this is one of my best works. it is an unpublished manuscript i worked on four months ago. my first blog.

Chronicles of the moonlight sojourner

The moon was just breaking out of the sparse layer of clouds dotting the equally bored night sky. The night was quiet save for the occasional howl of the wild hounds and a cricket or two shaken from their wary slumber. From some place in the darkness rose a figure shrouded in the night air. A creak could be heard from his jointed knees and was soon bent double in a bout of nerve wracking cough. He turned to his side where a small rusty can hung as if clutching for dear life and tilted it as if to take a drink but cursed on finding it empty.

He shed off the threadbare blanket that served as the only form of vindication against the merciless cold and shoved into a tattered bag on the ground that had definitely seen better days. He sat down and examined his leg tied with a white, now crimson rug that served as a bandage for his heavily blistered feet. His feet were not really feet at the moment. They were baggage. He could barely make out their outline through the moonlight streaming through the trees. The cracks were a prominent feature on him and the pain now a part of his daily life. He stood up and winced as his stick thin legs strived to withstand all the pressure subjected to it. He was now a ghost of a man, thin and malnourished with cheeks hollow in hunger and his lips chapped and bleeding, evidence of thirst and long periods of hunger. His eyes had miraculously been able to maintain the same resolute look and seemed like the only feature alive on his face. His stomach was now like a mere bag. It stood out as if it was just an extension of the body, a bloated abomination. His teeth were cancerous with rust evidently from long periods withouta toothbrush finding its way there.

He effortfully made the first step, a thick dry sapling working better than his lower appendages. He threw a last glance at the clump of bushes that had for the past sixteen hours served as his home. A feeling of nostalgia crept through him but he knew that he nevertheless had to move along.

He was a man on a mission, one that would define his life or even ruin it forever. He was serving his sentence. There was no way he would have ended the journey. If his legs failed to take any more torture, he would crawl his knees to shreds for he very well knew that the consequences were to be dire if he dared pull out. He tried to make his mind wander from the pathetic state he was in but all he was able to do was focus on something much worse, that wretched day that came after his fate was sealed.

‘The dance was as repulsive as it was violent. The cries emitted were unearthly and the ritual stunk to high heavens. He couldn’t stop himself from retching as he was throat high in bile. The leader of the sect was an old man clad in skins and a headdress that gave an idea of a scarecrow. His skin glistened in the firelight from the excessive pig fat and his own sweat. His eyes were rheumy yellow and created an idea of a jaundiced child. He would move closer to the fire then stop somewhat halfway as if deep in thought for a few seconds then take off to the nearby bushes, come back with some leaves which he threw into the fire and great scented smoke rose like incense, while all the time paying adherence to the drum.

The prisoners were then brought out and bundled before the people, all the time begging to be spared, while well knowing that leniency wasn’t for them. Another man even older came forth a knife in hand and started taunting the victims. The ritual almost always had a transformative effect. The man who just a few minutes ago was seated soberly watching in the corners was now anything but human. I had somehow managed to source some kind of admiration for this man who was sane in the midst of insanity but that admiration turned to raw distaste the moment he stood. Two human skulls lay somewhere amidst the sad clutter and the leprous yellow light reflected around him giving the idea of a scorning devil.

The sojourner watching from the sidelines was appalled and he to his shock discovered that his feet had been rendered immobile. This was just the previous day and he had very much tried but it was like a nightmare. He was worried for his child whom he very much hoped hadn’t met the same fate. His gait quickened to a shuffle as if that would save her in time.

 He had at this particular time decided to follow the rumours that claimed that his daughter was in the neighbouring Moto village. He had an only child, a daughter who was at one time taken away deep in the night. He had been ill and weak and with no wife or kin around, was too weak to raise the alarm. He was a man who liked his time alone and so when his wife died, he moved away from the village to mourn on his own and things between him and the villagers changed. This however doesn’t mean that they were better earlier. The change was from pity to suspicion and then radicalized to open hatred. He received the treatment of a raw, smelly wound, more of a wild animal than a human. His daughter was unique and this didn’t wash well with the conservatives in the village. From the moment he saw the child, he knew that they were on a ticking time bomb and the love and anticipation for a child turned to pity and fear for its life. The child had a pale skin, so pale that it was white. This was a curse and he knew so. They would come for this child. His wife was worst affected and it took her almost two years to drag out of the aftershock of giving rise to such a ‘vile creature’ as the villagers put it. Her shock turned to love and support when she discovered that the child exhibited a faster development and at three months was able to sit up without support which was no mean feat.

