Distant Light - Chapter 1

THE DISTANT LIGHT
By Salim Meghani

The dearth of familiar sounds was breath-arresting. The stark absence
of human cacophony, of the altercations of tools and machines was
powerfully evident in the surroundings. The only sound existent was the
non-hurting twits of birds and scratching of small-fry creatures that
rushed about invisibly leaving behind shaking of grass and leaves they
had just trodden. The grass itself was knee-length, weed-ridden, and
the tall trees that grew over and above them were dense, closely-woven
and vied to capture the sky. The solitude was balmy, yet gave throbs of
awe in the heart. The grass and leaves hissing with the slightest
thrust of wind, and the raw hidden earth beneath seemed to ooze secret
smells of intoxicating nature. The time was two hours after the
sun-break, and the early morning slanted rays from the horizon were
hardly reaching the ground, hardly penetrating the girth of overhanging
mass of greens. Under the shadows
the air was cool, blowing restrainingly, enhancing the overpowering
virginity of the forest. Though it was shadowy and dark, patches of
soft yellow sunshine were noticeable spacemodically where branches
above were not so thick, imparting pleasing occasional warmth and
thwarting the coolness of the early hours. Not so far from here there
lay a clearing where a small area was sparse of trees and where sun
appeared more in abundance. Here if you looked with intent and examined
the ground closely you came to glean an almost unseeable track made by
human feet on the grass. Out from the end of this track three towering
moving figures now emerged. Their walk was lax, their gait a
thought-provoking one, and they approached an expansive tree in the
vicinity and stood under its wide shadow talking. Their lithe half-bare
bodies shone ebony-bronze in the palest of the morning rays. The
conjured up scanty ensembles they wore, made of animal skins, shook
loosely as they talked haltingly in broken words, making facial jerks
and hand expressions. Their eyes were curiously very red, their
cheekbones high, muscles on the cheeks invariably sunken, and their
eyebrows and lashes were sometimes missing, disintegrated under healed
wounds. Their hair, which was plentiful on each head, were spun into
thin strings, long, numerous, and spread like a mop across the forehead
and down, half hiding the pair of red threat-infested eyes. Their legs
were sturdy, muscular yet slim, exuding racing quality, and their feet
were bare, toes pliant and tough, equipped with pin-prick nails, and
their foot-soles impervious to thorns, broken glass and fangs of
snakes. Their skin was shiny, laden with years of accumulated
body-grease, and therefore profoundly odour-bound and repellent to
creatures, jungle rodents and flies. One of them wore a leather belt
stitched with tiny beads and forming a pattern, and secured to the belt
was a short sabre. The second man carried an unusual instrument worked
from a length of steel pipe, a wooden stock, a door-bolt and a spring.
Inside the pipe there rested a round of ammunition. The third man held
a lengthy knobkerry, quite heavy, the end part of it reinforced with
steel. Now the sun was an hour more advanced in the sky.
One of the chatful men turned unexpectedly uncommunicative, he scanned
the area with worry on his mien, and said concernedly, "He has still
not come."
"After three nights. He had promised." "Three nights gone."
"And it is now daylight, it is late," the third man joined.
"But the sun is not high. You can wait."
"I will go up and above. I want to watch Kirinyaga," one man informed
the rest. Instantaneously his hands and legs attained a high agility
and he jumped and seized a branch, climbed the endless trunk and got
dissolved into the tree. Tallest among the tall, the tree was
dispensing him a refined view, he perceived as he got to the topmost
part. He positioned himself proper over it, and directed a keen,
distance-eating eye towards the sky terminals of the north.

