The Bridge Home

by Matthew Williams

  “How long did it take you to learn how to build a fire?” Akiiki asked they sat quietly in the sand.

  “I was a curious and stubborn child,” Obasi said with a smile. “While the other children played their games, I practiced making fire. I used to challenge the older children in my village to see who could start a fire quicker, and I was never defeated. As a young man, I earned the title of Syd Alnaar, or the fire master. It was a title I was proud to have, though when I look back on it, it seems more likely they meant it as a joke.”

  “I have never learned anything useful,” Akiiki said. “All I did was read and listen to what other people told me about how to live my life.”

  Obasi looked at him with a puzzled look in his eye. “And why is that useless? There are many lessons to be learned from books and the people around us.”

  “I can’t even make a fire. How do the histories of my family and the kingdom help me if I can’t even keep myself warm?”

  “Perhaps in the warmth of the palace there is no need for you to learn how to build a fire. There are many ways to teach the lessons of life. Those who brave the winds of life alone without anyone to show them the way, must learn for themselves to build a fire or they risk dying in the cold world. To have people around you who can teach you the ways of the world, while protecting you from its cold winds is a blessing. It is the mistake of youth to think of the world as new, for as long as man has crossed the sands of the earth, they have always dealt with the same struggles. Must I lose my brother to an act of violence before I understand the pain of losing a loved one? What of the countless stories of war and death, pain and suffering? Should I not listen to the lessons woven into each page? And if my brother is killed, what about the stories my parents tell me of revenge and anger? Can they not teach me lessons that help me choose my path forward?”

  “But stories can’t teach you everything, we don’t live in a story,” Akiiki said as he moved closer to the fire.

  “Of course not, it is the freedom of the spirit that allows us to make our own choices, but we can use the lessons we are taught as a guiding light when choosing our actions, and the story of our lives are always written by our actions.”

  The fire crackled and spit small sparks that drifted up into the air. Akiiki stared at the stars as the sparks slowly faded into the dark sky. Though he felt lost and alone, he was tempted by secrets hidden in a world he had never known.

  “Do you feel up to another healing tonight?” Obasi asked after a brief silence “Sometimes the mind needs time to rest after experiencing life in a deeper way.”

  Akiiki nodded. “I’m ready.” His body was tired, but excitement flushed through him with the anticipation of a new experience.

  Obasi reached into his pack and pulled out five jars, as well as the plate he had used the night before. He carefully sprinkled a little of the powder from each jar onto the plate and mixed them together. Then, he pulled out a sharply curved piece of bone, and laid it in the sand as he poured the powder over the fire.

  He began to chant, and as the smoke swirled through the air, Akiiki felt the sudden gust of a foreign wind blow across his face. Akiiki looked up and saw Obasi staring back at him, his eyes deep dark pits of focused energy. Smoke curled around the bone and slowly began to take shape. When the smoke settled, a lion’s head stared at Akiiki with featureless eyes, it’s grey mane of smoke flowing in the wind. It opened it mouth and let out a roar that thundered through Akiiki’s chest, taking his breath away. With another roar, Akiiki’s eyes rolled back into his head and he passed away from the world he knew.

  HIS EYES OPENED slowly, and he found himself amongst tall grasses that rose to his shoulders. The first signs of evening hovered in the air, as the wind blew into his face. As he sniffed the air, his mind filled with scents that made his stomach rumble and his thoughts narrow into a single point of focus.

  He crouched down slowly and waited in silence.

  The world around him seemed to exist only for his purpose, and through his carefully positioned paws, the earth became one with his body. His ears twitched with the sounds of light breathing and soft hoofed steps in the distance. He sniffed the air again and carefully moved forward. Each step landed silently in the ground in front of him, his movements a perfectly orchestrated symphony of bone and flesh, mind and instinct. A gust of wind blew through the air and he paused.

  There were others just like him, waiting in the grasses.

  Suddenly, their presence was all around him. In the ground under his paws, their heartbeat pounded softly along with his own. He sensed their anxiousness, and listened quietly as they waited, joined together in a moment of fate.

  He took another step and froze. The crack of a small branch in the distance seemed to echo for miles and suspended the scene in anticipation. He knew the moment was close as he coiled his body towards the ground. His muscles twitched and spasmed under the strain of his control as he tucked his body towards the ground and waited for the tension in the air to peak.

  When the echoing crack of the branch had faded away into the distance, he settled into the world in a moment of complete harmony. The wind died as his body cleared of all tension and his mind slipped fluidly into a river that powerfully swept him away.

  In a single moment of action, the river became a raging torrent of controlled fury. Every muscle in his body strained under his golden-brown coat as he lunged forward through the grass. There was a flash of movement in front of him as the hoofed animals scattered in fear. His body responded to each instinct without hesitation as he chose his target.

  By his side, a flock of small birds took to the air as another flash of golden-brown exploded through the dead grasses. The fear in the air drove him into a frenzy, and he spotted one of the animals running across the field, its eyes ablaze with terror. The wind shifted and the resolve within him hardened into a primal sense of action.

