29.
Without aim, Ohglo wander the desolate savannah and its little blotches of forest. He spiral away from the oahs in ever widening circles. He follow the stream-beds meanderingly through their wet spells and dry spells, losing them only when they go
underground.
He forage for food and water, keeping a watchful eye out for leopard, hyena, or glugg, as would any lone baboon.
Other animals -- zebras, gazelles, giraffes, an occasional lion see him at the water-holes. They look at him strangely, as if to say, "Isn't he weird?" but they leave him alone.
He get to the edge of the wild savannah, to the hills where the gluggs live. All the land dug up and planted with maize and cassava. He eat his fill. The countryside dotted with little round shambas, glugg nests. He see gluggs everywhere, walking the roads. He think about what Gar call his "mission" but he fear.
Finally, he just go up to the road and start walking along, trying to stand up on his hind legs like they do, trying to look like the gluggs.
He see the monsters with the spinning wheels, gluggs inside of them. They eat gluggs? He wonder. He wish he could walk so fast.
Gluggs notice him right away. They come around him so he can't walk anymore. He can't understand what they say, but at first it sound like questions. Then come answers. Chimoset one answer he remember from way back. The animal from dreams. Then
voices fill with fear. Crowds break up around him. Someone throw a stone at him. Then another and another. He have to run. He run and run back to the wild savannah.
Full moon after full moon after full moon, he get lonely. He meet some of the same elephants and zebras over and over again. He get to know them. He talk to them.
"Seem like water getting harder and harder to find," he say in oah-oah-oah talk. Elephant grunt. Zebra whinny.
One elephant he grow fond of he name 1-2-3 because he don't know her real name. One zebra too he call Black-and-white.
Sometimes he find just these two hanging back from their oahs, their herds. They kind of bump up against each other. Hungry for contact, he join in too and crouch around between all their legs. "Chee-chee-chee," he say.
chee-chee-chee: ha-ha-ha
Seem like these two roam around like him, following their herds, but at 1-2-3 distance. Like him, they some kind of misfits, he can't say what kind. Maybe they just like each other. They each other's pet.
The savannah get drier and drier. Food and water get scarcer and scarcer.
He have to be careful. Water-holes get dangerous as dozens of animals now fight and fight for the little water left. Only the great buzzards doing well. He never get meat any more, the lions and leopards and buzzards get it all first.
One time, in great thirst and hunger, he get lucky and come to a tiny water-hole where only his friends 1-2-3 and Black-and-white are drinking with a couple of steenboks.
The three of them rub up together cooing and grunting, happy to see each other and have a little water to boot. He get two ideas at once. First he think la-la-la, then he think ride. His feet sore. Distance between water-holes growing.
First he stroke at the zebra around his shoulders with his hands. Zebra seem to like it. Seem like his stripes rise up from his body. Then he try to hop on the zebra back. Zebra go crazy. No way, say the zebra without a word. Zebra little bit mad, bite at his ear, spin around and kick him. Friends stay equal, zebra seem to say.
He think about 1-2-3, the elephant. But no. Too big. Zebra-anger he can handle. Elephant-rage, he don't know. Still, he scratch her some behind the ear. She like it, too. She jiggle her bulk.
Then thunder come. Not thunder. Old noise. A Land Rover. Awful sound. Drought, leopard one thing. Glugg another.
The three animals run off in three directions.
There's three glugg-glugg hunters. Three shots. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! Two miss. In mid-gallop, Black-and-white freeze and fall down dead on the ground with a strange scream.
One of the gluggs climb down from the Land Rover and come after Ohglo with a rope. He know him. Red hair. Spot! One of the scritch-scritches.
The other two gluggs go up to the zebra and start to cut off her skin. He know them too. The fat Farmer and his cub.
1-2-3 circle around and meet Ohglo. 1-2-3 heart broke. But she mad too. Real mad. She grab Ohglo with her trunk and throw him up onto her back. He riding now.
Then the elephant turn back toward the gluggs. Fear leave her. Rage whip her up to cheetah speed. Now the savannah sound more like thunder. Spot high-tail it back to the car. 1-2-3 head for the other two gluggs. They never saw an elephant speed like 1-2-3, a stampede of one.
The Farmer fire a shot, but it his last. In an eye-blink, the farmer and his cub flat as the earth, flat as the surface of the water-hole. Spot scream and holler, jump in the Land Rover, and drive away.
1-2-3 carry Ohglo back to where the hunters and the zebra all lie dead. He look at the Farmer and his cub. He think this the baby he pick up at the farm long time ago.
Suddenly he remember how hungry he is. He jump down from 1-2-3's back and grab a loose leg from the cub, torn from his body at the crotch. He eat the whole thing. The blood still warm.
1-2-3 poke Black-and-white with her trunk a few times. Then she bellow, her trunk high in the air. The sound shake the earth, like a Rift Valley rock slide.
The two of them hang out by this water-hole for awhile, even in their sorrow. Food and water are here. Buzzards pick at the rotting gluggs, but the starving lions and leopards haven't discovered them yet.
At night the moon full and double glisten off the still brown water. The elephant and the monkeyman cuddle together and la-la-la.
Ohglo never work so hard in his life. He work over every part of her tough-skinned bulk, rolling tiny folds of hide between his forefinger and opposable thumb. Sweat pour out of his pores.
For her part, 1-2-3 breathe into each of Ohglo's pores with the hot breath from her trunk. She squeeze his skin just a little with those strange muscles inbetween her nostrils.
An elephantine vision seep out of all their holes. Spiney vines grow up all around them weaving and twirling together. The vines are covered with spikes. The vines grow 1-2-3 faster all the time, take over everything, suck up the last drop of water from the water-hole, leaving behind a deep, deep pit.
The vines too die out as fast as they grow and collapse with a crash into the pit.
Insects swarm out of the pit, led by an armada of fireflies. White locusts, white ants, white moths. Cicadas, Mantises, Termites. All swirl to the sky in a violet cyclone.
The elephant and the monkeyman look into the pit. It fill with blood, but that dry up too. At the bottom a plane of white sand go on forever, blindingly bright in the desert sun. Strewn all over the sand are the huge bones of the elephants. The elephants graveyard. End-of-world.
That night, the monkeyman sleep with his head snug inside the largest vagina you can imagine.
The next morning Ohglo see that the water-hole dry for real. This a problem trying to share a water-hole with an elephant.
He leap up and perch himself behind 1-2-3's ears. They lumber along through the dust and sand in search of more oah-oah-oah-oah-oah.
oah-oah-oah-oah-oah: life, spirit, water.
Dust storm blow along. Cyclones of dust dance about the savannah, combine and grow. The dust and the air become one. Many things buried. Death is in the air.
Partching sun after sun about waste them away. Finally they come to a tiny stream. Ohglo hop off 1-2-3 and run to the bank. He scoop up a pawful of water. He drink. The water do not change to blood. No insects swarm out. Maybe he free of the fearful visions. Maybe he find peace with himself. He smile. He drink and drink. 1-2-3 drink and drink too.
Filled with water and joy, Ohglo skip some stones in the water for the sheer fun of the splash.
One of the stones miss the creek and strike another stone on the bank.
A spark jump out.
The spark!
The spark at the center of things!
His spark! His center!
He grab the two stones and take them away from the stream, where the savannah grasses are tinder dry. He bang the stones together again.
Another spark!
He keep banging the stones together. Again and again. More sparks. A dry blade of grass catch the spark and start to smoke. He blow on it. It smoulder. It flame. He clap his hands.
Soon more grass catch fire. Soon the stream-bank on fire. Soon the flames are taller than him. Soon the black smoke eclipse the sun. Soon the heat of the fire blister at his backside. Soon the whole savannah burning up!
He hear 1-2-3 bellow but he can't see her for the smoke. He hear her hooves thunder as she run. He start to run himself. He run and run down down down the stream-bed.
The fire spread and spread. The other animals sound their alarms and shake the earth with their stampeding hooves. Birds cram the air with their shrieks. An awful squeal arise from the panic of lions, leopards, giraffes, baboons, elephants, zebras, ostriches, ibises, hyenas, rock hares, antelopes, steenboks, dik-diks, and klipspringers, undertoned by the whine of the insects.
He run and run until he come to what must be the source of the universe. Directly before him a sea of water blaze in the sun, so vast it stretch all the way to the sky!
He blink in wonder. He howl in joy. He scream in happiness as he jump into the cool water. Splashing in bliss that go on forever, he watch the fire burn itself out on the shore.
Whatever he been searching for all these years, he have found it at last! He sure he is dead.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Monday, December 3, 2007
TWENTY: Ohglo Large - Part 2
26.
From high in the fever trees, the baboons watch in silence while the glugg-gluggs load Ak onto the back of their Land Rover.
When the gluggs have left, the baboons let go a single, harmonious cry such as Ohglo have never heard, an atonal,
oscillating moan, alternately shrill and deep, "O-O-O-O-O-O-O-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-H-H-H-H-H-H-H..." that do not stop. The baboons take turns breathing to keep the cry going. The sound go on and on, 1-2-3-on. Ohglo's eyes gush with tears.
For the rest of the day, the baboons stay frozen in their perches, hidden in the trees, off and on moaning just to stay in touch with each other. When Ohglo finally join in the moan, he feel better.
In the night, the silence heavy, like the air before the big rain.
The next day too spent moaning in the trees. Ak been the center of the oah for as long as anyone can remember. No one know what to do. The oah frozen with grief. No one dare move.
It Smak who, toward dusk, finally break the spell. She have to eat to have milk for her cubs. She have led the moaning, now she moan louder still than all the rest as she slowly climb down from her tree. Then she silent. She trudge heavily down the trail to the termite hill, her cubs in tow.
Slowly the others follow her.
As Ohglo dig his share of the bugs, he look at Smak for signs of blame or forgiveness in her eyes. He find neither. She won't look at him at all at first. When finally her reddened eyes glance his way, she look right through him. The hair on Ohglo's neck bristle at such a look.
Gradually, somberly, the oah return to its old routine.
Min nurse Ohglo back to health.
By default, Smak take on all of Ak's leadership roles, except defense, a job Gok all too willingly take on himself. Ak was too tyrannical a leader to tolerate rivals, or anything but weak males around him, like Ako, Hok and Dop. None of them could lead a buzzard to a dead elephant.
Smak could fight well enough, but Gok now 1-2 bigger than her. It a fact about baboons that the females are only 2/3rds the size of the males. The females complain of this injustice, but none of them have been able to figure out what to do about it.
Gok want to be the ak of the oah all by himself in the worst way, but he just too young.
So, in an arrangement unique in the 1-2-3-oah-oah-oah, Ak's oah becme Smak-Gok's oah, a coalition.
Smak decide when and where the oah move. Smak decide when and what the oah eat. Smak issue the cries of alarm. Smak give the nightly discourses on philosophy.
Smak believe that "Everything is a baboon" explain as much as needed explaining and that all this talk about how many fireflies can dance on the point of a Wait-a-bit thorn was so much poppycock. But she decide it best not to mess with the Firefly Praising lest it be granted too much importance.
It then left to Gok to station the sentries, direct the scouts, and lead an attack, retreat, or defensive maneuver.
It Smak's decision also that Min be allowed to stay in the oah.
Gok argue, "If she stay, she should be mine!"
"That up to Min," Smak declare with quiet finality.
"But Ohglo's the one that got Ak killed!"
Smak look at Gok sadly, say nothing.
"He didn't mean it," say Min timidly. There is fear in her voice. She and Smak are alone in sticking up for Ohglo, and Min do not have Smak's strength. The other baboons, especially the males, resent Smak's taking power, but are too weak to say anything. At Gok's secret urging, they do blame Ohglo for Ak's death and shun him.
Ohglo hang back from the oah, traipsing along way behind, usually alone.
The vision of the insects haunt him. He falling apart. The single firefly at the center of things, the spark, the germ, the teesy weensy hole, the unity has hatched a swarm of insects. A chunk of Ohglo's center claimed by every sweet-crunch bug he ever ate. So much for the center migrating through the food chain, Ohglo think. After suffering for days the terror of disintegrating, days and days of imagining death and spilling tears, Ohglo can only laugh at his feeble firefly flickering unity.
He tell Min that their idea won't wash.
She explode in anger. "I show you the germ at the center of things. I nurse you when you half-dead. I stick up for you with the others. This the thanks I get. You cast aside my ideas like the pit of a capparis fruit."
"Min, the truth is there's 1-2-3 germs, 1-2-3 sparks, 1-2-3 teensy weensy holes, maybe it all holes. There no ONE of anything! The stupid firefly just light the way for the insect swarm of...of...disintegration."
"Ohglo, you talk crazy! You stop scaring me."
There another reason Ohglo hang back from the rest of the oah. Glugg-gluggs. Scritch-scritches.
scritch-scritches: gluggs who scratch on tablets with sticks
all the time; scientists.
Two of these he saw when Ak killed. The female with black straight hair squaring off her face he still can't keep his eyes off. Sometimes he catch her sneaking a banana to the baboons. He hear her loud-whisper "Here's a banana!" Ba-ba, he call her, as near as he can say the word. He wish she could slip him one. The other with red hair, who threw a rope around him that time, he call Spot. Still another he never see before have no hair on his head, only around the ears and above where his upper lip would be if he had one, he call No-lips. He don't know what they want. He don't even know if they want him. But he don't want to find out either. When he see them come at dawn in their jeep he stay hidden in the trees and forage for himself, later, when the oah with its trail of scritch-scritches have moved on out.
He do watch the female, Ba-ba. He like how she smell, like lilacs. He wonder if they la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la, or lay eggs like birds. They seem so stiff, and keep themselves covered up in funny colored bark. Do he know he a glugg like them? No. He monkey. But he not sure they know that.
27.
At the next full moon, Smak-Gok's oah drift to the 1-2-3- oah-oah-oah by the rocky cliffs in search of an uplift of spirits. In the evening, Ohglo sit by the water-hole watching the moon rise above his flat-faced head in the still pond.
Min come along and sit down next to him. She wrap her tail around his shoulders.
"Ohglo," she say softly. "I got something to tell you."
"What?"
"Smak say I'm cubbing."
"Min! That wonderful!" Ohglo yip. He throw his arms around her and lick her nose. "Cubbing! Whoopie! I love cubs! Have you told the others?"
"Ohglo, it not yours."
"What?"
"Smak say it can't be yours. You glugg. Glugg and monkey can't make cub."
"Oh."
"Ohglo, it Gok's."
"Oh."
An icy breeze crumple the surface of the pond. Ohglo quietly fume.
"I must go congratulate him," say Ohglo stiffly. He jump to his feet and run toward Gok.
"Ohglo," Min call after him. "Don't do anything rash."
He find Gok on the cliff conferring with a number of aks, none of whom are fond of Ohglo. Ohglo glare at Gok and yawn threateningly, but his mouth so small, the other baboons only laugh at him. Ohglo redden. He call to Gok, "Let's you and me have a talk."
"Say your piece, Ohglo."
"Alone."
"Oh, all right."
Gok and Ohglo go off by themselves, while the nosy baboons follow them at a distance and watch.
Ohglo swing at Gok.
Gok slam him with his paw and knock him silly.
In a strong voice full of his new authority, Gok declare, "Ohglo. You leave the oah now."
Ohglo, seeing stars, also see Gok's point.
He go say good-bye to Smak. "Maybe it best for you to go, Ohglo," she say softly, her eyes old and sad. "In spite of everything, I'll miss you.
"Go see Gar and his oah at the top of the cliff. Maybe they find a place for you. They thinkers. Gar say he have some idea, maybe you help us, maybe you help all the oahs, I don't know. You go see him." Her voice crack. "Good luck to you, gluggikins. I always love you. You come back and see us, hear?" She la-la-la him fondly one last time. She sniff. She blink. She suck in her breath. A tear stream down her snout.
Then another. And another.
"Smak," Ohglo say. "You crying. You really crying!"
28.
Gar a middle-aged baboon with bright eyes and bald patches. His oah, unlike the others, have and equal number of males and females. They an odd bunch, serious and intense. "So, Ohglo. Welcome!" Gar say. "I hear the other oahs want nothing to do with you. Can you blame them? You cause trouble just being around. You attract the gluggs and their bullets as well. But we are different. You stay with us for a time. You learn from us. We learn from you.
"While the other oahs play at philosophy, we study science. Baboon science. The science of dream-sharing, la-la-la.
