Anjitha A.

Kadangode (P.O.), Thrissur Dist., Kerala, India

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Thus God created the grass and the herb and the tree that bear fruits… The moving creatures in the sea and the fowl, then the cattle and the beast. And at last he created man in his own image and said to him:

“Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it.”

Beneath the swirling smoke of the eternal yellow light, in the azure firmament, the humankind floated in the air. They wore feathery wings much similar to that of Gabriel and were donned in clothes like white togas. They were armed with bows and arrows golden that were glowing in the reflection of the light streaming from the yellow sphere above. The Sun-like orb’s spear-like rays but only rendered light to the heavens. Beneath the light, there was a dark earth where birds and fish and beasts under the surveillance of the arrows moved with dread in their eyes.

Immediately the light source became pitch-black and the thunder started to roar. The human wings started to disintegrate into the thin air and one by one every one of the humankind slipped down from their celestial levitation. They fell into the deep, into the dusty pile of earthly beings who were suddenly carelessly moving on the lowly hellscape. Then the thunder became silence.

The Child of Humankind woke up from the long dream to a new dawn. It rubbed its eyes and picked itself from its soft nest of cotton and looked at the rust-coloured ceiling of the roof tile house. Outside the window it was utter darkness. It looked around and the eyes ran over the crayon drawings on the cracked off-white walls: a red human-like figure that held a spear that had blood-like red lines dripping from it, an unclear pink pork-like figure that was lying dead on the blankness of the wall, and a black dog and a yellow deer running away from the atrocity. There was also an orange circle far above the wall that had straight lines protruding to the outside like the Sun. The portrait has lost the brightness of the strokes since it has been few years after it was done. Yet, among all the works on the wall portrayed by The Child, of birds and bees and trees, this creation stood-out and attracted the attention of every outsider who visited the abode.

The Child trotted into the kitchen only to see the boiled sweet potatoes in a steel bowl and it put the lid back onto it calling the dish “Stupid rodent’s food”.

“You dog, don’t run out into the darkness.”

The mother barked at The Child. Without listening to the scolding words of the mother who took care of the household, the creature jumped out of the house, crossed the stepes into the yard on which agitated black garden ants ran in a slithering line. It took a stone and a slender wooden stick from the shade of a big tree, and set out to walk in the village road in the foggy morning. The wild birds chirped and tweeted in their melodic tones in the early tranquil hour.

It was still darkness that covered the paddy fields and the narrow roads. The untarred stone road gave the hard soles of The Child no pain. It was used to this. This was where once the Child confronted that long slender silver creature. The Child and the fellows with the help of the pieces of boughs of the newly-cut wild jack, beat the creature that slithered fast like waves. They buried it after among the groves before the grownups coming. The Child showed no fear usually. The emotion it seemed to express the most was fury. The fearless human thus walked into the heart of darkness.

Some used to say that when people walk on this path in the darkness, they could see a light without a carrier. It just floats in the air when the day sets and it beguiles the pedestrians. It leads them sometimes to the lonely hills, or near the palmyra grove where the yakshi waits to sink her fangs into the preys and drink their warm blood. But The Child was one of the people who were not afraid of the light. It knew the red thread on its hand from the koil nearby would ward off the evil spirits.

As The Child walked, it noticed a different sound other than the early birds. From the distance, The Child knew it was the animal that was lurking behind the bushes. The purple flowers of the bushes seemed darker in the Sunless hour. But as the east started to show crimsons on its cheek, they appeared brighter. The Child picked a relatively big rock and stood in a pose as if to throw it at the clueless prey.

That is how the father has once killed one of those before. Before it jumped out of the rubber estate, before it reached the iron fence… The animal was like a fast white ghost. It was flying from one place of the ground to another; it was like a white dart. Neither the father and the neighbours, nor The Child could understand what beast it was. They only knew their vegetation was being nibbled by the wild creatures, and they wanted to end this brute behaviour. In a wink the father took a rock the size of the palm of his hands and onto the animal’s head he sent it. It fell down bleeding and the dart-like being was a wild rabbit’s kid. But this incident could not stop the animals who came back again at nights and left the marks of their paws on the fields.

The Child threw the rock right where the stirring of the shrubs was and a small squeal leaped out from it. The animal trembled and eventually lost its breath. The Child took the carcass of the descendant of the wild animal by holding it upside down, making the blood ooze little by little in the way. Up in the eastern horizon, amidst the blue hills where the evil spirits wandered, the sky’s neck was sliced open and the red hues of the daybreak dripped from it.

After reaching home, the wild animal was delivered to the mother by The Child. When the yellow Sun came up in the snowy morning the house was filled with the aroma of the curry. The Child brought its fellows to the house and they all sat in circles under the towering mango tree which the kids thought is a ladder to the next world. Greynecked crows pecked the ripe Colombo mangoes and the children glared at the loathsome sight with absolute abhorrence and fury. But when the curry came with vellayappam they forgot about the hideous birds. The children took the pieces of dead wild rabbit and smelled it with hungry noses. But one of the kids who gathered around asked with clueless eyes that:

“You know... I was thinking, will there be beasts that will eat us?”

The children laughed and The Child answered:

“No…We will eat them. God sent them here to serve us. Not vice-versa. Pet them or kill them, do whatever! We are the centre of this big big world.” As they were eating the delicious meal in euphoria, the nimbus clouds were covering the orange Sun.

When the Sun completed its march into the west and the dusk covered the land, The Child fell into a dream where it was standing on top of the giant tree that touched the sky and seeing the foggy unclear beings flying over it. The Child slipped from the branch and fell into the earth that was miles below with the accompaniment of golden mangoes. Below was thick viscous blue blood of the lowly earthly beings. The carcasses flowed on the surface of it. The Child sank into it slowly and slowly until it cannot see any light at all.