By Mainecoon
Tragedy has a tendency to at times inflict a wound far too harsh for the remedies given by stinging herbs stashed safely in the soothsayers' trees, or the gentle caress of forgetful dreams. Though usually its jagged edged penetrate only the tender heart, which can be mended by time and love, there are some wounds that go far deeper and pierce the spirit, which can be healed only by the death of its prison body and bleeds until that death arrives.
Such a wound can be caused by many tragedies, though the circumstances necessary for them to occur are rare among those who are able to tell their stories to others. Rarer still are those who live to tell their story and find surcease among those willing to listen.
The spirit cannot be healed, but the heart can. Few remember that in times of hardship.
*
Low, even thunder sounded over the plains at the edge of the jungle. Human drums--a hunting party--approached. Rarely did a mantribe stray so far from their home near the desert. The two friends who rested at the jungle's boundary that afternoon thought little of the sound. Even when human men came so far as the plains, they were loathe to enter the foreboding jungle. Furthermore, night would fall soon over Africa's cradling lands. No, these two had nothing to fear.
The drums stopped when sunset came. Even after being hoisted into a tree by his warthog companion and scrambling nimbly to the top, the young meerkat could see no sign of the hunters save a thin spiral of smoke from their cookfires just beyond the horizon.
He slid down the smooth bark and hopped onto his friend's back. "Well, Pumbaa," he said, "Whadda ya say we sleep under the stars tonight?"
The warthog twisted his face into a doubtful frown. "Well, I don't know, Timon… Those humans are kinda nearby…"
Timon snorted in disgust. "Aw, c'mon, buddy! Don't tell me you're afraid of a little smoke on the horizon?? Besides, the rainy season's coming. Soon we'll be stuck sleeping in a tree night after night after night after night for months!"
"Welllll… I dunno…"
"C'mon!!" Timon slid onto Pumbaa's broad snout and flashed him a pair of wide, pleading eyes. Pumbaa sighed, defeated.
"Okay, okay. Where?"
Timon pointed to a decaying log a hundred yards or so into the grass. Only one branch remained on its worm-eaten body, thrust high into the air in defiance of its own death. Pumbaa nodded in assent and trotted over to the island in the midst of miles of grass. As the two settled in for the night, Pumbaa stretched on his back atop the log and Timon curled neatly between his friend's front legs, a chilled wind stirred the grass into ripples like a troubled sea. The rains were coming.
*
Timon was awakened from his slumber by the drums. Drowsily, he forced his eyes open. Looking up, he still saw stars, and no sign of dawn on any horizon. But over the grassy plains he saw fire. Humans bearing torches high above their heads ran desperately towards the jungle while behind them flames drank the dry grass, engulfing it with a light that would hide the dawn and cover the sky in black smoke. The human drums sang a warning beat--the call of fire! Danger! Run!
Timon uttered a small cry and leaped onto Pumbaa's snout. "Wake up! Wake up!!" he demanded. Pumbaa barely stirred. Timon leaped down and gave the warthog's tail a firm tug, but still Pumbaa did not wake. Timon scrambled to Pumbaa's ear and screamed into it--"WAKE UP!!!!!"
Pumbaa blinked into unwilling consciousness. "What is it, Timon?" he slurred in words muffled by sleep. "The stars're still up… go t' sleep…"
"Pumbaa!! The humans!!! Fire!!! Get UP!!!"
Annoyed by the meerkat's persistence. Pumbaa rolled off the log and peered through hooded eyes in the direction of the jungle. "Wha'? I dun see anythin'… Go t' sleep…"
"Over the log, Pumbaa!!" Timon gestured madly from his perch on the log. "Look OVER the log!!!"
With a sigh, Pumbaa raised his head just enough to see over the log towards the plains. His eyes immediately widened to twice their normal size.
"See?" Timon demanded. "YOU SEE?!" He leaped onto Pumbaa's head and pulled his ears. "Come on, let's get a move on! RUN!!"