"We trying to find out if this ability to paint each others' dreams is unique to baboons, or if other creatures do it. We try it on elephants, zebras. What about gluggs? We know you can do it. What about the others? What about the scrith-scritches, or the cattle-herders?" Glugg call these Masai.
"Maybe you help us find out."
Ohglo stay with Gar's oah for many moons. Gar's oah hardly move from its grove of fig trees in the center of its small plotz far away from the other oahs, and the nosy scritch-scritches. The baboons eat hardly anything but figs. This give them time to la-la-la most of the day, but it also make their shit loose and stinky.
Ohglo learn how every hair-root in la-la-la connected to a different image, different in each baboon, but the same in one baboon over time. When you la-la-la the same baboon over and over, you learn how to make all kinds of pictures in the other's mind that you can see yourself.
He learn too about the 1-2's.
1-2: triad
Gar's oah organized by 1-2's. Everybody go with two other bodies at the same time. Each one fuck two. But not the same two. Same one, but one other. Gar go with Urg and Tik. Urg go with Gar and Wug. Tik go with Gar and Pok. Wug go with Urg and Bim. And so on like that, no hard and fast rules. Male-female don't matter. This way dreams merge and stay fresh. This way Gar's oah develop unity. Each triangle interconnect with every other triangle. Gar's oah grow as more stray baboons get caught up in the net.
Ohglo learn all this la-la-la-ing the baboons of Gar's oah. Gar tell him not to stick to a 1-2 but go around to all of them and get the big picture. He have plans for Ohglo.
But one time, after many moons together, Ohglo-Gar la-la-la, and something happen. Gar-Ohglo crouch by the side of the dirty stream that run through the fig grove. They nuzzle up on each other, an electric arc gap between them. Between their forefingers and opposable thumbs, they gently stroke each of one another's hair-roots. They adjust their breathing so it just the same rhythm.
"Breathing very important," say Gar.
Then it Ohglo that show Gar the vision. Ohglo scoop a pawful of water to drink from the stream. The stream turn to blood. Blood, blood, 1-2-3 blood. The stream-bed open into a canyon, deep and dark. Ohglo spit out the blood taste into the canyon and where his spittle strike, a light dawn. The light a firefly and it take to wing. It fly to the sky. Behind the firefly, the insect swarm: whiteflies, white ants, white termites, white moths, dragonflies, mantises, cicadas, and locusts, all rise to the sky in a violet cyclone like souls of the dead. Now at the bottom of the canyon a desert of white sand glare in the pitiless sun.
End-of-world.
Ohglo-Gar look at each other. Ohglo cry. Gar blink his eyes.
But Gar say softly, "Let go, Ohglo."
Ohglo let go, breathe. The stream gush back into the canyon, clean, clear, and cool, blue as the sky. In the center of the stream the light still flicker, a rock, the moon.
Ohglo suddenly flow out of his body and merge with the stream -- the light, the rock, the moon inside his head, he flow down, down, down into a vast sea of water stretch all the way to the sky. The source of the universe.
An ibis alight on the top of his head, all white but for the tips of its outer wing-feathers which are black. The ibis speak from its down-curved beak, itself the shape of a scant crescent moon. "Flow, Ohglo, flow, flee, fly! Flow, flee, fly!"
End-of-world-but.
Ohglo-Gar lie entwined for a time in the unearthly quiet.
"You know what this mean, Ohglo?"
"No."
"It mean the oahs in trouble. It mean the whole 1-2-3-1-2-3-plotz in trouble."
1-2-3-1-2-3-plotz: world
"It mean you called on to act, Ohglo. You got to do something. This a dreadful vision you tell about. Where it coming from? It coming from gluggs, Ohglo, from the glugg in you. The glugg in you see something terrible happening. It your mission, Ohglo."
"Mission?"
"To go among gluggs. To find out what this about. You wise for a glugg. You go find out what it is, this terror the gluggs dreaming about and then you come back and tell us. You go la-la-la the gluggs and then return to la-la-la us. You be making a great contribution to baboonkind."
"I don't know, Gar. What do I do, let those Ak-murdering scritch-scritches capture me like I think they want to? They kill me too."
"Maybe not them, Ohglo. We been studying them some ourselves. They very stupid. They don't even speak. You right, they smell like killers. Find some friendly gluggs. Maybe you find the ones that birthed you."
"I don't know, Gar. I don't know. I leave you now. I go see what I can see. Gluggs won't take me back. I no glugg anymore. I monkey. But I go. And I come back some day and tell you what I see."
The next day, in the red morning sun, Ohglo hug Gar good-bye and follow the murky stream down hill to see what he can see.
From high in the fever trees, the baboons watch in silence while the glugg-gluggs load Ak onto the back of their Land Rover.
When the gluggs have left, the baboons let go a single, harmonious cry such as Ohglo have never heard, an atonal,
oscillating moan, alternately shrill and deep, "O-O-O-O-O-O-O-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-H-H-H-H-H-H-H..." that do not stop. The baboons take turns breathing to keep the cry going. The sound go on and on, 1-2-3-on. Ohglo's eyes gush with tears.
For the rest of the day, the baboons stay frozen in their perches, hidden in the trees, off and on moaning just to stay in touch with each other. When Ohglo finally join in the moan, he feel better.
In the night, the silence heavy, like the air before the big rain.
The next day too spent moaning in the trees. Ak been the center of the oah for as long as anyone can remember. No one know what to do. The oah frozen with grief. No one dare move.
It Smak who, toward dusk, finally break the spell. She have to eat to have milk for her cubs. She have led the moaning, now she moan louder still than all the rest as she slowly climb down from her tree. Then she silent. She trudge heavily down the trail to the termite hill, her cubs in tow.
Slowly the others follow her.
As Ohglo dig his share of the bugs, he look at Smak for signs of blame or forgiveness in her eyes. He find neither. She won't look at him at all at first. When finally her reddened eyes glance his way, she look right through him. The hair on Ohglo's neck bristle at such a look.
Gradually, somberly, the oah return to its old routine.
Min nurse Ohglo back to health.
By default, Smak take on all of Ak's leadership roles, except defense, a job Gok all too willingly take on himself. Ak was too tyrannical a leader to tolerate rivals, or anything but weak males around him, like Ako, Hok and Dop. None of them could lead a buzzard to a dead elephant.
Smak could fight well enough, but Gok now 1-2 bigger than her. It a fact about baboons that the females are only 2/3rds the size of the males. The females complain of this injustice, but none of them have been able to figure out what to do about it.
Gok want to be the ak of the oah all by himself in the worst way, but he just too young.
So, in an arrangement unique in the 1-2-3-oah-oah-oah, Ak's oah becme Smak-Gok's oah, a coalition.
Smak decide when and where the oah move. Smak decide when and what the oah eat. Smak issue the cries of alarm. Smak give the nightly discourses on philosophy.
Smak believe that "Everything is a baboon" explain as much as needed explaining and that all this talk about how many fireflies can dance on the point of a Wait-a-bit thorn was so much poppycock. But she decide it best not to mess with the Firefly Praising lest it be granted too much importance.
It then left to Gok to station the sentries, direct the scouts, and lead an attack, retreat, or defensive maneuver.
It Smak's decision also that Min be allowed to stay in the oah.
Gok argue, "If she stay, she should be mine!"
"That up to Min," Smak declare with quiet finality.
"But Ohglo's the one that got Ak killed!"
Smak look at Gok sadly, say nothing.
"He didn't mean it," say Min timidly. There is fear in her voice. She and Smak are alone in sticking up for Ohglo, and Min do not have Smak's strength. The other baboons, especially the males, resent Smak's taking power, but are too weak to say anything. At Gok's secret urging, they do blame Ohglo for Ak's death and shun him.
Ohglo hang back from the oah, traipsing along way behind, usually alone.
The vision of the insects haunt him. He falling apart. The single firefly at the center of things, the spark, the germ, the teesy weensy hole, the unity has hatched a swarm of insects. A chunk of Ohglo's center claimed by every sweet-crunch bug he ever ate. So much for the center migrating through the food chain, Ohglo think. After suffering for days the terror of disintegrating, days and days of imagining death and spilling tears, Ohglo can only laugh at his feeble firefly flickering unity.
He tell Min that their idea won't wash.
She explode in anger. "I show you the germ at the center of things. I nurse you when you half-dead. I stick up for you with the others. This the thanks I get. You cast aside my ideas like the pit of a capparis fruit."
"Min, the truth is there's 1-2-3 germs, 1-2-3 sparks, 1-2-3 teensy weensy holes, maybe it all holes. There no ONE of anything! The stupid firefly just light the way for the insect swarm of...of...disintegration."
"Ohglo, you talk crazy! You stop scaring me."
There another reason Ohglo hang back from the rest of the oah. Glugg-gluggs. Scritch-scritches.
scritch-scritches: gluggs who scratch on tablets with sticks
all the time; scientists.
Two of these he saw when Ak killed. The female with black straight hair squaring off her face he still can't keep his eyes off. Sometimes he catch her sneaking a banana to the baboons. He hear her loud-whisper "Here's a banana!" Ba-ba, he call her, as near as he can say the word. He wish she could slip him one. The other with red hair, who threw a rope around him that time, he call Spot. Still another he never see before have no hair on his head, only around the ears and above where his upper lip would be if he had one, he call No-lips. He don't know what they want. He don't even know if they want him. But he don't want to find out either. When he see them come at dawn in their jeep he stay hidden in the trees and forage for himself, later, when the oah with its trail of scritch-scritches have moved on out.
He do watch the female, Ba-ba. He like how she smell, like lilacs. He wonder if they la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la, or lay eggs like birds. They seem so stiff, and keep themselves covered up in funny colored bark. Do he know he a glugg like them? No. He monkey. But he not sure they know that.
27.
At the next full moon, Smak-Gok's oah drift to the 1-2-3- oah-oah-oah by the rocky cliffs in search of an uplift of spirits. In the evening, Ohglo sit by the water-hole watching the moon rise above his flat-faced head in the still pond.
Min come along and sit down next to him. She wrap her tail around his shoulders.
"Ohglo," she say softly. "I got something to tell you."
"What?"
"Smak say I'm cubbing."
"Min! That wonderful!" Ohglo yip. He throw his arms around her and lick her nose. "Cubbing! Whoopie! I love cubs! Have you told the others?"
"Ohglo, it not yours."
"What?"
"Smak say it can't be yours. You glugg. Glugg and monkey can't make cub."
"Oh."
"Ohglo, it Gok's."
"Oh."
An icy breeze crumple the surface of the pond. Ohglo quietly fume.
"I must go congratulate him," say Ohglo stiffly. He jump to his feet and run toward Gok.
"Ohglo," Min call after him. "Don't do anything rash."
He find Gok on the cliff conferring with a number of aks, none of whom are fond of Ohglo. Ohglo glare at Gok and yawn threateningly, but his mouth so small, the other baboons only laugh at him. Ohglo redden. He call to Gok, "Let's you and me have a talk."
"Say your piece, Ohglo."
"Alone."
"Oh, all right."
Gok and Ohglo go off by themselves, while the nosy baboons follow them at a distance and watch.
Ohglo swing at Gok.
Gok slam him with his paw and knock him silly.
In a strong voice full of his new authority, Gok declare, "Ohglo. You leave the oah now."
Ohglo, seeing stars, also see Gok's point.
He go say good-bye to Smak. "Maybe it best for you to go, Ohglo," she say softly, her eyes old and sad. "In spite of everything, I'll miss you.
"Go see Gar and his oah at the top of the cliff. Maybe they find a place for you. They thinkers. Gar say he have some idea, maybe you help us, maybe you help all the oahs, I don't know. You go see him." Her voice crack. "Good luck to you, gluggikins. I always love you. You come back and see us, hear?" She la-la-la him fondly one last time. She sniff. She blink. She suck in her breath. A tear stream down her snout.
Then another. And another.
"Smak," Ohglo say. "You crying. You really crying!"
28.
Gar a middle-aged baboon with bright eyes and bald patches. His oah, unlike the others, have and equal number of males and females. They an odd bunch, serious and intense. "So, Ohglo. Welcome!" Gar say. "I hear the other oahs want nothing to do with you. Can you blame them? You cause trouble just being around. You attract the gluggs and their bullets as well. But we are different. You stay with us for a time. You learn from us. We learn from you.
"While the other oahs play at philosophy, we study science. Baboon science. The science of dream-sharing, la-la-la.
"We trying to find out if this ability to paint each others' dreams is unique to baboons, or if other creatures do it. We try it on elephants, zebras. What about gluggs? We know you can do it. What about the others? What about the scrith-scritches, or the cattle-herders?" Glugg call these Masai.
"Maybe you help us find out."
Ohglo stay with Gar's oah for many moons. Gar's oah hardly move from its grove of fig trees in the center of its small plotz far away from the other oahs, and the nosy scritch-scritches. The baboons eat hardly anything but figs. This give them time to la-la-la most of the day, but it also make their shit loose and stinky.
Ohglo learn how every hair-root in la-la-la connected to a different image, different in each baboon, but the same in one baboon over time. When you la-la-la the same baboon over and over, you learn how to make all kinds of pictures in the other's mind that you can see yourself.
He learn too about the 1-2's.
1-2: triad
Gar's oah organized by 1-2's. Everybody go with two other bodies at the same time. Each one fuck two. But not the same two. Same one, but one other. Gar go with Urg and Tik. Urg go with Gar and Wug. Tik go with Gar and Pok. Wug go with Urg and Bim. And so on like that, no hard and fast rules. Male-female don't matter. This way dreams merge and stay fresh. This way Gar's oah develop unity. Each triangle interconnect with every other triangle. Gar's oah grow as more stray baboons get caught up in the net.
Ohglo learn all this la-la-la-ing the baboons of Gar's oah. Gar tell him not to stick to a 1-2 but go around to all of them and get the big picture. He have plans for Ohglo.
But one time, after many moons together, Ohglo-Gar la-la-la, and something happen. Gar-Ohglo crouch by the side of the dirty stream that run through the fig grove. They nuzzle up on each other, an electric arc gap between them. Between their forefingers and opposable thumbs, they gently stroke each of one another's hair-roots. They adjust their breathing so it just the same rhythm.
"Breathing very important," say Gar.
Then it Ohglo that show Gar the vision. Ohglo scoop a pawful of water to drink from the stream. The stream turn to blood. Blood, blood, 1-2-3 blood. The stream-bed open into a canyon, deep and dark. Ohglo spit out the blood taste into the canyon and where his spittle strike, a light dawn. The light a firefly and it take to wing. It fly to the sky. Behind the firefly, the insect swarm: whiteflies, white ants, white termites, white moths, dragonflies, mantises, cicadas, and locusts, all rise to the sky in a violet cyclone like souls of the dead. Now at the bottom of the canyon a desert of white sand glare in the pitiless sun.
End-of-world.
Ohglo-Gar look at each other. Ohglo cry. Gar blink his eyes.
But Gar say softly, "Let go, Ohglo."
Ohglo let go, breathe. The stream gush back into the canyon, clean, clear, and cool, blue as the sky. In the center of the stream the light still flicker, a rock, the moon.
Ohglo suddenly flow out of his body and merge with the stream -- the light, the rock, the moon inside his head, he flow down, down, down into a vast sea of water stretch all the way to the sky. The source of the universe.
An ibis alight on the top of his head, all white but for the tips of its outer wing-feathers which are black. The ibis speak from its down-curved beak, itself the shape of a scant crescent moon. "Flow, Ohglo, flow, flee, fly! Flow, flee, fly!"
End-of-world-but.
Ohglo-Gar lie entwined for a time in the unearthly quiet.
"You know what this mean, Ohglo?"
"No."
"It mean the oahs in trouble. It mean the whole 1-2-3-1-2-3-plotz in trouble."
1-2-3-1-2-3-plotz: world
"It mean you called on to act, Ohglo. You got to do something. This a dreadful vision you tell about. Where it coming from? It coming from gluggs, Ohglo, from the glugg in you. The glugg in you see something terrible happening. It your mission, Ohglo."
"Mission?"
"To go among gluggs. To find out what this about. You wise for a glugg. You go find out what it is, this terror the gluggs dreaming about and then you come back and tell us. You go la-la-la the gluggs and then return to la-la-la us. You be making a great contribution to baboonkind."
"I don't know, Gar. What do I do, let those Ak-murdering scritch-scritches capture me like I think they want to? They kill me too."
"Maybe not them, Ohglo. We been studying them some ourselves. They very stupid. They don't even speak. You right, they smell like killers. Find some friendly gluggs. Maybe you find the ones that birthed you."
