16. ANGEL-TINT

A glorious summer's and Owong is curious about Heaven...

What a summer it was!

What a glorious, sun-shining, wonderful summer in which to be alive! The weather was all blue skies and white-hot sunlight and it bathed the River-Bank folk with the kind of warmth than could only have shone onto a very young world. How poor we are in these later times not to know it!

“This,” said Owongo to Mirumda as they both lay on the dry grass next to the broad river which was, daily, becoming less broad, “this is Heaven.”

“What’s Heaven?” asked Mirumda, the sun warming her left breast until it glowed, and Owongo didn’t know anything about Heaven. He must have heard the phrase some time in his life, but he didn’t know where or what Heaven was. Owongo Junior was gurgling to himself as if to suggest that Heaven might be everywhere, but Owongo chose to ignore him. He had yet to discover the wisdom of the very young!

“I know. I will find out.” Owongo was very decisive for one who in later years would be called a teenager still, but that was Owongo.

“You find out then,” murmured Mirumda, turning to expose her right breast to the heat of the sun.

What a glorious day! What warmth! What peace!

And Owongo stood up, shook himself and set off to find out where Heaven might be. After all, it was a word that indicated a place, and if a place existed Owongo thought he ought to know how to find it and where it was.

He set off and went past Mirumda’s Mouthing stone before veering off, because he had no intention of going up to the Mount of the Dead. That, he thought, might just be tempting providence, and anyway the air up there always had a musty smell to it, like death.

He sauntered. That’s as fast as he could go, what with the weather and the way it tried to bake him, and before long he came to a place he didn’t know. He ought to have known it, he thought, bearing in mind its proximity to his homestead and the river and the ambling gait with which he’d found it, but he didn’t.

But then, how can a man even in these advanced times be expected to know everywhere, he asked himself. To him they were advanced times. They even knew how to light a fire, which demanded huge skill bearing in mind they knew nothing about matches. So, to those living then, the times were truly advanced.

The place he didn’t know was inhabited, and by the azure tint of the genitalia of the man who came to greet him, it was a branch of the tribe of Blueknobs. And the blue chosen by that individual seemed to match the day perfectly. It seemed to reflect the purity of the blue sky, though Owongo did his best not to stare. It was, he knew, impolite bordering on rudeness to stare at certain parts of another’s anatomy.

“Greetings, stranger!” called the other, and Owongo bowed his greeting. “You are, sir, a Blueknob?” he asked, politely.

“You know of us?” asked he with the azure appendage. His smile was broad and his beard was long, and he gave the impression of being in the possession of great wisdom. Beards did that so far as Owongo was concerned. He decided there and then to try to get his own straggly strands to grow more swiftly.

“I have met one of your cousins,” replied Owongo hesitantly, “he is a brave man who called himself Mika, and he sought help for, he told us, his people were under siege by the orange man.”

“Ah, Fart-fart,” sighed the other, “but first, let me introduce myself. “I am called Angel-tint after, the paint with which I daub my man-parts, for it is widely admired by those who respect me.”

“It is beautiful,” agreed Owongo. “My own people, we go about in summer without paint of daub, but I can see how the ladies might like it. I am called Owongo, for my sins.”

“There are no ladies here!” frowned Angel-tint, “we are an all-male enclave, for we worship Gid.”

“Gid? That is a new name to me...” murmured Owongo, wondered how an enclave of men could possibly survive in a world in which women seemed to be almost more important than men were. After all, he thought, Mirumda does so much...”

“We worship the Great Gid,” nodded Angel-tint, “for the Great Gid is our creator, and he made everything we see and touch and hear, even the songs of the sparrow and the twitch of the grasshopper! The Great Gid is good, there can be no doubt of that!”

“Never heard of him,” replied Owongo shortly, for his opinion of creation had little to do with invisible forces and more to do with the reality of what he could touch or eat. But then, times were young.

“I invented him myself,” explained Angel-tint, smiling broadly. “I went forth into the world on a pilgrimage and came upon a field of poppies which, when ignited and the smoke therefrom inhaled, gave my head the most pleasant buzz and made my eyes open so that I could quite easily see the pink mammoths flying past me, their trunks like huge dangly-bits in the skies. And then I had a series of visions. Have you ever had a vision?”

“I’ve had dreams,” suggested Owongo, “and the occasional nightmare,” he added.

“Well, these were visions. Proper straight-from the gids visions! I saw places you would never believe could exist, great furnaces in the night skies, mighty fields of poppies, so red and pink and puce you could eat them. And high on his throne amidst them was the great Gid. the creator. The one mighty force behind everything, and when I’d seen him I knew I had to spend the rest of my life in isolation from the world, which is why you find me here, and by golly it is good to find a stranger to talk to!”

“There is only the one of you?” asked Owongo.

Then he laughed a trilly little laugh and bowed. “I have my fellows here,” he said. “We came from the home of the Blueknobs where we were born and raised, but are happy amongst like-minded souls who have been to the poppy fields and had mighty visions.”

“I prefer dreams,” said Owongo firmly, “but tell me, Angel-tint, what do you know of a place called Heaven?”

“Never heard of it,” sighed the man with the sky-blue genitals, “but I do like the sound of it! Yes, I most certainly do! I can imagine it here and now as I stand and talk to you! It is a place in the skies where we go when we peg it, and we spend eternity in the bosom of the Great Gid! It makes perfect sense to me! Oh, what a glorious chance it was for you to come along and meet me, and spend a few minutes telling me of Heaven!”

“Oh good grief...” sighed Owongo, and: “I fear I must leave you now, mighty Angel-tint,” he said, “for my woman and child await me by the Great River, and I have news for them.”

“You have? Tell me more!” exclaimed Angel-tint.

“That wherever you look there are mad men,” murmured Owongo, “and mostly they are mad because they dream too much. I bid you farewell, my friend, and long may you dream on...”

Angel-tint frowned thoughtfully. “I cannot tell whether that is an insult or praise,” he said slowly.

“Take it as praise. Great praise,” said Owongo.

The other’s eyes lit up. “Oh mighty Owongo, may Gid bless you...” he replied, and he giggled. “And may we meet in Heaven,” he added.

TO BE CONTINUED…

©Peter Rogerson 25.04.17