FIVE - Healing a Sick Man

Ricci looked at Diofe as if he waited for Diofe to confess. It’s what some fools do to fortunetellers: they walk in and sit in grinning silence. The thought made me huff-cough, determined to stifle the laughter. Priscilla walked in and I opened my mouth to announce her: “Mr. Ricci, this is Priscilla.”

“Morning tea and vegetables, Mr. Ricci. Y bienvenidos. Bien venue. Just a little amuse bouche.”

Ricci looked at Priscilla, his eyes glistened.

“I do miss her singing. I remember it so well . . . I can almost hear her now.”

“I have not warmed up my voice this morning,” she said.

The Diofe looked at her and smiled.

Priscilla stepped away and looked out the window, to watch the flowers stretch in the morning light. She opened her mouth as if about to yawn but sound escaped from her lungs like breath. As she started to sing, butterfly-like poisajos appeared at the window and began to hum a soft melody to match hers. She opened the window; their hum became a little louder, and a duo of the smaller ones fluttered in. One of them, its sapphire body the size of a large banana, danced around the room and landed on the mantel. Its wings caressed the air, moving up and down while gem colored refractions danced on the walls creating a soft light show. The other, smaller poisajo landed on Priscilla’s shoulder. She continued to sing, and the two poisajos in the room silenced their harmony while those outside the window continued humming. Still singing, Priscilla walked from the window to Ricci: she the Medusa; he a gape-mouthed stone. She put one hand on top of his head and the other one down the back of his neck and held there. After a minute, she ran the other hand down his neck to his shoulder. The stress on his face, heretofore unnoticed by me, melted away. Priscilla’s fingers crawled like a spider down his shoulder blade continuing to investigate a few ribs down his spine. He had been leaning in his chair: a just off-balance plum line, he now righted. She stopped singing. She smiled at the Diofe, removed her hand and left the room. I hung there near the door.

“What are those – things?” asked Ricci.

“You have been away a long time,” said the Diofe. “Time does something to your memory.”

“It’s funny but I can almost remember their humming. It’s a funny feeling, almost remembering.”

“They sing,” corrected the Diofe. “Priscilla is the one Yuhiketuh that elicits that particular response from them. This afternoon, that flutter will be singing the song she just created while healing you. When they hear her sing, they flock to her. They harmonize and support every other Yuhiketuh. However, with Priscilla, they analyze and memorize her song. The ones outside the window learned the melody, the two inside learned the intention, the poetry. Those two rudders, intention and poetry, guide the rest of the flutter in an expression of her song.”

Ricci stretched his arms over his head, stood up and arched back.

“How did she know? I pulled a muscle in my back just yesterday.” Ricci asked.

“A healer is no good who doesn’t know,” said the Diofe.

“Like you knew – and Miguel knew – I was coming?”

“And here you are.”

The next words followed in his same, unchanging way: not cold, not condemning, just the facts. “Most people, Ricci, enjoy hearing themselves talk. I didn’t want to rob you of that pleasure.”

“I came to see her.”

I wondered if he didn’t know her name, or if it would be all too real if he said Arous out loud.

“Miguel, please get Arous.”

FOUR - Apex Agrestic

“Ricci,” I said. It had been days since our last vision of Arous and I could get Ricci out of my head. I was alone on the porch. Remembering . . .



Years earlier, I stood half-asleep on the front porch when the car snaked down the road to the main house. I wasn’t expecting anyone. At least, visitors hadn’t entered my mind-sight. The hairs on the back of my hand tingled as I watched the car pass the weeping willows and come up the oak-lined drive.

The Diofe appeared beside me.

“Miguel, it’s the bright one.”

He always called him that.

“I didn’t want you to be alarmed, so I kept the mind-sight from you,” the Diofe said.

“Why’s he here?” I asked as I closed and opened my fist.

“It’s not to take Arous. He just wants to see her.”

“You are in control,” I told him.

The Diofe exhaled. “Always.”

A curtain rustled just behind us. A small round face stared out, jutting over the window ledge. A fat, two-and-a-half year old, greasy finger traced a shape on the condensation before it was led by Priscilla’s hand into the kitchen.

“Snacks won’t impress him,” I said to the Diofe.

The Diofe smiled and moved inside to his Willing Room and waited.

The long, wheeled vehicle pulled up at the front of the house: the driver, looking more like a jockey than a footman, helped a distinguished looking young man out of the car. He was Amalgamese to a T: honey skin, amber eyes, the joy of his mother and community. I knew him because he’d once spent nine months in our midst, learning from the Diofe with five other Amalgamese boys. He was a few years older now. He was tall, almost lanky, but short for an Amalgamese. His wide smile dwarfed his large almost orange eyes and his hair fell in short ringlets around his jaw line. He was stunning to watch.

“Good morning, Mr. Ricci. We’ve been expecting you. I’ll take you in to see the Diofe,” I said.

“Expecting me? My mother sent you and VIH-dot? That woman -”

“No, Mr. Ricci, your mother didn’t send us any message. No Voice or Voice Image Hologram Dots.”

“I know. I know. I was only joking. Lighten up, Miguel. You’re . . . special. I bet you don’t even use V-dots.”

He just stood there grinning at me.

“I’ve really togged up, haven’t I? Compared to the ragamuffin boy you used to know?”

“You certainly didn’t have to on our account.”

