OWONGO'S ILLUSION

Owongo, the most primitive of cavemen, ponders on the Universe....

In the far off times when people were barely people and Owongo was a caveman he knew everything there was to know about the Universe.

To the south (he didn't call it that, but it was where the sun invariably warmed things up) ran the river with its accompanying cliffs on the far bank, cliffs that reached higher than a man or a mountain and marked the southern edge of everything.

To the cold North were the mist-enshrouded mountains with their frilly white caps and from which the distant sound of wolves howling like the wild beasts they were chilled the blood.

To the East was the mystic border where the sun always rose, winter or summer unless clouds covered the Heavens, and then he guessed that beyond the clouds the sun still rose.

And with delightful symmetry, the west was where the sun set at the end of the day, sometimes in a brilliant fiery multicoloured display and sometimes almost nonchalantly.

This was Owongo's Universe and in his mind there was a delightful unity to it. There was no need for there to be anything else anywhere.

“This is my Universe,” he told his woman, Mirumda. “The skies join the east and the west, the north and the south, and beyond those borders there is nothing.”

“Owongo not know for sure,” murmured his woman, watching him carefully because if she ever dared challenge any of his preconceptions she was in danger of receiving a back-hander for her cheek.

“Owongo know!” he crowed. “Owongo look and see no point in anything else! What we see is all of everything, so there!”

“And the carrion birds flying on high...” she ventured, “those that swoop from over the Northern mountains, where they come from?”

“Silly bugger woman,” he growled, “they created by the mountains... the mountains and the river and our land is all there is...”

And he wandered about the cave-village, explaining his Universe.

“It all there is,” he crowed at Longi, the chief. “Owongo say!”

“Owongo mad,” growled Longi, and kicked him in the testicles as hard as he could, twice for good measure. “That for being mad!” he explained.

Owongo bent double and grabbed his flaming organs. “Owongo right,” he dared to venture as he sloped off. “Owongo see the truth.”

Longi hurled a rock at him and it was just as well that it missed or Owongo and his theories would most likely have been lost to time with his early and violent demise.

When his pain had subsided he wandered towards Elektra, the chief prostitute, a fine woman who lived in the largest, most luxurious cave and who smoked dizzy weed half the day long.

“Owongo sees the truth,” he grunted, hands discreetly in front of him lest she respond to his theories in the same way that Longi the Chief had, though he had a shrewd suspicion she had different plans for his gonads. But she didn't do anything. Instead, she beckoned him into her spacious cave and made a very precise and tempting suggestion to him.

“Mirumda not like...” he began, but by the time the third word was out Elektra was naked and groping towards him.

“Mirumda not know...” she breathed, and as the stench of her breath hit him Owongo grasped enough sense to turn and run as fast as he could, as far from the prostitute's den as he could get before losing his own breath. She picked up her pipe and inhaled of her dizzy weed, and coughed.

He arrived, gasping, by the river and almost stumbled on Gruzzle, a young fisherman who was hard at work catching very little.

“What you rushing for?” demanded Gruzzle, not liking Owongo very much.

“From Elektra,” explained Owongo shortly.

“She high?” asked Gruzzle, interested.

“As a very high thing,” replied Owongo. “And naked,” he added.

“You wise to run, then,” said Gruzzle. “Now piss off. You scaring the fish.”

“I believe,” said Owongo, choosing his words carefully, “I believe that the whole Universe is everything we can see and no more.”

“And no gods?” asked Gruzzle.

“No gods,” agreed Owongo. “No place for gods.”

“Bugger off,” grinned Gruzzle, and pulled a shining silver fish out of the crystal water of the river.

Owongo wandered off and met Humpy, the grizzled hunter who, having reached his thirtieth birthday was the most senior man in the village and who would have been Chief had he not been too stupid for such an elevated position in a tribe struggling for existence.

“Say Humpy,” grunted Owongo, “I have theory that all we can see, from the mountains to the river, is all there is anywhere.”

“You have insufficient data to make such a claim,” replied a shocked Humpy, “now sod off and try to see sense!”

Owongo shook his head, frustrated, and wandered off. He walked to the North until he came to the mountains.

“I'll prove that I'm right,” he grumbled to himself, and he started climbing the mountains. Slowly, painfully, he hauled himself from the warm climate at the foothills to the freezing ice-caps that decorated the mountain peaks the whole year round, and he started shivering. But he knew what he had to do. He had to climb to the very top of the mountain and confirm that all there was beyond it was nothing at all, no void, no blackness, certainly no land, just an empty nothing.

In the end he arrived there and stared in horror.

Down below, beyond the mountains, a forest stretched for as far as his eyes could see, and every so often from this or that clearing little curls of smoke rose in the air, evidence that someone had lit a fire.

“What the hell is fire?” he asked himself.

Author's Note

Over the years I have written many short stories based on my character Owongo, several of them being on this site. If this proves to be popular I may post more. He also figures in part of the 5-part Lulu-published epic "The Jewels of Ooombis"

Reviews

[Chinmay]

I'm now starting to feel confident that you surely love to add a touch of erotica in your stories. But they make them fun to read. I laughed at the part where Owongo was kicked in the testis and Long I says "That for being mad!"

[Peter Rogerson]

When you reach my age you've forgotten what erotica's based on ... almost!!!