  As he closed the distance between himself and his prey, he lunged through the air, using every bit of power from his tired muscles. At the last moment, the small animal turned to avoid him, but it was too late.

  With a swipe of his large paw, he tore into the flesh of the animal and knocked it into the ground. He fell upon it with a routine precision, his jaws clenched around its neck.

  Slowly, the world settled again into calmness as he laid in the sand with the beating neck of his prey in his jaws. Blood trickled into his mouth and filled his chest with pride and relief. As the animal struggled helplessly, kicking and squirming in it last attempts to free itself, he sunk his teeth deeper into its soft flesh. With one last kick, he felt the will of his prey weaken into a dismal acceptance of its fate and slowly, the beating of its heart slipped away until its body went limp in his lips. He shook his head back and forth and the carcass dangled loosely from side to side. He relaxed his grip on its neck and it fell on the ground with a thud and laid motionless in the tall grass. His body ached, and his chest heaved as he licked away the blood that trickled down his face.

  He opened his wide jaw and roared.

  From the tall grasses around him his roar was returned by others that shared his heartbeat and his will to survive. His stomach rumbled as hunger ravaged him and, as he looked down at the dead animal at his feet, relief released the tension from his mind. He reared his head back again and let out another deep hoarse roar that carried endlessly across the flat open plains.

  ***

  Akiiki opened his eyes peacefully to the dawn of a new day. From his back he stared up into the grey morning sky and licked his lips. A faint taste of blood filled his mind, but when he put his fingers to his lips to check if he was bleeding, he found no blood on his fingertips. He rolled onto his side and sat up.

  His body ached, and he cringed as he turned to look for Obasi, who was nowhere to be found. The fire still blazed next to him, with a row of sticks propped up in the sand around the fire. He laid back down in the sand and sighed.

  A few minutes la
ter, he heard rustling in the sand behind him. He struggled to sit up, and turning towards the sound of the footsteps, he saw Obasi carrying a pot of water.

  “You’re awake? I did not expect you to be up for many more hours,” Obasi said as he reached Akiiki and sat the pot of water down in the burning coals of the fire.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “My body is sore.” Akiiki said quietly through a sore throat.

  “Of course it is. The life of a lion is not easy on the body,” Obasi said.

  “But I wasn’t really a lion, was I? I thought it was all in my mind,”

  “It is the mind that controls the body, and when the mind exerts itself, the body will as well. Here chew this, it will help with the soreness.”

  Obasi handed a small plant to Akiiki, who put it in his mouth and began to chew. As the sweetness of the plant wore off, a slight tingling worked its way over Akiiki’s tongue.

  “What is that?” Akiiki asked as he pointed toward the row of sticks that surrounded the fire.

  “I went down to the water to fill the pot and found some driftwood in the sand. I am drying it out, so we have tinder for the fires to come.”

  Obasi placed a jar in the pot of water and covered it with the sloping top. “It is always important to plan ahead for life’s difficulties. Now tell me, in your dream did you kill?”

  Akiiki nodded.

  “I see. Some are successful in their hunt and some are not, the truth lies not in the success of the hunt but in the purpose of the attempt,” Obasi said.

  “The truth about what?”

  “Power. Just as the soaring eagle represents freedom of the body and spirit, the lion represents power.”

  Akiiki nodded. “So, it was power I felt as I killed the deer?”

  Obasi shook his head. “You are not looking deep enough my son. Remember, the success of the hunt had nothing to do with the lesson of power. It is a common fault many make when experiencing power for the first time. Power over another life is false, it is in harnessing the power within yourself that the true lesson lies.”

  After a moment of silence in which his thoughts faded back to his dream, Akiiki looked at Obasi. “I don’t understand.”

  “The power you felt came not when you caught your prey, but from everything you felt leading up to that moment. Sometimes the hunt is successful and sometimes it is not, but the control and power leading up to it is the same. Can you remember how you felt?”

  “Everything seemed to move as one, like I was being pulled along in a strong river,” Akiiki said.

  “Good!” exclaimed Obasi in a loud voice. “That is the power men truly seek, to feel the earth’s energy running through their veins. To lose themselves in the flood of nature’s fury. In this way, the lonely ant may be as powerful as the elephant, or the peasant as powerful as a king.”

  “How can a peasant be as powerful as a king? A king controls a whole empire,” Akiiki asked.

  “It is wrong to look at nature as under one’s control. A person’s power is not determined by their possessions or their dominion over another, it is determined by how closely they are able to match their actions, to the inner truth of their will. A farmer who chooses to rise early and farm his land or tend to his wares out of a love of his craft, feels more power over his life than the royal who is forced awake in order to perform a task that is against his true will. Even though the peasant may not have the extravagance of riches he is filled with a serenity that comes from fulfillment, while the royal, with his servants and riches, may struggle within himself with a sense of emptiness,” Obasi paused and looked into Akiiki’s eyes.

