Like a river, the choice flows
My name is Amara and I dwell in the island of Yutai, found in the Indian Ocean, between the gigantic colossal edifice that Madagascar is and the megalodon-ic mass of land known as Africa. My island is peopled by both isolated tribes and by people as we know them, that is, modern and scientific in approach. I am forty years old, single, since boyfriends are not allowed in our culture and with no marriage in sight. I come from a middle-class culture but my ancestors originate from a tribe which had accepted conversion towards modernity. My parents pray to a god called Goldos every Tuesday which is a public holiday here in Yutai and like the rest of the people who believe in that god, they revere and listen to lectures and mythological stories in his abode, which is a building so large that walking through its driveway takes up thirty minutes. My father gives a share of his salary each month to the growth and betterment of the society of Goldos and by doing so, we are bound to be blessed with abundance and prosperity ourselves. As for me, I have been cast aside for refusing to abide to those modern rules.
Being forty years old, unmarried and childless weighs heavily upon my shoulders. In my family, I am the only woman to have not had any suitor showing interest in me and this has somewhat pushed me towards the most marginalised parts of existence, known only to those women who either choose not to follow the rules having been imposed upon them by the society or those who find themselves unable to meet these standards due to a lack of some sort.
Every afternoon, I have to prepare dinner, wait for everyone to have had their fill, then sit and try to satisfy myself with whatever remains. Sometimes, I get lucky, if a piece of chicken has been left behind but most of the times, I eat only rice and gravy accompanied by some remnants of salad. Then, I do the dishes while my mother and father sit in the living room, enjoying their coffee with my brother, their favourite child, more so, since, unlike me, he has chosen to follow all the societal rules and regulations accordingly. He is only twenty-six and is already engaged to a twenty-year-old girl and their wedding is set to happen next year. As I open the tap and play with it so as to turn the water comfortable to my skin, I listen to them laugh and joke together as would a family.
I feel like a shadow. I wake up every day, go about with my chores, go to work at the village library, come back home, get busy with chores again and go to sleep only to start over the next day. I wonder if life is the same for all women who do not follow the rules all over the world. I wonder if the remaining women who follow rules are happy, being overburdened by responsibilities, having no time left to sit and breathe at the sight of the sunset or at the magic that a butterfly evokes when it plays around flowers. I wonder at the meaning of my life and doubt if I am mad, trying to fit in a world which has no place for me.
My madness, if I may so call it, had started a few days before I turned eighteen. As is the habit, each eighteen-year-old is supposed to go and seek blessings from Goldos so as to dive into the rituals of adulthood as proper individuals. Other than being endowed with health and positivity, we seek to be free from the vices that hover over us, easily catching us in their net and turning us into thieves, liars, swindlers or even murderers. The night before our visit to Goldos, I tried on a pink dress and received great appreciation from my mother, who had sewn it herself. My eyes were sparkling with life as the mundane dreams, though ephemeral, weaved themselves in front of me. I would fall in love with a suitor, who would be a prince charming and who would make of me his queen. But that night, as I closed my eyes and fell into the tunnel of the slumber, I had a dream which changed the course of my life forever. It was only a dream, some may say as sometimes, dreams turn out to be total nonsense. But at other times, dreams get premonitory and turn out to be true. Whichever, on that night, I saw myself walking into a deep forest. Soon, I left the footpath and strayed into the bushy areas. I could hear hyenas laughing and wolves howling. But I kept walking till I reached a cave. I decided not to get in since some wild animal could inhabit in there but since some unexplained heavy rain start falling, I ran in to shelter myself and inside, to my astonishment, was an old woman. She sat, as still as a statue, her eyes closed and breathed steadily in and out. I wondered at what should I do next for a few seconds before she opened her mouth and said,
“Come closer, Oracle Bird.”
“My name is Amara,” I said.
“Your converted name is not that which you are. Your real name is Oracle Bird.”
“Who are you?” I asked bewildered.
“I am the shaman of your tribe. Your parents have erred by leaving us and by converting to modernity. You have in you, the ability to alter circumstances. You are a witch. When you were born, I was the one to detect that power in you and I told your parents that you would have to be given to me as I would be the only one to know how to nurture you. But your parents did not pay heed to me. They left, taking you along. Now, you are going to enter your adulthood phase but you will have to remain unmarried as witches are to be pure, till they die. Your parents are foolish but I trust you would not be so. Since your witch powers did not get the opportunity to be developed, all I ask of you is to be patient and to be unmarried. I shall come to talk to you again. For now, don’t go to Goldos tomorrow.”
