only hope of returning Onisha to its original state, its Mystical state.”
“What has that got to do with this circle of stones?” Nott asked, tentatively kicking one of them.
“I am getting to it,” she answered.
“I’m listening,” he answered impatiently.
“Wot, Nott, I now realise how much of the old ways were lost. Miafra was by no means the chief instigator in this calamity. No. We, ourselves, each and every Onishian is as culpable as he. Miafra saw an opportunity, and seized it, that’s all. It was our fault. We are as much to blame as he, perhaps even more.”
“Hold on a minute,” said Nott, “I thought he was the bad guy, but you are now telling us that everyone is to blame. This is a tad confusing too say the least. What do you think about it, Wot?”
His thoughts far away, in another place, in another time (or was it a place without time?), Wot was slow to answer. Returning to the present, focusing on his friend’s probing eyes, he said, “Pardon?”
“I was asking for your thoughts as to everyone being as guilty as Miafra for the troubles we have just fought our way thorough!”
“Yes, Horatio, I suppose, to a point, that is correct,” Wot answered obliquely.
“Horatio? Don’t start that again!” Nott chided
Kakuri made a mental note regarding Horatio.
Steering the conversation away from Horatio, Wot said to Kakuri, “This circle of stones. Tell us how you will use them?”
“There are harnessers, for controlling the elements – water, fire, earth and air,” she explained. “In this particular instance, it is the air we are seeking to harness, the wind to be precise.”
“The wind?” he asked, scratching his head, confused
“Yes, the wind,” she answered. “I intend to use it, to harness it as a means of returning us to Onisha City.” Without further adieu, Kakuri knelt on the ground. Writing in the loose soil with a finger, she wrote:
Water, fire, earth and air,
All four elements, I do declare,