World-pondering Wednesday

About two weeks ago, I got sudden inspiration on the way home from work for a new fantasy world which I’ve been struggling with. Not wanting to freak my fellow lift-club passengers out, I did not shout Eureka! I also did not immediately grab my ever-present notebook and rummaged for a pen to jot it down. No, rather I filed it away under ‘URGENT’ and waited to get home (which at that point was about five minutes away and the reason why I could wait). I also may have feigned interest in whatever was on the radio while actually worldbuilding in my mind. I hope I didn’t have a cheesy grin on my face. At the moment the file on my computer about this world is simply called “The Readers”. I love it when a WIP suddenly becomes clear!

My first venture into this world was this piece for NaShoStoMo earlier this year, though it’s already undergone quite a lot of changes. And this world, I’ve found, will be darker than the Airthai stories I’ve been working on and have written over the years.

Speaking of Airthai, I found this on Deviant Art and found it fits in very well with the Airthai dragons.

Thank God for tea (and coffee)!

 “Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.” (Sydney Smith 1771 – 1845)

I recently picked up a book called A Movable Feast: Ten Millennia of Food Globalization by Kenneth F. Kiple at a warehouse book sale. That sale really was ‘overload’ even though I loved every minute of it. Piles of boxes stood at the door to the warehouse for you to take in with you. People were emerging from the inner labyrinth of books staggering under boxes filled to the brim, blinking in the bright daylight as if they forgot for a moment that there was a world outside which did not exist of isles and piles of books.

One thing that sales like these makes possible is for readers to easily – and quite cheaply – try out new genres, writers and basically anything that ‘looks interesting’. And if you end up not liking it? Well, you probably paid about R10 for it, so it’s much easier to part with at your local library. (I usually do this with books that I find are not quite in my taste – someone else is bound to like it and get some use out of it.) And The Movable Feast did look and sound interesting to me – how much do we really know about the history of the food we eat, after all?

Just a simple thing like my usual breakfast – muesli with yoghurt and coffee or tea with sugar and milk – turns into an exotic meal. The usage and spread of both tea and coffee (and the sugar that goes with it) is a fascinating read. (Though, I still prefer my coffee and tea with sugar and milk. Sugar I can still do without, but not the milk. No salt or butter for me, thank you, those are too exotic for my taste.)

On the days that I am unable to start with either a cup of tea or coffee, I always feel as if I’ve missed some important step in getting ready for work. And that nagging feeling will remain, leaving me to double check that I am not still wearing slippers, or forgot to brush my hair. I make my first cup at work while the computer is starting up and e-mail is loading. That way I can sit down, take a sip and focus my mind without any pesky coffee cravings drawing my attention away from the screen and towards the drawer where my stash of coffee and tea is kept.

And what better way to end a busy day than with a book and a mug of rooibos tea? 

The Rooibos plant

Some Local Folklore and Writing News

I follow artist Andrew Baker’s RSS feed and received this stunning (but frightening) piece of a Tokoloshe last week.

"Tokolosh" by Andrew Baker

This reminded me of a story I did a while back. I tried my hand at a story incorporating local folklore and I used an amalgam of beliefs about the Tokoloshe and it turned out as quite a dark piece. But I guess it is a gory subject!

Doctor’s Visit

“You’ve come too late.”

The old woman who had spoken sat on a bed near the back of the hut. It was quite dark inside, but I could make out her deeply wrinkled face, faded red dress and that the bed she was sitting on was raised above the ground on a couple of bricks.

She sat with her legs stretched out in front of her, her feet bound in cloths that were once white. Her arms were folded beneath her breasts as she stared at us. I moved my first aid kit from one hand to the other and cleared my throat.

“Too late for what?” I enquired.

She squinted. “You haven’t been here before. Where’s the other doctor?”

“He went back home. I’m new at the clinic.” I held out my hand. “I’m doctor Smith.” She did not take it but her wrinkled face cracked into a smile. “New, eh? I hope you can do something better for my feet, they’re hurting something awfully.”

I looked at my partner, but he shook his head. “You do it.”

I placed my kit on the dirt floor and knelt down by her feet before asking my partner to get me some light.

“You have very good English,” I said, making small talk. “I was worried I wouldn’t be able to speak to you.”

She harrumphed. “I finished school,” she said. “Worked all my life like an honest person in the city. I came back here to help my daughter look after her children. Her husband’s at the mines, you know, up north. She was left behind here.”

“Where is she now?”

“She passed on. A year ago now.”

“So you’re looking after your grandchildren?” It was a story I had become all too accustomed to.

“They also moved on.” She pointed a gnarled black finger at the far rounded wall where four identical pots stood. “Their dust,” she said.

“Ashes? You cremated them?” I wondered how far the closest funeral home was from this rural village.

“Dust,” she insisted and I left it there.

I started unwinding the blood-caked bandages from her feet and searched for something to say in the stillness while trying not to breathe through my nose. For a doctor I couldn’t handle the smell of blood that well.

“You said we are too late?”

