Abioye watched as the older man stood in the middle of the muddy skid in the otherwise dusty clearing. He was pissing. And not just pissing. It gushed from him like a broken dam, churning up the mud at his feet and flecking his legs until the dry, wrinkled skin was glistening like a tree trunk of an acacia trees after that morning’s cloudburst.
Yet it was the vanishing clouds, not the torrent of urine that stirred in Abioye’s mind as he looked up at the powerful old man’s worn gaze and drawn chest. He seemed to be evaporating like the furious torrent that had drenched the savannah; a dark cloud spent after filling the waterholes, now limping off towards the horizon as it shed its mortal wisps to depart for the mysteries that lay beyond the great rim of the valley below. His mother, whom he had just added to his list of conquests, was in a far corner of the clearing relaxing in the sun.
The puddle stank awfully. Abioye couldn’t help but wonder what strange, exotic, pulpy fruits the stranger must have tasted in his wanderings in the valley. As the man finished, he heaved a great sigh, stood there for a moment looking off into the distance, and then slowly resumed his journey with slow, deliberate steps. Watching this ruddy stranger leave, Aboiye once again heard the echo that had become more persistent with every drying of the rains, when the cool air swirls the dust across the savannah:
“Someday I will have to leave.”
The trance was broken by a familiar hollering behind him.
“Abioye, get away from that man!”
Grandmother. Abioye swore she could hear his brain imagining from across the village and put a stop to it. Thankfully, it would seem her ability to actually read his current thoughts regarding her omnipresent stridency had a more limited range.
“Filthy things,” she sniffed as he ambled over. "They serve only one purpose on this earth and they never leave fast enough as far as I’m concerned.”
Abioye had heard the stories of the travelers, but he had never actually seen one in the flesh. Truth be told he never really believed it. They sounded more like spirits, and every once in a while a tale would be told of the mysterious journeys and mystical creatures they saw—forever wandering in the great god-knows-where. Still, his mother seemed to be contented with the situation, and after they had finished their relations she went off to her bed to take a nap .
“Grandmother, where do they come from and where do they go?”
“Away from here, and that’s all you need worry about. I certainly wouldn’t have chosen that one, but mothers can’t be telling their daughters who to be with I suppose.”
“Have you ever seen what’s out there?”
The grandmother heaved a sigh. “Child, let me tell you a story.”
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When Olarun made the world fresh and new, full of grass and trees, and his sister, Nalutuesha who brings the rains, filled the watering holes and made the grass green and the trees tall. One day, Olarun took a bunch of leaves and made a man, and Nalutuesah moulded a lump of clay into a woman. Every day Nalutuesha brought the rains so the people would never be thirsty, and Olarun raised the grass and trees so they were never hungry.
But the people shivered from cold and were frightened of the dark, so Olarun placed son Mbiraru high in the night sky to light the dark, and Nalutuesha gave her daughter Naeku to light the day.
Naeku had a kind radiance, and so beautiful was she that her smile warmed the world and all the green grasses strained their necks to catch a glimpse of her. Every day she would cross high overhead, and looked down upon us smiling.
As he grew older, Mbiraru felt the call of the wandering that takes all men when they reach a certain age, and one morning when he strayed behind the dawn, he caught a glimpse of Naeku. Day after day he lingered longer and longer in the dusk and dawn to see her, and the night grew dark and the people became afraid.
Finally, Olarun said to his son, “You are at an age when a man must find a woman. I will speak to Nalutuesha tomorrow."
Olarun went to Nalutuesha and said, “My son has reached the age where me must take a woman for himself, and he desires your daughter Naeku.” However, Nalutuesha refused, saying,“They must be set apart, for the children of the world must have warmth in the day and light in the night.
Olarun told his son the news, but Mbiraru found Naeku at dawn one morning and they ran away into the great valley where the spirits of the ancestors wander freely and the winds rest when they are exhausted from whipping the dust across the savannah.
They had many children, and filled the earth with the giant herds of buffalo that trample the earth, the monkeys with their bright eyes and mischievous fingers, the lions with their sharp claws and teeth, and the crocodiles who wait in the black water. So taken were they with each other that they did not return, and the world grew cold and dark again. The lions and the crocodiles turned on the buffalo and monkeys, and even found the courage to attack the people. The frost that sometimes gathers on the grass in the early morning grew thick. Nalutuesha no longer brought the rains for she was searching for her daughter, and Olarun brought no grass.
Finally, Nalutuesha and Olarun found the pair, and said “You must return to the day and the night, for the people are hungry and cold, and the beasts have turned on one another in the dark.”
