SRθ: Grim Inquiries (2023-2024)

Sit.5: The Stream's Blood

WHO ARE YOU

I walk the rivers blue
the waves crash at my feet
bare as when I got them
on rocks and sand of sea

suddenly you join me
from the other side
you walk the other bank
you watch the other tide

I check if you are looking
you see if I am too
soon the river narrows
and I walk next to you

My hood as black as night
its pinholes tiny stars
my parent's skull upon me
it tells me who you are

but you have your ways too
and gifts from elders dear
that make my flaws apparent
that make my strengths more clear

I follow rivers into oceans
hand in yours, my hand returns
we part as shores begin to broaden
no heart dies where love was learned.

* * *

I was about to vomit. I could barely see straight. As the hot sun blasted its heat to me, full force, I felt my body shiver and shrivel at the same time. I felt my head get lighter, and my vision turned dull black. I felt a scorpion, or something, skitter along my back, and by the sand on my face I knew I'd fallen face-first.
The next time I blinked, I was somewhere cooler, looking up at a shanty ceiling. Dragging myself out of a skin-cot, the blood rushed to my head, and it was like a hammer. Next to me was a pot of clear water with no smell, and some crackers. Still belly-on-floor, I sipped the water, my stomach tight, and gnawed on a cracker. It took me a while to get the strength to sit up, and I saw that I was on a marble balcony that overlooked a beautiful town. Palm trees on every corner, streams of water running between square streets and pooling into a fountain at the center. Each building was a mix of stone and sand, with wood to support walls and doors. I was expecting more marble, but that was unique to the tiered structure of the building where I was resting. On the lower tiers were more cots, and more shanty roofs. It must be some kind of hotel, I thought. The sun was low, and the long shadows of the trees stretched into each other, like dark continuous lines. I fell asleep again, leaning my back into the cot's longer side.

The next morning, The Prince and The Huntress returned with a basket, brand new and empty.
"Whassat for?" I grumbled.
"Fishing," announced The Prince. "You are going to help."
"I feel terrible," I protested.
The Huntress replied, "Fish will make you feel better."
I dragged my ass out to the edge of town, walking behind the other two, holding my gut and feeling my head swim. We walked for at least a half-hour to a soggy patch of grass, and then up a hill. At the top, I could see below us a narrow creek, clear as the sky itself and trickling softly. There were shiny red fish swarming the rocks, glistening like beds and gems under the sun's light, filtered mercifully by a forest of round-leaf trees that surrounded us. The fish darted from bank to bank, catching bugs with their mouths; insects leapt from reeds to grass and back into the water, too numerous and noisy to track with the eye. It was a frenzy! The Prince had us get low, onto our knees, to crawl quietly down the hill. Once there, he instructed the two of us to stay. He stood up slowly, and took the spear off his back, from its little leather loop that strapped around his shoulder and just under his chest. He untied the flag from the spear, and used it to tie his robes above his thighs at the waist. He waited, and let the curious fish crowd his feet. He looked at ease with them, and a little bit sorry – like me with the gazelle. Then quick as a needle into thread, he pinned a fish on his spear, and yanked it out. It was caught on the arrowhead, and he twisted the fish to make sure the wound didn't align with the edges. He'd left the bucket with me, so I was waiting for him to return. Instead, he kept jabbing, skewering fish with incredible accuracy. Each one slid the next up the spear, like he was building a totem pole, or making shish-kebab. Before I could count, he was wading his way back to slide them all off into the basket, leaning the spear against the edge and dragging it to let them go in one smooth motion. The tip, though at odds with the holes in the fish, seemed to slip right through them.
He handed the spear to The Huntress. "Here you go."
She nodded, and slowly made her way to another spot where the fish were chasing bugs. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, then opened them again and with both hands thrust the spear straight into the sand with a thud. The fish swam away, then came back within seconds. She tried again, taking a smaller breath, and stuck three fish in a row. Then one slide off because she forgot to hold the spear sideways between jabs, or twist the fish. She slapped her forehead and signed, "Aye, this is why I hunt in the fields. This is too slippery for me, too wet."
I whispered, "Is that supposed to be an-"
She glared at me. I shut my mouth. Apparently, it was not.
Then she tried one last time, and came back with five fish. Not half as many as The Prince.
He growled, "Woman, you'd better stick to the fields, you can't even spear them right. Look at this one: you put three holes in him. Another, through the eye – I'm surprised it didn't rip and fall off."
She let out a growl herself, wordless frustration, and let the fish slide into the bucket, but she had to push the last one off by hand (from the notch that allowed the spear to sit in its harness and still poke the height above The Prince's head). Then, she handed it to me.
As I stood up, my hips stung. I was loud and heavy into the creek, my feet dumbly trodding like they were made of clay. The fish could hear me long before I got there, they just didn't care enough to leave. As I drew closer, and saw them feasting on crickets and beetles, their little faces reminded me of my own, and I felt a fondness towards them. I'd been fishing back home, with my siblings and with The Knight. There, we tied hooks to string and string to a stick or branch – if the fish took our bait of pierced worm or chunk of another fish, it was the fish's own fault and greed. We called it "dumb-culling" because only the dumbest animals could fall for such a trick for hundreds of years, if not thousands. We joked at dinnertime that eating too many would make us stupid, though our father was quick to correct us: eating fish makes you smarter because of yet unstudied nutrients and components inside it, and group testing showed an increase in reading ability. The test had been done in a lab in Egypt, and it was the topic of a conversation that resulted in our family.
The Prince hissed, "Go on! Skewer them, before my catch rots."
I side-eyed him, knowing I had only spent a minute in my memories. He smiled. I took a deep breath, and stabbed my left foot. I gasped hard, and squealed through clenched throat, immobilized by pain. My blood clouded the water, and the fish stopped moving. They started swarming me! What looked like a hundred fish, all jumping at me and running along my ankles. They were attracted to the blood, for some reason. I took the spear, and put it through two fish at once. Then another, and a miss, then another. Before I knew it, I had fish from the tip of the spear down to my hands, twitching as their hearts slowly stopped beating. They dripped with water and blood, and it ran along my arms, down my body, around my legs in spiral, and back to the creek. Excited, I splashed over to the basket on my limping foot, and The Prince helped me slide them in.
I was grinning ear to ear. "Not bad for my first try, huh?"
He narrowed his eyed, but he was grinning too. "Beginner's luck. I'll catch the rest."