Oontab [Episode 22]

Fonjam

Fonjam had a wonderful time searching for a wife suitable for the King. He also had rough times. There were women that had all the qualities he was looking for, but were missing in one important one. And there were women who had none of the qualities except for one important one. Some, when they found out that he was searching for a wife for the King, they stalked him like robbers, forcing themselves to look good for his acceptance, whether they were virgins or not, but Fonjam eventually saw right through them whenever they were off guard in the privacy and company of their friends. A particular woman named Tokisi almost ran him over with a huge tray just to block him off at the market place and pretend she was nice. But he noticed the overemphasis she made on her speech; that she did not always speak like that. Tokisi was there every day that Fonjam went looking for a bride for the King. She was so persistent, he decided to suspend his day search for a couple of days, only moving at night; that way he could avoid being knocked or run over by flying objects, trays, stones, and maybe trees, to create room for one girl to act as if she was nice, and he could also confirm whichever ones he had already selected, either as virgins or liars. One day, some girls took advantage of Tokisi’s tricks before she stepped out to act nice and when she did, it turned into a fight, and perhaps seeing that her chances had been spoilt, Tokisi gave up the competition for the King’s hand in marriage.

Fonjam escaped before he was dented by the endless rant and blows the ladies had begun exchanging. He kept up his thorough search until he found the neatest, smartest and hardworking virgins Gardutkar had. One in particular caught his eye in a way the other four had not. The other four had caught the King’s eye through Fonjam’s, but this one had caught Fonjam’s eye independent of the King’s. She was delicately shaped, smooth-skinned and had a gentle, intelligent voice. Her skin bore the smoothness of carefully carved and double polished wood. Her ebony – black and fair – was a kind found nowhere else in the village, as her childhood was filled with rumors that she was not from this world. When she grew, the perfection made itself more manifest when her jaw took its perfect rounded shape, expanding into the fullness of her cheeks that when she smiled, her cheeks dug into dimples. Her long black hair, she did not leave hanging at her back, but bunched atop her head like a crown; yes, she was a queen. He arms, strong and gentle at the same time, were the arms of care with dexterity. Her palms were extremely soft, as though she did not work, yet she was a goddess-of-all-trades, carrying baskets or clay pots on her head in the morning, and doing vigorous domestic chores most of her day as would most women in Gardutkar. Her body curved perfectly from her chest down to her hips to her full backside and ended on her bright and adrenaline fueled feet, with which she would walk for long distances from one end of the village to another selling the jewelry she made with her hands and face adornments for women. That was how he stumbled into her and was drawn unquestionably to her beauty, then to who she appeared to be. Perfect. He wondered where she had been all his life. He hesitated to tell her about the King’s quest.

“Lady… how are you doing today?” He called out, staring mouth agape as she walked by.

She turned and traced the voice. Fonjam had positioned himself on a stump along the footpath leading to the market place, making sure he didn’t stumble from beholding her beauty.

“Sir?” She did not hear.

Already feeling awkward, he stood, repeating himself clearly, “How are you doing today?”

“I am doing fine Sir.” She paused and opened the purse she hung on her waist removing a few jewelry, “Might you be interested in any of these, Sir?”

“Ah, lady, there is but one jewel a lot of people see when you pass by… Let my buy all of your jewels…” Fonjam felt good with himself. She cracked into a snigger she could not hold back from letting out, blushing, and it was the first time Fonjam had seen a black woman go red in the cheeks.

“Excuse me, did you say all?” She was still smiling.

“Yes, I did! Certainly!”

Silence ensued as she put all her jewels together to start naming the prices. It was a good sales day today, Ah! The gods! And this man seemed every bit strangely charming.

She had started talking when he cut her off.

“Let me give you ten goat teeth for all with a bag of a special fruit called ‘apple’…”
She gasped. “All that? No I can’t take all that! You really shouldn’t! Or if you insist, I will have to spend the rest of my life making them match up with your payment, Sir.” They both laughed out loud.

