Second Exit

by London Lampy

Chapter 17

"All the angels are above," Sampson points to the village. "God showed me the truth, I am bound to the earth, but I can learn to be an angel amongst all this beauty."

He's sitting on Barney's porch looking around with wide eyes, Eline told Sora that he needed some fresh air and that he was now well enough to leave the hut for short periods of time. He is looking much better, his skin is no longer grey and the rash has completely disappeared, his mental state however is...odd. Eline hands him a bowl of cream coloured slop along with a silver spoon, then tucks a square of material into the neck of his borrowed shirt to act as a bib. She says something to him, which Sora translates as "you need to eat, it's banana meal porridge, it's good for you". One of the words Eline says is clearly "ixat", Vio looks at me and smirks, I ignore her.

"My angel," Sampson says, smiling fondly at her.

"Let's leave them to it," Vio takes my arm and pulls me away, gesturing at Sora to come with us. We walk a little way into the clearing until we're out of earshot of the porch.

"Why has he gone fucking crazy?" Vio asks Sora, not sounding at all happy.

Sora makes a contemptuous snorting noise. "You think he's crazy because he admires Eline? Because he sees the forest as beautiful now? His illness brought him to a state of oneness with Gui, oneness with the forest, it's something very few humans are willing to, or able to, understand."

"I understand crazy, and he's it," Vio growls at her.

"What's oneness?" I ask, hoping to defuse things.

"It's a place of pure understanding, a place between the visible world and the invisible world, a place where Gui can speak to your soul."

"Bollocks," Vio retorts. "Look at him, does he look like a person some all powerful god would want to talk to?"

She has a point, he hasn't shaved for several days and now has a scraggly grey beard, he's lost weight, he was kind of thin before but now you can almost see his bones and his eyes are much too wide. Added to this he's eating baby food with a while wearing a bib, he looks exactly like the sort of street person you'd cross the road to avoid.

"Some people will never be able to understand anything beyond their own small concerns," Sora says smugly.

"And some people know bullshit when they smell it," Vio snaps back.

They glare at one another, and I can see this turning nasty. Fortunately Llando picks that moment to come and find me, dropping out of the trees above and greeting me with a cheerful "Hello Exit".

"Hey," I reply. The two women give each other one last dirty look, then Sora stalks off, back in the direction of her hut. "Good timing," I say.

"Hu?" he frowns.

"Never mind, are we going?"

"We go," he nods.

I look at Vio. "Please don't get into any more fights with Sora while I'm gone."

"Supercilious cow," she glares in the direction Sora went. "She's not worth the fucking bother."

"Good."

Llando pokes me in the arm with his finger then jumps back into the tree he came out of. "I'll see you later," I say to her.

"Have fun on your date," she teases, and it's my turn to frown at her.

We're several miles away from the village, and we haven't set foot on the ground once. Llando has led me through the trees, sometimes jumping on ahead, then stopping and waiting for me to catch up. A while back I saw a whole lot of wild monkeys and it was very strange, despite the fact I've spent my whole life being called "monkey" I've never seen a real, live one before, only the moth eaten stuffed one that the tobacco shop near work has in their window holding a tray of cigars.

Llando and I have now climbed to the top of a tree that has some kind of small, deep reddish brown fruit on it. He sits on a branch, wrapping his tail around it for support, and gestures for me to join him. This tree is even taller than most of the others and I can see forever in all directions, miles and miles of trees stretching away to the horizon like a leafy green sea. Sticking out above them all some way off is a pillar of rock, some kind of strange hill or mountain that has a flat top. Its greenish colour suggests that it has grass growing on it and I'm reminded of being out at sea sitting on the top of the mast and spotting passing islands.

Llando reaches out and picks a handful of whatever the fruit is then passes a few of them to me. They're about the size of walnuts with a shiny outer coating that's smooth to the touch, I look at him questioningly. "What am I suppose to do with these?"

"Eat," he grins, taking one and placing it between his back teeth. He cracks the coating then peels it off with his fingers. Inside is a creamy orange coloured ball and he puts it in his mouth, chews it for a moment, then holds out his empty hand and spits a large, dark brown stone into it. "Na eat." He holds it up for me to see, then drops it, sending it tumbling through the branches to the ground.