I woke up the next day and told everyone about the dream. My mother cried saying that I will be a cursed soul, if I refuse to go to Goldos. He shall cure me of this evil entity that has contacted me. My father beat me up and ordered me to put my new dress on so as to carry on with our day as we have planned. But I refused to!
“Take me back to the tribe,” I yelled. “I want to learn their craft.”
“Then, they will marry you to one of theirs and you will find yourself pregnant, unable to do anything else other than indulge in senseless rites and rituals while taking care of your children. Your husband will not have feelings for you. He will probably beat you while you will just want to run back to us.”
But I refused to go to Goldos that day and I have since then, been labelled as one who needs to seek forgiveness, a rebel, an evil entity. My adulthood would most probably be laden with problems. Hence, no suitors showed up to claim my hand. The priest who was supposed to do my prayers assigned to me rituals of forgiveness which I have never done but he was kind enough to allow me a job. I pay for my food with my salary. Yet, I refuse to donate to Goldos. I remained bent on following my ‘madness’ or, my guidance.
I guess I am simply misunderstood. I have not rebuked the god of modernity. The fact is simply that my ancestral roots have called me back. I am a witch, and I would have loved to live as such. Sometimes, the library where I work remains empty for a whole day and that gives me time to read. I have read of romance, of history, of feminism, of science fiction, of horror and of fantasy. But that which I prefer is poetry. On those days which I did not want to read but had time for myself, I started writing poetry as well.
My first poem turned out to be thus,
So what?
So what if I am not like the rest of my peers?
So what if I make my own choices?
Preferring to be a ballet dancer
Rather than a mime!
So what if I grew up in a garden
Only to realise that I was meant
To be a butterfly
While the others, dragon flies!
So what if the magic that has groped my soul
Has its roots somewhere
In the depths of my ancestry
So what
If I choose it and yet,
Remain imbibed with good intentions?
Can’t you, world,
Accept me?
The thought of leaving my island and starting over, fresh, someplace far away, has crossed my mind several times. But then, the vivid dream comes slamming back at me as would angry waves do to a shore during a storm. I have to stay here and wait. I have been waiting since twenty-two years and so far, whenever I dive into the slumbering night, I just wake up fresh the next day, feeling nonetheless as a shadow.
Life is all about mystery. And is all temporary. We breathe today only to disappear tomorrow. We are all mad fellows, running after materialism and modernity when the mystery pulls us back in its web again in the end, making of us, slaves of its potency. My path has already been chosen and its call came again during a stormy night. The wind howled and the rain lashed outside. The night was so cold and I just felt myself swivelling in a dark tunnel only to emerge in the same cave.
“Your time has come,” said to me the shaman.
“What is it that I am expected to do?” I asked.
“You will have to come to us.”
“How?”
“Tomorrow, bid your parents goodbye. Take the bus and come down south to Deepwell. Sly Fox, our Chief will wait for you there.”
“Ok,” I said.
I chose to trust the dream. It had happened after twenty-two long years. I could not believe it! I was flabbergasted! I could have taken it to be just a mere dream and nothing else. But for me, it was mystical guidance. If I be deemed mad in an already mad world, how can that harm me? Or those who surround me? I turned deaf to the pleas of my family and felt stony at the cries of my mother. The moment I saw the man waiting for me under a tree while the bus reached Deepwell, I felt a strong connection to him. I knew it was him. I alighted from the bus and went directly to him, walked into the woods with him and never looked back. My parents had nurtured me, true. Poetry had filled me with passion, true. But then, my path had already been chosen and I have a soulful obligation towards it. Like the moon, I underwent phases but, in the end, the glory of my shine glows still. Is life not same? We go through childhood, adolescence, adulthood merely to suffer through old age before transcending to where the source of life originates. Someday, I shall meet with this source and I want to be able to stand in front of it and tell it that I submitted to it and followed that which it had prescribed for me. And I just know that it will happen, because I am back to my roots.
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