The Nago Uncle             

 

All that is left in this hovel is the smiling picture of my aunt over the lavender aquarium. It was the picture that she loved most, her favorite taken almost ten years ago before she lost her hair.

 

I heard the doorbell, it was the movers. I had told them that I would take care of this last part, that I could handle it. Opening the door, I reached in  my bouba for some papyrus leaves to tip them for taking all my aunt's earthly belongings over to the Church, to be given to the poor.

 

For a moment I thought of Tia's husband, that rich Nago who swept her off her feet at 30 years old, when everyone said she would never marry. How he took all the juiciness from her body and her spirit and then when she got sick, just left her here to rot in this small apartment. He was the reason that she loved that picture. He took it just before he left to go live in that cold marble colored skyscraper near the park, where the well to do shop. Not one basket of coweries did he send to Tia! If it had been the other way around, if he was the one sick, she would have given up her life to nurse him. She never had a bad word to say about him, and she never stopped loving him.

 

Time is a scab over sorrow. The crisis always subsides and there is some small comfort in the respite after each small storm. When Tia died she was in my arms, this whole apartment was filled with flowers, the smell of stew cooking and children's laughter. Her friends and loved ones came  from all over  to be with her, sleeping on the floor, or in chairs not wanting to miss the moment of her passing, and the blessing of her last words.

 

I heard that the Nago died yesterday, alone they say. I know that is not true. I am certain that Tia came for him, and that she held him in her arms just as I had done for her three weeks ago. 

 

Mable and Othello                               

Before the ants of time marched in this galaxy on the far away star called Ethiopia, Ptah, the divine Pgymy lit two candles at the same time with the same match. There was a flash, and lo and behold He had created his own parents, the twins Mable and Othello- in a one step stereo mojo.  Ptah immediately opened a window and threw them out into the Vortex. He knew they would land wherever they had come from.

 

When they were pickanninies they were all rigid arms, flexible legs and earwax. They sat on thrones of  dirt, piled up pancakes over their Nurse Earth, the treasurer of all their wealth, oil, jewels and food.

 

Ptah, could see what the Twins were doing, and they could hear him, if they listened. They answered Him when He spoke, but to them everything was a joke. “In a pig's eye,” they would say, “today is our birthday. We are busy, got to go, gotta play.” They were always playing games and eating.

 

Nurse Earth was annoyed because the Twins never picked up their playthings. Later she became vexed  that they never touched the seeds that fell around their feet or bothered to scratch her skin when she itched at planting time.  So Nurse Earth began to curse and to feed the Twins black dog-meat instead of vegetables, honey and wheat.

 

Ptah yelled out to Nurse to stop her cursing, trying to warn her about upsetting those two He had made, but Nurse Earth wanted them to see things her way.

 

Magical twins such as these, don't take to whippings even from great big women. They took her curse and spun it into reverse. On contact it made a big hole in her chest.  That is how the first hole was dug in the Earth.

 

Djenra