Akisha

Thursday Session 8: Rewriting Exercise

Bear with me. This was written several years ago at an age when woodland fantasies still had some appeal. It has a similar theme to the Lighthouse story. I prefer the Lighthouse story. Which do you prefer?

****

There was a land where rain came more often than the sun for one half of the year, and sun came more often than the rain for the next half. This happened for every year as long as the sun continued to chase its lover the rain, who continued to run away, crying at the sun’s great heat.

Akisha loved both the sun and the rain. When it rained she stayed indoors and practiced the sword in the sheltered yard with her father, or if Ruika was around he would shoot at the straw balls she threw for him; sometimes Ruika would teach her the bow, too, but she was never as good at it as she was at the sword. Akisha had never yet touched a metal sword, or hurt anyone even with her wooden practice sword. Father refused to say if he had killed anyone, which was one of the ways Akisha knew that he had. He would come in with a heavy walk, sometimes with a scratch or a wound, and he would not answer when she asked him, “Did you kill anyone today?” “Hush!” Mother would say. Then she would push Akisha to the kitchen to bring the lemongrass ointment from its place in the cupboard.

Akisha stopped asking that question one day when her parents gave her permission to follow Ruika hunting. This time it was no straw ball but a rabbit hopping about in the grass, stopping every now and then to nibble at the stalks. Ruika gave it a little more time than he normally would so he could tell Akisha about how a hunter stalks his prey.

“Always stand downwind of the animal. Become grass, become rock, become the rain that falls on the earth.”

“I know that already. Quick, shoot it before it runs away.”

“Be quiet! And don’t be impatient. They can sense danger, even if they don’t see, hear, or smell you. The smallest movement…”

He also wanted to show off his shooting skill, so he let it hop a little further away.

“Oh, it’s getting--” but her words were interrupted by the bow’s twang as the arrow hissed towards its target. For a moment the rabbit seemed only alarmed—perhaps the arrow had missed—as it jumped high into the air. But then it landed on its side, gave two twitches, and stopped moving.

“Yes, a good shot!” said Ruika, punching his bow into the air. He usually celebrated with a little self-satisfied smile and sometimes one who looked closely would think his eyes sparkled: the exuberance today was for Akisha’s benefit. Yet she did not praise him. She stood up and ran to the little brown heap on the ground. “You killed it,” she told Ruika, and he did not understand why she looked hurt, as if he had said something nasty to her.

Two more rabbits and a pigeon followed in place of the straw balls. Akisha helped skin them with her small knife. One rabbit, the last, had not been hit cleanly; it was still twitching, its hind leg describing feeble circles as if it still imagined it could escape. Akisha held it by the ears and slid her blade across its throat in one swift movement. Something warm and wet trickled onto her fingers, and without opening her eyes she knew it was blood. She heaved a sigh and the sudden release in her chest made her realize that she had been holding her breath, too. Ruika was resting on a stone, looking at her with a lopsided smile. Not wanting to disappoint her brother, she continued her work with business-like alacrity. The animals were soft and warm to the touch, but as she sliced through the skin and her blade hit flesh the warmth was already ebbing; the pinkish flesh looked glazed. Blood oozed lethargically out of the wound.

When it was done, Akisha wiped her knife on the grass and said in a soft voice that she never knew she possessed, “Let’s go home.”

At home, Mother asked, “What did you get?” Akisha laid the dead pigeon on the table. Ruika recounted the day’s killings with pride as he surrendered the rabbits. One had been brown, and the other two black, but without their fur coats they were indistinguishable flabby masses. Akisha wondered if people looked like that underneath their skin too. Mother praised Ruika and tutted at Akisha’s sun-browned face: “Oh, what is to become of you, if you go out and play hunter with your brother. I tell Papa to keep you at home, but no, he trains you with the sword and arrow.” Mother always put up a fuss and Ruika told her it was something to do with getting married.

A week later, when Akisha’s father returned wounded and weary from one of his trips, she crept onto his lap and clung round his neck and hugged him tight as her mother washed his wounds. She wondered what he had done that week to keep the village safe; how many of the bandits and Southerners he fought were marksmen; whether they had the metal arrows which Ruika said could pierce armour. She knew he would not say anything if she asked, so she shifted till she could whisper into his ear, “I’m glad you’re back.” "As long as you're here to welcome me, I'll come back." Akisha thought of the rabbit leaping high into the air, caught in the sharp surprise of an unsuspected arrow. For the first time she realized that what Father said might not always be a promise he could keep. But it was good enough.