I copy what he did, the outside breaks easily between my teeth and I have no trouble removing it once it's cracked. I sniff the orange bit, it smells pleasant and fruity so I put it in my mouth, the flesh is soft and comes away from the stone as I chew, it tastes like a cross between vanilla custard and peaches and soon I'm spitting out the stone and getting to work on another one. I've eaten about half a dozen when a movement catches my eye, I look round to see three grey furred monkeys sitting on another branch a few yards away from us, eating the fruit too. They're doing exactly what we're doing, cracking the outsides with their teeth, peeling away the coating, eating the orange bit then spitting the stones to the ground. I look at them, and they look at me, and I'm really, really glad that there are no humans around to witness this.

"Hu?" Llando ask, poking me in the shoulder when he notices that I've stopped eating.

"Monkeys," I reply, pointing at them.

He gives me a one shouldered shrug, then claps his hands, sending them leaping away from us, hooting loudly as they go. Soon after that we leave the tree too, Llando seems to have a destination in mind and I think it's the pillar of rock. As we get closer I can see that it towers over the trees, it's sides are rough and craggy and it has ledges with plants and even small trees growing on them.

When we are almost within touching distance Llando stops and points at it. "Exit climb?" he asks. I squint upward, I've never climbed anything that high before, but I'm willing to try, especially with Llando here.

It turns out to be an easier to climb up than most buildings, it's covered with cracks and jagged bits that I can hold onto, and we occasionally stop to rest for a few minutes on one of the ledges. Llando leads the way and I follow, putting my hands and feet more or less where he does, assuming that he's done this many times before. When we reach the top he pulls himself up then leans over and offers me his hand, which I take, letting him help pull me up the last few feet, I don't need the help though, not really. Once we're both up I'd quite like to stop and catch my breath but he's off again and I trail him to the middle of a grassy area where he jumps onto a large, flat rock and sits down. I join him, trying not to look like I need to rest. On the other side of the rock is a clear pool that he's dangling his feet into, I look down, there are small silvery fish in it.

"How the hell did they get all the way up here?" I ask as I settle beside him, carefully putting my feet into the pool too. In reply he links his thumbs together and moves his hands to imitate wings. "Fish can't fly," I protest.

"Na," He shakes his head, turning his hands into a bird again, then letting one of them fall away, wriggling it like a fish then making a splashing sound.

"The birds brought them up here?" That only sounds slightly more likely than them flying here by themselves but he nods and says sa. I then notice a tiny bright yellow and black striped frog, no bigger than my thumb, sitting on the rock in a damp, shady crack. I put out my hand toward it, not really intending to touch it, more to see if I can make it hop.

"Na!" Llando suddenly shouts, grabbing my wrist and pulling my hand away.

"What's wrong with the frog?" I frown at him.

"Bad," he lets go of me and points at the frog. "Sick."

"The frog is sick, or it'll make me sick if I touch it?"

"Sick...kill," he shrugs. "Na..." he holds out his hand then rapidly brings it back. Don't touch.

"Fuck," I move away from it until I'm right up against Llando. How can something that small and pretty looking be that dangerous? I check around me to see if there are any more frogs, or anything else that could kill me, but I don't see anything.

"Forest," Llando says looking out at the view with a small smile on his lips. From here the forest could be the whole world, and I realise that to Llando it pretty much is. I feel him wrap his tail around me so I decide that it's alright to do the same back to him, and when I do his skin is warm and smooth against it.

"Exit like forest?" he asks me.

"Yes." But I wouldn't want to live here.

As he looks over the trees I look at him. I'm close enough to kiss him and I wonder what he'd do if I did? If I was at home and I was sitting like this with a boy and we were both almost naked I wouldn't hesitate to kiss him but the rules are all different here. No one wears much clothing and everyone seems to touch everyone else all the time. I consider my options, I could kiss him, and he could kiss me back and it would kind of be a perfect moment up here all alone looking out over the forest. Or I could kiss him, and I could have got it completely wrong and he might get really pissed off and leave me out here with no idea of how to find my way back to the village, and without him around to tell me not to touch poisonous frogs and stuff things could go badly wrong. So I decide not to kiss him, for now anyway.

"Have you ever been to the city, to Shelly?" I ask him instead.

"She...lay? Na," he shakes his head. "Exit come She...lay?"

"No." I guess Barney hasn't told him too much about where I'm from. "I come from Parnell, it's a very long way from here, over the sea."

