Anka was pacing in front of the gate to the Rush. Many of Kurush’s teenagers worked as message couriers – not the most reliable system at the best of times, and it was a given that they’d inspect the message entrusted to them for any hint of gossip. Anka had managed to employ their old neighbour Ekur, the lecherous lisha was much more subdued than the last time they’d met. He would recognise Oresh, but all the direction she could give him was ‘he lives somewhere in the Ekuan quarter now’. Maybe Ekur had spent hours wandering the Ekuan quarter before giving up? Or maybe she had made a mistake on the tablet – the character for ‘midday’ looked a bit like the one for ‘waste’, what if Oresh was waiting for her at the rubbish tip? It’s only Oresh, she reminded herself, he’s just an old friend.
When she saw him ambling her way with a goofy smile, the
arrowheads running up his face making him look absurdly anxious, her nerves
evaporated. She ran up to him.
“I was so glad to get your message,” said Oresh, “I was
starting to think you’d forgotten about me”
“I said I wouldn’t, didn’t I?”
He was carrying her family’s ancestral chest, which he put
on the ground. Before Anka could lean down to pick it up, he wrapped his arms
around her and held her tight.
“When I saw you running away over the rooftops that night, I
thought I might never see you again”
Anka stroked his back, “To be honest, I’m surprised I made
it this far as well. But I’m fine now”
She opened the chest to see Shanessa’s figurine atop the
stack of ancestors.
“Thank you for keeping this safe. And here, put this on,” she
handed him a blue clay guest pass, “let me show you where I live”
She took his hand and led him through the gate and into the
Rush. Oresh was silent as he marvelled at the high walls and their intricate
mosaics. Despite Anka dragging him along by his arm, he still managed to bump
into several lishas and hurums rushing the other way along the narrow streets.
Goresh was standing with his arms crossed at the entrance to Lurush’s estate.
“Goresh, this is the friend I mentioned”
Oresh quivered under Goresh’s unrelenting gaze, but Anka
pulled him through the doorway. On the other side, Oresh completely ignored to
the mountain-like mansion and was almost immediately distracted by some bees
busily hopping from one flower to the next in the shady forest. But Anka
dragged him away and up to her room. She put her family chest by the bed.
“What do you think? Quite a view, eh?”
“Yeah, it’s nice”
Can he really not think of anything more to say, thought
Anka, or is he being judgmental?
“Anyway, how is everything with you?”
“Kurush is pretty tense at the moment,” said Oresh, “each
day there are more disappearances, and that only widens the divide between
lishas and hurums. I don’t know how this is going to resolve itself. Will the
lishas force the hurums into submission? Will the hurums be backed into a
corner and resort to violence? Or can we find a way to make Kurush work for
everyone and bring everyone back together? How will future generations look
back on today? Will they see it as a minor bump, or maybe as a kind of regenerative
crisis that reminded Kurush what its values were, or maybe as the beginning of
the end? No, it can’t be that, we’ve got to believe that Kurush can be saved,
that it can be made into something truly beautiful. There’s no other place like
it in the world, if it’s destroyed there will be nothing but barbarism forever”
He sat on a chair by the window and slumped forward looking
at the floor.
“You don’t have to worry about all that up here,” Anka moved
closer to him, “listen, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you
about. Do you remember the games we would play when we were kids? Like when I
would hide, and you, Bukur, Kisha, Ragur would try and hunt me down?”
“I remember. You always found the best hiding places”
“And you were always good at finding me. Do you remember the
time you caught me behind the amphora in the pantry in your house? We must have
been eight or nine”
Oresh hesitated, “I remember…”
“You pinned me down, I could see in your eyes how much you
wanted to eat me. I knew you thought I looked delicious”
Oresh shifted awkwardly in the chair, “I wasn’t going to eat
you”
“I knew that. I’ve never met anyone as gentle as you, you’re
the last person who would ever kill someone. I knew I was safe. Back then, the
whole world felt safe. But seeing that raw desire in your eyes, knowing that my
friend would just love to gobble me up… I can still remember clear as day how
exhilarating that felt. I want to feel that again”
Her heart pounding, she whipped off her tunic. The shock in
his face confirmed everything she thought about him. Her body felt uneasy being
laid bare in front of a predator, but with a deep breath she reminded herself how
long she had wanted this. He rose from the chair, but she put her hands on his
shoulders and pushed him back down.
“You slinked away from the pantry”
“I felt terrible, I was scaring you”
“You don’t have to slink away today. This is new for me too,
but I think we’d both enjoy it. Just think, you’ve got a yummy, delicious,
scrumptious hurum all to yourself. Just think what you could do with me. Just
think how it’d feel having me in your mouth”
Oresh’s eyes were darting from the ceiling to the window to
the floor, “I shouldn’t, I mustn’t. The desire to eat hurums is the root of
Kurush’s problems”
Anka sighed, “You’re a lisha, start acting like one. Do you
know how many lishas want to eat me? How many would beg to be in this room
right now instead of you?”
“I refuse to be that kind of lisha”
Anka’s eyes narrowed, “Are you really ashamed to be a lisha,
or is that shame just hiding something else? Is it arrogance? Do you think
you’re better than everyone else because you refuse to have fun? Or maybe it’s
simply cowardice?”
He got up, pushed past her and walked to the door.
“You’ve got no balls, Oresh!” Anka pulled her tunic back on
“Where’s Lurush? I’ve been working with the Sapphire Temple
to feed lishas in poverty, but we’re barely making a dent in the problem. I’m
hoping Lurush can give us more funds”
“You think I’d let you talk to her? Goresh! Goresh! By the
Sun, I was going to give you a copper ingot to help you and your mother get by,
but if you’re just going to throw it away by spending it on some low-lifes…”
“Throw it away? Do you think Shanessa would say that would
be throwing it away? She’d still be here if that lisha wasn’t starving”
“Don’t you fucking dare bring Shanessa into this”
Goresh thundered into the corridor, the crown of his head
grazing the ceiling, his eyes crackling with lightning.
“I’m sorry Goresh,” said Anka, “my friend is determined to
be a nuisance. He’s overstayed his welcome”
“Okay, okay, I’ll leave,” said Oresh, “I’m glad to see
you’ve gotten used to living in the Rush so quickly, Anka”
She watched Goresh escort him off the premises, then dove
onto her bed and starting punching her pillow. Once her arms were tired, she
lay there wondering whether she’d gone too far or not far enough. I should have
known I couldn’t get him to see reality, she thought, his head is too high up
in the clouds. Did he really say he works for the Sapphire Temple? That can’t
be right, a prude like him wouldn’t go near it, I must have misheard him. Maybe
I should go to the Sapphire Temple myself, surely I can find someone else to
have some fun with.
Constructive criticism welcome
© Paul Bramhall
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