"I don't know, Gar. I don't know. I leave you now. I go see what I can see. Gluggs won't take me back. I no glugg anymore. I monkey. But I go. And I come back some day and tell you what I see."
The next day, in the red morning sun, Ohglo hug Gar good-bye and follow the murky stream down hill to see what he can see.
Friday, November 23, 2007
NINETEEN: Ohglo Large - Part 1
24.
One, two, three moons pass before Ohglo and Gok meet Min again at the 1-2-3-oah-oah-oah.
During this time, Ohglo pine for Min, while Gok try to forget her. Ohglo can see in Gok's eyes that he cannot forget the hurt of watching Ohglo and Min fuck.
Ohglo-Gok-Min la-la-la, watch the three sparks, germs, teensy weensy holes at the center of things flicker, the dance of the fireflies.
One night when a real firefly alight nearby and flash its beacon at them, Min suddenly jump up, spin around three times, and kiss the ground.
Ohglo laugh. "What that about?"
"Praising the Fireflies."
"What?"
"Praising the Fireflies. You show me they at the center of things, Ohglo."
"Yeah, but...." Ohglo feel like there something wrong with this but he don't know what. "But they just are, you know."
"What you mean, they just are?" Gok ask. "They the Center! They It! Min prove it. Everything not a baboon like Ak say. Everything, at the center, a firefly."
"Yeah, but, I mean, not exactly, um, well, I dunno," babble Ohglo. "Germ, spark, hole, firefly, these just words, tell about something we see got no name. But we know it part of us. If you 'Praise' it, then it not part of us any more. Shit, I don't know, it just don't seem right to me."
"Well, I like it, and I going to do it too," say Gok. His eyes narrow, show white. The hair on his neck bristle.
Min look at the ground. "It feel good to do it," she say quietly.
"I don't know," say Ohglo.
When they get the chance, Ohglo and Min amble away from the oahs by themselves. Ohglo-Min 1-2-3-la-la-la-la-la in the brush. By the light of the moon, Ohglo tell her, "Min, I can't live without you."
"I want to be with you, too," Ohglo.
"Can I join your ak's oah?"
"Pak never allow it. He don't think you worth the trouble. He don't like me hanging around you. You'd have to fight him. He kill you."
"Let's form our own oah then."
"We not ready yet, Ohglo. We got some friends in the other oahs, but they look at you funny too. They not ready to follow us."
"Maybe Ak let you in his oah."
Ohglo speak with Ak, his tail between his legs. "What?" Ak bark. "You want to bring another female into my oah? Tell you what. You bring her, but she be mine."
"She mine, Ak."
"Yours? Ha!" Ak guffaw. "Sure Ohglo, but after me and only when I through with her. You got no status, Ohglo. You got to take sloppy seconds."
"No, Ak. Sorry."
"Yeah, sorry, glugg. You want to be big bad baboon but you no want to obey baboon law. I the law around here, and don't you forget it, hear? Now, get out of my sight."
So for the next several moons, Ohglo sneak away from his oah, and secretly meet Min near the border of her oah-oah-oah-plotz. Sometimes this mean passing through the forest and savannah near the farm, where the glugg-glugg Farmer like to hunt. Over the years, the oah make 1-2-3 raids on the farm, whenever food scarce. The Farmer have no love for baboons.
25.
It not long before the other baboons notice Gok doing his Firefly dance. They laugh at first, chee-chee-chee, but when he tell them he is "Praising Fireflies" because they the first and last beings, they start to listen.
The older cubs and some of the young adults begin to imitate him. Whenever they see a real firefly glow in the dark, they too twist around three times and kiss the ground.
Monkey see, monkey do.
Even Ak, alarmed at first by this new fad among the young, learn to favor the Firefly Praising as consistent with the concentric baboon thesis. "Baboons aren't the only things," go his modified serman. "There's two things. Everything is a baboon, but at the center of every baboon is a firefly."
The older baboons of his own oah and even some of the other oahs are quick to recognize Ak's wisdom in reconciling his ideas with one of his ka's.
ka: heir apparent.
Ohglo and Gok have a fight.
"You got baboons worshipping fireflies Gok, grovelling before them. This not right. This not what we meant. Fireflies didn't create no damn universe. That what you got most of the oah believing! How can you do it?"
"What the difference? It make them happy. They need something. What do you know? You just a glugg, and gluggs can't think abstractly."
"Gok!" Ohglo stomach churn. "I don't believe you saying this."
"Believe it!"
"Gok, I love you!"
"Ohglo, you stink!"
Ohglo swat Gok across the snout.
Gok take a bite the size of an apple out of Ohglo's thigh. Ohglo squeal and let the tears flow.
That night, Ohglo limp in pain to see Min. By the time he reach her smell, he sick from the wound in his leg. He let out his secret yell, a shrill glugg scream, "A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!"
When Min finally find him, he shivering, feverish, in a cold sweat. She lick him all over. She hug him in silence. He sleep in her warmth. She la-la-la him in his sleep.
Ohglo awake at dawn with a terrible thirst. Leaning against Min, he hobble down to the nearby stream.
He scoop a handful of water to drink. The water turn to blood! He spit out the liver taste. At the spot where his spittle strike the stream, a light flicker, a firefly. The firefly rise
into the air and lead out of the crimson stream a host of dead souls -- baboons, gluggs, all living creatures. A loud BOOM! like a gunshot shake the savannah stillness. The streambed open into a canyon. Out of the canyon soar a swarm of dreadful insects, still
led by the flickering firefly: whiteflies, white ants, white termites, white moths, dragonflies, mantises, cicadas, locusts. The insects attack Ohglo and start to eat him. Limping, he run in terror. Ohglo see end-of-world.
In the distance, he hear thunder, a Land Rover bouncing over the savannah. The Farmer!
"We got to warn them!" he croak to Min. He fall over. She rush to him. "Got to get back to the oah...got to warn them...end-of-world...end-of-world..." he mutter out of his mind.
With Min half carrying Ohglo much of the way, they plod back to the oah, Ak's oah.
The Land Rover come near, go away, come near, go away.
There are no forests in this part of the savannah, but a clear-headed Ohglo would find some trees and hide, rather than return to the oah. But Ohglo sure he is dying. He have to warn the oah. He have to see Smak again, make up with Gok. Ak will protect them.
When they reach the smell of the oah, it midday, hot and still. They should stop when they see a bunch of wire boxes -- a bank of cages -- with piles of tempting maize inside. They not so dumb as to try for the maize. They know a trap when they see one. But they should know the Farmer is close upon them, and he not alone.
Just as they catch sight of the rear-guard baboons, Ohglo spot a female glugg-glugg right in front of him, with straight black hair squaring off her dark eyes. He never see anything like her before. He stop and stare. She hold up some kind of box to her face to shoot him. The box go click, and he suck in his breath, but he not dead.
Then he see another glugg-glugg, male, with a red hair and red spots on his face. This glugg pop out from behind a tree and throw a rope around Ohglo's neck. Ohglo scream bloody murder.
Ak swing out of a tree to check out the fuss. He see the gluggs. He yawn ferociously at them. The lids of his eyes go white. He bellow. The glugg holding the rope so frightened he let go.
Another glugg, little, look just like the Farmer, come from behind another tree and holler. The fat Farmer himself appear, raise a gun toward Ak.
Ohglo hear the female glugg scream "No!" in a funny language.
BLAM! BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!
Ak stumble backward, surprise in his eyes. His brains splatter against a tree. He falter. He fall.
Ohglo free himself from the rope and run, his limp suddenly cured.
Ak groan, shudder, and die.
As if Ak's death and order, "every monkey for himself," the oah scatter in all directions and vanish into the trees.
One, two, three moons pass before Ohglo and Gok meet Min again at the 1-2-3-oah-oah-oah.
During this time, Ohglo pine for Min, while Gok try to forget her. Ohglo can see in Gok's eyes that he cannot forget the hurt of watching Ohglo and Min fuck.
Ohglo-Gok-Min la-la-la, watch the three sparks, germs, teensy weensy holes at the center of things flicker, the dance of the fireflies.
One night when a real firefly alight nearby and flash its beacon at them, Min suddenly jump up, spin around three times, and kiss the ground.
Ohglo laugh. "What that about?"
"Praising the Fireflies."
"What?"
"Praising the Fireflies. You show me they at the center of things, Ohglo."
"Yeah, but...." Ohglo feel like there something wrong with this but he don't know what. "But they just are, you know."
"What you mean, they just are?" Gok ask. "They the Center! They It! Min prove it. Everything not a baboon like Ak say. Everything, at the center, a firefly."
"Yeah, but, I mean, not exactly, um, well, I dunno," babble Ohglo. "Germ, spark, hole, firefly, these just words, tell about something we see got no name. But we know it part of us. If you 'Praise' it, then it not part of us any more. Shit, I don't know, it just don't seem right to me."
"Well, I like it, and I going to do it too," say Gok. His eyes narrow, show white. The hair on his neck bristle.
Min look at the ground. "It feel good to do it," she say quietly.
"I don't know," say Ohglo.
When they get the chance, Ohglo and Min amble away from the oahs by themselves. Ohglo-Min 1-2-3-la-la-la-la-la in the brush. By the light of the moon, Ohglo tell her, "Min, I can't live without you."
"I want to be with you, too," Ohglo.
"Can I join your ak's oah?"
"Pak never allow it. He don't think you worth the trouble. He don't like me hanging around you. You'd have to fight him. He kill you."
"Let's form our own oah then."
"We not ready yet, Ohglo. We got some friends in the other oahs, but they look at you funny too. They not ready to follow us."
"Maybe Ak let you in his oah."
Ohglo speak with Ak, his tail between his legs. "What?" Ak bark. "You want to bring another female into my oah? Tell you what. You bring her, but she be mine."
"She mine, Ak."
"Yours? Ha!" Ak guffaw. "Sure Ohglo, but after me and only when I through with her. You got no status, Ohglo. You got to take sloppy seconds."
"No, Ak. Sorry."
"Yeah, sorry, glugg. You want to be big bad baboon but you no want to obey baboon law. I the law around here, and don't you forget it, hear? Now, get out of my sight."
So for the next several moons, Ohglo sneak away from his oah, and secretly meet Min near the border of her oah-oah-oah-plotz. Sometimes this mean passing through the forest and savannah near the farm, where the glugg-glugg Farmer like to hunt. Over the years, the oah make 1-2-3 raids on the farm, whenever food scarce. The Farmer have no love for baboons.
25.
It not long before the other baboons notice Gok doing his Firefly dance. They laugh at first, chee-chee-chee, but when he tell them he is "Praising Fireflies" because they the first and last beings, they start to listen.
The older cubs and some of the young adults begin to imitate him. Whenever they see a real firefly glow in the dark, they too twist around three times and kiss the ground.
Monkey see, monkey do.
Even Ak, alarmed at first by this new fad among the young, learn to favor the Firefly Praising as consistent with the concentric baboon thesis. "Baboons aren't the only things," go his modified serman. "There's two things. Everything is a baboon, but at the center of every baboon is a firefly."
The older baboons of his own oah and even some of the other oahs are quick to recognize Ak's wisdom in reconciling his ideas with one of his ka's.
ka: heir apparent.
Ohglo and Gok have a fight.
"You got baboons worshipping fireflies Gok, grovelling before them. This not right. This not what we meant. Fireflies didn't create no damn universe. That what you got most of the oah believing! How can you do it?"
"What the difference? It make them happy. They need something. What do you know? You just a glugg, and gluggs can't think abstractly."
"Gok!" Ohglo stomach churn. "I don't believe you saying this."
"Believe it!"
"Gok, I love you!"
"Ohglo, you stink!"
Ohglo swat Gok across the snout.
Gok take a bite the size of an apple out of Ohglo's thigh. Ohglo squeal and let the tears flow.
That night, Ohglo limp in pain to see Min. By the time he reach her smell, he sick from the wound in his leg. He let out his secret yell, a shrill glugg scream, "A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!"
When Min finally find him, he shivering, feverish, in a cold sweat. She lick him all over. She hug him in silence. He sleep in her warmth. She la-la-la him in his sleep.
Ohglo awake at dawn with a terrible thirst. Leaning against Min, he hobble down to the nearby stream.
He scoop a handful of water to drink. The water turn to blood! He spit out the liver taste. At the spot where his spittle strike the stream, a light flicker, a firefly. The firefly rise
into the air and lead out of the crimson stream a host of dead souls -- baboons, gluggs, all living creatures. A loud BOOM! like a gunshot shake the savannah stillness. The streambed open into a canyon. Out of the canyon soar a swarm of dreadful insects, still
led by the flickering firefly: whiteflies, white ants, white termites, white moths, dragonflies, mantises, cicadas, locusts. The insects attack Ohglo and start to eat him. Limping, he run in terror. Ohglo see end-of-world.
In the distance, he hear thunder, a Land Rover bouncing over the savannah. The Farmer!
"We got to warn them!" he croak to Min. He fall over. She rush to him. "Got to get back to the oah...got to warn them...end-of-world...end-of-world..." he mutter out of his mind.
With Min half carrying Ohglo much of the way, they plod back to the oah, Ak's oah.
The Land Rover come near, go away, come near, go away.
There are no forests in this part of the savannah, but a clear-headed Ohglo would find some trees and hide, rather than return to the oah. But Ohglo sure he is dying. He have to warn the oah. He have to see Smak again, make up with Gok. Ak will protect them.
When they reach the smell of the oah, it midday, hot and still. They should stop when they see a bunch of wire boxes -- a bank of cages -- with piles of tempting maize inside. They not so dumb as to try for the maize. They know a trap when they see one. But they should know the Farmer is close upon them, and he not alone.
Just as they catch sight of the rear-guard baboons, Ohglo spot a female glugg-glugg right in front of him, with straight black hair squaring off her dark eyes. He never see anything like her before. He stop and stare. She hold up some kind of box to her face to shoot him. The box go click, and he suck in his breath, but he not dead.
Then he see another glugg-glugg, male, with a red hair and red spots on his face. This glugg pop out from behind a tree and throw a rope around Ohglo's neck. Ohglo scream bloody murder.
Ak swing out of a tree to check out the fuss. He see the gluggs. He yawn ferociously at them. The lids of his eyes go white. He bellow. The glugg holding the rope so frightened he let go.
Another glugg, little, look just like the Farmer, come from behind another tree and holler. The fat Farmer himself appear, raise a gun toward Ak.
Ohglo hear the female glugg scream "No!" in a funny language.
BLAM! BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!
Ak stumble backward, surprise in his eyes. His brains splatter against a tree. He falter. He fall.
Ohglo free himself from the rope and run, his limp suddenly cured.
Ak groan, shudder, and die.
As if Ak's death and order, "every monkey for himself," the oah scatter in all directions and vanish into the trees.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
EIGHTEEN: Ohglo Medium
20.
Baboons don't reckon time in years. At the equator, there's two seasons, rainy and dry, both hot. The sun is a baboon that come out in the day and sleep at night.
Baboons measure time when they need to by months. The changes of the moon in a month bigger than the little shifts of the sun in a year. And there's the monthly flow of blood that baboon females, like gluggs, are famous for. But they rarely count more than the eight months or so of a pregnancy. Age is reckoned in general by size: small, medium, and large.
For her own cub, a mother might refine the measure more closely, with stages, like baby, infant, cub, youth, and adult. Even so, Smak do notice that Ohglo taking much too long to grow up. Often she sneer to Ohglo, "Gluggs can stay babies forever. We not rich like the gluggs. I got my own cubs to mother. I got no time for you, Gluggikins. You have to mother yourself."
So she push Ohglo away from her and make him fend for himself when he only about eight glugg years old -- about medium for him.
His buddy Gok about six in glugg years, he nearly grown. He not as big as the adult males, but he can do all the things that they can do. Smak and the other grown-ups treat Gok and Ohglo more and more as if they were adults.
But Gok and Ohglo still play like cubs.
One day Ohglo and Gok wander from the oah. They hunt Leopard, ek-ek-ek. Secretly, they hope not to find him.
They do find a leopard cub up in an umbrella tree at the edge of one of the many small forests near the oah-oah-oah-plotz. The leopard flash his eyes in silence, all ready to pounce on Gok. The leopard snarl. Gok holler "ek-ek-ek!" and also "Smak!" like little cub.
Ohglo talk to the leopard. "Hey Leopard!" Ohglo shout, waving his arms. "You stupid fool! Don't you see I am meatier than my buddy here? And, if you pick me to eat up, you won't have to leap down from the tree and risk hurting yourself. I will come up to you!" Ohglo scoot up the tree, screeching and hooting all the way. When he reach the limb where the leopard perched, the leopard squeal like a kitty cat, leap off the limb the wrong way, and vanish into the forest.
