By G.R. Nanda
Walking around the smelting station, Farrul and Nickel were led to two large circular vessels in between the flaming posts.
Behind, were tribespeople shrouded in dark fog, standing still.
The crackle of flames atop the plates was louder than the eerie wind which was always blowing.
Nickel had grown so accustomed to the fog in the wind that he took it for granted as much as he had taken the home of the Eagle’s inner machinery, the roar of city traffic or the ever constant chirping of nighttime critters from his vague ancient memories of natural surroundings.
The line Nickel was moving and suddenly stopped.
“Take off your shirts and climb into the eggs,” ordered Li.
“What?” Nickel and Farrul said — Nickel a beat of a second after Farrul.
Li looked ahead at the shrouded group behind the bottom halves of the “eggs” that lay before them.
“You heard him,” said Jerome in an indifferent tone. “Everything’s been leading to this. Great Father Hawk cannot wait!”
Nickel flinched at his sudden harshness of tone.
What other choice did he have other than to do as he was told? These people fed him after all.
Nickel inhaled and stepped forward.
While the people behind the eggs were darkened, he could still feel their eyes on him. Seeing the still and faint frames of the people behind him, Nickel felt tense and on the spot. He watched with expectation.
“We don’t have all day,” growled Li.
Farrul stepped forward next to Nickel.
Nickel slowly removed his long shirt, taking the time to slowly graze the rough Atlantic Tribe– made cloth against his skin. He shivered. As the shirt came off, he felt awkward, exposed and–– naked (even though he wasn’t).
Once he removed it, he dropped the cloth to the ground. Farrul started to remove his own shirt.
Nickel looked down at his body, raising his palms towards himself. He was certainly leaner-– close to frail. His stomach was more gaunt than before, however his skin was caullused and held in tighter against muscles that were harder than before.
This was the first time he’d been able to focus on his own body’s appearance since leaving the Eagle. Labor with the tribe had certainly made him harder- more muscly. It had also made him gaunter. He looked more toned, but weaker at the same time.
Layers of grime coated different parts of his arms, back and chest. While he looked rougher and tougher, he was still not nearly as tough looking as the many boys who weren’t too exhausted to use the stone pull-up bar and otherwise work their bodies out while everyone else collapsed from the exertion of their labor.
Farrul looked similar to Nickel, toned with bare muscles sticking out against his skin. But he was still gaunter than Nickel. Skinnier.
Of course. Unlike Nickel, Farrul wasn’t as well fed or able to tarry in excess for a significant portion of his life.
He eyed Nickel nervously. They were wide and his eyebrows were slanted in insecurity. It was unlike Farrul, whose eyebrows were often furrowed in a scowling facade of bravado and cynicism.
They both shivered and drew in ragged breaths, entering through and around chattering teeth.
“Sit down,” orderdered Aziz. “In front of the eggs with your backs turned to them.”
They did as they were told. Nickel sat cross-legged in front of the left egg. He still shivered, but when his bare back touched the cold surface of the egg, he cringed and gave a large shudder, taking his skin off of the egg. Even through his pants, he felt the stony ground poke his legs.
He didn’t know where to look since all of the eyes staring at him from the front made him uncomfortable.
Once Farrul was seated in front of the right egg, footsteps sounded from behind. Two adolescent girls appeared from around stone posts, carrying stone pitchers that spilled water lapping at the rims.
Nickel had no time to get a good look at the one who moved to Farrul because the other girl moved right up to him and started working, occupying his attention. She moved in swift precise movements, barely looking Nickel in the eye. She quickly squatted down and poured the pitcher of water over Nickel’s head.
He closed his eyes and gasped as lukewarm water slapped the top of his head and trickled down in torrents that did nothing to improve the shivering cold, over his face, neck and chest.
For a while, when water flowed over his skin and was trapped in his eye lashes, he grimaced and his vision was blurred. He only saw murky brown and red colors of the girl moving across him, using a rough cloth surface to scrub him.
He pulled his stomach and the muscles all over his body taut, wanting to pull inwards and away from what was happening to him.
But as he blinked away, the water and moisture dried on his face. He started getting used to the scrubbing. His breathing became more normal, losing its shallowness.
He looked into the girl’s face. She had a smooth aquiline face. Her eyes were narrow and above her sharply curving jaw were tight lips pursed in concentration.
Her limbs were slender– gazelle-like. Looking her up and down, Nickel observed she was very slim– petite, but long.
Judging by the sudden constriction in his chest, he figured she was also attractive.
Suddenly, their eyes met–– hers intent, dangerous, his wide, insecure and distracted. He immediately averted his eyes, embarrassment flowing through him and burning his cheeks.
A rough scrape at his stomach brought his attention to the girl’s hands which were fervently scrubbing his body, trying so ferociously to quickly dry him that she was almost scratching him.
She upped the ante, really digging into his flesh. Nickel winced and squeezed his eyes. His skin was starting to feel rubbed raw.
Farrul grunted loudly.
The girl in front of him reached around and scooted behind him, scrubbing the droplets on his back. Feeling uncomfortable, he kept his arms close to his body and hunched over, staying still.
The girl literally pushed him forward in order to scrub his back.
He grunted from the force, but allowed her to scrub.
Li, Aziz and one of the scruffy-haired boys still stood there grim-faced. The other scruffy-haired man to the right end of the line appeared to be smirking at Nickel.
Flustered, he looked at the ground.
