by Marion Hill
Diondray's Discovery
Kammbia, Volume 1
Marion Hill
Published by Red Mango Publishing, 2018.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
DIONDRAY'S DISCOVERY
First edition. April 2, 2018.
Copyright © 2018 Marion Hill.
ISBN: 978-1536568325
Written by Marion Hill.
Also by Marion Hill
Kammbia
Diondray's Discovery (Coming Soon)
Diondray's Journey (Coming Soon)
Watch for more at Marion Hill’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By Marion Hill
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
About the Author
To Jessica, David, and Norah
Chapter 1
I DROVE ON AMA’S WAY, headed to my family’s home. It had been three years since I’d been on this road and this side of Charlesville. I opened the windows of my automobile and let the breeze from the Bay of Charlesville refresh me.
I looked out at the sea and realized how much it reminded me of those days from my childhood when I would spend hours throwing small rocks into the water and playing along the beach with my friends. The Bay of Charlesville had become my companion during family arguments and issues.
Since it was day four in the month of Beru, the second month of the year, I felt the breeze from the bay. This was the coldest area of the city. Charlesville was hot and muggy most of the time, and many people valued living on the east side in order to get that breeze.
I arrived at my family’s home. I was pleased that the main gate still opened for me automatically. I had thought my rebellious action would cause me to be treated like a guest upon my arrival instead of as an Azur.
I didn’t want to return here. My mother had pleaded with me for several months to come. She’d promised to keep everyone in line and to do everything in her power to have a nice evening with her only child. I had agreed to come, but I sensed that all the issues that caused me to leave would rear their ugly heads again.
I took a couple of deep breaths after I parked. I hoped I would have a nice birthday dinner with my family and leave as soon as possible.
“The wayward son has returned home,” Uncle Xavier said as I sat down at the dining table.
I saw the look of satisfaction his face. I’d known that look since childhood. It said, I’m the ruler of Charlesville, and don’t you forget your place. His blow-out hairstyle looked like a perfectly cut treetop and accentuated his night-colored skin. Uncle Xavier’s long, thin fingers, covered with gold rings on each hand, hit the table after his comment. He did that at every family dinner.
“So how do you like living amongst the ants?” he asked.
“They are not ants, Uncle Xavier,” I replied. “Don’t forget you represent all the citizens of Charlesville, not just those who live next to the sea.”
“Diondray! Don’t speak to your Uncle Xavier like that. He is the ruler of our city and should be shown a little more respect,” my mother interjected.
I faced my mother, already feeling the anger I had dreaded in coming back home. Olivia Azur was my uncle’s biggest defender and supporter. I supposed being his older sister, she always believed her role was to protect her little brother.
Even though my mother could never be ruler, she was the one who kept everything concerning the city together. Her sharp mind and steadiness also kept Uncle Xavier in line. He knew he could not continue his rule without my mother at his side and accepted her role as his protector.
“Why doesn’t he respect those people who live on the west side like he does the people who live out here? Aren’t they citizens too?”
“My son, Xavier was just having a little small talk with you. Remember, it’s your birthday. Let’s enjoy the evening.”
I had to calm down. If I didn’t, I would end up walking away from the dinner table. I had dreaded being here, and I realized our family dinners had not changed since I left home three years ago.
“Watch your tongue!” Uncle Xavier said in a condescending tone.
Aunt Maxina cut in. “Xavier and Olivia, you two can’t help yourselves, can you? You invited my nephew back here to celebrate his birthday, and now both of you are chastising him about living on the west side. Shameful.”
Aunt Maxina’s comments surprised me. She was usually the quiet one and let my mother and Uncle Xavier dominate the discussion. I’d always thought she zoned us out and entered into her own little world. She always had a look of peacefulness on her face. Her big brown eyes, which covered most of her face, would fixate on either my mother or Uncle Xavier like she wanted to hypnotize them. Aunt Maxina would let them talk, and every time I looked at her, I felt she had not heard a word they had said.
Until now.
“Thanks, Aunt Maxina,” I replied and smiled at her.
She smiled in return, and I felt comforted. Even though she had always seemed distant, I believed that she’d never had a problem with me leaving home.
“Yes, sister, you are right. Xavier and I should have not created any tension with Diondray. He is still an Azur even if we don’t agree with how he has decided to live his life.”
“Willar, please bring our dinner,” Uncle Xavier commanded and glared at me.
Willar, the family servant, brought dinner to the table. He looked the same as when I left. About an inch or so taller than me, skinny as a pencil, with a similar complexion to myself. People here on the east side sometimes suggested he was my dad. Mother scoffed at that perception. She would never stoop so low as to be romantically involved with the help.
Willar was dressed like we had an official city function. A sun-yellow shirt with pressed black pants and a thick yellow stripe on the outside of each pant leg made him resemble one of the CRG guards.