Gok glad to be alive, but he look at Ohglo funny. That not the way you are supposed to hunt leopard.
To show how brave they are, Ohglo and Gok chase the leopard through the forest. But they know this leopard only a cub and have a fierce mother close by. So after awhile they lose its trail.
They rest beside a stream. The stream seem familiar to Ohglo, but he don't remember why. They splash in the cool water.
They la-la-la.
la-la-la: to groom, grooming, story-telling, dream-sharing, painting each other's dreams.
They lie close together, almost -- but not quite -- touching, an electric-arc gap between them. Gok gently stroke each of Ohglo's hairs. Ohglo stroke each of Gok's hairs. The Dream ooze out of their pores in rainbow-hued tendrills, and rise up between them. The tendrils join in a cloud, the colors combine. What each of them see is a golden flame engulfing their bodies, slowly, slowly consuming them in light. Ohglo-Gok disintegrate into shards of light, merge together, and dissolve into the fire, which is warm, but not hot. Their souls rise to the sky in wisps of violet smoke. A dream of love. A dream of joy. A dream of death.
Ohglo notice that out of a pocket of fur under Gok's belly, his little red penis poke out. Ohglo rub. Gok purr, eyes go glassy.
Ohglo's penis also grow stiff. Gok giggle and twist around to lick it with his tongue. He close his mouth, and Ohglo feel Gok's dagger-like teeth against him. Ohglo jerk away. Then Ohglo stick his rear-end up in the air as he seen Smak do so often. Gok pant and slobber. Gok mount Ohglo from the rear, slip his penis up Ohglo's asshole. Gok-Ohglo la-la-la-la-la.
la-la-la-la-la: fuck.
Afterwards, they lie quiet in the sun. Ohglo thirst. He reach down to drink from the stream. Water turn to blood. Blood, blood, 1-2-3 blood. A rumbling come on up from deep in the stream bed. The earth shaking. Ohglo-Gok start to run. Before they know it, Ohglo-Gok find they on opposite sides of the stream. The stream open up between them. Their hair stand on end. From out of the depths come swarms of insects: whiteflies, white ants, white termites, white moths, dragonflies, mantises, cicadas, locusts, rising to the sky like souls of the dead. End-of-world.
Gok hear the thunder first. Ohglo take longer to hear, but soon he hear it too. This not thunder from the bed of the stream. This not thunder from the sky. This thunder from the hoofbeats of horses charging through the underbrush.
The two of them run and run away. They meet again on the same side of the stream and scamper up a tree, an umbrella tree. They see several horses ridden by gluggs, glugg-gluggs.
The Farmer! The Farmer whose cattle Ohglo stole moons and moons ago! In the distance Ohglo-Gok see the farm with so many yummy things to eat. Ohglo and Gok freeze behind the leaves and pretend to be plover nests.
"Let's go back to the oah," Gok whisper, fear in his eyes.
"Mmm," say Ohglo, thinking.
When the rustling of the horses through the brush stop, Gok pick one of the capparis fruits that grow on a vine inside the umbrella tree. The capparis fruit look like an apple with a tough skin.
"Look!" Gok cry. The skin of the capparis slightly shrivelled. This mean the fruit inside fermented.
Ohglo and Gok eagerly suck up the mushy capparis wine. As the tree sway in the afternoon breeze, they filled with new courage.
"You think what I think?" ask Ohglo.
"Huh?" say Gok.
"The Farmer up here. The Farmer not at farm."
"Huh?"
"Le's go to the farm, Gok, see wha we can see!" Ohglo slur.
"You crazy, Ohglo." They stumble down the tree and steal down the horse trail, too drunk to be sneaky. They hide in the tall elephant grass.
They sneak up noisily on the house. The house still. The house huge, white, made of the insides of trees, with columns in the front. Many windows. Around the house is a gl green clipped lawn. Around the lawn, a white fence made of pointed sticks like spears. Ohglo and Gok hide behind the fence and peek through with wide-open eyes.
gl green: wet, medium green. Monkeys have 1-2-3 words for the color green.
Just inside the fence is a pink-faced, plump baby glugg, crawling on the grass, digging in the dirt all by himself.
Ohglo can't take his eyes off the creature and sneak up as close as he can. The baby see him, smile, and crawl over to him. The baby press his face against the fence right under Ohglo's nose.
"Isn't he cute, Gok?" Ohglo say.
"Cute? Cute?" Gok mock. "Shit face baby glugg cub. Let's get out of here, Ohglo. Glugg like leopard when it come to cubs."
Ohglo can't resist. He pick up the baby in his arms and hug him. The baby look, smile some more. Then the baby scream. Scream so loud he scare Ohglo. Ohglo drop him in the dirt. Baby scream some more. Dark-face female glugg just inside the door run out, see baby, Ohglo, Gok. She scream. Ohglo and Gok high-tail it out of there.
They run like the desert wind, sober now, through the grasses along the horse trail, past the range cattle. It not long before they hear the roar of a putt-putt behind them. The Land Rover get so close Ohglo can see a pink-faced female glugg driving. Then she stop. She shoot a gun at them. Blam! Blam!
The shots miss, and Ohglo and Gok reach the the forest in time to watch the Land Rover give up, turn around, and go back.
They stop to catch their breath. "Whew! That was close!" say Ohglo.
"I wanna go back to the oah!" Gok whine.
"It be all right. We safe now," Ohglo tell him.
"Oh yeah? What that, then?"
"What?"
"That noise, Ohglo. Can't you hear?"
Ohglo listen. "Dogs! You win, Gok, let's go. Uh...which way?"
"You don't know? You can't smell?"
Ohglo hang his head.
"You a stupid glugg, Ohglo. You can't hear. You can't smell. You only good for trouble. Follow me."
They run until they tired, rest, and run some more. The dogs keep coming and coming.
Soon the dogs are upon them. "Dogs can't climb trees!" say Ohglo.
"They can't?"
Ohglo and Gok scoot up the nearest tree and wait. The lead dog, a red setter, stop to sniff at the base of the tree. Ohglo- Gok drop on the dog's neck. Gok bite. Ohglo reach around and grab the dog's balls. Then he pick up a rock and crack the dog's skull. Blood gush out all over them. The dog shudder, and die.
"You not so dumb," Gok say. "Shall we eat it?"
"Naw, we better go. More dogs coming, then gluggs on horses." Ohglo and Gok run on. They hear the other dogs squeal and whimper over their dead comrade.
When they reach the oah, it is dark, and the dogs silent at last. Each of the thirty or so baboons is sprawled out on its own branch of one of the fever trees in the grove. Some already asleep. Some moan softly at the moon.
Smak snarl at Ohglo and Gok. She climb off her tree and sniff at them. She look like she trying to think of them as grown, can't, give up. She clap each of them sharply behind the ear. Gok stagger. Ohglo fall over.
"I smell all the trouble you been up to, you rotten cubs! You been running scared a 1-2-3 long time. You better not of stirred up any gluggs, hear?"
"Oh no, Smak," say Ohglo.
Gok eyes droop.
Ohglo and Gok find a tree to themselves at the edge of the grove. They la-la-la, but all they picture is running, running, running, blood running out of the dog, could of been them.
21.
At sunrise the next morning, the oah startled awake by the barking of nearby dogs.
Alarms are sounded, "ek-ek-ek," all over the sleeping area. Ak bellow for disciplined retreat, but there is some panic. The smaks have to fetch their cubs and carry them clinging for life to the fur of the smaks' bellies.
Before the oah get under way, the horses come charging into their midst. There are three horses ridden by gluggs, the Farmer and two others. Ak howl, "Every monkey for himself," the only realistic strategy.
The strategy work. The monkeys disappear one by one into the dense upper branches of the fever trees where the birds live.
Shots are fired. One shot whistle past Ohglo's ear. But the monkeys too quick for the gluggs. After circling the area for awhile, the gluggs gallop away.
The oah re-form gingerly after some time. Smaks count their cubs. Suddenly the forest stillness shattered by wails of sorrow. It is Smak. "My cub! My cub!" she scream. Her youngest, Titi, missing.
The baboons search the area.
Ohglo himself find her. She all flattened by hoofbeats. Her guts hang out. He throw up.
Smak clasp the little dead cub to her bosom and lope away from the oah. The oah begin to retreat from the path of the horses. Smak follow along just inside the range of her smell. From time to time she climb the tallest of trees, still clutching her dead cub. From the top of the tree, she howl at the sky.
Ak stride up to Ohglo and glare at him with murder in his eyes. With one look, he let Ohglo know that he blame him for all the trouble, for the oah's having to move, to migrate, and for the death of the cub -- Ak figure he probably the cub's father. He gape a threatening yawn in Ohglo's face. His pointed teeth gleam. He could bite off Ohglo's arm, head, leg, or any part of him. Without words, he send the message, "You the cause of all this! You better watch out, glugg!"
22.
Ak spend his time again pissing on rocks to mark the new boundries of the shrinking oah-oah-oah-plotz. A bitterness take hold of him.
He forced to humiliate himself before his ancient enemy, Olly Big-ears, the chimpanzee and his gang of stupid, uncivilized thugs.
He go up to the chimps' smelly sleeping trees alone, he tell the oah later. "I stick my ass up in the air so Big-ears know I come in peace. I wait forever before Big-shit would see me. I simper and whine at him. 'Glugg, glugg, glugg,' I keep saying. He know what I want. He heard the guns. Me and Olly hate each other, but we hate gluggs worse. Olly raise his hand toward a little speck of his forest. We can hide out there if we need to. At least there's oah-oah-oah-oah-oah."
oah-oah-oah-oah-oah: water.
23.
Monkeys don't grieve for long. Not over cubs. Too many die. Moan a day, and that's it. Make another one.
It not so much that Ohglo is forgiven. It more like the incident with the Farmer and the dead cub are forgotten. Bristled fur still arise between Ak and Ohglo, but Ak hardly remember what his anger about. Ohglo do not remind him.
For himself, Ohglo begin to make up stories about his adventures to tell the younger baboons.
He add many stories to the basic lore of the oah. The stories start out simple, such as: tzzz oah-oah-oah-oah glugg pop. This translate into the images of la-la-la as an emotional autobiography -- what it feel like, by and large, to be a glugg living among the baboons. Stroking each of the cubs gently as he repeat his tale, he give them love, ambivalence, fear, confusion, humor.
By the time he get to the details, his zeal go to his head. The six calves he once stole become a whole herd of cattle. The Farmer he once managed to escape from and leave in his own booby trap is killed by Ohglo in the retelling. The glugg baby he once picked up is "kidnapped" according to the legend.
But even the smallest baboon cub know that all stories are lies, and all the more eagerly do they believe them.
Ohglo's fame as a story-teller come to rival his notoriety as a trouble-maker.
He might be even more famous, but now that the oah-plotz is smaller, the oah get to fewer 1-2-3-oah-oah-oahs.
1-2-3-oah-oah-oah: gathering of baboon troops.
But every other full moon or so, Ak's oah do make it to where the other oahs gather by the cliffs to argue.
Ohglo and Gok dream of busting out of Ak's oah and building one of their own.
They listen to the chatter now. Some of the other young adults are thinking too.
There is a tough female name-of Min who is collecting a following. A female baboon leading an oah, is rare, and usually happen only when the male ak suddenly die.
Min call her idea the Germ theory. She preach that at the center of the mind is a teensy-weensy spark, the first and last germ. Ping! is the word she squeal for it. She believe that this germ in each living thing, the center, live beyond death and pass through the food chain from one being to another.
"The spark at the center of you is a teensy weensy hole that time pass through," Min sing with a far off look in her eye. "You pass through it yourself whe you die. You burn up in a slow fire. Your become dirt. Then you reborn as something else. The spark at the center live on. If a worm eat your spark, you become a worm. If a flower suck it up, you become a flower."
Ohglo and Gok gaze at her in wonder. Min have bright grey eyes that beam like moons from under her deep, heavy brow. Around her hot pink face are tufted side-burns of the softest fur, white, speckled with gold and olive brown. Her snout slope gracefully down to her nostrils, delicately flared. Her mouth have a thoughtful tension to it. Her neck is soft and cudly, like the feathers of a baby bird.
Ohglo and Gok both fall out of their heads over her. Her ideas are like a splash in a spring-fed stream.
One pre-dawn morning when the sun is just a pale memory at the edge of the sky, while the 1-2-3-oah-oah-oah still snore on the crags of the cliff, Ohglo wake up thirsty from a dream about sand. He climb down from his perch next to Gok and go down to the water-hole for a drink. The full moon is setting, blue and elephant-sized. Ohglo stare at the moon. "That's no face, that's no baboon," he think to himself. "Ak wrong."
He gaze at his own reflection in the water-hole. "She'll never love a flat-faced freak like me," he whine.
Then suddenly a fine long face appear just above his reflected in the moonlit water. Ohglo start. He lose his balance. He almost fall in, but the baboon grab him.
"Min!" he yell.
Min giggle and slap her sofly calloused paw over his mouth to shut him up. She hold him in her forelimbs. Ohglo hesitate, then hug back. It feel fine to be close with Min. "La-la-la?" she coo.
"La-la-la" Ohglo answer.
They hobble forelimb in forelimb into the brush away form eyeshot of the other nosey baboons.
Ohglo feel Gok awake at his perch, watching them.
Ohglo-Min la-la-la.
They lie together in the grass, almost -- but not quite -- touching, an electric-arc gap between them. The wispy, rainbow- hued tendrils of their dreams ooze out of their pores and intertwine. Ohglo and Min as separate beings drift out of their bodies and scatter in the breeze like the head of a pregnant dandelion. At the very end of each of their dreams are the two sparks at the center of things, the first and last germs, the teensy weensy holes.
"Fireflies!" Ohglo laugh.
"What?"
"Fireflies! Your sparks look just like fireflies."
"Oh. They do., don't they? I like that. Fireflies! The firefly at the center of things. You so clever, Ohglo!" She give his flat face a lick with her tongue.
As the two fireflies flutter above it, the bottom fall out of the water-hole. The fireflies suddenly sucked into the dark cavity and Ohglo-Min dream web sucked and sucked down with them through the earth.
End-of-world.
Cringing with terror, they keep on falling through. Down, down, down they go, faster and faster. Just when they about to vanish in the hot molten core of the earth, they land with a soft plop on a cool, quiet rock, the moon. Ohglo-Min awash in cool white fire of moonlight.
End-of-world-but.
They cling togther in the unearthly quiet. Ever so softly, their joint being flutter back to earth. A rush of warmth charge them up and re-ignite the fire that burn warm inside their bellies.
Min stand up and stick her fiery red rear in the air by Ohglo's face. Beaming below her ass-hole are the magnificent blushing red callouses, smooth, hard and hairless, bulging lips to her vaginal mouth. Ohglo press his face against the swelling, tasting then lapping up the sweet and juicy nectar.
All-over trembling, Ohglo mount Min from the rear. Min turn her head, bite his shoulder, and scramble forward, giggling. He try again. She bite again, her fangs drawing blood this time. Again he jump her. The time she gnaw him gently, but she let him stay and slip and slide inside her.
Ohglo-Min la-la-la-la-la. By the pale light of the moon, Ohglo-Min fuck.
They lie together as one being and watch the sun rise.
Baboons don't reckon time in years. At the equator, there's two seasons, rainy and dry, both hot. The sun is a baboon that come out in the day and sleep at night.
Baboons measure time when they need to by months. The changes of the moon in a month bigger than the little shifts of the sun in a year. And there's the monthly flow of blood that baboon females, like gluggs, are famous for. But they rarely count more than the eight months or so of a pregnancy. Age is reckoned in general by size: small, medium, and large.
For her own cub, a mother might refine the measure more closely, with stages, like baby, infant, cub, youth, and adult. Even so, Smak do notice that Ohglo taking much too long to grow up. Often she sneer to Ohglo, "Gluggs can stay babies forever. We not rich like the gluggs. I got my own cubs to mother. I got no time for you, Gluggikins. You have to mother yourself."
So she push Ohglo away from her and make him fend for himself when he only about eight glugg years old -- about medium for him.
His buddy Gok about six in glugg years, he nearly grown. He not as big as the adult males, but he can do all the things that they can do. Smak and the other grown-ups treat Gok and Ohglo more and more as if they were adults.
But Gok and Ohglo still play like cubs.
