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SHORT STORY: The mountain was angry...

Thursday August 05 2021
Ruwena started to scream out again

Ruwena started to scream out again then hesitated as her eyes caught the glowing tip of the mountain through the noxious clouds. Fear gripped her, rendering her immobile for a few seconds. ILLUSTRATION | JOHN NYAGA

By NADYA SOMOE

Concentric circles pulsed out in rhythmic waves, forming in the centre of a bowl of porridge and rolling gently in tandem to the far edges of the small earthen utensil. Ruwena stood by a dying fire, whose red coals had burnt to white ash and were now barely giving off heat, the bowl cradled in her palms, a tense look of fear in her eyes as she watched the waves undulate on the surface of the porridge. Beneath her feet, the ground trembled, a deep rumble that travelled up her muscular frame, vibrating her entire being, ending with a slight quaver in her fingers.

“Look! Up there, look!” A voice cried out and Ruwena rushed outside into the darkness, still clutching her porridge.

It was an unusually dark night, lit only by the ambient light of small fires in every hut, whose flames were blowing erratically in a gusty wind. There were no stars. Black clouds shaded the navy blue sky menacingly, clouds that seemed to pour out from a jagged mountain bordering their village, whose tip glowed red.

“I told you,” a shaky voice cut in above the murmurs and anxious cries, “I told you the mountain was angry. We must appease it,” said the medicine woman, a revered elder.

Mini quake

She was cut off by another tremor, one that started off as a low rumble but rapidly built to a mini quake that knocked her spindly legs over. Ruwena reached out to a wall to steady herself, her earthen bowl dropping from her hands and shattering, its lukewarm millet contents splashing her legs. The ground pulsed subtly, almost like the waves that had undulated across her porridge. Ruwena wasn’t sure the mountain could be appeased, she wasn’t sure about anything except that she wanted to flee.

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“Fall to your knees!” It was the stooped medicine woman back on her feet again, swept up by a frenetic energy born of fear, “…and beg the mountain’s mercy!”

Like wilting corn the villagers save a few, Ruwena among them, crumpled to the ground wailing, pleading and praying. They beat at their chests and pulled on their hair, their terror filled eyes never leaving the tall mountain with its amber tip, still spewing black clouds.

Sturdy bag

Ruwena ran back into her hut, whipping her head around as she mentally calculated what she could carry before tossing things into a sturdy bag made of smooth, golden brown cowhide. She spared only a minute to look around longingly at the home she was leaving, then she was out as another quake thundered deep in the ground as if the earth was waking.

Outside, it was a spectacle. The remaining villagers beat drums and danced wildly, leaping into the air, spiritedly throwing their arms and legs about, falling to the ground in convulsions of frenzy. They drank deeply from calabashes and gourds and cups carved out of cow’s horns, filled with the sweet but potent honey beer that was their village’s specialty, pouring a few sips to the ground as they begged their ancestors to intercede; and none was more animated than the medicine woman. This was her time to shine and so she gyrated wildly, as if she could shake the age and weariness from her bones. She gesticulated and cackled in tongues. She was dizzily mid-spin when Ruwena, usually soft spoken and withdrawn, screamed over the din.

“Save yourselves! Run!” She was always one for tradition, but she wasn’t one to drown while praying flood waters away.

“Ha! The young have no faith in our ways,” the fired up medicine woman loomed in the several bonfires that had been lit, a scary hunched mythical figure, “Beat the drums…louder!”

Ruwena started to scream out again then hesitated as her eyes caught the glowing tip of the mountain through the noxious clouds. Fear gripped her, rendering her immobile for a few seconds. She’d been up the mountainside occasionally, to swim in warm pools that bubbled out deliciously from between large rocks.

Warm pools that turned scorching, scalding hot whenever the mountain trembled, slightly. And it wasn’t trembling now, it was shaking, heaving as if it would bring up its very guts. She watched as the medicine woman now lifted a sharp, ornately curved horn filled with honey beer like a trophy, then downed it in one long gulp. She threw the empty vessel to the ground, threw her head back and ululated, a feral sound that resounded and echoed far into the night. The sound roused Ruwena. She was done watching the antics. Slinging her bag across her back, she dashed off into the darkness beyond the lit village.

Invisible trees

The forest surrounding the village was black. No light penetrated this tangle of branches, vines and leaves that formed a tight meshwork one had to fight through. Ruwena ran with her arms held out in front of her, stumbling and bumping into invisible trees that were barely distinguishable as darker shadows in the darkness.

A painful stitch was forming in her side, cutting her every time she drew a ragged breath, but the growing tremors under her feet spurred her on. Then, a sudden blast lifted the ground under her, tossing her like a paper a few feet into the air.

Stunned but unhurt, rolling on the soft wet earth, Ruwena looked up to where a small break in the tree canopy showed a spectacular fountain of red sparks and fire rollicking in the navy sky.

She scrambled to her feet and kept running.

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