TLADI

Chapter 11

After one of his deepest depressions, he lived in a state of almost perpetual happiness. This was because nothing drastic had happened to pull him out of those black, sometimes depressing, drowning waters when the ship sank. No, he had dragged himself out. He had simply remembered that he could swim and realized that you chose to swim out or not. It was not something that just happened to you. He realized that what was said really was true; most people were as happy as they wanted to be.

While drying his body of those black, sometimes depressing waters and lying on the glowing beach of his recovery, he said to his greatest friend Stima; 

"It's easy to be happy isn't it?" With the wisdom that comes with age, his greatest friend nodded his handsome head and said;

"But I prefer to be calm." Shamiso had abstractly wondered what person would prefer to be calm. He had kept these wonderings to himself. Along with the newfound truth that you were never forced to stay in the boat that rode the dark waters of this life. 

You only thought you were forced. You always had a choice; you could learn to swim, you could jump out of that boat and swim to the nearest shore. You could build another boat, your own boat, your own ship, and sail magnificently into the multihued sunset. 

However, there were storms and accidents, and there was fate and destiny. Some were not destined to sail into the sunset. The trick was to build safety measures into the boat or ship with which you sailed the waters of this life. The vessel can be controlled, the waters cannot. Yet Shami knew his purpose held to sail beyond the sunset. He knew that it was not too late to seek a newer world. Thus, he sailed; who knew what he would come across?

Everyone in the village had a story like that, a story of transition. Some were more extreme than others of course. Before the end of her transition, Tladi had been like a dark, malevolent force; full of fury and destruction. She had been the village terror, though no one ever spoke of it now, they had all gone through a very dark time. 

The entire village had had to be rebuilt several times. The only exception being the underground storage rooms where 'The Most Secret Truth' was hidden. It had come to a point where whenever Tladi lost control, her surrogate mother Umthunz'omnyama would put her on a camel and ride off at a desperate pace into desert.

There had been a terrible kind of confusion in Tladi. It was as though the creature she was and the creature she was being, were incompatible and were waging wars against each other. In addition, until one won there would be no peace.

Shamiso had usedhis perceptive musical talent to intuit the details from Stima's perspective as being something like ...

...watching the weather. A brainstorm so bright and filled with thunder and light; the flashes could be seen from the outside, through the window to her soul, her eye. Also, in the troubled way she walked the land; as though she pondered thoughts great enough to worry the gods who threw the thunder and lightning bolts into her brainstorm. 

Before that, she was just a little mad and strange; her mind was all purple-skied and green-clouded with the occasional odd-shaped bird flying in a strange manner. It was a kind of madness that could easily be endured, something merely curious. Not like her sudden revolutionary stage, which frayed at the edges of one's being if you stepped too close, where the flashes of light blinded you if you looked too hard and the thunder and lightning deafened you if you listened too carefully. 

Her brain was stormy because her mind was rapidly growing and progressing. The gale-force winds in her brainstorm frantically blew away her misconceptions. The harsh rain washed away the filth that society had polluted her mind with and the thunder and lightning struck down wooden and metal walls of pride and ego. For a long time, the sun did not shine in that land. But one day, as unexpectedly and rapidly as they had arrived, just when you were beginning to worry about where this storm would take her and if she would ever be able to come back from that place... the dark, grey, roiling storm clouds rolled away and revealed a transformed mind. 

It was something almost unrecognizable in its transformation, something a little indescribable. Its dominating feature was peace. There was a kind of harmony in the way her horizons met her skies, in the way her grass grew embraced by her ground and in the way her air held up her birds in flight. Yet the inner workings of her newfound peace were as unfathomable as her previous purple skies and green clouds. She was just as unusual as she was before her brainstorm. 

Ironically, I am still drawn to her in the same way as before, for an opposite reason. She used to be an object of my interest because of the madness and beauty of her land. Now it is for the calm serenity and beauty. Now a new chapter will unfold... 

Stima sighed and stared into the distance, a beatific expression spreading over his slightly rounded, handsome, dark features. Shami's darker features shaped an expression of conflict. This man was dreaming, he knew, and it broke his heart to have to shatter that dream with the harshness of reality.

"But Stima, someone peaceful wouldn't and couldn't manage to burn the village to a cinder..." Stima's pleasant voice whispered as he gestured towards the smoking ruins that were already being rebuilt.

"How can you honestly believe that she can control the weather? That's rather superstitious don't you think? Even for you, Shami." Stima replied defensively, watching Tladi put her all into helping the villagers rebuild their homes. Shami followed his gaze. He felt that he did not have the whole picture.