“Father," Mbiraru replied, "I care not for the world but only for Naeku. I must stay with her forever for my heart will never rest if we are apart until I am with her again.” But Naeku replied, “I must take care of my children and keep them warm. We must be apart.”
And so Naeku returned to the day to warm the people and her children, the buffalo, the zebra, the lion, and the crocodile, and Mbiraru went back to the night. That is why, my child, Mbiraru wanders through the night, looking sometimes this way, sometimes that, and sometimes leaves the night to search both dawn and dusk to try to catch a glimpse of her, but Olarum constantly watches him with his thousand eyes to make sure he never strays too far. And twice a year Nalutuesha dries the land so Naeku, ever warm, ever loving, must never forget to attend to her children, and lead them on the great circle north and south to find the watering holes and green grass when the earth is cracked and dry. And only when she returns to the height of the sky will Nalutuesha bring the rains again.
But child, every once in a great while, Mbiraru and Naeku find each other again for a short while, and when that happens, Olarun with his thousand eyes watches them and smiles, and the world is filled again with the giant herds of buffalo that trample the earth, the monkeys with their bright eyes and mischievous fingers, the lions with their sharp claws and teeth, and the crocodiles who wait in the black water.
-------------------
“So you see young one, because we too are sons and daughters of Olarun and Nalutuesha, all mothers must look after all the children in the village so they stay warm and happy just as Naeku watches over us, and why the rains dry up, and why all men must wander as Mbiraru wanders across the night sky.”
“Then why, grandmother, do all creatures not follow the laws of Olarun and Nakutuesha? The buffalo males and females all stay together, and the monkeys do all sorts of horrible things. A few males rule the pride, and the crocodiles do not care for each other at all.”
“Ah,” she said with a smile, “You are very wise even at such a young age. You see, we are the children of the gods, created first and greatest by their hands. The buffalo and monkeys are lesser creatures than us, and the laws aren’t meant for them.”
“Are they bad?” he asked.
“No Aboye—they are neither good nor bad, even those awful monkeys. They act the way they act according to their kind, and wondering if it is right or wrong is to ask if the stones are wrong to stub our toes or the acacia tree is right to give us shade. But because we are the children of Olarun and Nakutuesha, we know the laws of right and wrong. A woman and a man must find each other from time to time, but what if we didn't follow the example of Naeku and return to our children? You would freeze at night and be eaten by the lions. That would be a terrible evil, and one for which Nakutuesha would dry up the rains forever to punish us.
Or imagine if the men stayed forever, constantly fighting until there were not a single one left? It would be the end of civilized society as we know it. There is a legend of a great fire that Olarun brought from the mountain in anger when the men lingered too long one year, and the ground shook and the grass was burned to cinders. It was only our prayers that kept us alive. Even the day was blotted out, and Nakutuesha threw thunder and lightning in a rage and many of us were killed. But that is a story for another time. Now run along little one - there is too much fun to be had in this world when you are young to be standing around talking to your grandmother all day.”
Aboiye smiled and trundled off, thinking to himself, “I will miss them sorely when it is my time to leave, but I must, so Olarun will always bring them the green grass, Nakutuesha will bring the rains, and Naeku will smile on all of my family forever.”
He walked over to where his mother was sleeping, and fell asleep as Naeku said goodbye until the morning.
-------------------
“Ugh, I can’t believe those two elephants did that right out in public!” Julie shrieked, handing the binoculars back to her father in disgust.
“Now, now,” he laughed, “that’s how elephants mate. Just because it’s an ungodly for us doesn’t mean it’s a sin for them.”
“But it’s wrong!” she protested. “They should be going straight to hell for that!”
“They’re elephants; they do what they do,” he replied tersely, pushing up his glasses and scribbling another date and time into his worn leather journal. “If the Lord intended the Gospels for them he would have written them down in grunts. Now go inside and help your mother set the table or you will have a lot more to worry about than an elephant’s bedtime prayers, missy.”
Julie almost begged to stay another minute, because for all their amoral curiosities she did love to watch the cute little one tossing the grass in the air and spraying itself with cool water from the pond. But the tone in his voice let her know there wasn’t going to be a discussion. She turned curtly around and headed into the bungalow towards the sound of plates clinking and her mother sing the song Julie had heard every day since she could remember:
“Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so...”
“I certainly hope so,” Julie grumbled, “because I don’t remember anything about forks and spoons in the Parable of the Loaves and Fishes.”