Loxodonta – Part 2
A small boy, Ali, saw the bulldozers and builders move in and tiptoed away. When he tugged at his father’s sleeve and asked, “Why?” the old man just shook his head and mumbled about the old days, about men who moved all the time but never saw anything; and the growling animal that drank dark water. Whatever that was, he knew that something wonderful must be coming, more beautiful than the forests and lakes that stood quietly behind his house. Otherwise, why would anyone choose to destroy the trees that freshened the air? His father looked doubtful, but Ali thought it must be a miracle they were making.
He grew older and watched men in strange, up-and-down suits come and go, arrive and leave again in their jeeps, their vans and land-rovers. Sadly, when he saw the mess they made, the noise and heat they added to an already parched land, he turned around and left, his shirt tails flapping in the wind. At home, he cast off his western gear that cut into his back and under his arms. He threw a blanket over his shoulder and walked out, behind the compound into the forest that he had grown up with, that was shrinking.
He headed to the darkest, deepest part of the trees and smelled dampness near a hot face of rock. Tracing it with his fingers, he felt a darker line and followed it to the base. He bent, crouching close, and pulled away sharp grasses, exposing the fresh, welcome scent of wet earth and rotting vegetation. The tang of water bubbled up from beneath. Drawn towards it, wanting to know where it led, he carefully followed a snaking line of slick silver until he had walked perhaps two kilometres. The sun overhead made his shadow thin but he followed the snake water as it gathered strength.
Birds flew around his face, dipping and swooping to drink, then weaving away. Once or twice, a crested starling or a swallow came close, wing feathers touching his forehead, claws close to his crown but he swept them quietly away and continued his precise pacing forward. He did not tire easily, and could comfortably walk a swift ten kilometres in an afternoon. The water blackened and deepened, becoming a strong, drifting line which drew Ali ever deeper into the forest. Alone, he was surrounded by secret life: the calls of scarlet starlings and flapping crane, the swooping cries of monkeys and the chatter of gibbon colonies high up in the canopy. The undertow of insect hum was reassuring, though it carried a faint hint of menace.
Up ahead he saw, in a clearing a hundred metres or so farther on, another rock face towering skyward. Much smoother than the earlier stone, it seemed to guard the forest: immutable, silent and powerful. Quickening, Ali reached the wall and glanced up the smooth igneous surface. No foot holds here. No way forward. And the river was before him, disappearing in a blur of water. As he was about to turn and retrace his steps, he thought, “Where does it go – not through rocks?” He frowned and crept closer to watch.