“Welcome back, Diondray,” he said in his baritone voice while setting the plates at the table. “I made your favorite dinner.”
“Thanks, Willar.”
He pulled the cover off my plate, and I caught the irresistible smell of bluefish. The bluefish took up most of the plate, but Willar had placed cut slices of mango bread around it in a circle.
“How is life on the west side?” he asked while pulling covers off the rest of the family plates.
“Very well, Willar. They care about their neighborhoods and welcomed me as one of their own.”
“Really? I guess ants do stick together.”
I shot a look at my uncle as he and my mother laughed.
“Well, I’m glad you enjoy living there. I will return shortly with dessert,” Willar said and left.
“Xavier, will you stop!” Aunt Maxina said.
“Stop what, my sister? I’m the ruler of Charlesville and have the right to speak my mind. My nephew thinks he is noble, living amongst the ants and trying to act like he is one of the common folk. Why doesn’t he tell them the reason he can live there without having to work is because of the family he belongs to?”
“Xavier, please!” my mother pleaded.
“No, sister! This boy needs to learn whom he belongs to and start appreciating his position in life. And reading some fancy words to those ants doesn’t make him a more caring person.”
; “ I knew this was a bad idea. I didn’t come here to get lectured by him.” I rose from the table.
“Sit down, boy. You are still an Azur.”
“Uncle Xavier, I’m not a boy. Do you forget I’m twenty-three years old and a man who can make his own decisions?”
“You’re twenty-three, really! You need to grow up before I can call you a man.”
“I don’t live here and never will while you are the ruler of this city,” I said and began walking away from the dinner table.
“Diondray, I’m sorry,” Aunt Maxina called after me.
“Don’t leave, my son.”
“Good-bye, family,” I said and left.
Chapter 2
I THOUGHT ABOUT MY uncle’s comments from last night. It still bothered me that he called the people who live on this side of the city ants. It also bothered me that he thought I didn’t appreciate my position as a member of the Azur family.
I’d always been aware of my status and never wanted to dismiss that or hide it. I was happy to represent myself as an Azur. But I would not do it by living in my family home and refusing to interact with all of the city’s citizens.
I should have declined my mother’s invitation and stayed away from that place. I did spend some time next to the sea after I left the house. It was calming to see the tide crashing against the beach, and the gurgling sound of the waves got my mind away from dinner.
I pulled back the fabric that covered the windows of my rented flat. I saw children playing stickball in the street and families walking by on the sidewalk and wondered why Uncle Xavier spoke with such contempt toward these people. These were good-hearted, hardworking people who loved this city and wanted to be treated fairly as citizens.
Did Uncle Xavier have a problem with the influx of people who had come from Terrance since the Year 175 A.O.A.? It had been thirty years of immigration, and their influence on the west side was quite evident. I’d noticed the difference even since I’ve lived here for the past three years.
The immigrants had brought their sense of style to our city, wearing plaid shirts with thick collars and shorts.. The men had their hair cut low to the scalp and were even bald much of the time, and the women wore their hair thinner and wilder than the natives of Charlesville did. It reminded me of the string pasta I used to eat growing up.
More radically, they didn’t believe in the life charts the native-born citizens of Charlesville used. At first, that created conflict between the two groups. But time had healed that divide, and over the last thirty years both groups had mixed their beliefs to create a new kind of spiritual system. Many east siders, including my mother and uncle, believed the people of the west side were desecrating the life charts and Ama with this mixing of spiritual systems.
Uncle Xavier thought he didn’t have anything in common with the immigrants, and he wanted to stop the policy Great-Uncle Myro had put in place back in the Year 175 A.O.A. Great-Uncle Myro wanted to increase the labor pool and grow the city at the same time. He knew the population of Charlesville had to grow in order for it to become a vital city in the future. He wanted immigrants from Terrance to work in Charlesville Bay as fishermen and take other jobs associated with the sea trade. He worked with Syonne, governor of Terrance at that time, and both men thought it would be a win-win proposition for both cities. They signed an initial twenty-year agreement for the immigration, and a relationship was born between the two cities. Well, Syonne didn’t let his best citizens migrate to Charlesville. He allowed the pariahs and outcasts to come here. Tension grew between the rulers. But Syonne told Great-Uncle Myro that he would send better citizens if they renewed the agreement.
Great-Uncle Myro honored the agreement for the full period and was willing to sign a renewal because of the success the initial immigrants brought to the sea trade, even if they weren’t the kind of people he’d wanted at first. Uncle Xavier pleaded with Great-Uncle Myro not to renew the agreement since he was next in line to be the ruler of the city and was afraid the immigrants would overpopulate Charlesville.