When ill comes, it comes in droves and it did. When the child was two, her mother passed on. She had been outside playing in the mud and at this stage was gaining coherence in her speech. It clocked noon and she hungrily lumbered into the house surprised that her mother hadn’t called her in as she usually did. She was used to playing alone as no sane woman would let her mingle with the children. Her mother was sprawled near the hearth and her mouth was foaming. The young child couldn’t pull two by two and understand what was happening. She tried in the few words she could mutter and even ran her feeble hands over the troubled face. When she saw no response forthcoming, she lay down and stretched her mother’s hands over her feeble form and cried herself to sleep the cold hands soothing her warm body and acting as balm to her wounded soul.

It was in that state that the sojourner found them. He was just coming from the shamba with beads of sweat visible on his brows. The two o’clock sun was intent on punishing. He knew something wasn’t right the moment he stepped in. The door was wide open and smoke trails were usually visible at this time and the compound had a deathly silence about it.He dropped his jembe and broke into a run. The house had been disturbed and there lay the two people he cherished most. His mind was numb for a movement and he stood there watching unseeingly at the flies swimming drowsily in the afternoon air around the two figures. He fell on his knees and started shaking the two forms. The little one was startled out of sleep and watched him with rounded eyes. He realized that his love was dead. He could see tears welling up in the eyes of the little one and he knew that a deluge was approaching.

It was time. The consequences had been spelt clearly but he had been blinded by the insane passion he had for the young lady. When he was a young man, he had been clearly warned of marrying this lady for she was a recipe for trouble. Her past was a mystery and her adoptive parents had died of a malady strange and unresponsive to the wildest of concoctions. Their property had been decimated and their fields turned barren when she came and she was thus branded the ambassador of woes with whom careful watch should be put to make sure she doesn’t contaminate the village. When life became too tough for her there, she moved out. At this point, her foster parents had tried to snuff her life out to get rid of the ill fortune but she had held on due to the lack of a better option. The little scratches they had grew to festering wounds and they couldn’t bear her sight anymore. They now showed distaste openly and mistreated her at every opportunity. She had to take off. And she did.

The sojourner was at this time an orphaned boy of nineteen living on their two acre farm when he found a ragged girl of around his age scavenging for young tubers in his farm. He couldn’t place her so he hid behind a clump and watched her. She ate them even without washing and from the filth visible on her from this distance, it was evident to him that she was one with a long story.

He later married her even after being warned against and he had to pay the ultimate prize. Now when she had gone, he had been compelled to become the mother, father and playmate to her little one, a role as alien as it was interesting. He had caught a fever one day and after some wild medication had taken an afternoon off and it was at this time that she had been carried off. He had been awaken by some strange sound, more of something like a strangled cry. He hadn’t realized he had been that weak till when he fell flat on his face in an effort to reach to her. He was just in time to see a receding back turning into the thin forest cover. He knew that screaming was pointless for no one would come through anyway. He had helplessly listened to the rustles and only the mosquito bites had been able to convince him that it was better to be in than out.

He wasn’t surprised to feel the tears on his face and he didn’t care to stifle the sobs on his lips. He leaned against a tree and there he became inconsolable. The threat of wild animals was thrown to far oblivion and it was now his time with family. He felt at one with nature and the weight was like a fog during a hot weather and he felt lighter. Here he cried for a wife he had been unable to see to in time, a part of him wrenched and had left a void that even the best of things would never fill. He cried for the little angel he had failed when she needed her most, the little thing he had sworn to protect with his life and now….

He didn’t know where he sourced the strength, nor where he found his voice for he let out a roar, a roar so loud that the night air came alive in fear and tension, a roar so painful, the epitome of pain. His resolve at that point came so strong that he was almost sure he was unstoppable. He lifted himself heavily from the tree trunk and did his best to ignore the pain and numbness plaguing his legs and he plopped on. Deep down he had decided that somehow somewhere he was going to find her. Safe.

He picked his stick and slashed at the thick undergrowth cropping up at his feet. His pace though didn’t seem so convincing to him. His head all of a sudden spun and he knew that if he didn’t find food soon he was going to faint. Something happened as if on cue and there before him he could make out a silhouette of a berry tree and the moonlight sparkled temptingly in it. He didn’t even check to decipher their nature. He popped two into the mouth and he closed his eyes to savour their taste. The sweet juice trickled down his lips. He stretched his hands to pick a bigger bunch. He didn’t get them. He felt a sharp pain in the left part of his heart and he limply fell, his hands still outstretched, his body paralyzed in pain and his eyes wide in shock. The world started fading before his eyes and he in his dying throes saw his little daughter, a devilish smile on her face as the poison made its mark. The curse was true. The berries were not. His daughter was a curse all along.