belly of the beast out of Oura, in through Midden and up north into Pangitain. Her saudara had wanted to stop at Sekitsui but Keba pushed onward, half-fleeing, as far from that evening as possible, but half-looking for their lost family. Their parents had gone the opposite way, north from Pangsi. They had traveled up the tail of the archipelago and could have stopped at the end, on Passat. But who says they stopped there? Perhaps they had pushed across the open ocean to complete the circle at the head of the archipelago, squeezing between Sekitsui and Lurruna to come to rest on Peninnah. Keba wanted to continue across the channel to the head island as a finale of her search. If they weren’t there, she could accept it and settle on Peninnah. Or she’d be ever transient through the archipelago. Or her obsession would drive her onwards and out from under the insulate skies of Wawasen. What was beyond? Was it better or worse?
Then, of course, there was Ravno, with his kuro and ocean spray and lost eyes. Keba wanted to see, if only for an instant, what it looked like from where he sat. How did he see her? What was his next plan? He could come with her; her saudara could stay happily behind on Lurruna. Wasn’t her saudara the last factor, the condition that determined where she stayed and when she left? For it was he, out of all eight thousand, five hundred and ninety-seven Wawasens, who had reported to the Eleven what his parents had created. Samato: Their parent’s third child, the great iniquity, untimely peccancy, the push off the beach and out into the great, wild ocean. Their parents decided to evade the inevitable batsu omhaal of the family. They fled.
Fine rain gathered on Keba’s double fishbone on her walk back to her pack. She made mental plans for when and how to leave Lurruna. She dreamed of meeting the littlest one again and holding her tender fingers.
Following the boy and the other two Botorang
Ravno was up long before the sun warmed the red dirt and while the night wind still disclosed its direction on the waters. He didn’t completely confess to himself the reason for his early expedition until he saw them through morning fog on the south bank of the Sunberry Trench. Even then, he tried to act surprised to himself when he saw them. He got winter bumps because he felt sheepish for pretending. He rubbed his arms as if the bumps meant he was cold.
Ravno saw the ripples first and knew no Wawasen botos tread the canals at this young hour. The three Botorang stashed their skiff under the dock, where Sircy had hooked Ravno from inside the gills, and they slid discreetly over the bank. Ravno stood stock-still when he spotted the people from the water and watched them with his own eyes. Then he sat down in the long, course cordgrass across the canal as they disappeared through foggy feathers. He shut his eyes and folded his mind fingers in an icy embrace to watch them go, with them.
He switched between the three Botorang to see them all and to see them well:
Tetora was the one from Ravno’s switch that night on the beach. He wore a weathered hemp strap around his shoulder—the strap hard to discern from his skin—which stayed an unsheathed knife at his side. A well-worn cloth was slung across his hips. On his head sat short, roughly cropped hair, like pac choi, most probably trimmed with that knife. Sharp eyes, sharp nails, sharp knife.
Shisen was the oar-woman with Tetora in the boto that same night, when Ravno had seen himself from Tetora’s eyes on the sandstone spit. Her strength was evident even in the ever-dim dawn light and she was also uncovered but for her bottom cloth. In her second hand hung a hemp haversack.
And Chichi had incredible large and all-seeing eyes—a joy to switch with. Ravno could see so much of Tetora and Shisen from Chichi’s eyes. He, or maybe she, was coconut-milk white, tall and slender and conspicuously white, like the face of the waxing sliver moon. No clothing, just vine-like bangles on his or her wrists. All but the bangles and her earlobes were white. He had kuro verve, which Ravno expected to see, and his black lobes stood out against the rest of his whiteness. So she was he, judging by the lobes.
Though Ravno himself couldn’t see well in the early non-light, he could through the Botorang’s eyes—particularly with Chichi. It looked like a desaturated daytime, almost, with low contrast shadows silverscreened on surprisingly ungrainy textures, as the three snuck through dwellings at closest reach. They picked up carelessly placed items, admittedly hard to find in Sircy’s pack, like dried husk for fire fuel or a stray piece of hemp string under a stool. They put their treasures into Shisen’s haversack. Ravno sat enraptured, his body in the cordgrass, as his mind watched the three fleet-footed foreigners work quickly with measured countenance.