One day Ohglo and Gok wander from the oah. They hunt Leopard, ek-ek-ek. Secretly, they hope not to find him.
They do find a leopard cub up in an umbrella tree at the edge of one of the many small forests near the oah-oah-oah-plotz. The leopard flash his eyes in silence, all ready to pounce on Gok. The leopard snarl. Gok holler "ek-ek-ek!" and also "Smak!" like little cub.
Ohglo talk to the leopard. "Hey Leopard!" Ohglo shout, waving his arms. "You stupid fool! Don't you see I am meatier than my buddy here? And, if you pick me to eat up, you won't have to leap down from the tree and risk hurting yourself. I will come up to you!" Ohglo scoot up the tree, screeching and hooting all the way. When he reach the limb where the leopard perched, the leopard squeal like a kitty cat, leap off the limb the wrong way, and vanish into the forest.
Gok glad to be alive, but he look at Ohglo funny. That not the way you are supposed to hunt leopard.
To show how brave they are, Ohglo and Gok chase the leopard through the forest. But they know this leopard only a cub and have a fierce mother close by. So after awhile they lose its trail.
They rest beside a stream. The stream seem familiar to Ohglo, but he don't remember why. They splash in the cool water.
They la-la-la.
la-la-la: to groom, grooming, story-telling, dream-sharing, painting each other's dreams.
They lie close together, almost -- but not quite -- touching, an electric-arc gap between them. Gok gently stroke each of Ohglo's hairs. Ohglo stroke each of Gok's hairs. The Dream ooze out of their pores in rainbow-hued tendrills, and rise up between them. The tendrils join in a cloud, the colors combine. What each of them see is a golden flame engulfing their bodies, slowly, slowly consuming them in light. Ohglo-Gok disintegrate into shards of light, merge together, and dissolve into the fire, which is warm, but not hot. Their souls rise to the sky in wisps of violet smoke. A dream of love. A dream of joy. A dream of death.
Ohglo notice that out of a pocket of fur under Gok's belly, his little red penis poke out. Ohglo rub. Gok purr, eyes go glassy.
Ohglo's penis also grow stiff. Gok giggle and twist around to lick it with his tongue. He close his mouth, and Ohglo feel Gok's dagger-like teeth against him. Ohglo jerk away. Then Ohglo stick his rear-end up in the air as he seen Smak do so often. Gok pant and slobber. Gok mount Ohglo from the rear, slip his penis up Ohglo's asshole. Gok-Ohglo la-la-la-la-la.
la-la-la-la-la: fuck.
Afterwards, they lie quiet in the sun. Ohglo thirst. He reach down to drink from the stream. Water turn to blood. Blood, blood, 1-2-3 blood. A rumbling come on up from deep in the stream bed. The earth shaking. Ohglo-Gok start to run. Before they know it, Ohglo-Gok find they on opposite sides of the stream. The stream open up between them. Their hair stand on end. From out of the depths come swarms of insects: whiteflies, white ants, white termites, white moths, dragonflies, mantises, cicadas, locusts, rising to the sky like souls of the dead. End-of-world.
Gok hear the thunder first. Ohglo take longer to hear, but soon he hear it too. This not thunder from the bed of the stream. This not thunder from the sky. This thunder from the hoofbeats of horses charging through the underbrush.
The two of them run and run away. They meet again on the same side of the stream and scamper up a tree, an umbrella tree. They see several horses ridden by gluggs, glugg-gluggs.
The Farmer! The Farmer whose cattle Ohglo stole moons and moons ago! In the distance Ohglo-Gok see the farm with so many yummy things to eat. Ohglo and Gok freeze behind the leaves and pretend to be plover nests.
"Let's go back to the oah," Gok whisper, fear in his eyes.
"Mmm," say Ohglo, thinking.
When the rustling of the horses through the brush stop, Gok pick one of the capparis fruits that grow on a vine inside the umbrella tree. The capparis fruit look like an apple with a tough skin.
"Look!" Gok cry. The skin of the capparis slightly shrivelled. This mean the fruit inside fermented.
Ohglo and Gok eagerly suck up the mushy capparis wine. As the tree sway in the afternoon breeze, they filled with new courage.
"You think what I think?" ask Ohglo.
"Huh?" say Gok.
"The Farmer up here. The Farmer not at farm."
"Huh?"
"Le's go to the farm, Gok, see wha we can see!" Ohglo slur.
"You crazy, Ohglo." They stumble down the tree and steal down the horse trail, too drunk to be sneaky. They hide in the tall elephant grass.
They sneak up noisily on the house. The house still. The house huge, white, made of the insides of trees, with columns in the front. Many windows. Around the house is a gl green clipped lawn. Around the lawn, a white fence made of pointed sticks like spears. Ohglo and Gok hide behind the fence and peek through with wide-open eyes.
gl green: wet, medium green. Monkeys have 1-2-3 words for the color green.
Just inside the fence is a pink-faced, plump baby glugg, crawling on the grass, digging in the dirt all by himself.
Ohglo can't take his eyes off the creature and sneak up as close as he can. The baby see him, smile, and crawl over to him. The baby press his face against the fence right under Ohglo's nose.
"Isn't he cute, Gok?" Ohglo say.
"Cute? Cute?" Gok mock. "Shit face baby glugg cub. Let's get out of here, Ohglo. Glugg like leopard when it come to cubs."
Ohglo can't resist. He pick up the baby in his arms and hug him. The baby look, smile some more. Then the baby scream. Scream so loud he scare Ohglo. Ohglo drop him in the dirt. Baby scream some more. Dark-face female glugg just inside the door run out, see baby, Ohglo, Gok. She scream. Ohglo and Gok high-tail it out of there.
They run like the desert wind, sober now, through the grasses along the horse trail, past the range cattle. It not long before they hear the roar of a putt-putt behind them. The Land Rover get so close Ohglo can see a pink-faced female glugg driving. Then she stop. She shoot a gun at them. Blam! Blam!
The shots miss, and Ohglo and Gok reach the the forest in time to watch the Land Rover give up, turn around, and go back.
They stop to catch their breath. "Whew! That was close!" say Ohglo.
"I wanna go back to the oah!" Gok whine.
"It be all right. We safe now," Ohglo tell him.
"Oh yeah? What that, then?"
"What?"
"That noise, Ohglo. Can't you hear?"
Ohglo listen. "Dogs! You win, Gok, let's go. Uh...which way?"
"You don't know? You can't smell?"
Ohglo hang his head.
"You a stupid glugg, Ohglo. You can't hear. You can't smell. You only good for trouble. Follow me."
They run until they tired, rest, and run some more. The dogs keep coming and coming.
Soon the dogs are upon them. "Dogs can't climb trees!" say Ohglo.
"They can't?"
Ohglo and Gok scoot up the nearest tree and wait. The lead dog, a red setter, stop to sniff at the base of the tree. Ohglo- Gok drop on the dog's neck. Gok bite. Ohglo reach around and grab the dog's balls. Then he pick up a rock and crack the dog's skull. Blood gush out all over them. The dog shudder, and die.
"You not so dumb," Gok say. "Shall we eat it?"
"Naw, we better go. More dogs coming, then gluggs on horses." Ohglo and Gok run on. They hear the other dogs squeal and whimper over their dead comrade.
When they reach the oah, it is dark, and the dogs silent at last. Each of the thirty or so baboons is sprawled out on its own branch of one of the fever trees in the grove. Some already asleep. Some moan softly at the moon.
Smak snarl at Ohglo and Gok. She climb off her tree and sniff at them. She look like she trying to think of them as grown, can't, give up. She clap each of them sharply behind the ear. Gok stagger. Ohglo fall over.
"I smell all the trouble you been up to, you rotten cubs! You been running scared a 1-2-3 long time. You better not of stirred up any gluggs, hear?"
"Oh no, Smak," say Ohglo.
Gok eyes droop.
Ohglo and Gok find a tree to themselves at the edge of the grove. They la-la-la, but all they picture is running, running, running, blood running out of the dog, could of been them.
21.
At sunrise the next morning, the oah startled awake by the barking of nearby dogs.
Alarms are sounded, "ek-ek-ek," all over the sleeping area. Ak bellow for disciplined retreat, but there is some panic. The smaks have to fetch their cubs and carry them clinging for life to the fur of the smaks' bellies.
Before the oah get under way, the horses come charging into their midst. There are three horses ridden by gluggs, the Farmer and two others. Ak howl, "Every monkey for himself," the only realistic strategy.
The strategy work. The monkeys disappear one by one into the dense upper branches of the fever trees where the birds live.
Shots are fired. One shot whistle past Ohglo's ear. But the monkeys too quick for the gluggs. After circling the area for awhile, the gluggs gallop away.
The oah re-form gingerly after some time. Smaks count their cubs. Suddenly the forest stillness shattered by wails of sorrow. It is Smak. "My cub! My cub!" she scream. Her youngest, Titi, missing.
The baboons search the area.
Ohglo himself find her. She all flattened by hoofbeats. Her guts hang out. He throw up.
Smak clasp the little dead cub to her bosom and lope away from the oah. The oah begin to retreat from the path of the horses. Smak follow along just inside the range of her smell. From time to time she climb the tallest of trees, still clutching her dead cub. From the top of the tree, she howl at the sky.
Ak stride up to Ohglo and glare at him with murder in his eyes. With one look, he let Ohglo know that he blame him for all the trouble, for the oah's having to move, to migrate, and for the death of the cub -- Ak figure he probably the cub's father. He gape a threatening yawn in Ohglo's face. His pointed teeth gleam. He could bite off Ohglo's arm, head, leg, or any part of him. Without words, he send the message, "You the cause of all this! You better watch out, glugg!"
22.
Ak spend his time again pissing on rocks to mark the new boundries of the shrinking oah-oah-oah-plotz. A bitterness take hold of him.
He forced to humiliate himself before his ancient enemy, Olly Big-ears, the chimpanzee and his gang of stupid, uncivilized thugs.
He go up to the chimps' smelly sleeping trees alone, he tell the oah later. "I stick my ass up in the air so Big-ears know I come in peace. I wait forever before Big-shit would see me. I simper and whine at him. 'Glugg, glugg, glugg,' I keep saying. He know what I want. He heard the guns. Me and Olly hate each other, but we hate gluggs worse. Olly raise his hand toward a little speck of his forest. We can hide out there if we need to. At least there's oah-oah-oah-oah-oah."
oah-oah-oah-oah-oah: water.
23.
Monkeys don't grieve for long. Not over cubs. Too many die. Moan a day, and that's it. Make another one.
It not so much that Ohglo is forgiven. It more like the incident with the Farmer and the dead cub are forgotten. Bristled fur still arise between Ak and Ohglo, but Ak hardly remember what his anger about. Ohglo do not remind him.
For himself, Ohglo begin to make up stories about his adventures to tell the younger baboons.
He add many stories to the basic lore of the oah. The stories start out simple, such as: tzzz oah-oah-oah-oah glugg pop. This translate into the images of la-la-la as an emotional autobiography -- what it feel like, by and large, to be a glugg living among the baboons. Stroking each of the cubs gently as he repeat his tale, he give them love, ambivalence, fear, confusion, humor.
By the time he get to the details, his zeal go to his head. The six calves he once stole become a whole herd of cattle. The Farmer he once managed to escape from and leave in his own booby trap is killed by Ohglo in the retelling. The glugg baby he once picked up is "kidnapped" according to the legend.
But even the smallest baboon cub know that all stories are lies, and all the more eagerly do they believe them.
Ohglo's fame as a story-teller come to rival his notoriety as a trouble-maker.
He might be even more famous, but now that the oah-plotz is smaller, the oah get to fewer 1-2-3-oah-oah-oahs.
1-2-3-oah-oah-oah: gathering of baboon troops.
But every other full moon or so, Ak's oah do make it to where the other oahs gather by the cliffs to argue.
Ohglo and Gok dream of busting out of Ak's oah and building one of their own.
They listen to the chatter now. Some of the other young adults are thinking too.
There is a tough female name-of Min who is collecting a following. A female baboon leading an oah, is rare, and usually happen only when the male ak suddenly die.
Min call her idea the Germ theory. She preach that at the center of the mind is a teensy-weensy spark, the first and last germ. Ping! is the word she squeal for it. She believe that this germ in each living thing, the center, live beyond death and pass through the food chain from one being to another.
"The spark at the center of you is a teensy weensy hole that time pass through," Min sing with a far off look in her eye. "You pass through it yourself whe you die. You burn up in a slow fire. Your become dirt. Then you reborn as something else. The spark at the center live on. If a worm eat your spark, you become a worm. If a flower suck it up, you become a flower."
Ohglo and Gok gaze at her in wonder. Min have bright grey eyes that beam like moons from under her deep, heavy brow. Around her hot pink face are tufted side-burns of the softest fur, white, speckled with gold and olive brown. Her snout slope gracefully down to her nostrils, delicately flared. Her mouth have a thoughtful tension to it. Her neck is soft and cudly, like the feathers of a baby bird.
Ohglo and Gok both fall out of their heads over her. Her ideas are like a splash in a spring-fed stream.
One pre-dawn morning when the sun is just a pale memory at the edge of the sky, while the 1-2-3-oah-oah-oah still snore on the crags of the cliff, Ohglo wake up thirsty from a dream about sand. He climb down from his perch next to Gok and go down to the water-hole for a drink. The full moon is setting, blue and elephant-sized. Ohglo stare at the moon. "That's no face, that's no baboon," he think to himself. "Ak wrong."
He gaze at his own reflection in the water-hole. "She'll never love a flat-faced freak like me," he whine.
Then suddenly a fine long face appear just above his reflected in the moonlit water. Ohglo start. He lose his balance. He almost fall in, but the baboon grab him.
"Min!" he yell.
Min giggle and slap her sofly calloused paw over his mouth to shut him up. She hold him in her forelimbs. Ohglo hesitate, then hug back. It feel fine to be close with Min. "La-la-la?" she coo.
"La-la-la" Ohglo answer.
They hobble forelimb in forelimb into the brush away form eyeshot of the other nosey baboons.
Ohglo feel Gok awake at his perch, watching them.
Ohglo-Min la-la-la.
They lie together in the grass, almost -- but not quite -- touching, an electric-arc gap between them. The wispy, rainbow- hued tendrils of their dreams ooze out of their pores and intertwine. Ohglo and Min as separate beings drift out of their bodies and scatter in the breeze like the head of a pregnant dandelion. At the very end of each of their dreams are the two sparks at the center of things, the first and last germs, the teensy weensy holes.
"Fireflies!" Ohglo laugh.
"What?"
"Fireflies! Your sparks look just like fireflies."
"Oh. They do., don't they? I like that. Fireflies! The firefly at the center of things. You so clever, Ohglo!" She give his flat face a lick with her tongue.
As the two fireflies flutter above it, the bottom fall out of the water-hole. The fireflies suddenly sucked into the dark cavity and Ohglo-Min dream web sucked and sucked down with them through the earth.
End-of-world.
Cringing with terror, they keep on falling through. Down, down, down they go, faster and faster. Just when they about to vanish in the hot molten core of the earth, they land with a soft plop on a cool, quiet rock, the moon. Ohglo-Min awash in cool white fire of moonlight.
End-of-world-but.
They cling togther in the unearthly quiet. Ever so softly, their joint being flutter back to earth. A rush of warmth charge them up and re-ignite the fire that burn warm inside their bellies.
Min stand up and stick her fiery red rear in the air by Ohglo's face. Beaming below her ass-hole are the magnificent blushing red callouses, smooth, hard and hairless, bulging lips to her vaginal mouth. Ohglo press his face against the swelling, tasting then lapping up the sweet and juicy nectar.
All-over trembling, Ohglo mount Min from the rear. Min turn her head, bite his shoulder, and scramble forward, giggling. He try again. She bite again, her fangs drawing blood this time. Again he jump her. The time she gnaw him gently, but she let him stay and slip and slide inside her.
Ohglo-Min la-la-la-la-la. By the pale light of the moon, Ohglo-Min fuck.
They lie together as one being and watch the sun rise.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
SEVENTEEN: Ohglo Small
13.
Once a monkey cub name-of Oah-oah-oah-oah-glugg, Ohglo for short. Ohglo roam with his furry buddies down by the stream near the oah-oah-oah's sleeping tree.
oah: I, me.
oah-oah: you.
oah-oah-oah: troop, family, we.
oah-oah-oah-oah: friends, friendly beings, monkey, moon.
oah-oah-oah-oah-oah: life, spirit, water.
