There was all lush of green grasses of every variety tickling away at my feet, you could feel the texture of each leaf of grass and the different hues did tickle you in a different way, more was the pleasure that I felt as the sole of my feet, crushing released the perfumed aroma of the grass and even made a sound rush for my ears that was admonished by the persistent repercussions of fresh grass underneath my feet; I wasn’t over one leaf of grass long enough to feel its pain just long enough to feel its pleasure.
The boys had thought I was crazy for taking off my military issued boots but me I have to feel things for it is very important to touch everything around me. My rank and name, Lieutenant Duvaye from the fifth infantry division, I was charged with a troop of thirty men, our task was to scout and destroy combatant positions behind enemy lines. There were now only 3 of us left and if you wanted to be optimistic and counted me as one of my men then there were four of us left.
Now we were walking, running, crawling, swimming, hurting, itching, scratching, hungry and hunting our way back to base through a mine field. Just a few minutes back Juan Rodriguez, to give a dead man a name, had found one of the land mines before him it had been William Redford White. Juanito was dead when we got to him there was only time to rip his name tags off or else his grim reaper would have yanked them from us as the only thing left to take back to the nether. William’s managed to send a message to his mom and five sisters, if we make it back I will find them and give them his last words; he loved them all and wanted them to take care of his 3 little girls and “…teach them right from wrong.” More or less he died saying, “right from wrong” feverishly so.
After Juanito bought it I decided I would take my boots off so as to better feel where I was stepping, don’t know why the boys thought themselves better off with boots for protection you cant feel a goddamn thing with all that army leather. I was pleasantly surprised by the wet grass, I could feel this land and its peoples they had beautiful grass. I had heard that they made lemon grass soup and other grass soups and I never had tried that stuff, grass just doesn’t seem that appetizing even in soup that can take many things but now I do feel that I have been missing something why just touching this grass between my toes feels genuinely delectable. After a while my palette was envious so I broke a grass leaf right to its roots, smelled the dirt, even the dirt had nice overtones but when I bit into the greenery, freshness everywhere the sky expanded a little, I think.
“Hey Lt how is that grass feeling under your feet?” Motioned Corporal Ralph Madden, he was our insensitive freak, he was still alive because he had thrown his dead buddy’s body on top of a grenade; during the act we all searched him with crazed eyes, his only reply, “Don’t fucking stare at me the asshole was dead already!” As he said that he sort of got wet around the eyes but we didn’t buy it, his voice dimming repetition, “Fucking asshole was dead already.” We all knew they were lovers and maybe he was just then making sure he was dead for in battle our ability to judge is severely hampered.
“Yeah isn’t that fufu grass cutting your pretty little feet sir?” Mustered Private First Class Robert Treble. Robert was always trying to fit in, he liked war or this war for sure and he wanted to be accepted, he took risks why he even saved a couple of our boys only so they could die later anyway, but his silver star for bravery was secured. Rescuing in war zones is just like fame always a temporary mission if you stay here long enough death finds you.
Robert could get all the medals he was heat seeking but none of them would ever sever his low self esteem and so he would always repeat anything anyone said to make sure that he was in line.
“Well you boys might not buy this but those boots are going to get you killed while my freshly wet toes are going to get my ass back home. You just better follow me or you aren’t going to make it out of here alive.”
Sailor, my second in command had some kind of a name we didn’t remember, he was just called Sailor because he had this love affair with boats we don’t know why this fine gunnery sergeant didn’t join the navy instead. Here he was in our filthy army where more men get and got killed, where everything goes rotten and dead wrong and while he was climbing mountains and crawling through marshes and barbed wire he kept this book of ships and their stats in his backpack. He would browse it again and again during cease fire actions or before a good night’s sleep; the navy was sure missing out on a fine and disciplined sergeant. He however was firmly with us and now noting, “Seems to me like our Lt is missing the boat upstairs.”
The other boys laughed while I stopped and turned around, “Missing the boat meaning? Meaning what Sergeant Sailor?”
“I don’t know as much as you Lieutenant Sir, I didn’t go to all those nice strategic command colleges but a man that takes his boots off in a full blown combat zone is getting too touchy feely for my nerves.”
The boys appeared to concur, PFC Treble inked on, “touchy feely.”
And Corporal Madden, “Sir, if you don’t mind I think we would all feel better if our commander were wearing his boots things are too fragile around these parts, how about it Lt Sir!” He finished that with a nice disciplined iced salute.