While he felt uncomfortable at his bareness, he strangely felt open to the scrubbing girl. He felt ruffled by her. Nervous of her. But strangely…………. giddy about her………. and her proximity to him.
Nickel scoffed and shook his head.
The girl returned to him. The young woman who had scrubbed Farrul returned to him too. They both returned with new pitchers. They dipped their fingers in the pitchers and began painting the two young men.
The girl working on Nickel brought a finger of orange paint from a pitcher stiff with orange liquid to Nickel’s chest. He shuddered and slightly grimaced at the stiff but molten feel of the enamel.
The girl furrowed her eyebrows and squinted in concentration at his chest. She looked away from his face, at her hands on his body, indifferent to his eyes and even his personality. It was as if he was just an object– a canvas — and her real area of focus. The thing she was really interacting with was his skin and the picture she was trying to draw on it.
She started with long orange streaks lined horizontally across the skin above his breast; she drew three on each side of his chest, the two bottom ones each shorter than the one above.
She reached in the pitcher again and produced a glob of orange paint that she pressed in between the six lines, creating a wide circle. Then, she brought the pointer and index finger of her left hand up, marking a small oval streak above. Then, she cupped that oval off with a curving mark.
She wiped those fingers on her dress and reached into a smaller pitcher with her other hand, producing brown paint.
Below the drawing of what appeared to be a winged creature (Nickel didn’t think this was a coincidence), she drew three lines: two slanted and next to each other and one on top.
A nest?
Using the same fingers, she marked his shoulders with three dots that reached across.
‘You guys do this to all newborn babies?” Nickel muttered. The girl ignored him.
Without looking into his eyes, she peered at his face. She dipped her right hand into the pitcher of orange paint again. Bringing it up to his face, she painted streaks on both of his cheeks. She dipped her fingers again into a different pitcher, drawing yellow paint and rubbed them on the middle of his forehead.
Around and around. She started from a small center point and reached around, stopping before she touched his eyebrows. She removed her hand and stepped away, leaving many gooey and moist spots on his skin, with an especially gooey and moist spot on his forehead.
The young woman who’d drawn on Farrul stepped away too. Farrul looked queasy. His mouth was drawn into a straight firm line. It trembled with discomfort. His eyes twitched.
Farrul had marks on himself too. They seemed to have been drawn on him in locations similar to where Nickel had felt paint on his skin.
A large yellow round ball was drawn on his forehead (the sun?) and orange streaks lined his cheeks, three on each side. Each line below was shorter than the one above.
Encircling his bare shoulders were three small brown dots. On his chest, painted over his breasts were orange streaks just like the ones on his face: three on each side, each lower streak shorter than the one above.
In between the streaks was a round orange ball, just like the one glistening on Nickel’s chest.
A hawk.
Their chest’ drawings looked like hawks.
And the three brown lines below each of their chests looked like nests.
The girl in front of Nickel stood away, looking him over.
She held her small eyes high, peering over her nose. A small smile of satisfaction showed on her edging lips.
She quickly turned around and walked away, around the post and back to the silent herd, waiting behind. Her short ponytail bounced one way and the other.
The young woman who’d drawn on Farrul did the same.
Nickel’s painter was imprinted onto his mind. Even after she’d left and his vision had returned to the scene of firelight casting itself upon the solemnnity before them in the darkness of early dawn, she refused to leave his mind’s eye.
Her presence and her appearance captivated him.
It was almost as if………………..
………………he’d known her from before.
The sound of crunching stone filled the air, becoming louder and louder as herds of tribespeople emptied the huts on the East and West Wing, one after the other.
Was she from an acht-chi dream?
The wind had been slight, just a weak phantom of a storm, howling faintly. It kicked up a bit, obscuring the several crunching feet, emerging out of the house and from behind the stone posts.
Carried torches had emerged in the East Wing, illuminating the crowd of once darkened figures. Both Nickel and Farrul’s painters were there standing alongside grim men, women, man-lings, woman-lings and young children.
Some small rows of people were adorned in colorful outfits with more feathers on a person and splayed on a person than Nickel had ever seen in the Atlantic Tribe.
There were people holding stained drum sets and various other instruments Nickel could not recognize.
While more carried torches joined the mix, swaths of orange fog thickened around them like chemicals in water, billowing, surrounding and obscuring.
The howling wind picked up, slowly rising in volume.
“Wait!” said Nickel, turning to face Li and the other men who’d brought him here. “Storms starting! What are we supposed to do? What are me and Farrul supposed to do? We can’t stay out here with no shirts on!”
“That’s why you’re getting into the eggs,” said Aziz.
Nickel and Farrul turned around. Their eggs were of a grey grainy stone exterior, while the interior was dark, pitch black and smelled slightly musty.
Nickel looked back at the men. They too were becoming obscured by the orange. But he could see their hair and their long tan robes, flowing to the right in the wind.
“So get in!” growled Li.
Farrul and Nickel climbed into their stone half-eggs. Tenderly lowering himself in, Nickel allowed for the touch of cold stone, dirt and some other mostly dried residue.
It was cold and smelled dank. Certain areas of the dark interior were wet, dripping onto his skin and soaking parts of his pants.
The bottom was dark and the whole interior became a lot darker once a top half was placed on top by a tribesperson, sealing him off from the developing windstorm and sealing him in a pitch-dark that he couldn’t escape, no matter how hard he tried to pound or tear at the shell with his hands.
G.R. Nanda 