Concentric circles in a stone-struck pond.
The cubs play a game like hide-and-seek: every monkey hide and then all wait to see who give himself away first.
Ohglo hide in a hollow log just out of the water. Ohglo thirst. Ohglo reach into the stream with his paw to scoop some water into his mouth. The water turn to blood. Blood, blood, 1-2- 3 blood taste in his mouth. Stream open into a canyon. Out of the canyon swarm a host of insects -- white moths, white flying ants, white flies, locusts, cicadas, dragon flies -- all rise to the sky like souls of the dead. Ohglo spit out the bitter blood. Dazzling light from the spot where his spittle strike blind him. The stream turn to white sand. The sun glare off of it and burn his eyes.
Then Ohglo see a big bird, an ibis standing on a rock, looking at him, it's plumage all brilliant white except for the tips of four outer wing feathers, which are black. Its long stork legs are orange-red. Its long bill curve down from between its eyes, itself the shape of a scant crescent moon.
Ohglo say, "Hi, Ibis."
Ibis say, "Now you have seen it. One day you will fly like me over the great, great, 1-2-3 great water to join your own kind again, the gluggs, and warn them of what is to come."
glugg: human.
"Oh," Ohglo say. He do not really believe this bird.
14.
Ohglo travel with the troop, which the baboons call their oah-oah-oah, or oah for short. Baboons shorten all their words.
Ak is the biggest so Ak is the leader. Ak one-two times bigger than Smak. Ak have big old olive brown crinkly mane like lion. He have pink face with a thick, thoughtful brow, and a long snout like a dog. His mouth filled with many shiney white, sharp teeth.
Ohglo fear Ak. Ohglo wish he have a big mane and sharp teeth.
ak: father, bully, leader, sun, devil.
The oah travel every day at sunrise, looking for food. Ak go first with his brothers and cousins Ako, Hok, Dop, the scouts. Scouts climb up the trees here and there looking out for enemies: Leopard and Glugg.
Smak follow with Ohglo and the other cubs, with Smok and Smik, Ak's other females and with Sako, Smuk, and Sopi, their sisters.
Ohglo slow. Ohglo can't keep up with other cubs and have to ride on Smak. He small for a glugg. But he do load Smak down. Other cubs tease him. Glugg, glugg, glugg, nya, nya, nya.
Cubs wrestle Ohglo, bite and scratch. Ohglo cry. Ohglo's eyes gush with water. Monkeys never cry. Monkeys never see eyes gush with water. Monkeys suck Ohglo's cheeks for water.
Monkeys don't worship much, but they worship water. Savannah of oah-oah-oah-plotz is dry for much of year.
Oah-oah-oah-plotz is not large. The oah cover the whole habitat in 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3 suns.
The oah stump the plains, hills, and forest of oah-oah-oah-plotz searching for water, for figs, for banana, for various roots and berries, for the capparis vine that grow in the umbrella trees, for termites and ants, for ibis, ostrich, and plover eggs, and sometimes small game like rock hares, steenbok, dik-dik, and klipspringer. There 1-2-3, 1-2-3 foods to learn, and what there is change all around from the full moon to the dark moon. While they learn what to eat and what not to eat, the cubs pull up the grass and chomp the meaty corms. They also listen for
the dance of the bees.
First time Ohglo see cubs find honeybee, cubs squeal and chatter. Cubs surround flower where bee buzzing and watch. Fuzzy baboon heads twist and turn to follow bee's dance.
Cubs follow bee to hive. Sneak up. Gok, the biggest cub, crawl up right under the hive which hang from the limb of baobab tree, bark real loud and hit the hive with stick. Ohglo watch bees swarm. Ohglo watch cubs flee. Ohglo too busy watching to flee. Bees catch Ohglo. Bees sting. Sting, sting, sting, 1-2-3 sting. Ohglo holler, 1-2-3 holler.
That night at dusk the oah come to rest in a grove of fever trees. While the cubs wrestle, the big baboons la-la-la.
la-la-la: groom, grooming, story-telling, dream-sharing, painting one another's dreams.
Smak la-la-la Ohglo for first time, smoothing over every strand of his hair, picking lice and soothing beestings. La-la-la excite every nerve and make brilliant pictures in the mind like wide-awake dreams. The pictures are visions, stories, folktales.
Baboon folktales very short. Here are some of the tales Smak la-la-la Ohglo:
The most popular tale is tzzz pop. Two words. "Once upon a time, the end." Smak tell this one over and over.
tzzz f-f-f pop is a ghost story. It doesn't sound like much, but when told along with heavy grooming, a young monkey see vivid images of old monkeys dying, dissolving into the dust, and then rising to the sky in wafts of violet smoke.
Ohglo's favorite is the love story, tzzz la-la-la-la-la pop. The imagery of this story show Ak chasing Smak, Smak sticking her rosey rear-end in the air, and Ak 1-2-3 fucking her. Baboons don't censor their stories for children they way gluggs do.
15.
As Ohglo grow, he learn baboon ways. Every month, at the time of the full moon, is the 1-2-3-oah-oah-oah, or the gathering of the oahs, along a bank of cliffs. Whatever baboon troops are anywhere near the cliffs come together there to argue and party. Such gatherings have close to a three hundred baboons, and the noise keep Ohglo awake all night at first.
The males and females argue in separate bunches, but they both argue about the same thing: the nature of the universe.
Ohglo listen to these frightening arguments, which often as not, end in all out brawls. As time go on, he come to understand that each oah have a different theory as to the nature of the universe. These different theories are the reason there are so many different oahs. If a leader (ak) can't convince his smak's relatives of his particular theory, he will organize his own oah from among the disgruntled baboons from the other oahs.
Ak and his followers are identified with the doctrine that "everything is a baboon." An oah is a baboon with Ak himself as the literal head. The moon is obviously a baboon as any fool can see just by looking at its face. By extension, the sun must be a baboon, with a ruthless, evil streak ("nothing but a baboon could be so mean," Ak preach). The earth too is a baboon with water for blood and grass for hair.
"The universe (oah-oah-oah-oah-oah-oah) is a series of baboons inside baboons," Ak would bellow, la-la-la-ing these ideas with whoever will listen. "Concentric baboons in a stone-struck baboon," he joke, butchering a traditional baboon saying. The "proof" of this notion is simple: "Look, you dummies, if you look straight into a still pond what do you see?" Most baboons know the answer, but Ak sometimes lead the denser ones to the
water-hole so they can see for themselves.
When Ohglo first understand this sermon of howls, grunts, and barks, he sneak off his sleeping rock down to the water-hole and look straight into it. What he see -- that he do not look at all like the other baboons -- so frighten him in its impossibility that he forget it right there and decide once and for all that Ak is right, everything is a baboon.
But Ak too can see that there is something different about Ohglo that contradict his concentric baboon thesis. To Ak, Ohglo is a baboon and he is not a baboon at the same time, a stubborn fact that fly in the face of theory. As a consequence, Ak hate Ohglo.
Fortunately, none of the other oahs notice that Ak harbor a living contradiction in his own oah. They are too busy defending their own theories. One oah that once gave Ak a terrific drubbing philosophically and literally, believe that the universe is a constant struggle between the force of water (good) and the force of sand (bad). Still another oah believe that the phallic banana tree create the universe, and no baboon of that oah eat bananas. When the ak of this oah die of starvation, the others quickly find other beliefs and join other oahs.
Smak and the other females of the oah stick up for Ohglo against Ak. Smak believe the concentric baboon thesis as strongly as the next monkey, but she simply accept Ohglo as an odd-looking baboon.
Of course she know he is a glugg, everyone know that. The question is, are the gluggs another form of baboon or something quite different?
Smak and the other females have their own bone to pick with Ak, and sometimes it is Ak's bones that get picked. They grudgingly accept Ak's leadership on account of his size, but they hate his schplurtz, a word that is wet with spit when sneered as only Smak can sneer it.
schplurtz: arrogance.
One time Ohglo lie awake in his fever tree and listen to Ak and Smak argue about him.
"He go," say Ak.
"He stay," say Smak.
"He go!" say Ak.
"He stay!" say Smak.
"HE GO!" say Ak.
"HE STAY!" say Smak.
"HE GO!!" say Ak.
Smak smack Ak. Smack! with her paw. Smik, Smok, and Smuk all jump on Ak.
Ak beat up bad. Smak won't nurse Ak's wounds, won't let Smik, Smok, Smuk or any other female nurse him either.
Ohglo nurse Ak, lick his sores. Ohglo hate to lick sores. But Ohglo think if he lick Ak sores, maybe Ak will accept him into the oah.
After three suns of Ohglo licking his sores, neither of them saying a word, Ak finally say "Ohglo, maybe you baboon after all, even if you is funny looking." Ohglo sigh and smile. Then he go wash out mouth in the water-hole.
16.
Here are some of the monkey proverbs that Ak picture to Ohglo when Ohglo lick his sores:
Nothing from nothing is nothing.
Fair is fair.
Life is life.
Life is tough.
Forget it!
I'll dream your dreams if you'll dream mine.
Life is death's dream.
To see the truth, you have to look up your own asshole. That's why you have an imagination.
17.
One day Ohglo stomping about with the oah when he come to a stream same-as old stream, trees same-as old trees, paths same-as old paths. He try to remember what his glugg-smak, Ma, look like, but he can't.
He do remember something else. He follow his nose down a familiar path to a spot he is sure is same-as where the old Luo village was. No village. Instead, there's a great big farm with a great big house, rows and rows of vines hanging with ground-nuts, fields and fields of pineapples shining sweetly in the sun, and 1-2-3 cattle.
Ohglo rush to tell Ak. He shout at Ak excitedly in his pidgin-monkey something like "Glugg-grub!" This sound like the monkey word for "human food." But it also sound like the monkey insult "you eat human shit." Ak clap Ohglo sharply on the ear.
Ohglo often have this trouble with monkey language, in which words, being few, have so many different meanings.
Ohglo try to grab Ak's paw and lead him to his discovery, but Ak brush him aside roughly. The idea that a glugg cub could know anything is ridiculous. Gluggs can't think abstractly.
After much wheedling and jibber-jabbering, Ohglo finally convince Smak to follow him. He drag her complaining to a hillock overlooking the vast farm. Smak see enough food to keep the oah in the gravy for the next fifty years. She yawn in amazement.
"Glugg-gluggs!" she swear.
glugg-gluggs: pink-faced Invaders, white people.
When Smak tell the others what Ohglo have discovered, Ohglo become a hero. The other cubs hug kiss, and la-la-la him. And they don't pick on him for the rest of the day.
At dawn the next morning, the oah descend on the glugg-glugg farm. At the first field they come to, the baboons fill up their arms with pineapples and drag them away to safety. But Ohglo's mouth water for beef.
Ohglo sneak away from the others and into the field where the cattle graze. He find five of the plumpest calves and herd them together. He rip a hole in the wooden fence. He grab on tight to the calves' tails. Then, with a piercing cry, he stampede the other cows through the hole in the fence, out to the wild savannah.
Ohglo pull his calves by the tails backwards, confusing any trail he might leave, and hiding from the view of the glugg-gluggs. In the distance near the house, he can see the glugg-gluggs scurry about in the clouds of dust raised by the stampeding cattle. He see them mounting horses and putt-putts, and raising their own clouds of dust to chase the cattle.
putt-putts: Land Rovers.
It is dusk before Ohglo's awkward progress finally catch up with the oah in its grove of fever trees, preparing for the night. The baboons are surprised to see him, as they have given him up for lost or killed. Baboons know all too well the murderous boom-booms of the glugg-gluggs.
The monkeys surround him and drown him in praise for his brave deed. Ak himself clap him hard across the back. "Oh you are quite the thief, Ohglo!" Ak declare. Ohglo feel his first flush of pride. Ohglo grab one of the calves by the ears and slam itsneck against a sharp rock, spliting the big vein so that the blood gush out hot all over him.
Ohglo get sick watching the creature die. He lose his appetite. So he offer the calf to Ak. Ak rip open the beast to get at the choice curdled milk in its belly. When he have eaten his fill, he leave the rest for the other baboons to fight over. Smak snarl her way to be next, and take enough meat for herself and the youngest cubs. Then come the others' turn to squabble. The biggest and toughest get their meat first, but the others don't have to fight that hard since there is plenty for all.
When nothing remain but bones, Smak haul Ohglo aside. "You think you big bad baboon now, Ohglo, but I don't know. I don't think we heard the end of this. I fear for you, gluggikins. I think you will bring us trouble. You will come to no good."
Ohglo answer her beyond his years. "Smak, don't scare me like I some little cub. I get the best deal I can for my oah. Why can't we be as fat as the glugg-gluggs? Why we have to scrounge for food and make our nests in nasty trees and bumpy rocks? I be the prince of thieves."
But Smak no fool. That night, the oah surprised by the rustling of horses through the brush. The glugg-gluggs hunting for their calves. "Ek-ek-ek!" come the shrill cry from the scouts in the treetops.
ek-ek-ek: leopard, hyena, jackal, glugg, danger. Watch out!
Help! Let's get out of here!
So in the middle of the night, the oah have to gather up its cubs and move on, leaving the calves behind. Knowing how stubborn gluggs can be when they hunt, the oah keep moving quickly for days until they get to the other side of oah-oah-oah-plotz. Without much thought, Ak piss on rocks to ring in the borders of the plotz so the oah won't come so close to the glugg-glugg farm for awhile.
18.
But it happen that the glugg-glugg farmer had seen a strange kind of monkey steal his calves, and he track down this "monkeyman" for many suns. The farmer dig booby traps all over the savannah.
One evening while Ohglo romp through the brush with his buddy Gok, Ohglo fall into one of these traps, a deep pit covered over by small trees overlaid with grasses and brush.
Gok yelp for the other baboons to come help, but the farmer close by and hear him. He come galloping up on his horse. Gok and the others take flight in the treetops.
The farmer hop off his horse and take aim at Ohglo with his boom-boom. Then he laugh. "Ach, you monkeyman!" the fat farmer seem to say in glugg-glugg language, "Why you steal my cattle?"
Ohglo guess at the farmer's words and answer him in monkey language. "Who me? Why you talk so rough? You see I am only a cub. I only care about sleep and monkey milk. Do I look like a robber of cattle? Believe me, glugg-glugg, I did not bring your
cattle home. I speak the truth."
But of course the farmer do not understand, and Ohglo's jabbering make him angry. He raise his gun to his shoulder again to shoot.
Just then, Gok jump down from the tree, bite the farmer in the left buttock, and butt him into the pit with his head. It the farmer's turn to yelp. The farmer drop his gun. He very fat. While he struggle to his feet, Ohglo grab the gun and use it as pole against the farmer's big belly to vault himself out of the pit. Ohglo hold the gun like he see the farmer do.
Monkey see, monkey do.
The gun go off in the air -- ka-BLOOM! Ohglo and the other baboons hair stand up straight. They scared to death. They run.
After that, Ohglo and Gok become the best of buddies.
Ohglo break up the gun and for awhile use the steel barrel to beat against the rocks to make a strange kind of music. This delight the oah. But by the next full moon, he have forgotten it someplace.
The farmer, however, do not forget about Ohglo. In time the oah would learn that glugg-gluggs are vengeful and have long memories.
19.
Baboon life no paradise. Your throat always dry. You always hungry. Ohglo lucky he like sweet-crunch bugs, because meat is rare -- very rare, as in raw. Baboons eat a lot of grass, and grass don't stick to your ribs.
But it fun to la-la-la, fun to wrestle. Ohglo wrestle his buddy Gok. Gok soft and cuddly, with big eyes and brownish fur spreckled with white. Gok, like Ohglo, is about half grown (baboons full grown at seven years old). He always nibble at Ohglo, never bite.
One time Ohglo and Gok wrestle. Ohglo accidently shove Gok so that he land with a rock between his legs, crushing his balls. Gok let out a shriek. His face droop in sadness. He looks like he will burst if he don't cry.
"Sorry, Gok, I no mean it," Ohglo say. Ohglo la-la-la Gok. "Gok you need to cry."
"Cry? Cry? How cry?"
"How cry? Well, what I do is I squinch up my eyes, squeeze my eyeballs, and imagine death."
"Death?"
"The end. Nix-oah."
nix-oah: death.
"Oh, yeah," Gok say. "Nix-oah." He get all deep and serious looking, and squinch up his eyes.
"That it, Gok. Now picture all that pain it take to die, to give up on that 'Gok' you been fighting for for so long."