“Listen to me we have been losing man after man after man, the manual tells you how to dig out land mines but it doesn’t tell you where they are and the difference that metal and five thousand pellets make against my grass steeped feet as opposed to my bayonet which is metal against metal; hell I don’t expect you fools to understand all that just follow on my lead.”
Corporal Madden harked back, “It doesn’t seem right.”
Sailor loaded it up, “Sir on behalf of the men I propose that we split up, you go your way and we will go ours.”
I silently retraced my way back towards Sailor and I put my wet moist lips right to his ear, “On behalf of what men Sailor Sergeant? Haven’t you noticed you have managed to lose 27 men? haven’t you noticed that the troop has faded! So on behalf of what men do you speak? Corporal Madden is a fucking homo and PFC Treble is a fucking Star fighter or are you meaning to speak on behalf of yourself and using the lot to secure your own doubted beliefs?!”
Sergeant Sailor stood there solidly firm we were in the middle of a mine field, the landscape was flat and green where any enemy would be able to sniper pick us one by one from a mile away. The boys sort of got the message that I was still their leader but as I started to back out Sailor reiterated his stance. “Sir, with all due respect I think you could be suffering from malaria, jungle fever or just plain war but it may actually be better if you handed command of the troop to me.”
I snapped back, “Sergeant you want to relieve me of command because I took my boots off! Because I am trying something different instead of continuing to lose men to the same foolish tactic!”
At attention, sergeant Sailor held his position, “Sir I think we should put it to a vote besides right now as you say and as I see it we don’t have much of a troop so maybe we can put it to a vote.”
He didn’t want to call it a vote of confidence but that’s precisely what it was and frankly I didn’t care. “Alright then lets put it to a vote…” I Yelling, “Corporal Madden what is your vote me or Sergeant Sailor?!”
Madden sort of bowed his head looking at the grass and at my feet, “I think maybe it would be good if Sergeant Sailor were in charge for just a little while.”
I looked towards PFC Treble but I might have guessed his reply, “Yes sir it could be for just a little while, say a couple of hours and then you could have command back sir.”
I looked at Sailor, “So this is it, this is how it unfolds?…” swiftly taking out my revolver and pointing it at Sergeant’s temple, “You stupid idiots you are under military command you are not allowed to create your own hierarchy here, now put your military bodies on the ground now! On the ground now fuck-heads!”
“Lt. what are you doing put that weapon down.” Said Sergeant Sailor.
“I tell you what I am doing skipper I am offering to shoot you if what is left of the troop and you included doesn’t disarm immediately and hit the deck now!”
Corporal Madden jerked in, “Sir we cannot disarm in the middle of a fire zone.”
I fired a round that whisked past his right ear. “Me thinks that you can disarm fact is I frankly recommend that you disarm!”
PFC Robert Treble undoing his weapons belt, “I think you might be losing it Lt but I will listen to you I got no other choice.”
Lowering my tone, “Thank you private Treble, thank you.”
The three of them were there on the ground when a fighter jet formation flew overhead probably on a bombing mission. “You see those planes up there those are my planes and this is my war and you are my, my troop;…” (punctuating my chest) “…assigned to me by direct order of the commander and chief, the fucking president of our country and you cannot take that lightly men! You have to believe in the duty of command and the order of discipline, you will not turn to little nannies in the middle of a fire zone. You understand what I am saying men?!”
All three responded in alert unison. “Yes sir!”
“I cant hear you or maybe it is that you don’t mean it, louder please!”
Their voices belching into the sky. “Yes sir! yes sir!”
I took my helmet off, it was itching and it weighed too much some day they would make these helmets out of carbon fiber but only after a billion soldiers wore this fatiguing laughing metal thorns. “Well I don’t think you understand men because if you men understood the rule of command we wouldn’t be in this situation right now would we?!”
Their voices responded, “No sir we wouldn’t be in this situation now.”
I looked straight into the sun, I had seen napalm blowing up entire villages and peoples the sun was dimmed by comparison, my eyes were now sun trained. “Yeap boys this is how things start going wrong people don’t follow orders, people want to do their own thing, discipline, discipline is the order of the day and the only possible order of battle and you boys are tempted to violate that rule! Now I must make that right, you boys put me in a bad situation and I cannot allow a violation of our chain of command, I have to stop everything here and now so it doesn’t epidemically rise through the ranks.”
