Tchink and Eden (Chapter 5)

“What are you?”

She smiles as she hauls me out of the liquid “I was expecting a ‘who”?

“What?” I am puzzled.

“Who are you?’  Not ‘what are you?”

What difference does it make? I say to myself.

I see the stag on the other side of the foreign lake, resting. My heart is no longer beating hard and I take this to mean that I am no longer afraid. I must have left my wits at the bottom of this lake because if I had them about me I would spread my wings and fly far far away from these…things. Yet, there is something about the way this being is fashioned that compels me to stay and study her. I know it’s a ‘her’ because she sounds feminine. Aside from that there isn’t anything feminine about her in the lome sense of the word; she looks nothing like Yovec or Mama Tchaek. Something like a lot of gold colored yarn is sprouting from her head the way grass sprouts from the ground.

Does she water her head, then?

Her skin is not pale or even translucent but it glows and is the color of a baby lome’s nose when he is crying. Her eyes are endless depth of blue and they are half the size of my endless depths of black. Amazingly, it does not diminish their beauty; I could stare into her eyes for the rest of my life now that I have lost my wits. She is robed in white like a fresh born lome too.

Why does she have robes on? Does she have something to hide? Or is she just a large, deformed baby lome?

Suddenly, I feel naked and a shade of pink creeps into my cheeks when she turns and catches me staring at her.

“I’m surprised you do not ask questions.” She says as she bends once again, reaching into the strange lake with her left hand.

“My mother gives me firm knocks on me head when I ask visitors and strangers questions. She says I don’t mind me business”

She laughs. Her laughter is deep and throaty…bubbling up from her insides.

“Maybe you do ask a lot of questions then but I can handle your questions. Go on, ask.”

She still has her left hand beneath the surface and she is still bent uncomfortably, facing the other direction, facing the stag.

“Who are you? What is your name? Where are you from?”

“My name is Lysa. You needn’t know where I am from; you wouldn’t understand.”

“I dinna want to think that you think me to be simple.”

“No, you’re not simple, Tchink. If you were simple, you wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

My heart slammed against my chest.

“How do you know my name?”

“There are a lot of things that I know, Tchink. For example, I know that you should be meeting your friends at the meadow right now and I also know that you would love some fish.”

She finally brings her hand out of the liquid and along with her hand, a big wriggly thing. It looks like an over fed slug with big eyes and mouth. She calls it fish and she says that I would like to have some of it but all I want to do is run to the meadow.

“I would love to get back to my friends now.”

She smiles again then nods her approval.

“We have so much to talk about Tchink but you can go meet your friends now.”

My heart swells with relief and sadness at the same time but I manage to spread my wings and fly.

I will come back for my wits at a more opportune time.

Tchink and Eden (Chapter 4)

Just before dawn, I sneak out of my room through my little window. The only window in my room actually and fall silently on lush carpet of grass. I walk alone down the narrow path; my only companion is the sound of my feet. Even the early birds haven’t sung this morning. Fog hangs thickly around me and all I can see clearly is the space ahead of me.  I inhale the morning air, feeling cleansed instantly. I close my eyes for a minute and just…feel.

I stop at the lake of decon to drink; I woke up thirstier than parched land. I am careful not to lean forward too much as I bend to take a sip of the refreshing liquid. When I have my fill, I look just a little above the surface of the lake and see a beautiful stag directly opposite me. Its gaze becomes very disturbing after a few minutes and I splash some decon its way, in the hope that it would run back into the bushes. But this stag does not move an inch or bat an eye. Curious, I splash some more. The animal still does not move. Audacity shines in its eyes. I refuse to lose a staring contest to an animal so I sit on the grass, by the lake, and stare right back.

After what seems like eternity, the animal slowly turns back into the bushes and I let out the air I hadn’t realised I was been holding.  I start down the path again towards the meadow to meet Yovec and Tcheb but I only took a few steps when I feel a piercing gaze boring into my wings. My heart pushes against its cage and I will my feet to continue moving against their wish. I don’t know what it is I feel right now. Fear? It cannot be, it shouldn’t be…it’s just a stag. Stags can do nothing to me. Yet, I can hear my heart louder than the sound of my feet.

