EPTthis story is situated in my fantasy world. I call it "Cocoon", although it is more of a working title. It isn't the first story in it, though, nor is it the best. But something in it resonates with me, so I would like to share with TL - a site that often gives, via its posts and ideas.
Have fun.
The Flight
by Dirk Ackermann
See, I never believed that he was my brother, the man said, his chin on his naked chest and his eyes staring at his hands, a splinter of wood in them, playing absently with it, his fingers on one end, guiding the top of the splinter in a circle around the other end, that seems to protrude out of his stomach, his hands and the circle in an uneven movement, that sometimes gathers speed and then slowly falls and then gathers speed again, like a culpable silent ritual to summon something, but all just a small movement that weighs only on his stomach.
You mean, you couldn't be sure, as no one really can, or
No, he says, I mean that I never believed it. And still can't.
But they must have said it. And he? Didn't he either? the woman says, laying naked beside him, her head and a part of her body resting on her right arm, her dark long hair falling wild.
They, yes. Him, he says and he shakes his head. They told me that he will arrive in a few days, from the main of Ua. He had just passed the test and now would make the first of his many and prolonged waypoints on his long travel around the outer temples.
And?
And? I thought nothing of it. A brother. I only knew the concept. And it was vastly inferior to the one that did let me say the same word to my fellow students. They were my family. And not some bloke from the temple. He was the fourth, me the fifth, and neither of us had a place with them, or, more correctly, with her. That's what it came to, in my mind, whenever I thought of my real family and him. I even forgot that they told me. And then, one day, he stood there, in that long hallway of the barracks. No, actually he didn't stand. He crouched near the corner of the hallway to the stairs, the naked man says and he suddenly stops playing with the splinter and he looks at the woman and smiles.
What? she says.
I remember. He crouched there, yes. But he held something in his hands. The gods. I forgot, he already held it in his hands.
What?
The first that I saw, one of his many treasures. His mind worked in a different way, and only now I can appreciate it, its beauty, its, his shaping of the world. But shaping, not with a hammer, but like the tip of a thrown spear itself, ever forward, ever piercing, leaving the winds and their circling ways behind it.
What was it?
The man broadens his smile. The first man-made thing I ever saw flying.
***
What you've got in there? the younger boy says.
The older boy looks up, his body is thin, his face even more and his brown clothes and his hair are wet.
Did it rain? the younger boy in grey clothes says and he takes a few steps and looks out of one of the small windows in the hallway, bracing himself on the windowsill, to take a long view. Yep. It did rain. It rains. Master Ono will be glad. The earth even smells burned, he had said. I think the farmers even more so.
What more?
What? Oh, I mean the farmers will even be much happier than Master O
It isn't enough. It won't help.
Maybe. Every bit helps. It has to, the younger boy says and he shrugs and looks back at the other boy, who still crouches, something white shining in his hands.
What is that?
The older boy looks for a while into his hands, the hands and fingers around and over the frail white construct. It has to dry, he says and he looks up again and he smiles.
What is it? Is it, it looks like, like, it looks like paper. Is it paper?
Yes. I made it while I traveled here. I didn't expect the rain. I covered it as best I could.
You are Taonga?
Yes.
Oh.
And you?
Hakeke.
The older boy looks and then wipes his face with the back of his left hand, leaving the white paper construct in the open palm of his right and blinks a few times. I see, he says.
Yes.
I think it will go. It doesn't matter if it is a little wet.
What do you mean?
Come here.
The younger boy takes the last steps and crouches too, his face near the white construct.
What? An arrowhead? No. Is it a spearhead?
No. It is a bird.
A bird? It doesn't look like.
No. But it flies.
It flies?
Watch, the older boy says and he rises and he is tall and thin and he strides into the middle of the hallway, left leg in front and his body seems strung like the mighty longbow of the Coast people, but he holds the hearsay white bird gently between his thumb and pointer and then his arm is quickly by his head and his mouth is a little open and a graceful power slings the arm and the hand with the bird forward and his mouth closes a little, as to give the fledgling words of encouragement, and then the fingers open and they release and the white bird rides on an elongated invisible line that narrows until it reaches the cold stones of the hallway, slides and comes to a halt, the white folded paper laying still, still as before, in the hands of its master, still on the ridges and heaps of the rough brown and cold stones.
***
I don't know, but I think I was in love. Not with him, but with his ideas, and even more, with his little constructs. He was clever, he was in no time one of the best students, but more of a loner. His little chest by his bed brimmed with these little things and he hoarded them and was afraid that the others would destroy them, if only by chance. Because these damn things were build so frail, no excessive force was needed. He always came back to flying though. He had an altogether different schedule and so I didn't saw him regularly. We had basically a very separate life, intermingling only when I was bored, but each time his chest and he himself seem new to me. We never had a fight, although he often should have been upset with me, because of the amount of damage I did to his little things. Perhaps it was just a balance, he may have cherished me, revering him, or he needed someone with the lack of a healthy self-preservation instinct.
The woman laughs, gets up, walks naked to a wooden water reservoir, takes a ladle, scoops and drinks. You? she says.
Yes. Please.
She goes to the board by the window and takes a wooden bowl and stops and looks outside for a long while. There is the half dark of the moonlight that shines on the trees and the small hut.
What?
You really will fly with it tomorrow? she says and stares at the hut.
He smiles.
So it is him that gave you your final fate?