She nodded and cringed as I touched her foot. “He took another one,” she said. “My neighbour only returned with the bricks. The ones we make here are not strong enough for the beds, you know.” She shook her head sadly. “No one cares about the rural people – if this happened in one of the cities the newspapers would be all over it, but here…”

I carefully unwrapped her foot. If she had been in one of the cities she wouldn’t have had to wait for us to travel nearly 100kms to give her new bandages and pain medication in a van that broke nearly every 10km.

At last the bandage came off and I stared in horror at her foot. Where five toes should have been, only three were left. The other two were ragged stumps, one partially healed, the other bleeding again after I had removed the bandage.

“What happened?” I asked, focusing on the wall so as not to gag in front of a patient.

“He came again last night and took another one.”

“He?” I stared at her other foot. “How many?”

“Also two gone,” she said and turned her face away from me.

“Who does this to you?”

“I can’t say or he’ll come back. Can’t say. She looked at my partner and said something I didn’t understand.

I looked at my partner, but he too turned his face away.

I cleaned and bound her feet as well as I could and gave her pain medicine.

“You could go back to the city,” I said, but she shook her head.

“He got what he wanted and I have the bricks now. Nothing can hurt me now.”

I said my goodbyes and stepped outside into the bright sunlight. Around the cluster of huts the hills seemed to undulate forever. Here and there in their green folds there were other settlements with a dozen or so huts. There were no electrical cables to be seen. Nothing modern but our van stood here.

I looked at my partner.

“What happened to her?” I asked, knowing that he had been there before.

He waited until we were locked in the car.

“Her daughter stood up to their healer after he mixed the wrong muti to give to someone. He wanted to keep her quiet so he made a Tokoloshe. She stood up to him and the grandmother told the others about the healer’s deeds.”

I looked back at the hut with unbelief.  “But it couldn’t- that’s just folk tales.“

“Where do you think the tales come from?” He sighed and started the car. “She stood up to him and died, that’s why her children turned to dust.” His voice sounded far-off. “That’s what happens.”

I swallowed hard a few times.

“How can she be sure it’s over – it’s just a couple of bricks!”

He shook his head and pointed to where two or three people stood at a new grave.

“The healer was not liked, he was evil. He is buried now. The bricks will keep it away from her.”

As we pulled away and I looked back to the road that would lead us back to the city, I could’ve sworn I saw a fleeting black shadow out of the corner of my eye, darting away from the houses, but when I looked again, there was nothing.

Some writing news

I’m working on a couple of fiction pieces some which just needs a bit of a spit and polish, but also one (The Dragon Seeker) that ended up needing almost an entire rewrite now that I’ve taken it out of the drawer again. I’ve also finished an Afrikaans translation and partial rewrite of one of the NaShoStoMo stories, now called “Sirenesang” (Siren’s Song). I’m hoping to get it in one of the local magazines, but will first send it to a Top Secret Reader...

I’ve also done a translation of part 1 of The Great Sundering – die vertaling, genaamd

“Die Groot Skeiding van die Lande, Deel 1” kan op my blad by www.woes.co.za gevind word.

The Wrong Wish

Obviously I could not get to sleep at all. My hand kept creeping towards my phone; glancing at the time, wanting to send messages to everyone I knew. At almost two in the morning I threw the cursed piece of technology out of my bachelor flat’s window and waited to hear the crunch of plastic and metal five floors below. The sounds of car alarms, police sirens and the odd bark from a startled dog drifted clear through the night air. I wanted to shout my message from the window – and even opened my mouth – but then I backed down, closed the window and leaned against the icy burglar bars. No one would believe me anyway. Or they would believe me, blame me and probably kill me. I wish I’d never ventured into the antique shop. I wish I didn’t need the part-time job they gave me. I wish I never picked up the owner’s prize piece. I wish I had kept my mouth.

I went back to bed, sliding between the cold sheets and stared at the ceiling as I waited for the world around me to wake up. Soon enough I heard the muffled noises of radios turning on or alarms going off in the flats around me. Lights clicked on, water sloshed through creaking pipes and children raised their voices. Part of me wanted to stay in bed. Most of me wanted to stay there. I would be a liar to say otherwise. It’s not easy to step up to things you’ve done wrong. And this wasn’t something small. I would have to pay for this. Everyone would know what I did. And staying in bed would not make anything better.

My alarm also went off and I got up again, dressing in my best working clothes. I drank a last cup of coffee and even buffed my shoes before heading out the door. I didn’t bother locking the place behind me. Nothing really mattered now. But I could at least look the people of my neighbourhood in the eye before the fan broke under the weight of stuff that would hit it very soon.

I wouldn’t tell any of them, of course. Everyone would soon enough find out what I did and there was no point in creating a panic. I followed my feet through the labyrinth of cracked pavements, hawkers and cars and tried to focus my mind of the beauty of the sunrise and the world waking. If I had to choose one place where I would await my fate (in walking distance from my home, though) it would be the park. Specifically the bench where I always sat after work. It was the best spot really – and the light there was good to read by. And I had read prodigiously. That was probably also why I was so angry at myself at what I did. I had read enough stories to know not to do what I did in that shop. I shouldn’t have picked up the heavy bronze object. I shouldn’t have checked inside. I shouldn’t have buffed it with my sleeve. I should have watched what I was saying at work.

