So Long Been Dreaming (23 page)

No, not quiet, crying? A soft sound, like a child awakened from sleep. He shook his head in pity. He didn’t know what other secrets the folk expected to drag out of their prisoner. She was just an old woman, no matter her skin, and anyway, what could they prove against the street peddler, guilty of nothing but being where being was no longer a sin.

When the guard’s last echo disappeared in the night, Mema crept back to the well and picked up the stone harp’s broken pieces. She held the instrument in her free hand and released the grasshopper on the well’s edge. She half expected it to fly away, but it sat there, flexing its legs in a slow rhythmic motion, preening. She clasped the harp together again, sat down on her haunches, and began to blow softly. As the child curled up in the warmth of her own roundness, she set off to sleep, drifting in a strange lullaby. She could vaguely hear the grasshopper accompanying her, a mournful ticking, and the grasswoman softly crying below, the sound like grieving.
Maybe
, she thought as her lids slowly closed,
maybe the grasswoman could hear it too and would be comforted
.

She awoke in a kingdom of drumming, the ground thumping beneath her head and her feet. The hoppers! A million of them covered the bare ground all around her and filled the whole street. Squatting and jumping, the air was jubilant, but the child could not imagine the cause of celebration.
The grasswoman is free!
she thought and tried to rise, but the grasshoppers covered every inch of her, as if she too were part of the glass city’s stone streets. All around they stared at her, slantfaced and bandwinged, spurthroated and bowlegged. It was still night, the twin Sun had long receded from the sky and even the lamps of the city were fast asleep. Nothing could explain the hoppers’ arousal, their joy or their number, why they had not retreated in the canopy of night. Not even the world, in all its universal dimensions, seemed a big enough field for them to wing through.

Mema carefully rose, brushing off handfuls of the hoppers, careful not to crush their wings. The air hummed with the sound of a thousand drums, each hopper signaling its own rapidfire rhythm. They seemed to preen and stir, turn around as if letting the stars warm their wings and their belly. The child tried to mind each step, but it was difficult in the dark and finally she gave up and leaned into the well’s gaping mouth.
Grasswoman?
she called, and stepped back in surprise. The drumming sound was coming from deep within the well. She placed her hands above the well’s lip and felt a fresh wave of wings and legs pouring from it, the iridescent wings sparkling and flowing like water. The grasswoman had vanished, the place had lost all memory of her, it seemed. Mema called the old woman, but received no answer, only the drumming and the flash of wings.

She decided to return to the okro, the stone tree where for a time the grasswoman had lived. There was no longer any other place where she might go. There was some that pitied the grasswoman, but none enough to take her in. No street, nor house, only the stone tree’s belly. As Mema walked along, the hoppers seemed to follow her, and after a time, her movements stopped being steps and felt like wind. It was as if the hoppers carried her along with them, and not the other way around. They were leading the child to the okro, to the stone forest, back to the place where the story begin.

Mema arrived at the grasswoman’s door, and looked at the stone floor covered with blood-red shards, the heartstone ground into powder. The okro was no longer dull stone, but was covered in a curious pattern, black with finely carved red lines, pulsing like veins. She stood at the door of the great trunk, and entered, head bowed, putting the distance between herself and time. Was there any use in waiting for the old woman? Mema blinked back tears, listened for the hoppers’ drum. Surely by now, the grasswoman had vanished, taking her stories and her strange ways with her, a fugitive of the blackfolk’s world again. The child took the stone harp and placed it to her mouth. She lulled herself in its shattered rhythm, listening with an ear outside the world, a place that confused her, listening as the hoppers kept time with their hind legs and tapping feet. She played and dreamed, dreamed and played, but if she had listened harder, she would have heard the arrival of a different beat.

There she is! That old white hefa inside the tree!

Spiteful steps surrounded the okro, crushing the hoppers underfoot.

It’s the woman with her mouth harp. Go on, play, then. We’ll see how well you dance!

They tossed their night torches aside, raised their mallets, and flung their pick axes through the air. The hammers crushed the ancient stone, metal teeth bit at stone bark. Inside, the girl child had unleashed a dream: her hair was turning into tiny leaves, her legs into lean timber. Her fingers dug rootlike into the stone soil. The child was in another realm, she was flesh turning into wood, wood into stone, girl child as tree, stone tree of life. Red hot blades of grass burst in tight bubbles at her feet, pulsing from the okro’s stone floor, a crimson wave of lava roots erupting into mythic drumbeats and bursting wingsongs. Somewhere she heard a ring shout chorus, hot cry of the settlers’ voices made night, the ground fluttering all around them, the hoppers surrounding the bubbling tree, ticking, wing-striking, leg-raising, romp-shaking vibrations splitting the stone floor, warming in the groundswell of heat. And from the grassdreaming tree, blood-red veins writhing, there rose the grasswoman’s hands. They stroked crimson flowers that blossomed into rubies and fell on the great stone floor. Corollas curled, monstrous branches born and released, petal-like on the crest of black flames. The child’s drumskull throbbed as she concentrated, straining to hear the grasswoman’s call, to remember her lessons, how to make music without words, without air and drum, and her thoughts floated in the air, red hot embers of brimstone blues drifting toward the glass-walled city.

