The Boy and the Man

A story by JACOB M’HANGO

I

The woman who would become the Boy’s mother had had, according to village records, three biannual miscarriages. Between herself and her husband, she’d had a miscarriage in each of their seven years of marriage. The following year, her belly began to bulge for the eighth time. 

A salvo of emasculating talk had long broken the woman’s husband that, to him, the pregnancy was merely a repeat of disappointed hope and a stronger resolve to take another wife if it, too, failed to bear fruit. He could not conceive in the slightest that this zygote was fiercely different; it had come equipped to end up not as the previous ones––clots of blood with neither a heartbeat nor bones, shooting out from between Malita’s legs. It held on to the wall of its mother’s uterus until an amnion had formed around it, where it hung topsy-turvy in the amniotic fluid. Weak beat after weak beat, its heart began to beat vehemently. 

Unlike the previous ones, when this pregnancy reached the height of the first trimester, and the baby began to punch and kick, Malita knew that this child was determined to live. Throughout the pregnancy, the child punched and kicked hard, often causing her to jolt and wince. Perhaps the child knew something about the world that unhinged it. And why, after fighting to stay alive, did it refuse to enter the world in the ninth month?

That Malita was avoided like a plague by most women was not enough as now they worked their mouths tirelessly, saying scurrilous things, some of which she’d overheard: 

Some people are so cursed that, after failing to incubate life, the only promising pregnancy will yield a corpse.

Never share space with her, lest you share in her curse.

And: She has not found favour with the Supreme Spirit; her womb is but a tomb.

It took eleven months and two weeks for the Boy to finally tire of his solitary stay and, like one possessed, break with one powerful kick the egg-like membrane that housed him. As water flowed out, the membrane began to close in on him. Feeling that his cushion was leaving, he pushed his head in that same direction, aiding the slow movement with his shoulders and legs, writhing and contorting his body. 

Malita had been outside on a reed mat chatting with Lindiwe when she felt and saw a pool of fluid, warm and slimy, come out untrammelled from between her legs. She was seated in her water, some of which touched the corner of Lindiwe’s chitenge.

Lacking experience of such an event, the two women looked at each other, and their eyes were the biggest they’d ever been. Then, because the baby was overdue, the reality of what was afoot dawned on Malita. The contractions! I’m in pain! she shouted.

Help! shouted Lindiwe to the wind. 

In no time, two women dashed to the mat and helped to carry Malita into her house. They brought in the mat, grabbed at vitenge, unwrapped from around their waists the ones they had on, and spread them on it. The delivery bed was ready.

The midwife rummaged in her bag and brought out, in one grab, a peg and a pair of scissors. She proceeded to peg the umbilical cord by the baby’s tummy and severed it just above the peg. Holding the baby by the butt and the back of the head, she struggled to her feet.

After curiously focusing on the mole on the baby’s left nasal ala, the midwife’s eyes fell between its legs for the second time as if willing the small protrusion to flatten. Without emotion, she said, It’s a boy. 

The Boy looked at her wrinkly face and puckered his lips, his thick eyebrows nearly touching in a frown. Perhaps he didn’t need to hear what he already knew.

One of the women, relaxing her hold on Malita’s hand, said, Why is the baby not crying?

The other woman nodded her approval of the question.

Malita made as if to sit up.

No, Malita. Relax. I’m sure everything is okay, said the poser of the unsettling question. 

Lindiwe scratched the back of her head. From where she stood, the baby seemed neither still nor active.

The room filled with only darting eyes, trying to see an answer.

In her twenty years as a midwife, she’d seen it several times before, but never such hard, determined eyes. So, under the Boy’s butt, she brought the nails of her thumb and middle finger together, making sure some of the Boy’s flesh was at their meeting. The Boy jolted, his face rippling with pain and anger. Repeat. Another jolt. More rippling of the face.

As the three women observed the midwife, whom they all fondly called Amai Ntalo, and the Boy, it was palpably not a question of whether there was life in the small body, for they’d all seen the Boy squirm before the vernix had been removed and now the jolts. But why wasn’t he crying?

From the moment Amai Ntalo’s face lit up––Good job! The head is out!––to now, the Boy had already begun to use his nostrils, inhaling and exhaling for the first time, feeling the impure air bruise his nasal membranes and forcefully inflate his lungs before grazing the air sacs as with sandpaper. It was all so painful that a cry had repeatedly brewed in his belly, pushing upwards, feeling for a way out, but every time, he would muffle it until – like it’d all started – it’d crumble. However, the pinch made it clear that he was expected to cry.