Corporal Madden showing a little fright, “Sir, we understand now let us just continue to march on!”
Treble reinforcing Madden, “Yes sir, lets just continue to march home, we are only a day or two away from home.”
Sailor Sergeant, “Sir we would all gladly take our boots off if that would put things right, right men?”
Resounding optimism from the men, “Yes sir” “Yes sir!” and with that they started to motion so as to take their boots off.
I aimed the gun barrel at Robert and yelled, “Not so fast private,” then I went with gun in hand towards Corporal Madden, “not so fast funny boy,” and then I pointed it straight at Sailor Sergeant. “You would take your boots off for me, I like that yeah I like that.” And with that I carelessly but willingly pulled the trigger and Sailor bought it on the forehead. The boys stiffened up as if they gave them selves for dead as well.
“Don’t worry boys you just take off those boots for we are going home, walking but we are going home.”
It was so much quieter now that the entire troop and I could feel the pretty green grass.
RC
Monday, May 16, 2005
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Monday, May 02, 2005
Aghan from Kifre
It was in a desert town but only desert from the lack of water and vegetation, peoples were everywhere, bringing fruits from far away places, eating scrub soup or munching on dry white breads that filled the stomach till food could be had. The mud houses rose from the sand as if meant to be there, perhaps like the sand they came and went with the desert winds, but they seemed still enough for most days to last long enough for a visitor to think them from far back. Next to the dwellings a plaza arose where the noisy traders sold their goods for pennies on the cheap enough to feed the camels on the trips back to the cities, where they would gather yet another load and do so six times per year with more reliability than the length of centuries.
The desert town hailed from another time, it was placed there built through a long banished oasis of water and vegetation, only now it was held together by custom, this custom was called Kifre. Some poets had written about Kifre but they remained largely unknown perhaps because of the subject matter, romantics didn’t travel this far, the traders were not given to repeating verse, they were more likely to drink vast quantities of tea and to watch the night retreat expecting tomorrow to happen simply because Kifre had happened. These nomads inhabited Kifre year around, for them the end of the world didn’t exist, they were after all at one of its outposts; there wasn’t much need for singing, small verbal gestures accompanied by comprised hand movements would settle any arguments or title deeds; exchanges were brief for, “the desert sand gets into the mouth that talks.”
I came upon Kifre because of a dark haired woman Aghan, that had her sixty something years on her and still she brought me here with more spirit than a camel; we walked, it took us eight days of walking through the night, during the day we would huddle under our garments or bury ourselves under an unusual rock formation, our water finely measured lasted only six days, we were able to make seven with our urine, but the eighth was only survived by the possibility of reaching Kifre.
Aghan had been young around the time that Kifre became a town of small renown because it would hide those that had made themselves an ill reputation in the city; in Kifre you could hide, you didn’t need documents, if you just sat there the sun would roll over you and no one would care. One day you could die, things would eat you up, things that could not be seen by the naked eye, you didn’t have time to rot, everything silently went into something, you didn’t even rot.
The nomads welcomed any new comer that brought little things they could amuse themselves with, matches were popular, a box of matches always a good gift; and then there was something else in Kifre, the Kifre women were renowned for their inability to feel, something that certain men in the city found fascinating. Aghan was one of those women that made trips to the city to display her unmovable emotions, she could do anything to herself and not feel it, she could do anything to you and not hurt, she was a show, a private and a public show, she didn’t really know what it all meant or where all the amusement was, some wealthy men paid her to insult them with grasping tools, others would ask her to do painful things to herself; Aghan from Kifre, didn’t care, she just did the things, it was like a camel carrying its load, it was a thing to do, you didn’t complain, you didn’t ask why, you did it, it didn’t matter who or what it was all for.
She recounted some rabid sex tales and spoke as one that had never known any earthly pleasures and her eyes were of stone; her hands were brittle from age, at one time she had been a handsome woman, strong features lingered in her corrugated wrinkles. She agreed to bring me to the town, I was your average curious student traveling abroad looking not so much for adventure but for something that would mark my life, perhaps I would write about the Kifre nomads, perhaps I would study their history and perform the first official translation of their muted language, a grant could be had for such things, I was finishing grad school and I knew I didn’t want to work a normal day, Kifre offered such possibility.
Aghan made the contrast even more interesting, a nomad desert dweller catering to the cruel insensitivity only possible in a city, where everything was fun and everything was doable and one had to keep an open mind enough to think everything and anything; nomads in Kifre thought of nothing in particular and only did a few things a day, and every month that went by they moved and did a little less and less until they too stood still like their desert habitat.