Without saying a word, Pumbaa spun around. Bits of bark flew like shrapnel as the powerful warthog kicked off of it to give himself a start. He took off at full speed towards the shelter of the trees. The drums came ever closer. The sound of the flames eating the grass followed at their heels, sweeping ravenously over the plains. Timon glanced over his shoulder. He saw with dismay that the humans were only a few hundred yards behind them, and closing in.
"COME ON!" He urged his friend. But looking back again, he knew they could never make it. The hunting party was too close. Even as Pumbaa's cloven hooves struck the softer earth near the jungle, a new cry went up from the humans.
Meat! it shouted. Meat!!
It was a race no one could win, for the track went on for eternity, but at least one of the contestants this night would fail. Prey would fall at the hunters' spears, or the fire would make a meal of hunters, and perhaps swallow their prey as well.
The trees seemed so near-so near! When suddenly a spear sailed swiftly past Timon's cheek. He turned. The humans were only fifty feet behind, then forty-five, then forty. Then one of their party screamed, and fell, and was swallowed by the fire. They were thirty feet behind. Another spear flew past the two outcasts. Timon uttered a quick prayer. Twenty-five feet. Timon could see their eyes lit by the flames of hunger as well as torches. Abruptly, he felt Pumbaa's body lift into the air. The warthog leaped into the air to clear a log. They were in the jungle, running towards the river. Twenty feet. Another leap, another spear. This time, the landing was awkward. Timon flew off his friend's back. The last thing he heard before crashing into the rushing river was the high-pitched squeal of a pig…
*
Wakefulness dealt a harsh blow when next it visited the young meerkat. He felt fire in his throat, his lungs, his eyes. When he tried to move, his body seemed to crinkle and rustle like an old paper bag trying to fold the wrong way. When he forced his eyes open against the relentless forces of gravity and hesitation, he saw only a swirl of colors, swaying and blending in and out of focus.
A splash of water on his face brought him closer to the realm of the living. Sound burst into his mind in a sudden realization. His eyes cleared. He looked up into an unfamiliar face-the face of one of his own kind. She was older… old enough to be his mother, maybe bordering on just old enough to be his grandmother. She wore her graying hair pulled back in a loose ponytail tied with a long strand of woven plainsgrass and decorated by two leaves with six red triangular stripes reaching towards the centers of each. Her eyes glowed with a deep, wise blue. Her smile suggested lighthearted laughter running through her veins.
"Well, good morning, my dear!" she chirped softly. The sound of her voice alone was enough to send Timon's heart racing against the pain in his body. "Don't talk, now," she warned, anticipating his intentions. "One moment, here…" She held her cupped paws to his lips. Timon felt blessed cool water flowing over his parched throat and down to the rest of his dried blood.
"…Thank you," Timon began, but he was instantly shushed by the aged meerkat.
"No thanks, my dear, no thanks. You just lie still. Time for talking will come when it comes. Now is time for healing. Eli!" she called into the thick leaves. "Eli! Where'd you get with those herbs? I sent you ages ago!"
Some ways off, Timon heard an answering cry--too far for the words to be distinct to his own ears. The older meerkat seemed satisfied with it, though. She turned her attentions back to her patient.
"Now," she cooed as she ran her dampened paws over Timon's body, smoothing the fur and soothing the skin and muscles below, "Soon as Eli comes back with those herbs I'll have something to patch your wounds up with, right as rain. You don't mind her, she's a bit of a scatterbrain at times." She chuckled. "Oh! And where are my manners?! 'Round these parts critters know me as Tante. And you, if I am not very much mistaken, are young master Timon Berkowitz, are you not?"
Timon's eyes grew wide. "How…?"
"I have my ways," Tante assured him with a wink. "Why I seem to remember you when you were just a little kit scampering around, not old enough to walk steady. But that was long ago. Now… ELI!!! Where HAVE you got to??"