Amai Ntalo’s brow contracted, and her eyes squinted at the Boy’s face, then relaxed. A puckish grin attended her lips. With the Boy in position, she lowered herself onto her knees. But before she could reach for her bag, the Boy’s slight bulge activated, and a clear, pointed spray shot at the woman’s face, wiping the grin off it. Flustered, she moved the baby to the side and watched the last of the spray splotch the mud floor. And just as she wiped her mouth against her shoulder and was about to say something, the Boy opened his mouth and filled the room with a piercing cry. And now that he was crying, the women smiled and sighed. But no sooner had the smiles and sighs ended than the baby came to a sudden shush at the sound of rain. The rain was so abrupt that it surprised even the women. But this on the Boy’s face was more than surprise. It was fear. And when lightning flashed, and thunder resounded, he curled up, hands on the head and knees pulled to the chest. The rain abated and stopped almost as abruptly as it’d begun. The Boy uncurled. 

Amai Ntalo handed the Boy to Malita. This is an angry child, she said. And for some reason, he’s afraid of rain. Have you thought of a name yet?

Malita averted her eyes and pretended the question had collapsed before it could reach her ears. She admired the Boy and rested him on her breast. 

Long before the sun had turned into a red orb on the western horizon, in this village where news travelled on the wind, everyone had already learned that Malita, despite the odds, had given birth. 

II

In the dead of night, the full moon illuminated the sky and patches of the thick forest under it. Awash with a chorus of the trill of insects, the howling wind through the swaying tall trees and the hooting of owls, the forest was eerie. Even eerier was the laughing of hyenas and the hollow roar of a lion that reverberated through the forest from a distance. Here, far away from the village, the Man with a blindfold over his eyes was led by the hand of one of the four Kapasos at the head of the procession, where they cut some branches and tall grasses out of the way with their machetes. As they did this, they kept a close eye on the Prophetess, who followed immediately behind them, seemingly more like she was floating than walking in her red robe that covered her feet. She was expected to give a signal when they came to a suitable spot. Behind her was the Chief with two of his Ndunas, all of them in black robes that touched the ankles just above their sandals. Two spear-wielding Kapasos brought up the rear.

In only shorts and nothing else, the Man felt naked. His bare feet hurt from walking. His body was weak, his throat dry. He’d been allowed no food or water in three days. According to the Prophetess, denying the Man food and water would enable an easier separation between soul and body. The black piece of cloth that served as a blindfold was the symbolic rendering blind of the soul, while the convoluted route through hills and forest farther and farther away from the village ensured that the malevolent soul would never find its way back to the village. 

The Kapasos at the head of the procession continued to clear a route until they came to a circular clearing deep in the heart of the forest, where the moonlight descended uninhibited in its fullness. The hairs on the napes of their necks stood on end. It looked like the signal they’d waited for. Instinctively, they stopped and glanced at the Prophetess, who instructed one of them to move with the Man to the centre of the clearing. Then she ushered everyone to the edge of it, after which she ordered the Man to his knees and the Kapaso to stand behind him.

In this moment, despite the light, the Man sensed a darkness thicker than that under his blindfold, closing in on him, weighing him down. It was as if every body system that had so far kept him alive was failing. He had this frightening feeling that his blood was drying up. His eardrums rang deafeningly with his every heartbeat. Had his blindfold been removed, he would have seen the titanic tree trunks all around him rise so high up into the expansive sky, and then he would have noticed how small a spot he was in the mysterious ways of the world.

Without warning, the Prophetess was taken over by bodily vibrations interspersed with chants that sounded like mere gibberish. Her arms flailed about in the air. Soon, the vibrations became some sort of a jumping dance in which the knees, one after the other, rose and fell in quick succession, in time with her arms. The Chief and everyone near her moved away a little to create more room. They all knew not to say a word or make any noise when the Prophetess was transitioning into that other dimension in which she ceased to be a human and communed with the Supreme Spirit.

The Man wondered what was afoot. His chest expanded and contracted without rhythm. His face shook, and the mole on his left nasal ala danced to his trembling and unsteady breathing. In the face of his end, he tried to compose himself, but something about this particular sense of finality unhinged him.

