by Cara Charles
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT -- THANK YOU…
JOSEPH AND THE PRESIDENT were enjoying their midnight snack looking over pictures of Joseph and Shanti’s trip to Africa on his computer. The President enjoyed seeing Shanti, even though her face was a bit altered by design, and photos of Elise and METAPHOR 2.0.
The President had yet to meet Shanti face to face. Everyone himself included, thought it too risky.
“What a wonderful time you had. What a great contribution you made. Let me know when you want to go back,” the President said carefully, remembering the walls were listening.
“I am so looking forward to the next trip.” Joseph’s pocket vibrated. He retrieved his special Blackberry and read the message, then handed it over to the President. He nodded and left the kitchen.
The President headed for his office, and put on his headset as instructed. He opened his special email. Funnyjokesandantidotes.com was waiting.
Remembering it had a retinal scanner, the message said, ‘Thank you sir. This is the mission end and my last assignment. You’ll be hearing from ORCA in my stead. If your headset is secure and the filtering music is coming through the headset nod, then you may begin reading the lab report, to be followed by a video. It will self-destruct as you read the translation. Thank you sir. Without your help, we all wouldn’t be so very happy. Adios, Dear.’
The screen went black, the New Age music of Haida flutes, whales breathing, and Bald Eagle mating calls filled his ears. The President nodded, then read the report.
The President shook his head in amazement. The report brought him to tears. A smiley face appeared and he smiled, knowing they were watching him from somewhere on the West Coast. The small black window became backlit.
Shanti appeared, in the cockpit of a private jet, her eyes closed. It was the tape from the plane. The tape was paused.
The President nodded.
Shanti’s true voice greeted him.
“Mr. President. Thank you for giving me a choice to choose my own destiny. Thank you for my happiness. It is amazing to be happy again. But I am sorry so many have suffered. That will never happen again. I won’t allow it. I don’t know why I have been alive all this time. By a miracle of nature. I was relieved to know they cannot quite duplicate what has gone on in my body. I am simply frozen in time. I can still die if befallen by some accident. I am not able to recover from catastrophic injury. Once again thank you. You may begin the translation now, by nodding. Until the day we can safely meet. We are one people. One family. God’s speed, sir.”
Shanti was speaking in Ge’ez, the translation in her own words played through his headset.
“I’m known by many names. I’ve lived many lives. I’ve been known as Ese, Iset, and Osiris, Sheba… and in your time Herta and Shanti, and now science calls me mEve. My one daughter lived to give birth to all of you. Like flowers in the field you all are beautiful, unique, blessed. As children there are lessons still to be learned. Shall we begin…?”
As Barack Obama read on, he wiped tears from his eyes, hearing her remarkable story. When the tape was done, the dialog box appeared and waited.
He dropped his head and cried.
When he’d recovered, the man who represented the Free World, typed into his window.
‘Dear? I must meet her. She’s changed my life…’
The smiley face came back…
The President waited for the decision…
‘Then so you shall…’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE -- PROFESSOR SHANTI LARSEN
SHANTI STEPPED ONTO THE STAGE of her large lecture auditorium, her first class of the Spring semester would begin any minute, her Dengue drum slung over her back.
She sat looking out at the empty seats soon to be filled. She loved this moment, anticipating the joy of the young, eager faces she was about to meet. Shanti began, playing the hypnotic beat that touched every cell of every human she’d ever met.
Shanti and Joseph had stayed in her old village for several weeks after Christmas. Shanti told the villagers she was a scholar doing research, and they believed her. She loved speaking to them in her original language, many understood her, as she learned the modern version of her ancient Ge’ez, amazed her language was alive after all this time.
She quickly set up a school and a fresh water purification system, seeds for food and animal feed, gifted goats, and brought a year’s supply of prenatal vitamins for every young woman, plus contraception if they did not want to start a family, until they chose. She’d be back in the summer.
Joseph helped them lay out their gardens and goat pens. Hay storage was built and hay brought in for the goats until they could be fed from the new grass.
One night, they both decided they wanted to come home to their lives in the States. Joseph went ahead of her because the President’s last days in office were flying by and Joe didn’t want to miss them.
Shanti imagined Joseph showing up at work yesterday morning, the Obamas and staff would be thrilled to have him back. He was loaded down with all sorts of gifts for everyone. Gifts they bought together. She had Joseph bring a larger Dengue drum and a Chief’s walking staff back for the President and George.
George had been so kind to give her classes back.
Shanti was drumming, remembering their time in Africa, and playing her drum for the villagers. Shanti sharing her home place openly with Joseph was wonderful. The drum was part of all of them. Shanti closed her eyes, swayed to the beat, and played back her memories.
She’d taken Joseph to her spot, the rise on the flat savannah. She re-lived it all over again, as he watched her tell her story of a long life that followed a simple rainstorm.
When she cried, he kissed her.