Gok's face wrinkle like an ancient monkey. His head shake and tremble. He draw in his breath through his bared clenched teeth, like he in great pain. Out of his belly rise a mournful moan, "o-o-o-o-o-o-o-a-a-a-a-a-h-h-h."
But when he feel his eyes and his cheeks, they dry. Not a tear anywhere. Try as he might, Gok can not cry. Not for the life of him.
Once a monkey cub name-of Oah-oah-oah-oah-glugg, Ohglo for short. Ohglo roam with his furry buddies down by the stream near the oah-oah-oah's sleeping tree.
oah: I, me.
oah-oah: you.
oah-oah-oah: troop, family, we.
oah-oah-oah-oah: friends, friendly beings, monkey, moon.
oah-oah-oah-oah-oah: life, spirit, water.
Concentric circles in a stone-struck pond.
The cubs play a game like hide-and-seek: every monkey hide and then all wait to see who give himself away first.
Ohglo hide in a hollow log just out of the water. Ohglo thirst. Ohglo reach into the stream with his paw to scoop some water into his mouth. The water turn to blood. Blood, blood, 1-2- 3 blood taste in his mouth. Stream open into a canyon. Out of the canyon swarm a host of insects -- white moths, white flying ants, white flies, locusts, cicadas, dragon flies -- all rise to the sky like souls of the dead. Ohglo spit out the bitter blood. Dazzling light from the spot where his spittle strike blind him. The stream turn to white sand. The sun glare off of it and burn his eyes.
Then Ohglo see a big bird, an ibis standing on a rock, looking at him, it's plumage all brilliant white except for the tips of four outer wing feathers, which are black. Its long stork legs are orange-red. Its long bill curve down from between its eyes, itself the shape of a scant crescent moon.
Ohglo say, "Hi, Ibis."
Ibis say, "Now you have seen it. One day you will fly like me over the great, great, 1-2-3 great water to join your own kind again, the gluggs, and warn them of what is to come."
glugg: human.
"Oh," Ohglo say. He do not really believe this bird.
14.
Ohglo travel with the troop, which the baboons call their oah-oah-oah, or oah for short. Baboons shorten all their words.
Ak is the biggest so Ak is the leader. Ak one-two times bigger than Smak. Ak have big old olive brown crinkly mane like lion. He have pink face with a thick, thoughtful brow, and a long snout like a dog. His mouth filled with many shiney white, sharp teeth.
Ohglo fear Ak. Ohglo wish he have a big mane and sharp teeth.
ak: father, bully, leader, sun, devil.
The oah travel every day at sunrise, looking for food. Ak go first with his brothers and cousins Ako, Hok, Dop, the scouts. Scouts climb up the trees here and there looking out for enemies: Leopard and Glugg.
Smak follow with Ohglo and the other cubs, with Smok and Smik, Ak's other females and with Sako, Smuk, and Sopi, their sisters.
Ohglo slow. Ohglo can't keep up with other cubs and have to ride on Smak. He small for a glugg. But he do load Smak down. Other cubs tease him. Glugg, glugg, glugg, nya, nya, nya.
Cubs wrestle Ohglo, bite and scratch. Ohglo cry. Ohglo's eyes gush with water. Monkeys never cry. Monkeys never see eyes gush with water. Monkeys suck Ohglo's cheeks for water.
Monkeys don't worship much, but they worship water. Savannah of oah-oah-oah-plotz is dry for much of year.
Oah-oah-oah-plotz is not large. The oah cover the whole habitat in 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3 suns.
The oah stump the plains, hills, and forest of oah-oah-oah-plotz searching for water, for figs, for banana, for various roots and berries, for the capparis vine that grow in the umbrella trees, for termites and ants, for ibis, ostrich, and plover eggs, and sometimes small game like rock hares, steenbok, dik-dik, and klipspringer. There 1-2-3, 1-2-3 foods to learn, and what there is change all around from the full moon to the dark moon. While they learn what to eat and what not to eat, the cubs pull up the grass and chomp the meaty corms. They also listen for
the dance of the bees.
First time Ohglo see cubs find honeybee, cubs squeal and chatter. Cubs surround flower where bee buzzing and watch. Fuzzy baboon heads twist and turn to follow bee's dance.
Cubs follow bee to hive. Sneak up. Gok, the biggest cub, crawl up right under the hive which hang from the limb of baobab tree, bark real loud and hit the hive with stick. Ohglo watch bees swarm. Ohglo watch cubs flee. Ohglo too busy watching to flee. Bees catch Ohglo. Bees sting. Sting, sting, sting, 1-2-3 sting. Ohglo holler, 1-2-3 holler.
That night at dusk the oah come to rest in a grove of fever trees. While the cubs wrestle, the big baboons la-la-la.
la-la-la: groom, grooming, story-telling, dream-sharing, painting one another's dreams.
Smak la-la-la Ohglo for first time, smoothing over every strand of his hair, picking lice and soothing beestings. La-la-la excite every nerve and make brilliant pictures in the mind like wide-awake dreams. The pictures are visions, stories, folktales.
Baboon folktales very short. Here are some of the tales Smak la-la-la Ohglo:
The most popular tale is tzzz pop. Two words. "Once upon a time, the end." Smak tell this one over and over.
tzzz f-f-f pop is a ghost story. It doesn't sound like much, but when told along with heavy grooming, a young monkey see vivid images of old monkeys dying, dissolving into the dust, and then rising to the sky in wafts of violet smoke.
Ohglo's favorite is the love story, tzzz la-la-la-la-la pop. The imagery of this story show Ak chasing Smak, Smak sticking her rosey rear-end in the air, and Ak 1-2-3 fucking her. Baboons don't censor their stories for children they way gluggs do.
15.
As Ohglo grow, he learn baboon ways. Every month, at the time of the full moon, is the 1-2-3-oah-oah-oah, or the gathering of the oahs, along a bank of cliffs. Whatever baboon troops are anywhere near the cliffs come together there to argue and party. Such gatherings have close to a three hundred baboons, and the noise keep Ohglo awake all night at first.
The males and females argue in separate bunches, but they both argue about the same thing: the nature of the universe.
Ohglo listen to these frightening arguments, which often as not, end in all out brawls. As time go on, he come to understand that each oah have a different theory as to the nature of the universe. These different theories are the reason there are so many different oahs. If a leader (ak) can't convince his smak's relatives of his particular theory, he will organize his own oah from among the disgruntled baboons from the other oahs.
Ak and his followers are identified with the doctrine that "everything is a baboon." An oah is a baboon with Ak himself as the literal head. The moon is obviously a baboon as any fool can see just by looking at its face. By extension, the sun must be a baboon, with a ruthless, evil streak ("nothing but a baboon could be so mean," Ak preach). The earth too is a baboon with water for blood and grass for hair.
"The universe (oah-oah-oah-oah-oah-oah) is a series of baboons inside baboons," Ak would bellow, la-la-la-ing these ideas with whoever will listen. "Concentric baboons in a stone-struck baboon," he joke, butchering a traditional baboon saying. The "proof" of this notion is simple: "Look, you dummies, if you look straight into a still pond what do you see?" Most baboons know the answer, but Ak sometimes lead the denser ones to the
water-hole so they can see for themselves.
When Ohglo first understand this sermon of howls, grunts, and barks, he sneak off his sleeping rock down to the water-hole and look straight into it. What he see -- that he do not look at all like the other baboons -- so frighten him in its impossibility that he forget it right there and decide once and for all that Ak is right, everything is a baboon.
But Ak too can see that there is something different about Ohglo that contradict his concentric baboon thesis. To Ak, Ohglo is a baboon and he is not a baboon at the same time, a stubborn fact that fly in the face of theory. As a consequence, Ak hate Ohglo.
Fortunately, none of the other oahs notice that Ak harbor a living contradiction in his own oah. They are too busy defending their own theories. One oah that once gave Ak a terrific drubbing philosophically and literally, believe that the universe is a constant struggle between the force of water (good) and the force of sand (bad). Still another oah believe that the phallic banana tree create the universe, and no baboon of that oah eat bananas. When the ak of this oah die of starvation, the others quickly find other beliefs and join other oahs.
Smak and the other females of the oah stick up for Ohglo against Ak. Smak believe the concentric baboon thesis as strongly as the next monkey, but she simply accept Ohglo as an odd-looking baboon.
Of course she know he is a glugg, everyone know that. The question is, are the gluggs another form of baboon or something quite different?
Smak and the other females have their own bone to pick with Ak, and sometimes it is Ak's bones that get picked. They grudgingly accept Ak's leadership on account of his size, but they hate his schplurtz, a word that is wet with spit when sneered as only Smak can sneer it.
schplurtz: arrogance.
One time Ohglo lie awake in his fever tree and listen to Ak and Smak argue about him.
"He go," say Ak.
"He stay," say Smak.
"He go!" say Ak.
"He stay!" say Smak.
"HE GO!" say Ak.
"HE STAY!" say Smak.
"HE GO!!" say Ak.
Smak smack Ak. Smack! with her paw. Smik, Smok, and Smuk all jump on Ak.
Ak beat up bad. Smak won't nurse Ak's wounds, won't let Smik, Smok, Smuk or any other female nurse him either.
Ohglo nurse Ak, lick his sores. Ohglo hate to lick sores. But Ohglo think if he lick Ak sores, maybe Ak will accept him into the oah.
After three suns of Ohglo licking his sores, neither of them saying a word, Ak finally say "Ohglo, maybe you baboon after all, even if you is funny looking." Ohglo sigh and smile. Then he go wash out mouth in the water-hole.
16.
Here are some of the monkey proverbs that Ak picture to Ohglo when Ohglo lick his sores:
Nothing from nothing is nothing.
Fair is fair.
Life is life.
Life is tough.
Forget it!
I'll dream your dreams if you'll dream mine.
Life is death's dream.
To see the truth, you have to look up your own asshole. That's why you have an imagination.
17.
One day Ohglo stomping about with the oah when he come to a stream same-as old stream, trees same-as old trees, paths same-as old paths. He try to remember what his glugg-smak, Ma, look like, but he can't.
He do remember something else. He follow his nose down a familiar path to a spot he is sure is same-as where the old Luo village was. No village. Instead, there's a great big farm with a great big house, rows and rows of vines hanging with ground-nuts, fields and fields of pineapples shining sweetly in the sun, and 1-2-3 cattle.
Ohglo rush to tell Ak. He shout at Ak excitedly in his pidgin-monkey something like "Glugg-grub!" This sound like the monkey word for "human food." But it also sound like the monkey insult "you eat human shit." Ak clap Ohglo sharply on the ear.
Ohglo often have this trouble with monkey language, in which words, being few, have so many different meanings.
Ohglo try to grab Ak's paw and lead him to his discovery, but Ak brush him aside roughly. The idea that a glugg cub could know anything is ridiculous. Gluggs can't think abstractly.
After much wheedling and jibber-jabbering, Ohglo finally convince Smak to follow him. He drag her complaining to a hillock overlooking the vast farm. Smak see enough food to keep the oah in the gravy for the next fifty years. She yawn in amazement.
"Glugg-gluggs!" she swear.
glugg-gluggs: pink-faced Invaders, white people.
When Smak tell the others what Ohglo have discovered, Ohglo become a hero. The other cubs hug kiss, and la-la-la him. And they don't pick on him for the rest of the day.
At dawn the next morning, the oah descend on the glugg-glugg farm. At the first field they come to, the baboons fill up their arms with pineapples and drag them away to safety. But Ohglo's mouth water for beef.
Ohglo sneak away from the others and into the field where the cattle graze. He find five of the plumpest calves and herd them together. He rip a hole in the wooden fence. He grab on tight to the calves' tails. Then, with a piercing cry, he stampede the other cows through the hole in the fence, out to the wild savannah.
Ohglo pull his calves by the tails backwards, confusing any trail he might leave, and hiding from the view of the glugg-gluggs. In the distance near the house, he can see the glugg-gluggs scurry about in the clouds of dust raised by the stampeding cattle. He see them mounting horses and putt-putts, and raising their own clouds of dust to chase the cattle.
putt-putts: Land Rovers.
It is dusk before Ohglo's awkward progress finally catch up with the oah in its grove of fever trees, preparing for the night. The baboons are surprised to see him, as they have given him up for lost or killed. Baboons know all too well the murderous boom-booms of the glugg-gluggs.
The monkeys surround him and drown him in praise for his brave deed. Ak himself clap him hard across the back. "Oh you are quite the thief, Ohglo!" Ak declare. Ohglo feel his first flush of pride. Ohglo grab one of the calves by the ears and slam itsneck against a sharp rock, spliting the big vein so that the blood gush out hot all over him.
Ohglo get sick watching the creature die. He lose his appetite. So he offer the calf to Ak. Ak rip open the beast to get at the choice curdled milk in its belly. When he have eaten his fill, he leave the rest for the other baboons to fight over. Smak snarl her way to be next, and take enough meat for herself and the youngest cubs. Then come the others' turn to squabble. The biggest and toughest get their meat first, but the others don't have to fight that hard since there is plenty for all.
When nothing remain but bones, Smak haul Ohglo aside. "You think you big bad baboon now, Ohglo, but I don't know. I don't think we heard the end of this. I fear for you, gluggikins. I think you will bring us trouble. You will come to no good."
Ohglo answer her beyond his years. "Smak, don't scare me like I some little cub. I get the best deal I can for my oah. Why can't we be as fat as the glugg-gluggs? Why we have to scrounge for food and make our nests in nasty trees and bumpy rocks? I be the prince of thieves."
But Smak no fool. That night, the oah surprised by the rustling of horses through the brush. The glugg-gluggs hunting for their calves. "Ek-ek-ek!" come the shrill cry from the scouts in the treetops.
ek-ek-ek: leopard, hyena, jackal, glugg, danger. Watch out!
Help! Let's get out of here!
So in the middle of the night, the oah have to gather up its cubs and move on, leaving the calves behind. Knowing how stubborn gluggs can be when they hunt, the oah keep moving quickly for days until they get to the other side of oah-oah-oah-plotz. Without much thought, Ak piss on rocks to ring in the borders of the plotz so the oah won't come so close to the glugg-glugg farm for awhile.
18.
But it happen that the glugg-glugg farmer had seen a strange kind of monkey steal his calves, and he track down this "monkeyman" for many suns. The farmer dig booby traps all over the savannah.
One evening while Ohglo romp through the brush with his buddy Gok, Ohglo fall into one of these traps, a deep pit covered over by small trees overlaid with grasses and brush.
Gok yelp for the other baboons to come help, but the farmer close by and hear him. He come galloping up on his horse. Gok and the others take flight in the treetops.
The farmer hop off his horse and take aim at Ohglo with his boom-boom. Then he laugh. "Ach, you monkeyman!" the fat farmer seem to say in glugg-glugg language, "Why you steal my cattle?"
Ohglo guess at the farmer's words and answer him in monkey language. "Who me? Why you talk so rough? You see I am only a cub. I only care about sleep and monkey milk. Do I look like a robber of cattle? Believe me, glugg-glugg, I did not bring your
cattle home. I speak the truth."
But of course the farmer do not understand, and Ohglo's jabbering make him angry. He raise his gun to his shoulder again to shoot.
Just then, Gok jump down from the tree, bite the farmer in the left buttock, and butt him into the pit with his head. It the farmer's turn to yelp. The farmer drop his gun. He very fat. While he struggle to his feet, Ohglo grab the gun and use it as pole against the farmer's big belly to vault himself out of the pit. Ohglo hold the gun like he see the farmer do.
Monkey see, monkey do.
The gun go off in the air -- ka-BLOOM! Ohglo and the other baboons hair stand up straight. They scared to death. They run.
After that, Ohglo and Gok become the best of buddies.
Ohglo break up the gun and for awhile use the steel barrel to beat against the rocks to make a strange kind of music. This delight the oah. But by the next full moon, he have forgotten it someplace.
The farmer, however, do not forget about Ohglo. In time the oah would learn that glugg-gluggs are vengeful and have long memories.
19.
Baboon life no paradise. Your throat always dry. You always hungry. Ohglo lucky he like sweet-crunch bugs, because meat is rare -- very rare, as in raw. Baboons eat a lot of grass, and grass don't stick to your ribs.
But it fun to la-la-la, fun to wrestle. Ohglo wrestle his buddy Gok. Gok soft and cuddly, with big eyes and brownish fur spreckled with white. Gok, like Ohglo, is about half grown (baboons full grown at seven years old). He always nibble at Ohglo, never bite.