He laughed and slapped me on the back as if we were old friends. “Stuffy-Miguel. Just like I remember.”

I opened the door and walked in behind him. I heard the kettle sing in the kitchen and detected Pricilla’s Yuhiketuh’s harmony as we passed into the Willing Room. The Diofe stood to receive Ricci, motioning to a chair across from him. A few coals popped in the fireplace behind him, adding a rhythmic gentleness to the welcome of the room. The further Ricci stepped into the room, the more he disarmed: arms uncrossed, smile relaxed and the lines on his forehead disappeared.

“Ricci,” said the Diofe.

“I’m here for her,” he said still standing.  

THREE - Clear to You

Edlawit’s eyes sprung open. She began to jump up but I was still holding her hands and pulled her back down.



“Let’s go. Why don’t we go get her?”

“No,  Edlawit, that’s not what we do.”

“What?”

“ Edlawit, do you know where in time this is?”

“No,” she said averting her eyes.

“Then sit back down. Learn before leaping that this is a possibility,” I said.

“The future?”

“Maybe. Notice the light around the edges of your vision? The foggy light?”

“Yes.”

“We need to see all of this -”

“If we’re going to help her, right?”

“Maybe.”
Edlawit sat back down and we followed Arous down the hall of her memory colored in black and white and vivid accents.


A man once came to Alippiana to offer her father, the Diofe, larger pigs, pigs that must have been just like the ones Arous looked down on now.

“Sir, these are the best hogs ever made by man.”

“Made by man?”

“Yes, they’ve been bred, cloned and test-tubed into perfection. Actually, these pigs were the latest development before the end of the Sixth Day. Yes sir, these are the descendents of the last pigs perfected by Scientists. They get bigger, have more nutritional value, eat less, will eat anything, taste better. Last week I had a couple of chicken-flavored ones but I’m out of those now. Why these little piglets I got in the back of my truck, benefit from the final stages of super protein research finalized before the Sixth Day. Supersized and immunized by human protein. A little extra DNA. I can guarantee-”

The Diofe stopped and looked at the man, looked through the man so that he couldn’t even finish his next sentence.

“Touch the pig.”

“Sir?” asked the pig.

 “Touch him.”

The man reached into the back of his truck and laid his hand on the back of one of the pigs.

 “Open your eyes and see.”

At first the man just stood there. His breathing got heavy, his face turned red and he began to sweat.

The Diofe picked-up Arous and sat her on his hip. They had been out for a walk along the river when the man waved the Diofe across the bridge. She was only about seven years old at the time. He held out his hand to the man and the man turned clear. Arous could see right through him.

“I wish you were older but you should see this, the way the world is.”

Through him Arous could see time, events, people, places all the way. Each one a puzzle piece in the creation of this piglet. She saw all the abuse people suffered, the injustice. The classless, the poor, the addicted bodies were living Petri dishes. Things grown on human petri dishes transplanted into pigs for the sake of human famine but really only fed human greed and sick curiosity.

Lunese slaves tended these pigs until Lunese slavery was outlawed. Then Lunese slaves were fed to these pigs to cover up there being possessed by Pantaganent Canadi.

Then this man, this man, he –

The Diofe stopped the vision stream.

“Take your pigs in your truck and go. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” he said. The man trembled. “What will I do?”

“Make restoration,” he said.

“Sir, I can never make up for all the damage that has been done. Even if I sell everything I have!”

“No?” the Diofe asked. “No, you can’t. This isn’t about the past. Change is of the future. Go and do no more harm.”

They watched him get in his truck and go.

“What will happen to him Daddy?”

“Well, sweet,” said the Diofe. “As always, I’ve said it, it will happen whether he willingly does it or refuses my words.”

“What happens if he doesn’t?”

“He’ll pay for it.”

“I hope he does the right thing, Daddy.”

 “I do too, Arous,” he said. “I do too.”
The images through the clear man haunted her forever after that, even now she got lost in thought about him and all the injustice surrounding one tiny transaction: the sale of pigs.

She looked down at the hyper-breed of hog just now out of reach of her fingers.
One enormous hog hulked bigger than the rest. Arous relaxed and leaned over dangling her arms toward the trough of slop. With one hand she reached out toward the tall hog. He fought his way just below her and within reach. She wondered what she might see and thought probably nothing.

Not able to resist, she tugged on his ear. Nonchalant, he shook his head. She reached down a little further trying to plant her hand on his back.

“I’d be careful if I were you,” a tense, gentle tenor rang behind her.

Arous jumped almost falling over into the mass of swine.

“Easy.”

Familiar hands pulled her shaking body to the steady ground.

“Jude.”

Arous was shocked to see him. Sadness, joy, confusion, embarrassment, anger and relief all fought insider her and she began to cry.

Jude was tall and light skinned for an Amalgamese. In fact, he looked very little like an Amalgamese; he didn’t share their honey skin, tawny eyes or dirty blond ringlets. He had steady grey eyes. He stared at her for a moment in silence.

“Arous?” he asked. “I didn’t recognize you . . . are you ok?”

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” Arous said and began to cry.

“I'm glad you made it. You’re safe here.”

“Am I? He’ll find me here. He’ll know. He’ll see what you’re -”

“Arous, Ricci may be conniving, manipulating and murderous but he can’t read minds. He won’t find you here. I promise.”

He kissed her on the forehead, scooped her up in his arms and the vision faded into fog.