A second meerkat, this one substantially younger than Timon, crashed awkwardly through the underbrush, her arms laden with carefully-chosen leaves and twigs. "Here I am, Tante!" she panted. "Here I am! I'd have come sooner, but this moss you wanted is always so hard to find! I had to go all the way to the waterfall!"
Tante laughed. "Quite all right, little one! Just so long as you got everything, and were careful about it. Didn't see any prides of lions on the way, I hope? Any hyenas?"
"Oh, no MA'AM!" The young girl's eyes widened in something akin to dread. "Nothing like that at all! I saw a bat sleeping in a hollow tree, but nothing else."
"And did you leave him be?" Tante raised her eyebrows as if criticizing the girl.
"Yes, ma'am!" replied Eli. "I just saw him in passing, that's all. Nothing else out today."
"Good girl. Now come here and watch close what I do." She turned her kindly eyes to Timon. "You just lie still. This won't take a minute."
Timon had no choice but to obey and hope that whatever the old meerkat did, it eased the throbbing pain from burns in his tail and right arm.
Tante took the herbs from Eli and pressed small bits of them against Timon's burns. As she had promised, it was barely a minute before the wounds stopped hurting and the pain was replaced by a tingling sensation similar to what he felt when his foot fell asleep.
"Now, you see how I did that, Eli, dear?" she said when she had finished. Eli nodded. "Good, because you're gonna have to change those bandages when the sun goes down and starts growin' red. You think you can do that?"
"Yes, Tante!" the young meerkat answered excitedly.
"I wouldn't wanna have Shackle do it, so you do a good job."
Eli made a face. "Aw, I'll do it better'n ol' Shackle any day!"
Tante grinned. "Now you run off and find 'ol' Shackle' so I can give her what-for for runnin' off last night."
"Yes, ma'am!" In a flash, Eli was off to do her mistress's bidding. Tante set to the task of cleaning up the extra leaves and twigs.
"Tante?" Timon murmured sleepily.
"Yes, honey?"
"Who's Shackle?"
Tante laughed a deep, rippling laugh. "Oh, you'll see her soon enough. Probably hear her 'fore that… She's another of my apprentices, you might say. Not quite as good as Eli when it comes to medicine, but good at tending the patients…" With that she bustled off, leaving Timon with his half-dreaming thoughts.
Time passes strangely for the wounded of body and heart, so it seemed barely an instant to Timon before he heard a high, lovely voice cascading gracefully through the leaves.
"I am just a little bird and you can hear me sing.
Come cage me up and keep me for the fortune I will bring.
No crown or jewels shall I put on, no velvet shall I wear;
Though by your hands I am shackled, all my songs are yours to share.
"Come dance upon the water when the water's made of wine.
Come press hot steel against your skin--I promise you'll be fine.
Come live with me in glory and more pain than you can feel.
Come look into my eyes and see that none of it is real."
Timon cocked his head to one side, trying to hear her better. Many of the words were strange to him. What is a cage, and jewels and velvet? What is wine? And steel? Timon seemed to remember--vaguely--having heard of cages and steel somewhere, but he could not put meaning to them any more than he could understand how water could also be this strange thing called wine.
"I am just a little bird and you can see me fly.
Look for a flash of flaming wings against the blood-red sky.
No downy nest have I to rest in, nor surcease from pain;
So I fly free eternally until I'm whole again."
As the chorus struck up again, Timon absently wondered what type of bird this Shackle might be. A Flamingo, perhaps? They would certainly be too clumsy to handle Tante's delicate bandaging job.
"I am just a little bird and here is how I live:
All I can take is hope, for hope is all I have to give.
I shall not waste my life away, no mask shall I put on;
And though I have been shackled, it's a battle I have won!"
As the final triumphant note of the song reverberated over the leaves, a meerkat with hair nearly as bushy as Eli's and just a few shades darker than Timon's burst into the clearing. From there, she regarded Timon with an air of caution. Timon returned a blank expression, peering at her from under hooded eyes.
***
To be continued...