CHRONICLES OF THE UNNAMED WANDERER 5

I gasp and try to move away from the dust that spread spores of what used to be a man all over the room. The huge man seems undisturbed by what had just happened but the monkey is chattering and shivering at the far corner of the room. From the huge man’s reaction I gather that this was not an unusual occurrence.

“What sort of place is this?” I ask

The huge man ignores me and begins to roll the old man’s mat and picks the bag. I watch as he cleans the room of everything that would show anyone that someone or some persons and a monkey had lived there for a time. I am still on the mat, unable to move, unable to make sense of what has just happened.

Soon huge man is done cleaning. He turns to look around the room, ignoring me. The monkey scampers over and climbs up to his shoulders. They both turn to look at me and then they leave the room through the door. I am too stunned to speak. I am being abandoned even though I am too weak to cater for myself. I try to rise but I fall back to the mat. I watch the huge man and the monkey take a turn and disappear from sight. I am alone in a hut in a place and time that I know next to nothing about and to make matters worse, I am powerless. I could have wept if I still had tears left. I close my eyes and fall away.

In the silence of thought,
Words come that speak of home –
Of silent shores and barking dogs,
Of cackling logs and sizzling goat hairs,
Of singing maiden and drunken grannies.

Touch the dream and it wavers,
It falls apart – threads spiraling
Into the dull waking moments
Of real nightmares creeping on all fours,
Teeth slavering, lips slack with hunger.
Scream, if you will. There’s none but us here.

I wake up with a scream lodged in my throat. I look about me, my thoughts wild with the nightmare of monsters creeping in to devour me. There is nothing but silence and darkness in my universe, then a cricket chirps and a frog croaks and I hear the sea washing herself on the shore. I take deep breaths and turn away from what I can see to what I can't. I go deep within myself and try to probe the veil. Everything is dark within. I can’t seem to find the veil. It is true, I am powerless here. I come back to my surroundings and sigh. This is where I die. A flash of pain on the side of my head and everything goes dark.

Nadiri! Nadiri! I scream in my head. I swear I saw her spin away, a storm whipping at her hair and wrapper, tearing at her skin and taking words from her lips. She needs me. Her lips spoke my name with fear in her eyes, her hands stretched towards me, I swear it. I blink and open my eyes to find the sun beating down on me, my hands and feet tied and I trussed like a chicken in the bottom of a small boat. I close my eyes and feel the steady throb of pain at the spot where I had been hit. I am at sea again and I have nothing, nothing, not even the rage of Olokun to save me.

“He is awake.” A voice says.

A shadow shades my face from the sun as someone bears down on me. I open my eyes a bit but everything is a blue green colour and I feel the need to vomit. I groan and close my eyes again. I can’t even arrange what I have seen into a proper image as everything is scattered and disjointed.

“Welcome to the land of the living young man. Welcome to the Sea Banshees, the terror of the seven seas. The grandest pirates to ever live! The sons and daughters of Neptune. Welcome stranger to our lowly crew.” A new voice says.

I nod my head and swallow. My throat is parched and my skin is hot to touch. I feel a fever gushing in my blood. I raise my hand and touch the sore spot on my head and bring it to my blurry vision. I see blood.

“Sorry about that. DZani is always overzealous about her work.” The new voice replies again.

A thud and the boat rocks back and forth. A rope ladder touch my face and then a pair of strong arms lift me up and entangle me with the rope ladder. They tow me up like a sack of dead meat and dump me on a wooden floor. I groan as my body feels pain in different parts that i didn't even know had parts. I open my eyes slowly and I see in the haze that my vision has become that I am on a ship. The others come on board and they walk away, leaving me on the floor. I close my eyes and try to sleep and forget the terrible ache all over my body, between my eyes and at the back of my head. But as soon as I close my eyes, I hear the thuds of moving feet. The feet stop before me

“Is he the one?” a woman’s voice asks.

“No captain. We did not find the blind seer. We found him instead.” My former captor replies.

There is silence.

“Who injured him.” The woman asks.

“He was sick when we found him. I simply tapped him on his head. His skull is too soft.” Another woman replies.

There is silence again, then I hear feet shuffle and someone squats before me. A hand grabs my jaw and turns me away from the sun. I open my eyes slowly and gasp. The woman smiles, her beautiful face a flush of pleasure. She has dreadlocks on her head this time not snakes.

“We meet at last, wanderer.” She says.

“Medusa.” I reply, my voice soft in the silence as i repeat the name i heard a faceless man say.

She bursts into laughter, her voice like bells in the wind.

warpedpoetic, 2019.