The chemistry was not built, it was already there, and when he had joked and made her laugh a lot, he asked if he could see her again sometime. She said she would not be available for the rest of that week, but Fonjam did not let it pass that way. Every day, he loitered the streets in the name of finding the King’s bride. Sure enough, he stumbled into her and they engaged themselves in very long conversations and the more he talked to her, the more he grew to love her. Prior to each time they met, he would make it a paramount goal to ask for her name, but he always dove into her charm and forgot his mission. This time he did not forget to ask for her name. Well, he did forget, until she asked for his.

“It’s funny, Mr. Stranger, I do not know your name but I know more than what your name is supposed to be worth. Isn’t that funny?” She said.

“Trust me, my name’s worth is nothing special. Not to me, it is not.”

“Just tell me…”

“Fonjam.”

“What?”

He sighed. “FON-JAM!” Making it clearer.

“Fonjam?”

He nodded.

“Hmmm, Fonjam…” his heart melted when he heard her call it. “Fonjam… I think I know what it means…”

“It means –“ He started to explain but,

“Don’t tell me… let me remember… hmmm…” She scratched her head, “Aha! ‘A helping hand’!”

“No it actually means ‘long hands’, what meaning is that supposed to have? Long hands are not always good hands.”

“Don’t be such a complainer! Do you think your parents named you long hands for a negative reason?”

“Yes. When I was born… you see my right arm? This bone looks like it is not in the right place… well it is not.”

“And?”

“Well, that is because when I was born, my right arm was stuck behind my back and my shoulders refused to budge when the nurses tried to pull me out. When they eventually did, my arms were still too long and that very arm got itself twisted in my mother’s food cord with which I was fed. She was losing blood fast, and before they could get me out untied and alive, my mother gave up and I was born.”

She was silent, and she looked hurt. But in a second she brightened up and said in a quiet voice, “Your mother would be proud of you if she knew you did not let that weigh you down.”

If he had heard those words from anyone else, it would have angered him, but when she said it, it broke him inside out and he began weeping like a child. She held him in her arms and comforted him like a mother did her child when he was hurt. She loved this man and there was no doubt about it.

“My name is Dakumet.” She whispered.

“What does it mean?” He asked her.

“It means…” She was beginning to sob now, “…’Stranger’.”

Fonjam couldn’t continue crying.

Greda

King Greda was walking down a lonely path with two of his guards at his side. It was not supposed to be a lonely path, but many people who saw his royal highness on the path gave way for the royal feet to pass. When they passed by a stream, the King’s attention had been stolen by a beautiful young lady bent over to fetch water into her clay pot. He asked one of his guards to approach her and let her know that the King needed to see her.

Samthanasmuths

Samnas was in a very good mood today. After he had collapsed the other day, he woke up in euphoria he did not understand. Since then he had been hanging between oblivion and consciousness, intoxicated by the slightest natural display outside the shrine. He spent the past four days living in the nearby trees. He felt liberated from a tight space; the shrine, and the tight space that was in his mind, and when his skin was bared to the sun’s radiance and the wind’s gentle touch and the smell of the soil mixed with that of fresh and dried grass, and the gel in leaves that had been cut in half by his reckless dog, he felt invincible, and he had totally forgotten his sorrows. He leaned against a branch and rested his head on both his arms, and when he had taken in a large amount of air, he exhaled and in no time he was not awake in the tangible world.

When he opened his eyes he saw a man in the strangest color of beards he had never known existed; white and full beards covering most of his face and covering his mouth completely, so much that he seemed to be in a mouthful of it when he spoke into Samnas’ face. The man had been staring at him for a while.

“Young man, this is my rock you are lying on.”

Rock?

“Can you hear me?”

He could barely hear the man over the whine in his ear and was adjusting his eyes to the sunlight. His brain was still trying to accept the situation of the atmosphere around him. When his senses arrived, he jumped up screaming and kicking with all the vigor he didn’t know he had. The man suddenly appeared behind him,

“That was my rock before you came and put your back on it.”

