TLADI

Chapter 9

Tladi and Stima were having one of their sporadic conversations. Stima had noticed that Tladi was the one who tended to be aloof. The fact that he did not like to push, but rather always allow the women to fall into his charming grasp, did not help the situation. 

Tladi had purposely set out to try to be aloof. Stima had noticed that sometimes the aloofness had cracks of interest. Tladi had realized that sometimes she would struggle to keep the front of aloofness. She had noticed that there had been a secret activity in the clouds over the mountains since the strange new feeling had begun. Stima had observed that the clouds over the mountains had a strange new activity to them but had dismissed them as a thicker cover of mist over the mountains. He was not a paranoid person and did not like to think too much about things that he deemed unimportant. 

Tladi thought everything was important in the correct context. Everything meant something. It was just up to you to decipher what it was they meant. Tladi was a thinker. She liked to think. It did not come as a surprise; anyone would end up being that way if one did not exactly have a horde of friends. There was only so much one could say to Sibi before she fell asleep or lost interest.

Tladi suddenly noticed that the conversation had lapsed into silence for a while now. She wondered if Stima had noticed that she had gotten lost in thought for a while. Stima wondered the same thing. They were sitting on the cliff above the sea where Tladi always went when she was troubled. Stima had found her sitting there and joined her. He found her there a lot these days. It occurred to Tladi that Stima always found her on this cliff above the sea. She realized that he did not know that it was where she always went when she was troubled (otherwise, he would not join her when he found her there). He figured she probably just liked the view. She figured that he probably thought she liked the view.

They both turned suddenly to look at each other, as though each was hearing an echo of their own thoughts in a different voice. Sibi once again missed the moment; she had gone to chase birds down the hillside.

Their eyes met locked and connected until they could not be drawn away. There was suddenly this strange force between them like magnets were drawing their eyes together. The magnetic force could not be resisted. They drew closer until Stima could clearly see each dark eyelash around Tladi's single indigo eye. He absently thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Tladi did not think this time, to think would mean the end of this, she knew...

There was suddenly a silence in the air; it was seemingly louder than the song that nature always sang. Sitting with their knees drawn up, facing the sea, and their bodies, braced by both hands planted on the ground, turned and leaning towards each other across the arm's length space between them; their backs suddenly stiffened and their slowly closing eyes suddenly shot open. To trained hunters like themselves, the silence was like a siren. Umthunz'omnyama observed this in silence, aware that her presence had suddenly been felt, but refusing to alert them as to exactly who the presence was. The two sitting on the cliff-edge slowly turned to see Umthunz'omnyama. The silence was broken by their simultaneous gasps of surprise. 

Sibi, who was standing next to Umthunz'omnyama, having led her there, immediately stopped panting happily, aware that something was amiss. Umthunz'omnyama's beaded locks glittered in the sunshine just as her dark, yellowed eyes glittered behind them. This gave the impression that she could control the glittering of her beaded locks to suit her expression. Stima could not hold her gaze and dropped his eyes to the shadows that he and Tladi cast. He noted the contrast between his long dreadlocks tied firmly at the back of his head, and the seemingly distorted head presented by Tladi's ever-present white head-cloth.

Umthunz'omnyama had noted the contrasting shadows and forms when she had arrived. She had remembered why she had kept Tladi's head bald or covered and why she had encouraged Tladi to continue this. When Tladi's hair grew long, it was completely straight, unlike the hair of anyone that she had ever seen. Tladi did not need any more marked differences between her and every other person in the village. The-mother-of-Tladi's hair had been black and close-cropped; Tladi's was a much lighter shade. She was just lucky that her eyebrow and eyelashes had turned out black.

The contrasting shadows and forms of the pale Tladi and the dark Stima shifted apart. Stima excused himself, thinking that perhaps this was a matter between Tladi and her adoptive mother. He did not want to stand in the way of the Sangoma, his fear of her was universal, it was wise to fear the Sangoma, and thus there was no dent to his pride as he left.

Umthunz'omnyama's gaze softened instantly when Stima left. She tended to understand her adopted daughter. She gazed at Tladi for a long time, her look said much more than any words could say. Then she turned and walked away. Tladi sat there and cried in the sunset. It rained hard in the village that evening. It had stopped by the time Tladi returned. Things had changed; Tladi had only ever cried once before. Things were changing... She knew she would never cry again...

Upon arrival, Tladi noticed that a few of the tallest trees had been struck by lightning. It saddened her, this was new, Tladi was never saddened whenever such things occurred; she was merely irritated. She did not like this power; it was too much. She could not learn to control it; it always slipped right through her fingers every time her emotion radar rose above zero. It did not rise above zero very often, but only one person made it do that, the only person that had ever made it do that even from her childhood.

Stima had dismissed the rainstorm as just that, a rainstorm. He did not believe the superstition about Tladi, that she could control the weather. He thought it was just plain stupidity. Besides the power of the mind was astounding, he knew. A shared conscious belief could manifest itself into a reality if enough people believed it with the right level of fierceness. In addition, he knew how fiercely the whole village believed the superstition about Tladi. The numerous coincidences of her appearance and disappearance during and after the storms did not help the situation at all. Stima wondered where Tladi was now and if she and the Sangoma had had a disagreement.

He wondered what would have happened if the Sangoma had not appeared at that moment. The thought made him smile. Another thought dimmed that smile; he was hungry now, and he knew that he would have to go out to hunt for his supper tonight. His mother did not frequently spoil him by cooking for him. She wanted him to be encouraged to find a wife to cook for him. Stima chuckled as he recalled his mother angrily stating the fact that it would not be hard for him and his friend Shami to find wives. She was tired of the way Stima always just played with women and then walked away when he got bored, and of how Shami blatantly ignored all the women that practically threw themselves at his feet. She would click her tongue with disapproval, unable to understand why they did not each just choose one. 

'The women here are itching to be your wives!' she had exclaimed, as always, discounting the fact that Tladi was a woman and that she was not itching to be anyone's wife.