Before I think of dispelling the thought from my mind, I break into a run. Not in the direction of the meadow so Tcheb and Yovec won’t think a foul spirit has got me. I don’t know where I’m running. All the trees look the same at this speed and not once do I stop running until I come into an opening that looks something like the meadow where Tcheb, Yovec and I meet but this one is smaller. I can spread my wings to fly now if I sense the stag or another like it is in this area.

The sun is out in its full glory in this meadow and I start to wonder if I ran for so long.

It can’t be.

I see a lake just ahead of me and I gingerly approach the lake, thirsty.

My jaw drops open as I find that the liquid in the lake is nothing like decon. It is…is..colorless and I can see my likeness in it. I take small steps backward and away from the water with my heart pushing strongly against my chest. I turn around slowly only to find the stag a few staggered breaths away from me. The stag is the colour of fresh decon and its eyes bore into me, past my skin and bones. My feet are moving backward.

Backward

Backward

And I find myself falling into the lake of unknown liquid.

There isn’t any time to panic. I try to compose a scream but bubbles emerge from my mouth.

It feels like time has stopped and I’m not going to drown. I know this with a shocking certainty; I will not drown. I fall deeper and deeper into the lake and let its warmth envelop me completely. Just before I shut my eyes, I see a hand reaching down into the liquid towards me. The further I sink down into the liquid, the hand reaches further down…

I reach for the hand just to be sure I am not dead yet. In an instant, I am out of the lake and find that the hand is not attached to a lome but a being with eyes the colour of the sky…

Tchink and Eden (Chapter 3)

Tcheb, Yovec and didn’t see each other that day after the morning’s episode but Yovec’s words couldn’t find their way out of my head. I rolled the thought over and over in my head and tried desperately to make meaning of it.

What if a lome had come back from exploring other parts of the world?

But then, Yovec said that it didn’t look like any of us. Maybe it was a lome but it looked different because Yovec was flying above it.

What exactly did she see?

I want to believe without doubt that Yovec saw a lome and thought it to be something else but I know it wasn’t

It wasn’t.

“Tchink, boy!”

I jumped off from the spot I had been sitting on. Mama Tchaek had asked me to fetch her a fresh drum of decon for the meeting Papa Tchlan was going to have with the older lomes at our home. I hurriedly grabbed my pail and dunked it into the lake. Somehow, I managed to dunk myself into the lake along with the pail.

I came up spluttering but triumphant with a full pail of decon. I practically ran towards our house and towards Mama Tchaek.

She was standing arms akimbo in front of the house but instead of the disapproving look I expected to find on her face, I found she was amused and she was trying so hard not to break into a fit of laughter.

“I fetched a fresh pail, Mama” Some decon from my head had found its way down my face and a puddle of decon began to form at the spot where I stood.

“Did a foul spirit push you into the lake, Tchink?”

“No, Mama. I dinna look-”

Mama Tchaek finally burst out laughing. She fell on the front porch laughing. She laughed hard, holding her sides.

My lips curled up in a smile, I must be a sight for Mama Tchaek to laugh so hard. I ran past her and poured the decon into the drum and ran back out to the lake to fetch some more so I could move on to other chores.

The path to the lake was narrow and windy but opened up into a small circle of lush grass around the lake. I am the only one at the lake at this time. I wonder what Yovec and Tcheb are doing and I hope that Yovec isn’t still in shock about what she saw. I couldn’t wait till afternoon when we would finally see each other to talk properly about what Yovec saw. Excitement rushed through me as the Sun shone brighter, drying off the decon on my body.

I’m fetching my last pail of decon now and I stop for a minute to admire the lamb that wandered towards the lake. It had come from amidst the bushes and I made a mental note to tell Yovec and Tcheb about the new path I had discovered. For now, I’ll concern myself with finishing my chores before noon.

 

I listened in on the elder lomes’ meeting. They were talking about boring affairs like home boundaries and constructing a new home for Chief Kerst. Noon came soon after and I rushed off to the meadow; that’s where we meet during the day. Yovec was already there waiting.

“Yovec!” She smiled and offered me her hand as I made to sit on the rock beside her.

“Tchink, where’s Tcheb?”

“I dinna know. He should be here soon. Tell me about the thing you saw this morning, Yovec. I’ve been dying to hear all day.”

“What do you want to hear, Tchink?”

“I want to hear what it looked like.”

Yovec jumped off the rock, fell on her knees and began to yank some grass out of the earth.

“What are you doing?”

