The Gods Among Us

Chapter 5, The Telling of Stories

The telling of stories takes a long time, and this is one such story. And because everyone participates through their interaction, they will remember it and someday tell it to their own children. After I finished for the night, the young men took up the drums and beat out a rhythm. Some of the younger ones left for their homes with their children. Cush followed her mother Tata home after giving me a big hug.

Good night Pappy, she whispered into my ear. Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite, and she giggled as she always did at things she didn't understand.

Dream well, called Tata with a wave of the arm, and they dissolved into the darkness.

My brother Buddy has a reed he carved to make music, and he can make it sound like the Pipers that skim the Watersea's surface for fish. And Cush's father Johnny, who reminds me of myself as a young man, made a tube, as big as a snake, out of papyrus, and he began to play it, and out of it came the sounds of the Borealis, so Julie told him. It took him a long while to make pleasant sounds from it, but it was worth the wait. I tried it once and could only muster a farting sound. He calls it an Ooga. He told me that I should leave music to those who have the knack and that I should stick to storytelling.

Windsand is an old man who married my oldest daughter. He looks like he could be my father but in truth, he is ten years younger than I. He is of the old people. We found him years ago along the great river. His race of people has mixed heavily with ours, and the children are a beautiful amber color. He tells tales of his clan and of how the world was formed back in the beginning of time. It's a beautiful story and blends beautifully with the Ooga. When the two get together and perform for the clan, we are taken away into a dreamlike world, and we are swooned by the beauty.

Someone called for it after a while, and Windsand ostensibly resisted but finally conceded.

And it began, as he spoke it.

There was the Above, and all was dark and empty. And in the darkness, the Great Spirit had no form. And in his shapelessness, he roamed the earth looking for a mate. He came upon a large river and had no name for it. He thought there should be someone to give this river a name, there are many animals here, but none that can speak. He stood by the water's edge, and bending over took the sandy loam, and with it he formed a creature that goes about on two legs. He was pleased, and he spoke to it so that it might speak back. What name shall I give to you, he said.

And the creature spoke to its creator and said, I am, he paused to think for he had no idea. And the creator, thinking he was through spoke, I Am. So it is I. Since you are my firstborn that I have made from the rich soil about this river, tell me, he said, What will you call this so that I may name myself? And I, said, Since I am your firstborn, then I will name it as I speak, and call it Zar.

Windsand never got to finish his tale that night because there was a plangent wail from the darkness towards the Watersea. It sounded to my ears like a little girl's scream, and I stood abruptly, and so did Johnny. And as we looked at one another reading the panic in each other's eyes, we took off towards the sound, hoping beyond hope that it wasn't our precious little Cush.

Johnny is young and fast and he quickly disappeared into the night, but I had taken a branch from the Great Fire and followed as quickly as I could. I remembered while trotting along after him, that there had been talk of a wild cat, the spotted leopard roaming the salty cliffs in search of Ibex, and this threw my mind into a terrible fear, and I prayed to Ori that it shouldn't be Cush. And I looked towards the Borealis and the stars were gone, yet the moon could still be seen through the misty clouds. And the wind was growing.