  “The gods made this world to test us so that we may each find our own god within ourselves, not to be ruled by others. However, the flesh of men and women is weak and fragile. Because of this, the world has become a place of have and have nots. In the beginning, it was simply those who had the strength and will to survive, and those who did not. But with each new generation, the separation between the haves and have nots grew, as we fell further and further away from the path the gods had intended us to follow.”

  “If that is true, why was my father king?” Akiiki asked hesitantly.

  “The further away we slipped from the gods, the more lost we became in this world. Men and women began to worship those who they believed had the power to speak to the gods. That is how the procession of priests as well as kings and queens began. Unfortunately, it came at a cost. By giving power to others, it took away the power they had over themselves. So now, men and women live their lives devoid of the very thing the gods had hoped for us to possess, the ability to make of this world what we wish.”

  Akiiki sat thinking about Obasi’s words. His once small and simple world seemed a distant memory, and instead, he found himself immersed in a new world of possibilities. He clenched his fists and looked down at his hand. His dry skin had blistered in the hot sun and sand covered his arm as he opened and closed his fingers.

  “It is within all of us to be gods of our own destiny,” Obasi continued. “But it is only in taking control of ourselves that this is possible.”

  “How? How can I learn to take control?” Akiiki asked.

  Obasi smiled. “Circumstance often controls the lives of people. Power exists when a person is able to change their circumstances, the very direction of their life. To make any change in life, one must commit a deeper part of themselves to the task. It is in this commitment that they find the power of god within them. It does not matter if it is a farmer who wishes to widen the field of his crops, a craftsman who seeks mastery in her work, or even the prince who strives to make his father proud. In each case, change begins with a single choice.”

  Obasi stood up, his black skin silhouetted against the rising sun, and stretched. He looked out over the ocean water and helped Akiiki to his feet. Akiiki swayed as he regained his bearings.

  “Easy,” Obasi said, as he steadied Akiiki with his hand. “You have done well in your healings, but your body and mind are weak. Today we will take it easy and there will be no healing tonight.”

  Slowly, the strength in Akiiki’s legs began to return. Once he felt strong enough to stand on his own, he let go of Obasi’s hand.

  Together they packed up Obasi’s belongings and started to walk. They walked most of the day, while Obasi told stories and shared memories to pass the time. He spoke of his time as a child in his village, of nights spent dancing around the fire and days spent roaming the desert hunting rabbits. When he spoke about the sickness that spread through his village and killed his mother, Obasi’s voice cracked with sadness and pain. Akiiki listened to the endurance in Obasi’s voice with a level of admiration and respect that he had not felt for anyone but his father. His voice was filled with appreciation, as if even in the memory of his parent’s death he found a kernel of hope and courage.

  Their conversation died, and they walked for a while in silence before a new thought took hold of Akiiki.

  “When I was with Lael, one of his men was murdered in a village we visited.”

  “Really? Under what circumstances was he killed,” Obasi stopped in the sand and looked at Akiiki.

  “There was a woman who said Lael had killed her brother.”

  Obasi shook his head. “The brush is a place drowning in revenge and anger. It is a pity so many must die for the sake of revenge.”

  “If a person’s true power is over themselves, why do so many people kill for out of revenge?” Akiiki asked.

  “The histories of bloodshed amongst tribes in the brush is long and complicated. Some feuds between tribes go back generations and by the rules of the brush, there can be no peace if a debt of blood is owed. For those who live daily amongst anger, frustration, and hatred, forgiveness can too often feel like weakness.”

  “Why not bring the heads of all of the tribes together and agree to stop killing out of revenge?”

  Obasi smiled. “Ah yes, there it is. T
he king in you sees solutions in diplomacy. The truth is, diplomacy means little to someone who has lost a loved one. Would you sit in front of Lael and come to an agreement of forgiveness?”

  Akiiki gave himself a moment to think. “No, I guess not.”

  “Now imagine instead of the anger of one death, your anger stretched through generations. That kind of deep seeded anger and hatred is difficult to solve with words. As long as I can remember violence has been the way of the brush and I am afraid it will continue as long as children are raised under the conditions that breed revenge. When you are hungry, and someone takes food from your plate, swift punishment is the only solution. Unfortunately, when you are hungry sometimes the only way to feed yourself and your family IS to take food from another. Dire conditions and circumstances breed harsh choices and actions, this is why the brush is mired in such hostility.”

  “Will it ever stop?”

  “Only when the people of the brush are shown something different than the hopelessness and despair they experience daily. If they see forgiveness not as weakness but as a sign of personal strength, they can choose to be strong instead of giving in to the easy and tempting route of revenge.”

  Once the sun was low enough that its reflection over the water cast a single beaming ray of light through the ocean, they stopped and collected sand crabs for their dinner before making their way inland to set up camp.

  Obasi handed Akiiki his fire-starting set and they both worked feverishly to start a fire. Even though Akiiki’s hands were still raw, the tools worked more easily in his hands than the night before. When he could take no more, he sat in the sand underneath the twilight sky and watched Obasi as he worked. His precision and focus made him seem one with the drill and fireboard, as if he listened to their words and adjusted his actions to meet their silent demands.