After quenching our thirst slowly, “the water is always to be drunk slow,” Aghan told, “drink the water fast and you don’t get its spirit” her hands gesturing throughout her throat and mouth, after quenching our thirst slowly we went to the plaza. The nomad enclave could have no more than 250 inhabitants, I asked for a specific number but Aghan didn’t offer facts, “many men, many women, no children.” Distressed I retorted, “No children?” her gentle but coarse reply, “They come from all around here, Kifre is fed by all those that need some time away,” while her eyes were looking around and to the sky, “those that need some time away come here.” I supposed that if I bunched those around the plaza into groupings of thirty, there were probably over 400 people around the place, I marveled a nomad dwelling constantly drawing its population from without, keeping them within because they needed to get away from something. I kept thinking how I could feed myself on such a lot with a grant.
We walked around it was obvious that I was seen as a stranger but in a different way, they put their heads down so as not to look at me, only to surreptitiously search me with cavernous eyes, and it was in all done in a way that noted that they knew I wasn’t getting away from anything; they were saying, “you are passing through here don’t touch us, we are not to be with you, you are not to be with us, let him pass, don’t touch him, let him pass.” Nomads don’t like to become attached to things that aren’t going to be around, the sand always has representatives, I didn’t, that is the way they saw me.
Aghan they saw differently, she was from here, when she walked by they wouldn’t look at her, they would simply show an ineptitude at getting out of her way, she could stumble into them and they very well acted as if no one had touched them; she was another one of them like the sand she was in their nostrils and in their ears, her essence stroke them with a gentleness, a rugged gentleness that even when she wasn’t here, when she bailed to the city, the sands remembered her and put her in their throats and ears.
I was amazed to see a plaza with nothing really much to sell, a plaza empty of fish or meats, a plaza where the only thing you saw was mostly men talking to men, something was being traded, a nut perhaps, or some frown, or a mental image of some place gone, or simply the whiff of the long unwashed fellow and his garments; the receptions were brief, they spent more time saying nothing, more time saying nothing.
At that lapsing moment I stumbled into something, a cart, a cart being pulled by a skinny bearded fellow, I stumbled into him, he begun muttering in a foreign tongue that I could not assimilate, perplexed I reached for Aghan and she explained, “you have broken his cart.” I briskly replied, “He bumped into me!” and then to be clear, “He bumped into me and how could I break anything in a wooden cart.”
Aghan translated, the skinny fellow pointed to a place right near where the handles used to pull the cart joined the major cargo area; there was a sort of box like structure, no more than twelve by twelve inches square, made of light colored wood, and it had six rows, yes I remember clearly six grooved rows and strangely water was flowing from all of them, except two that were smashed; the wood chippings made it obvious that water would not run through damaged grooves, and this fellow was touching the damage and looking at me as if I had killed his first born.
Aghan noted that there was indeed damage, “I don’t think you were watching where you were going, and he rightly says that you could change direction a lot easier than a two wheel cart and a skinny man.”
Aghan proceeded to demonstrate with her hands, “You rammed here like this, and the Hijon does not take pressure, smashed, you see you smashed it.” Her hands dangling off into the sand as if that explained fallen treasures of water.
Where I sternly replied, “The Hijon, what is a Hijon? What are you talking about?”
Both Aghan and the man pointed at the box, now I understood the box was the Hijon.
Aghan explained, “There are only three Hijons in the whole of Kifre and this one had the most fountains before you smashed it.”
“But I didn’t smash it!”
“A man is culpable of his deeds, when you walk on the sand you step on many creatures and you kill them, and that is you killing them or not?”
She said it so forcefully I was coerced into agreement, “Well yes I am the one that killed them but it is unwilling I don’t see them, I step on them and I cannot help it as I have to walk the desert, and when I do that has unwanted consequences.”
“Well maybe those creatures don’t call upon you but here in Kifre, the Hijons are the primary source of our water, we depend upon them, and you have smashed this one, and we must call upon you to pay attention to your deeds.”
“Your only source of water?”
“Yes, watch?”
And the skinny fellow begun to show how the whole thing created water out of thin air, the wooden square somehow melted the humidified water in the air, and it rained through and from the groves and wow, I could not believe them till I drank the drips of drops of fresh flowing water.
“Then you see now you must pay for the damages.”
