Switch

by Trevor Leyenhorst

burnished part of the band face and jumped back out. The sliced half-moon, nearly first quarter, sat in the sky and watched. The woman passed along the piece of time.

  The porter said, ‘Many people had these devices integrated into their daily lives to tell the time. It differed greatly from our own time estimation by the sun and the moon. Time changes, as we all know. It’s slow in pain, fast in pleasure, it’s daunting in anticipation, and it’s never the same from day to day. But the ancients regulated it and, as a result of misunderstanding the mechanism, obsessed over it and were ruled by it.’

  Ravno slipped the strange band over his first hand to mimic how Mr. Sunshine had worn it. He couldn’t determine the original color through the sea stains. The material reminded him of things he’d seen floating in on the Kuroshio Current among the coconuts, kukui nuts, and bicycle parts, ranging the many colors of vegetables, all shapes—usually small sizes—and with typically inscrutable functions. Some, like a round disc, were tossed around in play. Others, like this band, were worn for the fun of it, with its smoky green and faded pink cast on a barely discernible base, granite grey. As he lifted his arm, Ravno peered at the band in such a way that he suddenly reeled with the morning’s boto scene in his mind. The image he saw before him, besides the lighter arm skin, smaller palm, and different background was, in his view, exactly what he saw just before he snapped back to his own body and crumpled to the cedar planks in the boto. He saw the small, circular face with twelve notches, carved evenly around its edge, and a slight raise in the center, molded as one piece to the crusty but still malleable band. Ravno knew now that he had switched for sure and shortly reveled in this little timepiece. It doesn’t tell me time, he thought, but only that the switch was mine. Ravno gave it to the woman who sat beside him and it went from hand to hand and one man asked, ‘Does this work, in the way that it used to?’

  ‘No, its intended purpose has long since run out,’ the porter said.

  ‘Why do you wear it?’

  ‘I guess the same reason that Aron wears glassless glasses,’ Mr. Sunshine replied, gesturing toward the young man mid-flick. ‘And as a reminder of who we are now and what we used to be. But if this time-telling wrist band were to work and I were to follow it, perhaps I’d tell you it’s now time to end our discussion.’ He laughed with them as they all stood. He gathered his watch as he released them.

  ‘Next time I’ll see you will be the day before the full moon, around this time, give-or-take. We’ll talk about another old fashioned peculiar system called muh-nee.’ The porter pronounced the word money in the ancient English way. It caused some of them to nod unknowingly. Muh-nee.

  Ravno approached the man with the empty black frames worn around his eyes, who Mr. Sunshine had called Aron.

  ‘Cahaya, I’m Ravno.’

  Aron took his offered hand and returned the greeting, with his second hand on his heart.

  ‘Cahaya, I’m Aron.’

  They stood hand in hand while Aron waited for Ravno to explain why he introduced himself. Because both his hands were busy, Aron didn’t flick his frames while he looked at this forum fellow. Aron observed his large sympathetic eyes composed within long eyebrows, Ravno’s dusty facial hair along his gentle jawbone, thin pink lips bunched in thought, and a twilight sky-like capa worn around shoulders and open to a flat toned chest. And he noticed Ravno’s hair that cascaded from above his one ear, gathered about the top of his head in a cosmic array.

  ‘My… Saudari.’

  Ravno meant Helena and his forehead furrowed for his next remark, ‘Uh, her… My jodoh-saudara is Sebastian. You know him, right?’

  ‘Yes I know ol’ Seb all right. You’ve got an adorable niece, I have to say, and it’s a pleasure to meet you, Ravno.’

  With a grin Ravno released his hand. ‘I know, Temperance has the biggest smile in Wawasen—and her sunset eyes and the way she tilts her head.’ He looked at her in his inward eye and his head shook slightly.

  ‘Call me Rav. Helena said you’re familiar with the Ishi of this area? Could you remind me how to get to her practice?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Yes, familiar….’ Aron was plunked in the past, where he had worked long and fulfilling days with Vesta. He had to consciously direct his attention back to his new acquaintance.

  ‘I was her grounds assistant a while back and I can take you there.’ Aron studied him for a moment. Tap-tap. ‘Are you feeling okay, Ravno?’ he said. He added, ‘Sorry, it’s not my place to ask.’

  ‘No, it’s fine, I’m fine, I’m just making sure my mothering saudari is happy.’