Hakeke sniggers. I never thought of it that way. I don't know. He had some weird thoughts about the world. Some of his answers in his classes bordered on dangerous things, so I had heard. But he was too clever to let them come back on him. He may have given me the wish to fly, yes. Or he just uncovered it sooner than predetermined. A master of fate, in a way. He made me do risky things, yes. One time I stole some combs of the masters, for he needed a lot of horn. And one day he made me fly.
***
It is too stormy, Hakeke says over the rustling of the leaves and branches and the creaking of the trees that encompasses the broad way.
No, it will be alright, Taonga says. We just have to get to the hill. In its shadow we will be alright.
You sure?
Yes. You will see.
They wander in silence and fear. Between them they held the kite, a big box made out of bamboo and silk, with two small wings and two black circling spirals painted on the biggest silken surfaces of the kite.
Damn, Taonga says.
What?
I think one wing cracked a little.
What? Oh, no.
A sudden wind and a sharp crack and one of the wings is sucked into the air, spins and is over the trees and gone.
No, the boys scream.
They take cover by a tree and use their bodies to shield the damaged kite.
What now? Hakeke says.
Nothing.
What? The wind will rip the kite apart.
No. Just the wings.
And? Will it fly then?
Yes, it will. The wings are just for stabilizing the kite. But in this wind it won't matter that much. Do you have the rest of the rope?
Yes. The masters will kill us, if they discover it.
We will give it all back. Have no fear.
If you say.
Yes. Let's go. The wind isn't that sharp anymore.
They stride along and as they reach the hill, the trees and possible cover gets sparse and they have to power through with their small bodies, against the wind and against their own construct, that loves the wind, always ready to get abducted by it, like the curious girl, eager to flee with the forbidden lover to the forbidden dance, but she is young and somewhat frail and so they have to rein her in, only for safety, a young flying filly, before its first flight.
They rest by a long line of thick shrub that encircles the hill nearly complete, then they take one of the many paths that pester it. On the other side is a partly natural and partly artificial alcove. Under some blankets and wood, that is quickly hoisted away, lies another kite. This one is bigger than the kite the boys carried, with bigger wings and the shape of two double stunted pyramids, glued together on their broad sides. They take the long rope out of Hakekes sack, and the long lines they had hidden in a blanket under the kite and sling them in circles around each other.
We have to assemble it on the top, Taonga says. The wind isn't that hard anymore. First, the big one. You will stay with it and I get the other one.
If you say.
Yes. Go.
They heave the big kite to the top, resting a few times, sometimes to shield and sometimes to catch breath. The bigger kite holds, but whenever the wind gets more violent, it transforms into a barely held back beast. Near the top are two thick and long and tilted trees. There they halt. Taonga takes the rope and binds one end around the bigger one of the trees and makes a loop and a knot and binds it to Hakekes girdle rope. All along the wind wrenches at the kite and they have to shift their position frequently, to shield it. Finally Taonga binds the end of the rope to a line of the kite and then they lay the kite on the ground, with one end to the tree.
Lay yourself against the other end, he says. Yes, good. Shield it a little more. Yes. Fine. Are you good?
Yes. But, the wind, Hakeke says.
It will be alright. You see. You will. I go and fetch the other, he says and then he is off.
Hakeke clings to the rope on the tree, as best as he is able to and pulls with all his power, to shield and hold the big kite, that rears and makes little jumps. Taonga, he says. Hurry. Hurry, Taonga. But the wind gets somewhat tame and then Taonga is by him, smiling.
The other wing is broken too.
What? No.
It doesn't matter. I will assemble the rest. Hold everything tight.
I will.
With a long line Taonga binds the smaller to the bigger kite that is now tethered between the small kite, Hakeke and the tree.
And then the wind.
Shit, Taonga screams, as he loses the smaller kite that buckles and is off with the wind and the will to dance ever higher.
The line. Catch the line, Taonga screams.
Hakeke jumps and catches it, the force of the dancing filly strong. Hakeke manages it to stay on the ground, his arms outstretched, hands bloody. But winds lust is not sated yet and it sends a gust that catches the bigger kite which makes a powerful jump and then rises.
And Hakeke with it.
Ah, he screams, and he drops the line and the filly flees, catches her bigger cousin, a hefty jolt, and together they rise.
And Hakeke with them.
***
I wonder how you made it that far, she laughs.
Yeah. It was my first flight, though it felt more like a, like a stretch, he says and he laughs.
She wriggles her leg over his and kisses his left breast.
And he? He went to the other temples?
Yes. One day he was away. As sudden as he was there. And I never saw him again. I heard that on his last waypoint he began to cocoon. They made sure he went back to Ua as fast as possible.
And?
That is the last thing that I heard of him. Ua was attacked and burned and nearly no one survived. You know it.
So you knew one of your brothers, at least.
I don't know.
Don't tell me. You should see your face. You are always radiant when you talk about him. Deep down you know it is true. You didn't only love his things or ideas.
No. You didn't know him. He could be cold, not mean, but, void of compassion.
I think he loved you. In its own way.
You think?
Yes. Very.
Maybe. It is weird. A moon ago I thought about him, as I was building my kite. And I thought of his little folded paper kite. My kite looks like it, in a way. I think of it, like he gave me so much. And what did I gave him? And then I thought of you, what you give me.
Ah? And what is that?
Warmth. And not only the receiving kind. And I thought, that we together, he, the spear on its way, ever onward, and me, riding with him, giving the warmth, would have spiraled out, on and on, he says and his smile is soft and he looks at her.
She leans over and kisses him again. And again. And then they kiss.