Endearing myself to the travesty, “How can I do that?”
“You must buy it from this man, you have stolen his livelihood, you must buy it to make good of the wrong you’ve done.”
“How much does he want for it?” I was thinking that no amount would be too much.
“He wants 100 Pebbles of Gold, but I think that is too much offer him 30 and settle for forty.”
And this I did and then man and Aghan both raised their hands towards the sky and rendered these words, “Just is the man that pays for his deeds.”
Finishing her assistance with the transaction Aghan noted she had to return to her mud-hut, where then among the dunes she disappeared. I stayed with the Hijon, only it ceased pouring water; I am here two days going long, and still the smashed grooves nor the good ones dribble water from the air; I move it here and there, there were no instructions and again it is just a piece of wood with groves on it, and no water yet.
RC
The desert town hailed from another time, it was placed there built through a long banished oasis of water and vegetation, only now it was held together by custom, this custom was called Kifre. Some poets had written about Kifre but they remained largely unknown perhaps because of the subject matter, romantics didn’t travel this far, the traders were not given to repeating verse, they were more likely to drink vast quantities of tea and to watch the night retreat expecting tomorrow to happen simply because Kifre had happened. These nomads inhabited Kifre year around, for them the end of the world didn’t exist, they were after all at one of its outposts; there wasn’t much need for singing, small verbal gestures accompanied by comprised hand movements would settle any arguments or title deeds; exchanges were brief for, “the desert sand gets into the mouth that talks.”
I came upon Kifre because of a dark haired woman Aghan, that had her sixty something years on her and still she brought me here with more spirit than a camel; we walked, it took us eight days of walking through the night, during the day we would huddle under our garments or bury ourselves under an unusual rock formation, our water finely measured lasted only six days, we were able to make seven with our urine, but the eighth was only survived by the possibility of reaching Kifre.
Aghan had been young around the time that Kifre became a town of small renown because it would hide those that had made themselves an ill reputation in the city; in Kifre you could hide, you didn’t need documents, if you just sat there the sun would roll over you and no one would care. One day you could die, things would eat you up, things that could not be seen by the naked eye, you didn’t have time to rot, everything silently went into something, you didn’t even rot.
The nomads welcomed any new comer that brought little things they could amuse themselves with, matches were popular, a box of matches always a good gift; and then there was something else in Kifre, the Kifre women were renowned for their inability to feel, something that certain men in the city found fascinating. Aghan was one of those women that made trips to the city to display her unmovable emotions, she could do anything to herself and not feel it, she could do anything to you and not hurt, she was a show, a private and a public show, she didn’t really know what it all meant or where all the amusement was, some wealthy men paid her to insult them with grasping tools, others would ask her to do painful things to herself; Aghan from Kifre, didn’t care, she just did the things, it was like a camel carrying its load, it was a thing to do, you didn’t complain, you didn’t ask why, you did it, it didn’t matter who or what it was all for.
She recounted some rabid sex tales and spoke as one that had never known any earthly pleasures and her eyes were of stone; her hands were brittle from age, at one time she had been a handsome woman, strong features lingered in her corrugated wrinkles. She agreed to bring me to the town, I was your average curious student traveling abroad looking not so much for adventure but for something that would mark my life, perhaps I would write about the Kifre nomads, perhaps I would study their history and perform the first official translation of their muted language, a grant could be had for such things, I was finishing grad school and I knew I didn’t want to work a normal day, Kifre offered such possibility.
Aghan made the contrast even more interesting, a nomad desert dweller catering to the cruel insensitivity only possible in a city, where everything was fun and everything was doable and one had to keep an open mind enough to think everything and anything; nomads in Kifre thought of nothing in particular and only did a few things a day, and every month that went by they moved and did a little less and less until they too stood still like their desert habitat.
After quenching our thirst slowly, “the water is always to be drunk slow,” Aghan told, “drink the water fast and you don’t get its spirit” her hands gesturing throughout her throat and mouth, after quenching our thirst slowly we went to the plaza. The nomad enclave could have no more than 250 inhabitants, I asked for a specific number but Aghan didn’t offer facts, “many men, many women, no children.” Distressed I retorted, “No children?” her gentle but coarse reply, “They come from all around here, Kifre is fed by all those that need some time away,” while her eyes were looking around and to the sky, “those that need some time away come here.” I supposed that if I bunched those around the plaza into groupings of thirty, there were probably over 400 people around the place, I marveled a nomad dwelling constantly drawing its population from without, keeping them within because they needed to get away from something. I kept thinking how I could feed myself on such a lot with a grant.