  ‘Sure. It must be nice to have one. How is she doing now, must be coming along? It’s just back up the Olive and along the Lurruna Branch a ways, then a bit through the bush and we’ll be there in no time,’ Aron said. ‘Haven’t seen Vesta in quite awhile.’

  Aron and Ravno’s visit to the Ishi and who they meet there

  Aron did most of the talking as they rode the canals to the west side of Notou Mound. Pelajaran lay to the east of the mound, the Ishi’s cluster to the west. Ravno tried to see through Aron’s eyes and frames. But whether the thick chatter—or thicker than usual steam from the west—fogged his entry, he could not sail through. The switch was an intangible accident he couldn’t access, some step up or passageway he couldn’t see. Similar to those rare night clouds that drag across the darkness and conceal the full moon. You can still tell the moon is there, but you can’t see the actual circle. It’s impossible.

  And what if people need me to do this? Ravno despaired, I can’t I can’t, not even when I try.

  Consciously unsure of how to keep his new companion occupied along their journey, Ravno sporadically uttered things like, ‘Weird about what the porter said, about the ancients longing for something after death….’

  But Aron always took it in step and would say, ‘Yes, never thought of that before.’ Aron added his point that the cut-up-pieces of your body would have to find their way back to each other so you could walk around and you’d look awful and there was nothing great or fulfilling about that.

  They crossed the sandy running track that surrounded the Ishi’s cluster and made for the hut in the middle. The small hot springs pool and balance beams were deserted, as was the worn papyrus matting. Even so, Aron cleared his throat as they walked around the hut to the opening.

  An alert older woman with stately posture and bright eyes stood beside a platform made of earth. Her tightly tied hair revealed bold-winged brows on dusky skin. The kind gentleness emanating from her face enveloped Ravno when her hand extended to greet Aron.

  ‘Cahaya, Aron.’ Her voice was a silkworm’s blanket.

  ‘Cahaya, Vesta. Please, this is Ravno, my forum fellow and new friend.’

  They greeted and her second hand rested on the thin, almost translucent, beach-brown capa over her heart.

  ‘How are you doing, Ravno?’ she asked deliberately.

  He couldn’t hold her weighty gaze and glanced to the potted plants and herbs at the base of the platform: mint and kale, tomatillos, garlic, lavender and the sage that he mistook as stevia. But the surging warmth from her muscular hand brought him back and he said apologetically, ‘Yeah I seem to be in a fainting phase and Helena is worried.’

  ‘Helena is his saudari,’ Aron added, and smiled without his teeth.

  Ravno said, in defence, ‘I hope you’ll see that I’m all right and there’s nothing wrong.’

  She laughed, but gently, like the dancing smell of crushed lavender blossoms. One riverette of hair swayed around a shoulder, the rest waterfalled down her back.

  ‘Open your mouth halfway and look at those tomatillos,’ she said. ‘See how the papyrus-like skin is peeling back on the riper ones.’ Her second hand swept from her breast and guided his hand out of the embrace. She stepped forward and brought her first hand to rest with fingertips inside his lips. She pressed the two fingers firmly behind the bottom lip, against his gums, and took a full cycle of breath. He could feel
the exhale through her nostrils curl around her arm and grace his neck.

  Her hand retreated from his mouth and the other ducked inside his capa, then slid up his side to rest in the deepest crease under his first arm. His arm obeyed her movements and timidly lifted to allow her entrance.

  ‘Ravno, how do you get around from place to place?’

  He licked his lips and swallowed. ‘I, uh, mainly walk or cycle—sometimes run. It depends what I’m doing. If I’m delivering vegetables then I’ll take the trailer, and sometimes I’ll take a bicycle to the beach depending how quickly I get up that morning, to swim, and if there’s enough bicycles around, and if the way is flat. You can call me Rav.’

  ‘Do you prefer it?’ Her eyes looked up to his eyes, though her face stayed softly sloped, like a child’s on the brink of confession.

  ‘Um, no. Whatever you like. Temperance calls me Ra.’ His scalp pushed back with his ears as he laughed a bit awkwardly. Her two fingers that had been in his mouth came up and pressed against the top of his neck, just under the jaw. While she positioned the carotid pulse her second hand lightly withdrew from his armpit and rested on his shoulder. Again, the direction of her eyes followed her lashes up to nudge his soul and she told him to think about loading the trailer and mounting the bicycle. To his relief she looked down. He could barely see her lips move, as if she