“I can swear I was lying on a tree branch when I slept off.” Samnas said to himself.

“Of course, I can swear I had black beards yesterday!” The man retorted angrily.

Samnas sat up and spun round to look at the man, still amazed.

“Well?” The man raised an eyebrow, or the hair on the top right corner of his face.

Samnas was still slow and when he stood up, he almost fell back down.

“Who…who are you, old man?” He was now staring at the old man’s white beards again.

The old man dug his hands into the soil and pulled out small pieces of wood shaped like a woman and connected together by a thin string and dirt, dusted off the dirt and effortlessly split the wood into two with his fingers. He removed the twins in the belly of the wood he had parted and dropped them in his mouth, chewing absent mindedly.

“I should be the first to ask you that ques –“

“…And where am I?”

“Young man, if you do not recognize that you cannot just barge into my farm and start asking me stupid questions, I can make you understand.” He was still chewing the seeds, and when he opened another, it had triplets. He was expressionless.

“I am sorry, but I was lying in a tree near the village shrine and I slept off…. That’s all I remem –“

“Did you say shrine?”

“Yes, but I don’t know how I got here.”

“You fell from the sky. But I don’t know how you ended up on my rock… What village is that?” The old man was just audaciously impatient.

“Gardutkar…” Samnas replied.

He had wanted to say more but when he saw the look on the old man’s face, he withdrew.

“It is not possible!” The old man broke out.

After failing to understand what the old man’s exclamations and gasps were for, Samnas opened up again.

“I do not understand; old man.”

Samnas looked around him; there was something awkward about this environment that he could not quite point out. He had wanted to ask the old man about this new wooden fruit he was eating, and why it was strange that Gardutkar was a strange name to him.

“You would not,” his beards were trembling now, “but what you should know is that that is not a part of existence. This is! That whole land is enchanted! It is an in-between, and in-betweens do not last forever!”

“I still do not understand your parables, old man.”

“This is Existence, and Gardutkar is not part of this land, so its true nature will soon show itself, if it already has not.”

“How do you know so much and why should I believe you? And why are your beards white, old man?”

“You mean you have never seen such before?” The man sounded like he was going to laugh, but he seemed too serious to.

“No, I have not.”

“Young man, what an elderly man sees lying down, a child will not see even yet as he climbs the elderly man’s head… there was a prophecy… a dark prophecy that brought Gardutkar to nothing, just when they were on the brink of finding who they were. And the whole world they knew, with them in it, was spun into destruction and nothingness.”

“Has it already happened?” Samnas was not sure if he was still alive anymore, or if he was talking to a messenger from the gods.

“If you are here I am wondering the same thing! You must be the chosen!”

Samnas was now confused. He knew about the prophecy, but had no idea it had more to do with Gardutkar than it did the King, whom it was centered about. But when it had not come to pass in the time it was supposed to happen, many forsook it except for a few who feared that the next King could possibly be the object of the prophecy. He did not understand why the old man called it a dark prophecy, but his head was beginning to ache so he deeply desired not to get himself more confused.

“I must get back home and warn the King…”

“Wait. Take this with you.” A hard long polished stick seemed to materialize from thin air and the old man gave it to Samnas, “hold on to it and you will have a cause to stand when disaster breaks out.”

The old man had the look of terror on his face and his beards had begun to sag, and just as he was about to ask the old man one more time which way he had come from and how he would get back the old man touched his forehead with his wrinkled thumb and said, “I saw you fall from the sky… you really did. Run home now… Run and do not lose focus of where you are going!” It echoed in Samnas’ ear and faded away, along with his eyesight and his other senses. He felt warmth leave his body the farther he went from the old man’s voice and he found himself opening his eyes to darkness, and his nostrils were full of soil and the smell of dog skin. The dog licked him up to consciousness. He had fallen from the tree. He was in Gardutkar and it was a dream. There was no such thing as a stick that materialized from thin air.

To be continued...

- Telsum Bini