New Territory

Zag Kunde Chronicle #008

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A small black dot in the sky appeared like a speck on the blue canvas.

As the speck got bigger Zag realized it was a bird. A black bird. It had been hovering above them the way the eagles hover above the chickens back home in the village.

Sometimes back home, the eagle would swoop down and capture a stray chicken that was not alert to the danger. It was always a lightning-speed attack! Mother chickens making loud noises and running to safety, while pushing their little chicks along with them. Dogs barking and the grownups waving sticks or anything they could find nearby to chase the eagle away. Children cheering. And then it all ended and went back to normal - except for the communal reconstruction of what just happened, and the reckoning to find out who's chicken it was that got captured.

The eagles at home never went for a person because they weren’t strong enough to swoop even a child up. Zag's intuition told him that this bird, this black bird, was too small to take him. When it ventured closer he could see it had a jet-black body with greyish-brown wings on the underside. The most striking things about it were its red face and red feet. They made it look majestic. The way it flew was majestic and graceful - like it was dancing in the air. Zag felts a certain kinship with this bird. Like he’d known it all his life. And yet he felt uneasy in a way only a five-year-old can. There was something amiss that he couldn’t place, and he certainly didn’t have the words for it. Zag reached for Father’s hand.

Where are we? When is Mother joining us? He asked. Father seemed preoccupied with his thoughts.

They had been sitting in the back of a pickup truck on top of sacks of corn for several hours. The pickup truck was now stationary at the side of the road, giving their hurting backs some time to breathe. This was a proper tarred road, where cars went fast. What made the ride uncomfortable was not the state of the road, like in Namanga. The corn under them kept moving and made it impossible for them to sit in one position for any length of time. Zag was glad to stop a while. 

There was a man selling used tires of all sizes and another man selling woven baskets next to him. A younger lady in a purple dress had a large container in front of her full of gasoline that she was selling for shilingi 2000 (or 2000 shillings) per liter. It said so on her small homemade cardboard sign. Further away a small crowd gathered around a teenager who was dealing cards and collecting money. Nobody seemed to be able to guess which card was red and which was black. But they kept trying, and he kept taking their money. 

Occasionally a big truck would drive by - they always sounded loud and important. Every time that happened the little kids who were hanging around by the roadside cheered and shouted out the name of the kind of truck: Mercedez! Volvo! Scania! They were tallying up how many of each type would go by.

Father stopped someone who was selling bananas and bought some for Zag. He made a comment in passing that mother would join them soon and he was keeping some bananas for her. He lied and Zag knew it. Not in the way he sometimes knew Mother's thoughts. He could tell that Father's voice was at the same pitch as when he had said that he'd seen Mukalo at school yesterday. That was also a lie because Zag and Mother had just been at Mukalo’s school and they hadn’t seen Father there.

Had Zag been even more aware he would have known that the bird hovering above them was a Koah-Koah - a Bateleur eagle - his totem bird. His Oracle. He would have known that there was a link between the bird being present and him being extra-perceptive. He would have known that hearing his mother’s voice was only one of several things he could do when his Oracle was nearby. He would have known that he could talk to the bird and the bird would answer back. But he didn’t know any of these things. Not yet anyway.

All he knew was that he was far away from home for the first time in his life and that Mother was not around, and Father was not telling him the truth, and that he had this uneasy feeling.

The Koah-Koah flew above Zag, closer than he had ever seen it. It landed on a clearing in the ground twenty feet away. Away from the people, but close enough that  Zag could look at it. Again he felt this feeling of familiarity with the bird and was compelled to move toward it. Father was now in an animated conversation with someone else. Something about money.

I'm going to play with the other children, Zag said to his Father. Please call me when it's time to go.

OK, son. He didn’t even look up.

Zag climbed down from the pick-up truck and started walking towards the bird, expecting it to move. It didn't. It stayed right where it was and seemed to make eye contact. He stopped trying to decide what to do.

I'm going to kill him. He knew it was Mother's voice in his head. But the voice also seemed to come from the bird although the bird’s beak did not move.

I'm going to find him and then I'm going to make sure he regrets this for the rest of his life. How dare he?

Zag wanted to make sure so he took one step toward the bird, careful not to make it fly away. Then he waited. All the time his eyes were transfixed on the bird’s eyes, and the bird’s eyes on his. Another step, and still the bird didn’t move. It stood there with its gaze steady through bulgy yellow eyes and its feet firmly planted on the ground. Another step.

Zag noticed that its beak was the same yellow color as mangos back home. A yellowy-orange that assured you of ripe fruit. He also noticed that there was a tiny piece of pale brown sisal tied around its left leg - like someone had captured it at some point. He wondered how long ago that was.

Zag! It was Father.

It’s time to go.

The Koah-Koah crouched a little, launched from its powerful legs and shot into the air. It was lightning-quick and flew in a straight line until was a small black dot in the sky - like a speck on the blue canvas.