Chichi lumbered over to where Sircy lay asleep, under the hemp blanket on a pile of leaves. Her head rest peacefully on her black folded capa. Enough fear rose in Ravno’s true throat to shift his true body and flutter the eyelids. They take random treasures and small children but what do they do with the adults? Ravno’s body tensed as he felt Sircy’s attractive gravitation pull Chichi toward her, the call exuding even in her sleep. But fascination and intrigue spread over the white Botorang’s body and Ravno relaxed in his grass nest, as he understood Chichi’s motivation to pause; Chichi was curious about her and wondered who she was. Ravno, on the other hand, gazed greedily at Sircy and drank her mystery and divulged in her beauty. In complete disregard for her well-being, he willed Chichi to steal the hemp sheet too so he could lose himself in more of her silverscreened skin.
Ravno’s intent did not affect the towering Botorang. Instead, he looked over to Shisen’s signed remark and followed her out. The icicle fingers in Ravno’s head groaned with growing cracks and splintered all over the cordgrass. Ravno sat slouched and breathed heavily.
What am I doing? I need to use this with purpose, he thought. I’ll watch them and catch them in the pack. I need to respect what I’ve developed, and—and the thought of Sircy and her abrupt softness interrupted his anxious questions. His rivers and streams became a marshy delta with no ocean end. He forgot to breathe until he realized the Botorang were gone. The three people of the water left only faint ripples in their wake and insufficient air in Ravno’s lungs.
So many and so much
Mere hours before the utaran solstice, while Ravno digested his breakfast and his Botorang adventures from bulanau’s first quarter, Mr. Sunshine spoke of the population in ancient countries. He related it to some belief groups’ written cultural mandates and the explosion of rewarding propagation. He compared that to the one-child limit and its impact on generations, how the will of The Just Cucumber forbade controlled conception, and a sundry. The porter called it the Classical Mis-education and Mis-defined Enlightenment.
Aron questioned his arrogant and disdainful barrage against the ancients. Shouldn’t we respect our elders? Aron wondered. It has been so long, how can Mister be sure of his accusations? But, although it was a forum, Aron withheld his concerns. He rather resolved to discuss these thoughts with Ravno at a later time. Aron was sure his friend was unconvinced of the porter’s authority and trustworthiness—the perfect candidate for his intended monology.
Mr. Sunshine remarked on archaic peoples’ amazing surgical talents and advancements in mapping the human body. He also explained that they had, however, a nonsensical disconnect from other living things of their time. As an example, he told how their resources and infrastructure were centered on the use of independently-powered personal vehicles to get from one place to another and how, in turn, they became dependent on the resources and failing infrastructure to keep those vehicles powered. A logical congruity with nature flaunted about them, accessible, but remained tasteless to their estranged appetites.
‘The bulk of their legacy is floating round and round and saturating our ocean,’ Mr. Sunshine said, ‘most especially so just a few quarters’ boto ride away from here….’
Most eyes of the group followed the porter’s outstretched, hairless arm north, to the open ocean, a ubiquitous horizon past the mouth of the Hanashi Canal.
‘…Which is why most of us only eat freshwater fish.’
Some eyes in the circle wat
ched the horned lark play on the low branches of the sitka spruce, while other eyes watched Aron watch Ravno.
Ravno watched inside his own brain. He replayed the long white limbs and hemp strings, straps and knives, oar-arms, breathing shoulders and illuminated darkness—a sparkling confection inside his lids. Though the skill of switching had strengthened, whether he recognized it or not, he still could not reach to the past and see what the ancients saw, with their world of black veins and perpetual suns and herds and herds of people. True, he could not see what they saw; they were all dead. But in his dream that night an intense and noisy presence flooded those black veins and ran the course of the gigantic, ancient islands. Boto upon boto moved ferociously through kurumi ink canals. Large and bulky ones, and slim and colorless ones, rounded giant loop-de-loops and made the most awful vibrations in his head. He wondered if perhaps he did have some connection with the ancients and if he had only begun to uncover a step up to the past. But before his dream he ran into Keba and their discourse left his mouth dry, chin heavy, and cheeks warm—the perfect climate for nightmares.
Keba’s discourse with Ravno—and
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