"Sssea?"

I don't suppose he's ever seen the sea, but then neither had I until last year. "It's water, lots of water, you can only cross it in a ship."

He look at me blankly, and as I can't think of any easy way to explain about the ocean we sit in silence for a bit until he puts out his hand and strokes the top of my arm. "Na tendra," he states.

"What...hu?" I ask him.

He touches his own arm where his tattoo is. "Tendra..." he then touches my arm in the same place, "Na tendra."

"No, I don't have a tattoo," I shake my head.

"Ta...too? Na," he touches his arm again. "Tendra," then touches my blank arm, "drumeri."

"Um...I know what that means, but I don't know what tendra means," he frowns and sighs.

It's not easy to have a conversation when neither of you really speaks the others language. He then surprises me by resting his head on my shoulder, his braid falling sideways and tickling my back. I risk putting my arm around him, even going so far as to stroke his side with my fingertips. I'm reconsidering my decision not to try and kiss him when I see a movement from out of the corner of my eye. The tiny yellow and black frog is hopping away from us across the rock, and I get a cold shiver thinking about what might have happened if I had touched it, and I come to the conclusion that making any sort of move on Llando is something best done back in the relative safety of the village.

"So he took you up to the top of the tor eh?" Barney grins at me. "That's a sacred place you know, did you find Gui?"

"Um, no. But I did find a little yellow and black frog that Llando said could kill me though," Barney nods at me as if agreeing with this.

We're sitting on Barney's porch eating some sort of spiced mashed vegetables. I was gone for most of the day and despite eating a load more of the custard peach tasting fruits on the way back to the village by the time I arrived I was very hungry so Barney invited me to eat dinner with him and Sora. I feel kind of disloyal to Vio but Barney said she ate already with Sampson and I don't think she'd want me to go hungry.

"Stay away from the yellow and black frogs, and the red ones too, but the blue ones are harmless," Barney says as he scoops a mouthful of food from his bowl.

"Unless you eat them," Sora adds.

I can't imagine any circumstances under which I would eat a frog, spiced mashed vegetables are a different matter though and soon Barney is refilling my bowl, which is fine china with a pattern of birds and fruit on it.

"Where does all this fancy stuff come from?" I ask, indicating it.

"Ah, well you see once we've liberated the slaves and destroyed the plantations normally the slave masters abandon their land and never come back." Or they get killed.

"Not their land husband," Sora chides him. "Our land that they have stolen."

"Yes, quite. With the houses left empty the contents are ours, it would be a crime to leave things that are of use to rot and be destroyed by the animals." That explains all the expensive looking china and the chandelier in the big house.

Once I've finished the second bowl of food I'm feeling full and sleepy and am considering turning in for the night, but I have one thing I want to ask Barney before I go. "What does "tendra" mean?" I say.

"Where did you hear that?" he asks in reply.

"Llando. I thought he was talking about his tattoo, but then I wasn't sure, he called me "drumeri"."

"In a manner of speaking he was talking about the tattoo," Barney glances over at Sora.

"Alright, hand me your bowls and I'll go and wash them, you can explain to him once I'm out of earshot." She then gathers up the dishes then disappears off across the clearing carrying them.

"Some things are not allowed to be spoken of in front of women. We men have our secrets and they have theirs, and that's the way things are. I suspect what young Llando was trying to tell you was that he's a man and you're not. It's something I've been planning to speak with you about but he got there first, I'm afraid neither of Mathi's twins have much tact."

"What do you mean, I'm not a man?" I frown.

"Only that you haven't been through the ceremony to turn you from a drumeri, a grown boy, into a tendra, a young man. The tattoo is part of that, it's the first time your skin is inked, every major event of a man's life from that point on is written on his skin, and the tendra ceremony is the start of it."

"I'm not considered a man until I get a tattoo?"

Barney laughs. "It's much more than that, the ink is the very least of it, the external, visual part. The change that matters most is in here," he balls his hand into a fist and bangs it on his chest. "In your heart and in your soul. You must die as a child and be reborn as a man. Each person's experience differs, but it is an important ritual that every echoback male must undertake to be considered an adult." He gives me a long, knowing look.

"But I'm not from here. No one in my city would understand, or care, about something like that," I reply, catching on to what he's suggesting.

"But now you do know how can you not care, are you content to spend your whole life as a child in the eyes of your race?"