Great-Uncle Myro appeased his son publicly, but privately he continued the agreement for another ten years. As a result, Charlesville’s sea trade became the best in all the region south of the Great Forest. Uncle Xavier was incensed when he found out about the secret renewal agreement after Great-Uncle Myro died. Mother told me that from that moment, he despised immigrants who lived on the west side.
I ARRIVED AT ALIKI Park later that morning. I’d had a restless night of sleep. Aliki Park was the city’s largest park and one of the few places in Charlesville where residents from both sides of the city came together and could enjoy each other’s company.
I would come here every chance I got when I lived back at the family home. There was always something going on, from dances to playing stickball to cook-offs. And the fact that both west siders and east siders put down their differences made it worth the opposition I endured from Mother to come to the park.
The sun had risen, and it was already hot. I felt the sweat trickling down my back, and my throat was getting parched. Nine o’clock in the morning didn’t spare us from the Charlesville heat.
I prepared myself to deliver today’s themily. A themily was a collection of thoughts written on a single sheet of paper that were meant to inspire, encourage, or admonish the audience. Themily readings were one of the most popular events at the park, and some of the best readers had become well-known throughout the west side.
Themily readings were started by the immigrants when they came to the city. The readings kept them connected to their former home, and some of the early immigrants became so successful through their readings that they were able to return to Terrance.
Mother thought writing words on a piece of paper and reading them to people was a waste of my talent—and not only that, but it didn’t honor the teachings of my life chart. When she found out I was doing themily readings, she forbade me to come to Aliki Park.
I explained to her how themily readings inspired people. I told her how the looks on the faces of the audience made me feel alive and recognized for the first time in my life. It didn’t matter to Mother. My life chart said I was to be a ruler, next in line after Uncle Xavier, and rulers didn’t read words at a park to common folk. Well, I kept coming to the park, defying her order. That decision led me on the path of leaving the family home. As I stood in the park feeling the heat and preparing to read, I thought again that it had been one of the best decisions I’d made in my life.
“LIFE IS LIKE A TROPICAL storm coming each year. You don’t know when exactly it’s coming. But you have a sense it will come. And you have to be prepared in order to survive it,” I announced to my audience at the park.
“That’s weak, Mr. Azur,” shouted a man from the audience. He wore a brown shirt with the thickest plaid stripes I had ever seen. “We have a tropical storm every year in the months of Une and Berm.”
The audience roared in laughter. He was right. Our tropical storm season began in the month of Une, the sixth month, and continued until Berm, the seventh month. As Charlesville citizens, we expected at least one tropical storm a year.
“What else do you have, Mr. Azur?” the same man asked.
I chuckled at his remark. Everyone knew when the tropical storm season came, I guessed they wanted a little more from my themily. “Patience is not only a virtue. But a gift to those who’ve learned how to master it.”
“Weak again,” my critic replied. “You don’t master patience, Mr. Azur. Either you are born with it or you are not.”
The audience roared again. They liked the fact that my critic was getting the best of me. I had spent fourteen days on this themily, and it was shot down in matter of minutes. The audience at the park could be harsh if a themily reading didn’t go well.
“What’s wrong, Mr. Azur?” a woman asked. She wore a sky-blue, one-piece outfit and stood in the closest row to the podium. “You are usually pretty good at these readings for an east sider—espe
cially one who belongs to the city’s main family. Do you have something else on your mind?”
“Patience only works if you are wealthy,” another person blurted.
“Ask Xavier if he can teach all of his citizens how to be patient,” another person commented.
The audience continued with their comments on how bad my themily was, and I wanted to shrink from that podium and just go home.
“All right, everybody, that’s enough. Brother Diondray doesn’t deserve that kind of treatment. He has given excellent themily readings over time, and what he just read has some merit,” Trayvonne announced as he joined me at the podium.
The audience calmed down and began leaving the podium. It was amazing to see how Trayvonne Filleu could handle a crowd. It seemed like he could get people in a trance and make them do whatever he said.
“C’mon, bro,” he said to me.
I followed him off the podium and began to feel somewhat better.
“What happened?” I said as we both walked through the park. Why had the reading been such a disaster?
“It happens to all of us, bro. Sometimes the audience will reject your themily even if you have read good ones in the past,” he replied as we reached a bench.
“It felt different, Trayvonne. Like I didn’t belong in front of them.”
Trayvonne flashed his wide, reassuring smile at me and sat down on the bench. “Bro, don’t forget what family you belong to. There will always be distance between the common folk and yourself.”
I felt anger rise in me. “So I’m the novelty act for this audience?”
He laughed as he placed a hand on my shoulder. “At first, yes, you were. But you have proven yourself to the west siders. We know you are not hanging around and living amongst us just to make yourself feel noble. We know you don’t view us as ants. The people are just being difficult today for the fun of it.”