Suddenly, the Prophetess came to a perfect stop. It was as if all her animation had got her to where she needed to be. Then, slowly, the upper part of her body began to rock backwards and forwards, her chest pulling in and pushing out as she did. A series of deep burps left her body. 

III

The Boy was a week old when Mukubwa, his father, named him. He rejected the name by crying constantly. Four namings later, over four weeks, the crying stopped. Everyone agreed that the Boy had accepted the last name. 

When the Boy was seven, he was playing a game in one of the open spaces of the village with three of his several friends––Chipaso, Muheni and Taona, aged eight, nine and ten, sequentially. They held a leg by the foot to their buttocks, hopped to a line drawn in the dirt, and repeated the action over and over. As was common in the village for the older boys to pick on the younger ones, an act the men were well aware of and never overtly encouraged nor discouraged, the Boy, as most of his friends were older, was often bullied. But on this day, something snapped in him like a dry twig when one tripped him from behind just as he was about to cross the line. He fell hard, chest and face hitting the ground at the same time, some of the red soil ending up between his teeth. 

As the Boy pushed up from the ground, the three friends kept pointing at him and laughing. It was midday, and nearby, as usual, the men were seated in the mphala, waiting for the women and girls from the surrounding houses to start trooping there with food. A stone’s throw away, the four boys who’d been frog-jumping stopped and were now looking at him, two laughing at him, two trying hard to suppress their laughter. A woman and her two daughters were passing, carrying covered plates and a small water dish. In the Boy’s head, the whole big village had seen what had happened, and he was the object of their laughter. All because of Chipaso, Muheni and Taona! On days before, it wouldn’t have culminated in anything more than his heart racing, his whole body shaking, and heat clinging to his face.

Next, his mother was berating him: Why did you do something like that?!

Amai, what did I do?

You nearly killed your friends! You beat their faces to a bloody pulp. Taona almost choked on his tooth! The men say you were like a possessed person out there and that if they hadn’t acted quickly, you would have killed your friends! What got into you?!

The Boy could not remember hurting them. Then, as if in the manner of clouds parting and the sun shining through, he could almost hear distant shouts––Stop! Stop it! Stop!––and big hands pulling him back. At once, his eyes welled, and sobs shook his body.

He could feel his mother’s anger dissipate and something gentle take its place. She put her hand on his shoulder. My son, next time you feel yourself starting to get angry, walk away – quickly.

He nodded.

IV

One hand rubbing his bearded chin, the paunchy Chief huddled together with his Ndunas as if drawing some sort of strength from each other. All eyes flitted between the Prophetess and the Man, whose fate was about to be executed. The Kapaso standing behind the Man’s trembling frame tightened his grip on the wooden handle of his machete, his veins popping out on his arm. He must muster all his strength to cut clean through the Man’s neck with one deft drop of the weapon. He must not feel emotion. No one here must, for they were all but a machete in the hand of the Supreme Spirit. 

The Prophetess’s upper body movements stopped abruptly, and so did her burping.

The Man turned his thought into words: But why must I die if it is clear that I am innocent?

The Prophetess’s resonant voice, seemingly bouncing off the trees, filled the space: Remove his blindfold. Free his hands.

The moon’s gentle light stung the Man’s eyes. He only saw fuzzy images before his environs’ outlines became more and more defined. As his hands finally moved from behind his back, the pain in his bloodied wrists told the damage done by the bark rope. Was the Prophetess finally setting him free?

Someone like you must not utter the word innocent! Everyone knows how given to violence you are, how you have beaten some village folk to the brink of death at the slightest misunderstanding, how you nearly killed the Prince over a woman despite him having the right to choose any woman, how you have repeatedly referred to all the Chief’s Ndunas as dogs that must be removed; and – alas! – how you have threatened the whole village with death over the death of your grandfather.

The Prince, the reason he was still unmarried. Oh, the rancour the Man felt towards him! He would never forgive him for taking his childhood love as his wife. In fact, if he had the opportunity to lay hands on him again, he would instantly kill him. He wanted to say a lot, get it off his chest. Yet all he managed to say was: But still, I am not responsible for the murders!

Yes, you are! said the Prophetess. It was your body that went about seeking those people when the village was asleep, and it was your hands that killed them. As for the rest, I will not repeat myself. 

The Man’s steely eyes softened. His thick eyebrows went up and down, furrowing and unfurrowing his brow. And with the last of his strength, he let out the words that scratched his parched throat: But I have not killed anyone.