One time Ohglo and Gok wrestle. Ohglo accidently shove Gok so that he land with a rock between his legs, crushing his balls. Gok let out a shriek. His face droop in sadness. He looks like he will burst if he don't cry.
"Sorry, Gok, I no mean it," Ohglo say. Ohglo la-la-la Gok. "Gok you need to cry."
"Cry? Cry? How cry?"
"How cry? Well, what I do is I squinch up my eyes, squeeze my eyeballs, and imagine death."
"Death?"
"The end. Nix-oah."
nix-oah: death.
"Oh, yeah," Gok say. "Nix-oah." He get all deep and serious looking, and squinch up his eyes.
"That it, Gok. Now picture all that pain it take to die, to give up on that 'Gok' you been fighting for for so long."
Gok's face wrinkle like an ancient monkey. His head shake and tremble. He draw in his breath through his bared clenched teeth, like he in great pain. Out of his belly rise a mournful moan, "o-o-o-o-o-o-o-a-a-a-a-a-h-h-h."
But when he feel his eyes and his cheeks, they dry. Not a tear anywhere. Try as he might, Gok can not cry. Not for the life of him.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
SIXTEEN: Part 1. The Rift Valley
I know, I know, I skipped a week. My bad. It won't happen again. Look for this blog every week, on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. Here is the first chapter of Tales of Monkeyman:
NGILA
1.
FIRE EXIT.
2.
Curious George. George was a good little monkey. He had one fault. He was too curious.
3.
Janey give to George books. George copy from books. Copy, copy, copy.
Monkey see, monkey do.
4.
monkey: a primate mammal other than man.
human: of, relating to, being, or characteristic of man.
man: 1. a human being, esp. an adult male. 2. mankind. 3. one possessing in high degree the qualities considered distinctive of manhood; also husband. 4. an adult male servant or employee. 5. one of the pieces with which various games are played.
5.
George not name-of this. Name-of this Oah-oah-oah-oah-glugg.
oah-oah-oah-oah: monkey
glugg: noise, garbage, human.
Monkey say Ohglo for short.
One time Ohglo not name-of this. One time Ohglo live among gluggs. One time name-of this Ngila.
Once name-of this Ngila.
Then name of this Oah-oah-oah-oah-glugg, Ohglo for short.
Then name-of this George.
? Name-of this.
6.
Once a glugg-cub name-of Ngila. Ngila cry. Glugg say Ngila no glugg. Glugg say Ngila full-of hair. Glugg say Ngila monkey. Monkey, monkey, monkey, nya, nya, nya. Ngila go into forest. Forest quiet same-as sun.
Ngila come to stream. Stream clear and cool. Ngila thirst. Ngila crouch to drink. Stream turn red! Stream turn red! Stream same-as blood. Blood, blood, blood, 1-2-3 blood. Big noise fill Ngila ears. BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! Ngila run and run. Ngila see end-of-world.
7.
Once a glugg-cub name-of Ngila. Ngila baby. Ngila live in the Village of the People. Village of fear.
Ma say village is of Luo people who raise cattle. Pa a Luo man, a warrior always away with the Mau-mau, fighting the pink- face Invaders.
Ma say she no Luo woman. She come from Kipsigis. Kipsigis people hunt. Ma say Kipsigis say she was ponindet, a witch who cast the evil eye on people. Kipsigis make her go away.
Ma say that on the way to Nairobi she meet chimoset, an animal from dreams. Chimoset have body of hyena but 1-2-3 big, with spots like leopard. It have a white neck and big black marks between its eyes and nose. It mouth very big and red, and it voice full of terror, like boom-boom-boom, like sound of big fire. Ma say this animal love to eat people brains. Sometimes it carry away people heads. Find heads later split in two and empty.
"? Pa go kill chimoset," Ngila ask.
"No, Pa go kill worse animal. Pa go kill pink-face Invader."
Ngila fear chimoset. Ngila fear pink-face Invader. Ngila fear end-of-world.
Ma say then she meet Pa on way to Nairobi. Pa no witch doctor. Pa medical doctor. Pa returning to his people. Take Ma with. Marry. Ma and Pa happy until Ngila born.
Village say Ngila no Luo. Village say Ngila no Kipsigis. Village say Ngila-full-of-hair. Village say Ngila monkey. Monkey, monkey, monkey, nya, nya, nya.
8.
One time Ngila lie in cradle and cry in sun. Ngila too big for cradle. Ngila too big to cry. But Ngila hungry. Ma grind meal in the sun, grunt with the heat. Ma pay no mind to Ngila.
Suddenly big shadow cross sun. Pa back! Pa back from wars. Pa drop big gun and hug Ma. Then Pa pick up Ngila and throw him up in the air. Ngila think Pa will drop him and he holler. Pa catch Ngila and they laugh. "How are you, monkey-boy?" Pa ask.
But Pa bring war with him. Soon after Pa come boom-boom-boom.
That night come fire. Fire, fire, fire! Little kraal of round sisal houses burn up and light up the sky. Ma grab Ngila. Ngila-Ma run and run. Run from the fire.
Soon Ma tired. Ma fall down. Ma can no longer carry Ngila. Fire come and come. Boom-boom come and come. Ma run and run. Ngila run and run.
Ngila come to stream. Ngila rest. ? Where Ma. Ngila call "Ma! Ma! Ma!" No Ma. Ngila alone. Ngila alone in the forest with the stream and the moon. Ngila lost.
9.
The moon, it is said, once sent a spider to men saying, "Go to the men and tell them: 'As I die, and dying live, so shall you also die, and dying live.'"
The spider started with the message, but while on his way, he was overtaken by the monkey, who asked, "On what errand are you bound?"
The spider answered, "I am sent by the moon to men, to tell them that as she dies and dying lives, so shall they also die and dying live."
The monkey said, "As you are an awkward runner, let me go." With these words he ran off, and when he reached men he said, "I have been sent by the moon to tell you: 'As I die and dying perish, in the same manner you also shall die and come wholly to an end.'"
The monkey then returned to the moon and told her what he had said to men. The moon reproached him angrily, saying: "Do you dare tell the people a thing which I have not said?"
With these words the moon took up a piece of wood and struck the monkey on the jaw. Since that day, the monkey's jaw has been swollen, but men still believe what the monkey told them.
10.
Ngila hungry. Ngila eat leaves. Leaves taste same-as shit. Leaves make Ngila sick.
Ngila dig bugs. Sweet-crunch bugs. Ngila eat bugs. Ngila love bugs. Bugs, bugs, bugs, 1-2-3 bugs. Fly bugs, tree bugs, hop bugs, kneel bugs, red bugs, green bugs. Hill bugs. 1-2-3 hill bugs. Glugg say ants.
Ngila dig ants at bughill. Monkeys come to bughill. Monkeys love ants. Glugg say baboons. Baboons say "oah-oah-oah-oah."
oah: I, me.
oah-oah: you.
oah-oah-oah: troop, family, we.
oah-oah-oah-oah: friends, friendly beings, monkey, moon.
oah-oah-oah-oah-oah: life, spirit, water.
Concentric circles in a stone-struck pond.
11.
Ngila at bughill with monkeys. Ngila suck monkey titty, baboon titty. Long skinny nipple slide in his mouth. Milk taste sweet. 1-2-3 sweet. Ngila suck and suck and suck.
Baboons fuss over Ngila. Argue. Fight.
Baboon titty Ngila suck name-of this Smak.
smak: mother.
Ngila love titty. Ngila love sweet-crunch bugs. Ngila stay with Smak. Ngila follow Smak. Ngila ride on back of Smak. Smak take Ngila with to sleeping-place. Ngila love Smak.
? Pa turn Ngila into monkey.
? Ma turn Ngila into monkey.
No.
Ngila monkey.
12.
The Monkey King
Years and years ago somewhere in China there lived a Monkey. Now there have been lots of monkeys in this world. Some have been real monkeys. Others have been men who behaved like monkeys. And often the monkeys have behaved like men. Sometimes it has been hard to tell the difference.
This wouldn't be mentioned at all except that Monkey, whose story we are going to tell you, was a most unusual Monkey. He was good -- he was bad. He was smart -- he was stupid. He was wise -- he was foolish. He was everything he should be and everything he
shouldn't be.
In the beginning he was just an ordinary monkey save for one thing -- he was curious. He wanted to know everything, see everything, and do everything. And he was never satisfied with what other monkeys told him. He always wanted to find out for himself.
NGILA
1.
FIRE EXIT.
2.
Curious George. George was a good little monkey. He had one fault. He was too curious.
3.
Janey give to George books. George copy from books. Copy, copy, copy.
Monkey see, monkey do.
4.
monkey: a primate mammal other than man.
human: of, relating to, being, or characteristic of man.
man: 1. a human being, esp. an adult male. 2. mankind. 3. one possessing in high degree the qualities considered distinctive of manhood; also husband. 4. an adult male servant or employee. 5. one of the pieces with which various games are played.
5.
George not name-of this. Name-of this Oah-oah-oah-oah-glugg.
oah-oah-oah-oah: monkey
glugg: noise, garbage, human.
Monkey say Ohglo for short.
One time Ohglo not name-of this. One time Ohglo live among gluggs. One time name-of this Ngila.
Once name-of this Ngila.
Then name of this Oah-oah-oah-oah-glugg, Ohglo for short.
Then name-of this George.
? Name-of this.
6.
Once a glugg-cub name-of Ngila. Ngila cry. Glugg say Ngila no glugg. Glugg say Ngila full-of hair. Glugg say Ngila monkey. Monkey, monkey, monkey, nya, nya, nya. Ngila go into forest. Forest quiet same-as sun.
Ngila come to stream. Stream clear and cool. Ngila thirst. Ngila crouch to drink. Stream turn red! Stream turn red! Stream same-as blood. Blood, blood, blood, 1-2-3 blood. Big noise fill Ngila ears. BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! Ngila run and run. Ngila see end-of-world.
7.
Once a glugg-cub name-of Ngila. Ngila baby. Ngila live in the Village of the People. Village of fear.
Ma say village is of Luo people who raise cattle. Pa a Luo man, a warrior always away with the Mau-mau, fighting the pink- face Invaders.
Ma say she no Luo woman. She come from Kipsigis. Kipsigis people hunt. Ma say Kipsigis say she was ponindet, a witch who cast the evil eye on people. Kipsigis make her go away.
Ma say that on the way to Nairobi she meet chimoset, an animal from dreams. Chimoset have body of hyena but 1-2-3 big, with spots like leopard. It have a white neck and big black marks between its eyes and nose. It mouth very big and red, and it voice full of terror, like boom-boom-boom, like sound of big fire. Ma say this animal love to eat people brains. Sometimes it carry away people heads. Find heads later split in two and empty.
"? Pa go kill chimoset," Ngila ask.
"No, Pa go kill worse animal. Pa go kill pink-face Invader."
Ngila fear chimoset. Ngila fear pink-face Invader. Ngila fear end-of-world.
Ma say then she meet Pa on way to Nairobi. Pa no witch doctor. Pa medical doctor. Pa returning to his people. Take Ma with. Marry. Ma and Pa happy until Ngila born.
Village say Ngila no Luo. Village say Ngila no Kipsigis. Village say Ngila-full-of-hair. Village say Ngila monkey. Monkey, monkey, monkey, nya, nya, nya.
8.
One time Ngila lie in cradle and cry in sun. Ngila too big for cradle. Ngila too big to cry. But Ngila hungry. Ma grind meal in the sun, grunt with the heat. Ma pay no mind to Ngila.
Suddenly big shadow cross sun. Pa back! Pa back from wars. Pa drop big gun and hug Ma. Then Pa pick up Ngila and throw him up in the air. Ngila think Pa will drop him and he holler. Pa catch Ngila and they laugh. "How are you, monkey-boy?" Pa ask.
But Pa bring war with him. Soon after Pa come boom-boom-boom.
That night come fire. Fire, fire, fire! Little kraal of round sisal houses burn up and light up the sky. Ma grab Ngila. Ngila-Ma run and run. Run from the fire.
Soon Ma tired. Ma fall down. Ma can no longer carry Ngila. Fire come and come. Boom-boom come and come. Ma run and run. Ngila run and run.
Ngila come to stream. Ngila rest. ? Where Ma. Ngila call "Ma! Ma! Ma!" No Ma. Ngila alone. Ngila alone in the forest with the stream and the moon. Ngila lost.
9.
The moon, it is said, once sent a spider to men saying, "Go to the men and tell them: 'As I die, and dying live, so shall you also die, and dying live.'"
The spider started with the message, but while on his way, he was overtaken by the monkey, who asked, "On what errand are you bound?"
The spider answered, "I am sent by the moon to men, to tell them that as she dies and dying lives, so shall they also die and dying live."
The monkey said, "As you are an awkward runner, let me go." With these words he ran off, and when he reached men he said, "I have been sent by the moon to tell you: 'As I die and dying perish, in the same manner you also shall die and come wholly to an end.'"
The monkey then returned to the moon and told her what he had said to men. The moon reproached him angrily, saying: "Do you dare tell the people a thing which I have not said?"
With these words the moon took up a piece of wood and struck the monkey on the jaw. Since that day, the monkey's jaw has been swollen, but men still believe what the monkey told them.
10.
Ngila hungry. Ngila eat leaves. Leaves taste same-as shit. Leaves make Ngila sick.
Ngila dig bugs. Sweet-crunch bugs. Ngila eat bugs. Ngila love bugs. Bugs, bugs, bugs, 1-2-3 bugs. Fly bugs, tree bugs, hop bugs, kneel bugs, red bugs, green bugs. Hill bugs. 1-2-3 hill bugs. Glugg say ants.
Ngila dig ants at bughill. Monkeys come to bughill. Monkeys love ants. Glugg say baboons. Baboons say "oah-oah-oah-oah."
oah: I, me.
oah-oah: you.
oah-oah-oah: troop, family, we.
oah-oah-oah-oah: friends, friendly beings, monkey, moon.
oah-oah-oah-oah-oah: life, spirit, water.
Concentric circles in a stone-struck pond.
11.
Ngila at bughill with monkeys. Ngila suck monkey titty, baboon titty. Long skinny nipple slide in his mouth. Milk taste sweet. 1-2-3 sweet. Ngila suck and suck and suck.
Baboons fuss over Ngila. Argue. Fight.
Baboon titty Ngila suck name-of this Smak.
smak: mother.
Ngila love titty. Ngila love sweet-crunch bugs. Ngila stay with Smak. Ngila follow Smak. Ngila ride on back of Smak. Smak take Ngila with to sleeping-place. Ngila love Smak.
? Pa turn Ngila into monkey.
? Ma turn Ngila into monkey.
No.
Ngila monkey.
12.
The Monkey King
Years and years ago somewhere in China there lived a Monkey. Now there have been lots of monkeys in this world. Some have been real monkeys. Others have been men who behaved like monkeys. And often the monkeys have behaved like men. Sometimes it has been hard to tell the difference.
This wouldn't be mentioned at all except that Monkey, whose story we are going to tell you, was a most unusual Monkey. He was good -- he was bad. He was smart -- he was stupid. He was wise -- he was foolish. He was everything he should be and everything he
shouldn't be.
In the beginning he was just an ordinary monkey save for one thing -- he was curious. He wanted to know everything, see everything, and do everything. And he was never satisfied with what other monkeys told him. He always wanted to find out for himself.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
FIFTEEN: Tales of Monkeyman
Here's my thousand words for the week:
This is an "artists conception" of what a ten dimensional Universe might look like, according to one version of string theory.
Maybe a few more words. This weekend, I started rewriting my prizewinning novel, TALES OF MONKEYMAN, after a hiatus of, count 'em 19 years. Because I have noticed that there are only so many minutes in a week, I've decided to combine these projects for awhile and publish excerpts of the novel as my blog. It touches on many similar themes.
The first installment is a doctored facsimile of the actual news report that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle back in 1982 and inspired the novel. I changed a few details, like the uncertainty of the creature's species.
TALES OF MONKEYMAN
A Novel
(c) 2007 by Henry Hitz
A Novel
(c) 2007 by Henry Hitz
Thursday, Februrary 20, 20__ San Francisco Chronicle
A 'Monkey Man' Found in Kenya
A 'Monkey Man' Found in Kenya
Nairobi
A wild man who acts like a monkey but looks vaguely human has been found on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya. According to Dr. U. Mbuzi, the Homa Bay district health officer who announced the discovery yesterday, the being may be human but "his behavior is just like that of a monkey -- even the way he eats bananas. He sucks them into his mouth whole, skin and all."
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