—
More days pass, more moons, more summers. I don’t look in the river much, but the sight of myself one morning jolt me. I just pass by the final resting place of an elephant to see only tusk and bone. Not even bathing, I was just trying to get to the other side, for over there was a fruit salty and sweet with no name. Looking at me from the water was somebody I did think long gone. No gray, no wrinkle, no wart, no bump, not even a mask over the brown of my eyes. A grown woman but not even a day older. Surely this river was lying to me, I was sure of it. Curse time I did surely do, but is not until the river that I grasp that I also frighten it. That was not full true. I still mark the time when I bend over to pick something up and my whole body grunt. I mark when something that was clear in my view get murky. I mark when the same climb snatch my own breath away. I mark how things that annoy many summers ago don’t bother me anymore. And the monkeys I let groom my hair even as I slap them when they touch my breast. But time was running and passing, and it didn’t come near me.
* * *
—
More moons pass, taking more years. The Sunk City is a mystery but nobody remember why. Sometimes you see part of it poking through the ground, blocking a trail that seem clear a quartermoon ago. What look like a hill you find to be a roof, green and fuzzy from moss, and what seem to be a sinkhole reveal itself a dungeon. A pond shaped too perfect hiding what was a grand bath, with seven behind it. The line of dead tree stumps shed dirt in the rain to reveal warrior statues in ruin. On colder nights three or four fellow travelers appear on the widest trail, quarreling about which way to go. It is only when they walk right through you that you see that here be ghosts, still bound to the city that fall dead without warning, so quick on that day that even death didn’t come to collect. Whispers in and out of the forest say that I am a ghost too, one that death forget to collect, for no beast but the elephant could still be alive from that first day anybody see or hear of me. The say it in Masi and Marabanga, even in Omororo, that she must did sacrifice ten and six babies or fuck a house of devils to still be roaming this place. She.
Me. I didn’t seek no name. I didn’t seek no person, no company, and nobody to call friend. For if is truth we speaking, then I was angry at the gorillas for not killing the botheration before they start to bother me. Waking me up was the first annoyance. Only the night before, the colobus monkey women stop looking at me as the enemy and invite me to sleep in the tree with them. No, none of them was looking for a friend, they was looking for me to use my bow and arrow to kill the eagle picking them off when they climb too high. So I was sleeping between two branches when the little girl’s whimpering wake me up. Only grunts was coming from the men, and cussing in the Marabangan tongue that I still didn’t know. The girl look no older than ten and her whimpering make me as furious as seeing the man grabbing her. Scream, stupid fool almost slip out of my mouth. The birds watch. The monkeys watch but none of them say a thing. Where the gorillas be, I wonder. Two men was wearing the pink and green of a nobleman while another sport the leather of a blacksmith. Another me would worry over what bring these men together, even though the reason was right there, getting dragged into hidden bush. Maybe they all meet in a tavern and after too much palm wine decide that noble and common was the same man after all, wanting the same thing. And maybe between all six of them, snatching that same girl didn’t take no time. Another me, for this me didn’t care. I didn’t worry which careless woman lose her child either. Two of the men say something to her like they trying to soothe her, two of the men lift up their robes to piss, and two more pull down their breeches but not to piss. Their backs was to me, those two, but I know what was slapping between their palms. I draw my bow and try to not think of he who teach me archery. The first arrow go straight through a man’s neck so quick and quiet that none of them notice. One of the men was pulling off the little girl’s dress, so when the man with the arrow in his neck fall to his knees, the others still didn’t notice. The first man to jump when this one fall drop to the ground right after as the arrow that I send straight through his eye burst through the back of his head. Then they panic. Man run into man, robe into robe, pushing, punching, yelling, running for cover behind a tree. I hop from branch to branch with three arrows between my fingers. Zup-zup, two to the chest of the nobleman, and he fall. Zup-zip-zup, one through the blacksmith neck, one through another man’s calf, and another burst his belly. The last two run back where they come, right into the arms of silverback and his son. The son slap first man in the face and his head fly off. The silverback take the other man head in his hands like he about to embrace him then squash the head soft like a pumpkin.
Standing still the girl was dazed and confused like she reeling from a blow to the head. I don’t have no Marabangan words for leave, be gone, or run, so I drag her to the edge of the forest and shove her in the direction of the city. In the middle of the following quartermoon, the girl come back, along with the mother dragging her. I was at the top of a tree from the moment the birds rustle from disturbance in the bush. Don’t bother trying to remember, the voice say. No use looking for memory or origin, for you not going to remember when you start to watch mothers. Even the gorilla and monkey mothers. This one have a look I see before, one that say my daughter come to me with a story that I don’t believe. A look that say my daughter come back violated yet untouched, and this bush have something to do with it. At least she believe her daughter about the forest or she wouldn’t be dragging her back here. I didn’t need to speak Marabangan to know. Anger quicken her all the way to the clearing, but now fear was creeping up on her a little. I hear her shaking it out of her voice.
“Uyathakatha? Ungu umtyholi? Ulidyakalashe? Thetha! Thetha!”
The girl whimper something, which make me wonder if this was her only way of speaking. But I didn’t share her tongue and didn’t know if she share mine, and didn’t care either. The girl was looking up and pointing, but thick leaves hide me from them. The little girl turn to leave but the mother yank her back.
“Thetha!” she shout again. I slip over to a tree the monkeys don’t climb and cut a vine holding one of the men’s heads. Several paces from them the head fall, but it bounce and the rotting tongue slip out of the mouth. Both of them scream, but the girl point.
“Le ndoda ngomnye wabo,” she say. They both look up, right at me but not seeing me. I look straight at them, until the mother grab her girl and leave.
* * *