But, then again, I mused as I reached the park at last, why didn’t the man tell me it was a genie and not someone’s ashes in the urn? I thought it was ashes. I honestly did. Otherwise I would have made a better wish. That must be the worst wish anyone had ever made: I wish I could see the end of the world. Stupid, really; only it wasn’t supposed to be a real wish. And the stupid genie didn’t have to be so thrilled to grant the wish.

I looked at my watch. It was 8:45. I thought of telling the people around me that they only had 15 minutes left. But that would cause a panic. And, of course, they would find out soon enough.

Where none can hear

My feet wander back

over dried winter grass

to turn my back on

the world, its shadows.

Your shadow beside me.

Tales and banter of past times

fall in still whispers on

my thoughts as I stare to a time

when you sat beside

me.

It was a dark winter then

–        that lifetime ago  –

and shadows, like today,

streaked the dry grass.

Only the memory of your voice bring

calm and peace.

Today I’ll smile,

today I’ll whisper,

but only where none can hear.

I love you.

The Great Sundering Part 3 – The Night of Fire

For your reading pleasure this week, is part three of “The Great Sundering”. Click here to read part 1 and part 2. Next week I’ll try to have something a bit more uplifting for the fiction Monday!

The Night of Fire

At the time of The Sundering, dragons still lived on the coast of the Eastern Lands. The Saerimavolk were their guardians and knew the Dragon Tongue and their kingdom was very great. At The Sundering, many of the Lewjan's servants, the forebears of the Flotaferan from the scattered trading islands, attacked first the islands not under their power, and then the coast of the Eastern Lands; as they thought that they would be spared death if they could claim the land for their own and their master. There was with the Flotaferan also a Lewjan Lord who wanted to claim and bind the Eastern Dragons to himself to gain more power.

But the dragons saw the ships approaching on the churning ocean and had time to warn their Guardians and the Saerímavolk of the impending attack. Some of the Guardians, who were not fit to fight, fled with some of the dragon eggs and younglings to the Blue Mountains; following the messengers who were to call the peoples there to arms.

The Flotaferan attacked at night, but the dragons were ready for them. They burnt most of the ships and slaughtered many of the Flotaferan, as did the warriors of the Saerímavolk. But the Flotaferan had used for the first time the deadly poison made from the Dragon’s Bane plant, with which they smeared their arrows and killed every last dragon and Guardian they could lay their hands on. The Lewjan Lord did not have the chance to bind one grown dragon to him and could find no younglings on the cliffs. The last dragon alive found the Lewjan Lord and slew him and threw his body from the cliff before he was slain by an arrow from the Flotaferan.

 This night was known as The Night of Fire, because of the many fires that lit the battlefield.

Reinforcements from the Blue Mountains also came to fight the Flotaferan. Together, they and the Saerímavolk overcame the Flotaferan and the remaining attackers fled in the boats that were still somewhat seaworthy. The slain of the Flotaferan were buried in one pit, while a mound was raised over those of the Saerímavolk who fell on that night. The blood ashes were thrown in the ocean and the Dragon Tears were used to cremate the fallen before the graves were covered and the mound constructed. As happens to the dragons when they died, the dragons’ bodies were turned to stone below the waves, or where they fell on the land, and their passing was greatly mourned.

And so, on one fateful night, the time of the dragons and the Dragon Guardians of the Eastern Lands came to an end.

(The Night of Fire is commemorated every year at the first new moon after The Day of Sundering, at the end of summer. The night is commemorated by the lighting of bonfires on the beaches and has come to include mock battles and feasting, where the first nights were held in austerity, recounting the tales of the Sundering around fires on the beaches over a simple meal.) 

Ageless Words Friday: A Medieval Allegory of the Scribe’s Tools

A few years ago I came across this short piece when I was researching Icelandic manuscripts for an essay. I am not quite sure what the exact search was, but it was probably something like “parchment + illumination”; as I wanted to know (more for myself than as information necessary for the essay I was working on) what inks were used, how the parchments were readied, etc. Anyway, I ended up putting this piece up in my writing closet[1].

 

A Medieval Allegory of the Scribe’s Tools

The parchment on which we write is pure conscience; the knife that scrapes it is the fear of God; the pumice that smoothes the skin is the discipline of heavenly desire; the chalk that whitens it signifies an unbroken meditation of holy thoughts; the ruler is the will of God; the straightedge is devotion to the holy task; the quill, its end split in two for writing, is the love of God and of our neighbor; the ink is humility itself; the illuminator’s colors represent the multiform grace of heavenly wisdom; the writing desk is tranquility of heart; the exemplar from which a copy is made is the life of Christ; the writing place is contempt of worldly things lifting us to a desire for heaven.

The piece can also be found on Rosemarie Berger’s page under the title “How to pray when you have a desk job”.

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[1] My writing desk is inside a closet and has become known in the family as “The Writing Closet”; and is a mystical place where you will get lost in another dimension for at least a couple of hours if you’re not careful. We DO NOT, however, refer to it as the “WC”… And at least the Afrikaans is “Die Skryfkas”.