And as the ground erupted beneath them, the settlers stood in horror, began to run and flee, but the children, the children rose from tucked-in beds, the tiny backs of their hands erasing sleep, their soft feet ignoring slippers and socks, toes running barefoot over the stone streets and the rocks, they came dancing,
skip hop jump
through the glass door into the stone wood, waves of hoppers at their heels, their blue-green backs arched close to the ground as they hopped from stone to hot stone, drumming as they went, bending like strong reeds, like green grass lifting toward the night. And that was when Mema felt the sting of blaze, when the voices joined her in the song of ash and the stone’s new heart beat an ancient rhythm, the children singing, the hoppers drumming, the settlers crying.

And when the Sun rose, the land one great shadow of fire and ash, the hoppers lay in piles at their feet. They had shed their skins that now looked like fingerprints, the dust of the children blowing in the wind all around them. And that night, when the twin Sun set, the settlers would think of their lost children and remember the old woman who ate stones and cried grasshoppers for tears.

Wayde Compton
wrote
49th Parallel Psalm
(ArsenalAdvance, Arsenal Pulp Press, 1999) and edited
Bluesprint: Black British Columbian Literature and Orature
(Arsenal Pulp Press, 2002); the former was shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. A new book of poems,
Performance Bond
, is forthcoming in 2004 (Arsenal Pulp Press). With Jason de Couto, he is one half of The Contact Zone Crew, a turntable-poetry performance duo. He is also a founding member of the Hogan’s Alley Memorial Project, an organization established in 2002 to preserve the memory of Vancouver’s original black neighbourhood. He lives in Vancouver and teaches English literature and composition at Coquitlam College.

The Blue Road: A Fairy Tale
Wayde Compton

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

– John 3:8

How the Man Escaped the Great Swamp of Ink

The man had lived in the Great Swamp of Ink for as long as he could remember, and for as long as he could remember, he had always lived there alone. The swamp was made of the deepest and bluest ink in the world. The man’s name was Lacuna.

One night, just before dawn, Lacuna tossed and turned, unable to sleep. He sat up against a tree and wept. He was hungry and thirsty, but all there ever was to eat in the Great Swamp of Ink were bulrushes, and he was forced to drink the bitter-tasting ink to survive. He dreamed, as always, of leaving the terrible swamp. As he cried, he noticed the swamp brightening. Lacuna looked up to see a large glowing ball of light as bright as a sky full of full moons. He stood up rubbing the tears from his eyes, and stared at the ball of light that hovered above the blue marsh.

It spoke.

“My name is Polaris,” said the ball in a bottomless voice. “I live in this swamp, but I have never seen you here before. What are you doing in my home?”

“I beg your pardon,” Lacuna replied, barely keeping his composure in the face of this very remarkable event. “I don’t mean to trespass. Are you a ghost?” He was terribly afraid of this talking ball of light.

“I am Polaris!” the ball shouted. “I am a will-o’-the-wisp, the spirit of this bog. And I ask you again, what are you doing in my home?”

Lacuna was very frightened, but he was also very clever, and he saw an opportunity to escape the swamp.

“I’d gladly leave your home, Mr Polaris, sir,” he said carefully, “but I’m afraid I’ve lost my way. Since I can’t remember which direction is home, I guess I’m just going to have to stay here.”

The will-o’-the-wisp grew larger and pulsated.

“You can’t live here!” Polaris roared. “This is
my
home. You must leave immediately or I will shine brighter and brighter and blind you with the light of a thousand suns!”

“Now look here, Mr Polaris, there’s no need to get angry.” Lacuna spoke soothingly. “If you’ll tell me the direction that I need to go to get home, and lead me to the edge of the swamp, I’ll get out of here forever and let you be.”

“And you’ll tell all the others like you to stay out of my home?” the will-o’-the-wisp persisted.

Lacuna, who was very clever, realized that other people may some day find themselves here in the Great Swamp of Ink. He thought very quickly of an answer that would not get them into trouble with the will-o’-the-wisp because he was not a selfish man, and he did not want others to be blinded.

“I’ll be sure to tell people to stay clear of your swamp,” he said sincerely, “but when I tell them about how big and shiny and pretty you are, I’m sure some of them will want to come and see you for themselves.”

Polaris’ glow softened.

“Really?” he said wonderingly. “You think they might come into the swamp just to see me?”

“Oh, of course they will! When I tell them how bright and sparkly you look, just like a star fallen loose from the sky, a few of the brave ones are bound to come just to catch a sight. They won’t be wanting to stay, though – just to catch a sight and be on their way. I’m sure you can understand that?”

The will-o’-the-wisp was quiet for a moment, and Lacuna held his breath waiting for his answer.

“Well,” the will-o’-the-wisp said slowly, “I can understand how some of your people might want to come and see me. I
am
rather dazzling, especially on clear nights like tonight. But if they come, they cannot stay! They can only catch a quick glimpse and then I will escort them immediately to the edge of the swamp! This is
my
home and no one else’s. Surely you can understand the sanctity of one’s home?”

Lacuna nodded gravely.

“And now it’s time for you to leave. You have witnessed my beauty for long enough. Now tell me: which direction is your home?”

Lacuna had successfully tricked the will-o’-the-wisp into leading him out of the swamp, but now he was faced with a question that confused and confounded him more than any other: which way
was
his home? He didn’t know. He visualized the four directions in his mind as if they were on a wheel, and in his mind he spun that wheel; the point was chosen.