She ignored me and continued plucking grass. When she had two handfuls she sat on what was left of the grass and piled the grass on her head. Then she reached for two big leaves and put one at her chest level before placing the other at the point where her legs began.

“Are you alright, Yovec?” I heard Tcheb say from behind me.

“She had something like this on top of her head and it was the color of decon. Then she had something to cover her body. That’s how I knew she wasn’t like us.”

“But she could’ve been carrying some things on her back, Yovec. You probably mistook what she was carrying for all this you’re describing, Yovec.” Tcheb explained.

“She looked at me! That’s why I fell.” Yovec was standing now. I could see frustration in her eyes. “She didn’t have our eyes. Her eyes were smaller…like the size of seeds and they had the colour of the sky in the afternoon.”

Tchink and Eden (Chapter 2)

It’s a little before dawn and I’m out with Yovec and Tcheb sitting on a large rock close to the edge of the village. This is where we spend our early hours before we unwillingly return to the village to do chores. The sun is one of the most beautiful things Tchink Village owns.

Yovec is number one of course.

“Tchink, do you think there is another village like ours somewhere?” Yovec turns to ask me.

I stare into her dark, wide eyes for a second before I say “Of course not, Yovec, we are the only lomes in the world.”

“But have you ever stopped to wonder maybe…”

“Papa Tchlan says that the lomes that have tried to explore the rest of the world never came back. He says that they were killed by wild animals. We are the only lomes there are, Yovec.”

Tcheb throws a rock into the lake of decon and three of us turn to watch the ripples in silence.

Dawn is almost here…

Tcheb stands up and starts walking towards the narrow path to the village. Yovec follows but I linger for a moment to stare at the ripples of decon before I jog towards my friends.

“RACE YOU TO THE VILLAGE!” Tcheb shrieks as he whizzes past Yovec. Yovec and I break into a run, laughing as our wings spread and we soar over the trees and towards Tchink Village. When I’m flying I wish I can keep my wings forever but they’ll disappear completely by the time I become a full grown lome. I twirl twice in the air as I close in on Tcheb.

“Eh! I dinna ever see a cheat like you, Tchink!” He yells.

“Yovec knows I dinna cheat haha!”

We both await Yovec’s witty response but all we hear is the sound of our wings flapping.

My heart stops inside me as I turn around to find that Yovec is nowhere in sight.

“Yovec!” I call

Tcheb hovers towards me. I can feel the fear he brings with him and the unspeakable thought in his head echoes in mine:

Did Yovec fly into a tree?

We descend into the forest and thankfully find Yovec not too far from the spot we landed.

“What happened, Yovec?”

She’s out of breath and her dark eyes seem wider than ever.

She saw something.

“What did you see, Yovec?” Tcheb asks her, checking her left wing. She has a few scratches.

“Tell us, Yovec” I kneel in front of her and gaze into the depths of her eyes.

“I saw…” there’s a thin sheath of sweat on her face and her cheeks are a bright, excited shade of pink.

“What did you see, Yovec?” Tcheb shakes her shoulders gently, turning her towards him. His lower lip trembles a little. He is thinking what I’m thinking.

Yovec finally voices our thought “I saw a…a…thing.”

“What thing?!” I am getting impatient. The sun is shining in all of its glory now and Mama and Papa will be awake and about soon.

“A lome but not really a lome. It dinna look anything like us, Tcheb! And it’s not an animal either!”

“Are you sure of what you saw, Yovec?” I turn her face towards me now and I see the truth in her eyes.

“Let’s go home,” Tcheb helps Yovec to her feet “and don’t tell anybody what you saw, Yovec. We aren’t supposed to be here in the first place…”

“You dinna see anything, Yovec.” I say this to convince myself more than I say it to convince my friends.

There are creatures out there that we are not aware of.

Tchink and Eden

Hello people!

I’ve decided to put up posts once a week (most likely Thursdays) and I pray to God I follow through on this. The year is quickly coming to an end and I’ve had time to think and put things into perspective; I want better things for this blog. A lot of em. I don’t ever want to be too busy for my primary blog 🙂 So here’s the deal: I was going to put my new story on a friend’s blog but i changed my mind and i’m putting this up on mine. It’s a little different from everything I’ve ever written and i’m  pretty excited to get started on it. I hope y’all enjoy reading it as i’ll enjoy writing it