The Supreme Spirit has already decided, said the Prophetess, that your body must be cut off from among your victims and discarded here to the appetite of wild animals. Show some remorse, breathe, compose yourself and fully accept your fate. And your punishment will end here.

V

The Boy could have sworn that he was about to walk away. He was already walking away but for the Prince’s hand on his arm, pulling him back. The Prince, the slender boy with a ready smile, shouldn’t have talked to the Boy the way he did, and worse in front of the other boys–– Even if you say Tiyezye is yours, when I grow up, I will make her my wife. And there is nothing you can do about it. I am the Prince, and you a nobody – the son of a nobody! 

While the Boy had heard it before that when the Prince grew up, he would have the right to take as wife any girl he wanted, he had, in his heart, always been adamant that no one would prise Tiyezye away from him for as long as he had breath. So, he was prepared to ignore the sentiment coming from the Prince himself. But to be pulled back and be forced to feel the sting of those last words – …a nobody – the son of a nobody! – proved more than he was prepared to ignore.

Like lightning, it happened, and not one of the eight spectating boys could do anything about it. The Prince would, for the remainder of his life, carry scars on his face: the first starting mid-forehead, running right above his left eyebrow and coming to a stop at the temple, the second starting under his left eye and only stopping short of touching his upper lip, the third running along his right jawline. For, besides punching, kicking and head-butting, the Boy had also felt the itch to sink his nails in. For the short term, before his two upper incisors grew back, the Prince would hardly smile.

The Prince was unconscious by the time one of the Kapasos got to the scene and peeled the Boy off him. The Kapaso quickly carried the Prince to the palace, where Shupiwe, upon seeing the bloodied, lifeless-like body of her beloved son, first brought her hands to the top of her head, eyes and mouth wide open, then fainted. No sooner had the Kapaso deposited the body onto the ground than one of the maids grabbed a gourd, scooped water from a bucket and poured it on the Prince’s face. His eyes opened instantly as though waking from a bad dream. He coughed out blood from the base of his throat.

The same maid poured water on Shupiwe’s face, too. She came to.

Rushing into his throne room and seeing his dazed wife and bloodied son both trying to sit up from lying positions, the Chief sputtered, Wha-wha-what is…happening here?! Who-who-who did this to the Prince?!

The Kapaso, shaking, said, A boy, Your Highness. A boy…nearly killed him.

Go and fetch him this minute!

The Boy was standing right where the Kapaso had left him – in the centre of a semi-circle of eight popeyed boys with their hands on their heads as if they were looking at a ghost. He was facing in the direction of the approaching Kapaso. His face looked calm, but that was before a conflation of confusion and concern beset it when the Kapaso stopped in front of him and grabbed him by the upper arm. Before the Kapaso could turn to drag the Boy to the palace, he’d already started heading there. Startled and without a word, the Kapaso let go of the Boy’s arm and trailed him.

The Boy walked steadily, neither slow nor fast, much like the way the Ndunas would approach the throne room, feeling at once elevated that they were advising the Chief on important issues of governance and dwarfed by the size of the authority ahead. He entered the throne room and stopped five paces in on his feet. His face inscrutable, his hands in gloves of blood.

The Kapaso walked in and kneeled before the chunky Chief, who was pacing about and half turning in agitation. Your Highness, I bring the boy as ordered.

Recognition marked the Chief’s face. You! It’s you again?! Now you want to kill the Prince?!

Three years before, the Boy and his father had been summoned to the palace after he’d nearly beaten his three friends to death. The Chief had ordered lashes to be administered to him publicly in the village square. Much of the village had been present to witness one of the Kapasos raise a sizeable mulberry stick and land it twenty times on the Boy’s bare buttocks. The impact end of the stick had split by the last lash. The boy had winced at every whack without making a sound or shedding a tear. The rest of the village had heard about it.

And now, the same boy had just preyed on the Prince.

The group of eight boys, from the bwalo to Mukubwa’s house, had swelled to about twenty. At the front of the procession was the Kapaso, sandals on his feet, a khaki shirt tucked into equally coloured shorts. A grin marked his face. Upon recognising the Chief’s Kapaso, Mukubwa felt a stab in his heart. Oh, not again! he thought. What has my son done this time?