She could see the endless blue sky of home, the huge billowing white clouds. The smell of rain was in the air. The tops of the Thica trees joined the sky to the grasslands.
Out there as far as her eye could remember, was the grass. The tawny, lion colored grass that waved and flirted with the caressing wind. The warm wind was rippling through the grasses like fingers pulled against the water in a pond. A trail of dust floated above the grasses. She was standing on her favorite rocky out-cropping, watching the migration. Thunder rumbled behind her.
Her three daughters were playing on the rocks behind her, laughing, and playing their hunting game. She could smell the rain and she could just hear the animals. They were finally coming and so was the lightning.
She'd played this drum song at many campfires, lifetimes ago, her daughters dancing, their joyful faces, their beautiful movements, their hands, their eyes, and their perfect smiles. It was so long ago it was a miracle she could remember them at all.
But because they were her last children, she looked for Sela everyday in a crowd. Wishing by some miracle Sela, her oldest had survived as long as she had, because the lightning had struck all of them. Losing her children in the flash flood was always on her mind. Not finding all of them was why she still clung to hope.
Maybe Sela was out there somewhere. She never stopped looking for her. It was eons ago, she had started this drum song for her long lost children. She never gave up.
Sela would know this drum song, and maybe one day she’ll walk into one of her classes having heard the drum that still calls for her.
Shanti had played this drum song over the decades since finding a home in the States, for many students, with the hope one day her biggest need for a miracle would be answered. Every time she has needed one, a miracle would appear, like a gift. It was a small miracle she never ran into any former students or her secret would be out, her youth retained so obviously, unnatural.
It felt good to be in touch with her soul again through her drum.
Ten minutes to class.
They’d start filtering in soon. In eighteen weeks, she’d have another class of drummers and they’d perform on the quad just before finals week, while Shanti searched for that one face in the crowd.
Shanti had a drum for each cent
er seat in every row pf her large auditorium. Brian, her assistant had placed them there. He was a miracle, too. Twenty-five drums in all, and he never complained.
Shanti sighed, so happy to be back home in her classroom, a place she thought she’d never see again. Shanti drew a crowd when she played. They’d be drawn in not knowing why the drumbeat spoke to them, teaching them who wanted to learn, but didn’t know they wanted to learn what she had to teach. Influencing those who never knew they wanted to learn about their homeland.
A handsome, fine-boned medium sized lad with curly brown hair and dimples surrounding a killer smile, entered smiling, and went right for the drum.
Shanti nodded, ‘yes that’s for you.’ She smiled watching her first and newest drummer, the good looking boy with a kind face, his dimples like grand canyons when he smiled.
He looked to her for clarification and she nodded boldly, ‘yes that’s right.’ He told the students coming in. He looked back at Shanti for her approval.
Her nod and smile gave it to him.
There was a scramble to take the drum seats.
She looked out at their eager faces as they filed in. She began to play harder with more intensity.
Several more entered at the top of the lecture hall. They were always drawn in, their bodies responding to her beat, so curious and happy. They danced their way to their seats.
‘Look at them. All mine, but they will never ever know it. Except now, at this very moment they are one with me. They feel it. The kinship. They have the knowing without knowing why. That is all I ever need.’
Her drumbeat was infectious. They didn’t want to take their seats. They wanted to dance. She wanted them to dance.
Shanti played for a full ten minutes as every last seat was taken. Shanti ended their dance with a strong flourish and a final beat.
They cheered and gave her a standing ovation.
“Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, class,” Shanti bowed accepting their respect.
“Good Morning, Professor Larsen.”
She directed them into their seats with her hands.
They laughed, and yes it was hard to settle down again.
Shanti began to play her drum in a soft maternal beat, a rhythmic heartbeat that was so African. Its beat, so infectious the kids began to live the beat.
“Those of you with a drum play it, copying the Mother Heart.”
The students put their drums between their legs and copied Shanti.
The hall got quiet, all concentrating.
Twenty-five drums following the mother drum were emotionally powerful.
“Very good. We are one village, one people. We are one. Now, after me...”
Shanti slowly played a phrase.
Those with the drums easily copied her. She played eight bars.
They played eight bars.
She played and let them play eight bars and said, “Together now.”
The beat played into their souls.
Shanti continued for another sixteen bars as they learned and got into the natural rhythm.
“Quietly now... the rest softly clap along, following the drums,” Shanti waited as the clapping and drumming softened.
“We’re going to learn some extraordinary things, you and I in these next eighteen weeks. Some of you will continue on with me for years and some will be gone from my nest, like most children. But like all children, you will fly the nest with a truth you can live with your whole life long. I’ll imagine every one of you, seeking your own adventures passing along your teachings, like I do. If I manage to teach you all one thing, it is that you must not ever forget this moment. Here it is…”
“Everyone? Of recent African decent, please stand up. Everyone else, play on, as I go ahead.”
Shanti increased the sound and intensity of her rhythm as did her drummers, underscoring and presenting those standing.