It is strange to see a snow-capped mountain in the tropics, and right
along the equatorial belt at that, but there it stood, a fact of life,
as real as the fact of geography itself. Mount Kirinyaga's snow-covered
top touched the clouds, in fact overlapped them, and talked to the sky.
Down from its slopes myriads of small streams flowed holding
crystal-clear cool water. These nourished the sun-drenched valleys
below, then got amalgamated and then became rivers. A giant among the
mountains, Kirinyaga's slopes were lengthy and steep and were covered
with an impassable wilderness that contained trees as tall as the human
eyes could reach. The grass that grew underneath was thorny, difficult
to tread and devoid of the faintest track indicating direction. After
rolling miles upon miles downward the mountain slope gradually thinned
producing clearer spots and moor-lands, and as it went down further the
grasses were shorter and trees smaller becoming in the end a mere
spread of squat bushes. The heat from the sky was on the increase. The
solar orb had now turned whiter shifting rapidly towards noon point. As
this was happening, a black object resembling an ant appeared to be
motioning at an ant's pace down the white brow of Mount Kirinyaga. The
man perched over the tree had noticed it. He watched on in absolute
quiet, his jungle-conditioned eyes glued steadfast on the object. His
body for one moment gummed solid to the tree. Over the gradients of the
mountain a short old wizened man was endeavouring to rein his descent
as the steepness of the hilly ground was making him glide. There was no
power in his legs or body, now considerably broken from days of hunger,
non-existent sleep and intense exhaustion. Though snow had helped him
wet his thirsty tongue it had only cooled his empty belly still
further, slowing down his old, weak circulation and creating pains in
his meagre muscles. However, the mountain breeze, clean and free of
dust and poison, and the green-laden rawness of the forest had
enlivened him like miracle and he had kept on struggling, walking,
though near-dead.
The man on the tree stirred with enthusiasm, his features worked up,
and a scream escaped from him, "Musambwa is coming..."
The men on the ground relinquished conversation and trained their
glances over where the little-used track was ending up in the thicket.
"How away is he?" One of them howled at the man on the tree. "Many
hours."
The men commenced loitering, securing edible stems from around the bush
and chewing, and they waited and watched. Time was a question of no
significance. Musambwa, a long revered imbiber who talked neat truth,
told hurtful real tales and made bloods boil, only came out of
concealment once a year. His sight was deep and full of thought and he
liked nobody and no things. He had seen devil, and he knew the thirsts
of gods and the matters that pleased them. Musambwa was rare in
appearing, and time had no price if this was what was about to occur.
So they waited on.
When it was approximating high noon, the man in the tree glided down
and uttered excitedly, "He is here." From the depth of the farside
bushes, a dwarfish limping figure of an emaciated being slowly dragged
forward. The man's eyes were half-shuttered; leaking with white greasy
substance, but there was on his countenance a radiation as if all pains
on earth were but a joy in life. He was tremulous from head to foot,
his constitution merely a blank spectre, semi-nude and bare-bone. With
utmost effort he approached the men under the tree, and without a look
at them went and shuffled down against the expansive tree-trunk in
extreme agony. The men starred at him in gloomy anticipation, then a
low voice from someone eager got heard, "Did you see Ngai on the white
cliff?"
Musambwa did not widen his slitted eyelids, he was panting, without
looking at them he said, "I saw Ngai." "What is His word?"
"He is happy you have eaten Waruhiu."
The men relaxed and paused, seemingly content. "What more did He
say?"
"He said light will follow soon."
What more?" There was impatience in the enquirer's voice.
The old man turned dumb for a fraction, then said, "Ngai is
hungry."
Momentarily, Musambwa went inert, he was secretly observing the others'
reaction, then he went on, "He wants more." He again halted, surveying
the others in a dangerous fashion, then abruptly shouted, "Three."
"Three?" "White." Musambwa trembled violently. "White?" Their eyebrows
tensioned, astonishment getting inscribed on all their faces. Ignoring
them the old man stuttered on in a gradually dying tone, "In the
valleys of Nanyuki, near the springs of Tamu Tamu, there lies a farm
which is broad, and there sleeps there a Bwana Hectori. He drinks black
blood," Musambwa laboriously finished and appeared to be struggling
with his breathing. The men had got transformed into slabs of concrete,
their eyeballs enlarged, staring without seeing. Still prostrate
against the trunk Musambwa was now suffocating pitiously, life
evidently flickering in him threateningly, and he wreathed and
convulsed for a long excruciating minute as the others stood mute,
flabbergast. Then all of a sudden Musambwa expired. The men seized the
lifeless body and brutally shook it, there was no result; overwhelmed
they squatted low on the ground and whined, then went immobile for an
extended duration. When the sun's last ray was about to fade they got
up, now animated and alert and, taking no account of the corpse, made
preparations to depart. Slowly a wild animal look was covering up their
hard features, their red eyes had begun to burn like seething fire, and
as the night fell they moved swiftly and vanished into the unknown
wilderness.