VI

The Prophetess slowly raised her arm. The Kapaso behind the Man, in turn, raised his machete in equal motion; the muscles in his legs tensed. Any moment now, any moment, he’d imagine that his machete was cutting clean through wood. He inhaled and exhaled deeply. He waited for the order. He was ready.

Do it! ordered the Prophetess.

At the end of the order, the machete cut through the air and made a small cut in the nape of the Man’s neck. But the Man was not to know this, for his consciousness had gone off like a switch, and his body had fallen face down at a mysterious speed at the first word of the Prophetess’s order. His body now lying prone, a rivulet of blood from the cut ran down the sides of his neck to his Adam’s Apple, where it pooled and began to drip into the humus.

The Prophetess slowly dropped her arm.

The guard dropped his machete and made as if to touch the Man.

Do not touch him! 

The Prophetess entered the clearing and stopped right by the Man’s head. No one had a scintilla of suspicion as to what was about to unfurl.

The Prophetess opened her arms and faced upwards as if to embrace the full moon. She let her arms fall to her sides and fixed her eyes on the Man’s body. You who does not belong, by the power of the Supreme Spirit, I order you to kneel!

Without any use of the arms and as if automated, the Man’s body erected straight up onto its knees and stayed ramrod stiff. 

Eyes widened, and gasps permeated the air.

Malevolent soul, you who does not belong, why are you interfering with the will of the Supreme Spirit? asked the Prophetess.

It’s because I don’t think I am, said the malevolent soul.

Knowing looks flew about. It was the same croaky voice from a year ago, from that open-door court session.

The Prophetess sucked her teeth. His deep desire to kill all those he suspected of being behind the flames that took you provided a seat in his body for your vengeful soul; his hands’ eagerness to actualise his desire enabled your bloody killings. He gave you a ready vessel to use to that end. Albeit you only took charge of his body under the cover of darkness when he went to sleep, he is still guilty of your actions and fully deserving of his punishment. And he will die because of you!

There was a momentary silence before the malevolent soul blurted out: Let me be punished, but please let my grandson live.

The Prophetess ignored the plea. Why have you done what you have done?

But you already know the answer.

So much blood! So many lives taken! Why repay evil with evil? Why not just rest?

The croaky voice cracked: How can I rest after what happened to me? How?! I have only punished those who wronged me, all those who whispered against me and soiled my name, all those who torched my hut and spat on my charred remains!

Did I not declare you innocent? 

You did. But no one believed in my innocence, not even the Chief himself and his Ndunas.

The Chief and his Ndunas froze.

My only curse was my old age. And when I was removed, did the sudden and strange spell of nausea that had led to headache and death disappear? Did the people stop saying they saw me in their sleep killing people and, like a beast, devouring their bodies? No! Instead, despite having been buried far away in the forest, those behind the flames that took me claimed that I was a malevolent soul that had continued to wreak havoc even in death. Malevolent soul! Exactly how you’re addressing me now.

Another momentary silence. The Prophetess held her peace.

You proclaimed that the village had brought a curse upon itself, that my soul would not rest until those behind my death were fully and duly punished. What sort of curse do you think you meant? This – the reason you want to kill my grandson, the reason you are calling me malevolent soul––is exactly the curse you meant.

You will roam in darkness, said the Prophetess. You will know no peace for all the evil you have done, all the blood you have shed! You will never return to the village nor to this body! You will have no companions in the spirit world! And a sorrow deeper than the deepest cave shall be your portion! 

But–

Quiet! said the Prophetess.

VII

The Boy’s shorts lay on the ground a yard from where he stood. His hands were tied around the trunk of the mango tree in the village square. He pressed the side of his head against the rough bark and kept his eyes closed. His teeth gritted as he winced and puckered his face at every lash that fell on his bruised bare buttocks, but he would do no such thing as cry in front of all these village folk. Midway to forty, another Kapaso took over with his own mulberry stick. And when it landed, the Boy nearly screamed. It was pain renewed. He kept reminding himself that he was not here, he was somewhere above the village square, watching the blood and gore. The stick rose for the last time above the head of the Kapaso, and it was clear how bloodied and split its impact end was. It landed its last, much to the relief of Mukubwa and Malita, who’d been warned of banishment by the Chief should the Boy get physically violent again. 

As the Boy remained tied to the tree, sentiments flew about, among them:

Look at his bloodied buttocks, he will not be able to sit for days.

After the sting of the stick, he’ll feel the sting of salt for days.

And: We have said it that this is a cursed child. His parents should not have had him.