All the students of recent African ancestry stood up, some shyly, some proudly, some not so sure what was coming, clapping, swaying, living in the captivating rhythm of their ancestry. Shanti watched them process their heritage.
“Children of Africa. We are the first people. The original people of this miracle called Earth. We are one.”
She underscored the phrase with her drumming as they absorbed such an unsought distinction.
“Yes, it is true. Your truth is as plain as that distinctive nose on your faces. So true it is like the air you breathe.”
Shanti loved watching their process.
They were always quiet at first, discussing it amongst themselves, usually with friends or new friends, their seat mates, who had never thought of themselves in any other way other than African-Americans, a people with a tortured past, but an unmistakable resilience and a promising future.
They had survived eons of abuse, but still they survived as they were meant to. If ages ago, they hadn’t been able to survive the environmental adversities, the personal tragedies, none of them, not one human would be here now.
She watched them realize, they were incredibly special.
They were the original people. The first people. They had evolved, they had survived, and they had succeeded, as they still continue to survive to restore the pride in their birthright.
Shanti increased the beat.
“Now, my brothers and sisters from this moment on, your lives are forever changed. Only because of those strong resilient first people who came before you, we survived, because we were built to survive. No matter what came after, we were built to survive. From this moment forward, and every second that remains of your precious life, with every step you take in this world, you will be extremely proud of being the original people, the strongest people, the mothers and fathers of all of the rest of you.”
Shanti began chanting.
“We the people, we the people, we the people...” soon those standing were chanting and clapping to the beat as others took to the aisles to dance...
After several minutes of celebration, the students as most of them always did, agreed and cheered and the cheers turned into jumping for joy and they hugged each other and wept, as for some, years of feeling hurt began to heal and melt away, having never thought of themselves in such an extraordinary way.
The other students watched and cried too, realizing a long-suffering people, the first people were finding themselves again. Their pride re-born.
Now for every minute remaining in their lives, they’d have this new reality about their ancestry in which to be proud. The world outside had tried to strip them of this self-esteem, but no longer with these young people, here and now. From this day forward they would think of themselves as nothing less than a re-united family of the first people. She knew they would carry this message on throughout their lives, and instill this simple phrase in their children and in their grandchildren’s children’s lives as she had for generations. Their tears broke her down every time as she watched them discover themselves and their gift, their heritage and their kin.
“Original people of Earth, remain standing, now, everyone else stand up and introduce yourselves to each other.”
Shanti got lost in her drum as she watched their reunion.
His heartbeat hard against his chest, tears stung his eyes.
He was watching those extraordinary, beautiful, unforgettable eyes. She was moving generations to come.
Shanti stood not sure of what she had seen, motioning the drummers to continue.
She walked down into the audience, weaving her way through her happy students to answer her confusion. They were patting her on the back.
Shanti was nodding with a smile on her face.
Her crowd of dancers and drummers carried on lost in the beat.
She parted the students dancing in the aisle, searching.
And yes, there he stood.
Shanti walked into his arms, she buried her face in his chest and sobbed.
“My precious. At long last. At long last. There, there…”
He hel
d her for a long time. He lifted her face and kissed her tear stained cheeks. He held her a long time, then he reached behind him.
From behind him came…
“Emaye.” Sela said so softly he wasn’t sure Shanti had heard her.
Shanti opened her eyes.
Sela was walking around him to her, now standing before her crying softly, and shaking.
Shanti screamed.
They grabbed onto each other crying.
Shanti stopped and pulled her daughter back to look into her face. She kissed her face a million times and crushed her in an embrace that broke your heart.
“Sela, Sela. My beautiful Sela.”
“Emaye. My mother. My beautiful, beautiful mother.”
He wept.
The student handed the other man back his phone, grateful for the generous tip.
Standing a few feet behind them now, he too wept with the deepest joy he’d ever experienced in his life.
The other man closed the cell phone.
‘Mission accomplished,’ the other man whispered.
“Yes, at long last dear, old friend. Mission accomplished,” he said.
Watching from the top of the hall, Lyle looked on and shook his head in amazement, wiping happy tears. Lyle was so very happy for her, for METAPHOR, for the World and for himself. Trevor and Joseph hugged each other and patted Lyle on the back.
“You’re a genius, Lyle. Without you…”
“Ah no, my friends… without her none of this would be… From this day forward, I will forever choose joy.” Lyle smiled as his heart sighed for the first time since childhood.
The Rose and the Amaranth’s shop phone rang downstairs.
Upstairs, Desiree ignored it.
She was watching the ferry come in, wiping away bitter tears. She turned to look at her inspiration photo wall, especially her favorite, the autographed photo of her father’s from his hero, Winston Churchill. Even it had failed to comfort her now.
Failure was never an option in their business, but it had happened again. She felt defeated, and utterly incompetent.
She sighed. She needed to get back to the nice meal she was cooking.