We walked around it was obvious that I was seen as a stranger but in a different way, they put their heads down so as not to look at me, only to surreptitiously search me with cavernous eyes, and it was in all done in a way that noted that they knew I wasn’t getting away from anything; they were saying, “you are passing through here don’t touch us, we are not to be with you, you are not to be with us, let him pass, don’t touch him, let him pass.” Nomads don’t like to become attached to things that aren’t going to be around, the sand always has representatives, I didn’t, that is the way they saw me.
Aghan they saw differently, she was from here, when she walked by they wouldn’t look at her, they would simply show an ineptitude at getting out of her way, she could stumble into them and they very well acted as if no one had touched them; she was another one of them like the sand she was in their nostrils and in their ears, her essence stroke them with a gentleness, a rugged gentleness that even when she wasn’t here, when she bailed to the city, the sands remembered her and put her in their throats and ears.
I was amazed to see a plaza with nothing really much to sell, a plaza empty of fish or meats, a plaza where the only thing you saw was mostly men talking to men, something was being traded, a nut perhaps, or some frown, or a mental image of some place gone, or simply the whiff of the long unwashed fellow and his garments; the receptions were brief, they spent more time saying nothing, more time saying nothing.
At that lapsing moment I stumbled into something, a cart, a cart being pulled by a skinny bearded fellow, I stumbled into him, he begun muttering in a foreign tongue that I could not assimilate, perplexed I reached for Aghan and she explained, “you have broken his cart.” I briskly replied, “He bumped into me!” and then to be clear, “He bumped into me and how could I break anything in a wooden cart.”
Aghan translated, the skinny fellow pointed to a place right near where the handles used to pull the cart joined the major cargo area; there was a sort of box like structure, no more than twelve by twelve inches square, made of light colored wood, and it had six rows, yes I remember clearly six grooved rows and strangely water was flowing from all of them, except two that were smashed; the wood chippings made it obvious that water would not run through damaged grooves, and this fellow was touching the damage and looking at me as if I had killed his first born.
Aghan noted that there was indeed damage, “I don’t think you were watching where you were going, and he rightly says that you could change direction a lot easier than a two wheel cart and a skinny man.”
Aghan proceeded to demonstrate with her hands, “You rammed here like this, and the Hijon does not take pressure, smashed, you see you smashed it.” Her hands dangling off into the sand as if that explained fallen treasures of water.
Where I sternly replied, “The Hijon, what is a Hijon? What are you talking about?”
Both Aghan and the man pointed at the box, now I understood the box was the Hijon.
Aghan explained, “There are only three Hijons in the whole of Kifre and this one had the most fountains before you smashed it.”
“But I didn’t smash it!”
“A man is culpable of his deeds, when you walk on the sand you step on many creatures and you kill them, and that is you killing them or not?”
She said it so forcefully I was coerced into agreement, “Well yes I am the one that killed them but it is unwilling I don’t see them, I step on them and I cannot help it as I have to walk the desert, and when I do that has unwanted consequences.”
“Well maybe those creatures don’t call upon you but here in Kifre, the Hijons are the primary source of our water, we depend upon them, and you have smashed this one, and we must call upon you to pay attention to your deeds.”
“Your only source of water?”
“Yes, watch?”
And the skinny fellow begun to show how the whole thing created water out of thin air, the wooden square somehow melted the humidified water in the air, and it rained through and from the groves and wow, I could not believe them till I drank the drips of drops of fresh flowing water.
“Then you see now you must pay for the damages.”
Endearing myself to the travesty, “How can I do that?”
“You must buy it from this man, you have stolen his livelihood, you must buy it to make good of the wrong you’ve done.”
“How much does he want for it?” I was thinking that no amount would be too much.
“He wants 100 Pebbles of Gold, but I think that is too much offer him 30 and settle for forty.”
And this I did and then man and Aghan both raised their hands towards the sky and rendered these words, “Just is the man that pays for his deeds.”
Finishing her assistance with the transaction Aghan noted she had to return to her mud-hut, where then among the dunes she disappeared. I stayed with the Hijon, only it ceased pouring water; I am here two days going long, and still the smashed grooves nor the good ones dribble water from the air; I move it here and there, there were no instructions and again it is just a piece of wood with groves on it, and no water yet.
RC
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