A year after his infamous forty-lashes-without-a-tear spectacle, no one could tell precisely when the Boy and the Prince became friends again – the best of friends. It was a friendship that shocked the village. The boys treated each other with a regard uncommon among their peers. For them, it was as if they were atoning for something, and the closer they could get to each other, the better they felt. Whatever it was, and despite the scars on the Prince’s face and those on the Boy’s buttocks, their friendship flourished, much to the shame of all those who hated the Boy and his family.

This child who fears no one and nothing except rain, they said, it’s only a matter of time before we hear that he has killed the Prince with his bare hands.

One day, the Boy, the Prince, and the other boys played hide-and-seek in the nearby bush between the palace and the stream. A few wispy grey clouds gathered, without any indication they would burst, or the Boy would have–as always–dashed home. When suddenly and mysteriously the clouds gave, and the Prince and the other boys dashed to the safety of their homes, the Boy, having ignored the Prince’s call to run, remained hiding under a tree. He sat close to the tree trunk, hands on the head covering his ears, and knees pulled to the chest. And as if by some divine design, all the chirping birds went mute, all the excited sounds of frolicking children in the village vanished, only the sound of rain remained.

The Boy couldn’t help but wonder why his life felt like tumbleweed blowing in the wind, whereby the tumbleweed always blew a certain way, a specific route. Ever since he could remember, nothing seemed exactly new, not the mole on his nose, not his name, not even this rain – and it scared him! However, he reassured himself, like he’d done umpteen times before, that perhaps he dreamed the way and the route, except the dreams were undefined. Even when he wittingly tried to tumble a way down a route that seemed assuredly obstinate, he would then always feel the whoosh of the wind on his back. But what tumbleweed has ever tumbled against the wind? 

As the rain continued to fall, the grey clouds thickened and covered the sun and lightning’s indecipherable longhand marked the sky. The lightning bolt did not strike in its typical style. No, instead, it appeared to stretch and bend down from the clouds and connect to a point in the bush between the palace and the stream, as if pouring itself into a spot in the earth. Then, the loudest earth-shaking thunder resounded. Alas! Quiet. No thunder. No lightning. No rain. And the clouds began to disperse and disappear, revealing the overhead sun and its light.

VIII

The Man rose to his feet and darted out of the clearing, violently pushing past two Kapasos. The forest quickly swallowed him as the befuddled party looked on. The Kapasos looked at the Prophetess, willing and expecting her to order a chase. Instead, she looked up and opened her arms in another moon embrace, ignoring the Kapasos. The statuesque Prophetess appeared to levitate just a touch above the humus. The Kapasos, in sandals and matching khaki shorts and shirts, in the dreamlike ambience of moonlight, frozen in place and waiting to explode in the direction of the Man, looked like statues.

In this moment, said the Prophetess, things have escalated above your physicality. All of you are no match for him now. You cannot catch him. Relax. It is no longer in your hands. He can run, but he can’t escape. He has allowed the malevolent soul to whisk him away. No remorse at all! And for this, he shall be doubly punished in this life and in the next. The punishment he is about to suffer now is the same way he will exit his next life. 

Everyone focused on the Prophetess and wondered what was to follow.

Supreme Spirit, I, your servant, call upon you. You who commands the four winds from the four corners of the earth, I beseech you to take full charge now and execute your will.

Immediately, there was a strong wind and a shaking in the sky, like a celestial face trying to shake off a sticky tear, and dark clouds appeared and gathered above them as far as the eye could see, blotting out the moon. It became dark all around, insects and animals went mute, the only sound was the howling wind. Then, there was a sudden perfect quiet, followed shortly by a low rumbling of thunder. A fierce fear gripped the hearts of the Chief, the Ndunas, and the Kapasos.

Do not be afraid, said the Prophetess. Stay where you are and watch.

Light rain began to fall, and lightning’s indecipherable longhand marked the sky and brightened up the forest under it. The lightning bolt did not strike in its typical style. No, instead, it appeared to stretch and bend down from the clouds and connect to a point beyond the hill in front of them, as if pouring itself into a spot in the earth. Then, the loudest earth-shaking thunder resounded. Alas! Quiet. No thunder. No lightning. No rain. And the clouds began to disperse and disappear, revealing the full moon and its light.

Beyond the hill, in the underbrush at the foot of a tall tree, lay a charred body on its side, hands on the head and knees pulled to the chest.