Cloud Atlas

We all yaysayed, so up she sat on the lead ass an’ a short ’n’ sweet yarn she spoke what I’ll tell you now so all you shut up, sit still an’ someun fetch me a fresh cup o’ spirit-brew, my throat’s gluey ’n’ parched.

Back when the Fall was fallin’, humans f’got the makin’ o’ fire. Oh, diresome bad things was gettin’, yay. Come night, folks cudn’t see nothin’, come winter they cudn’t warm nothin’, come mornin’ they cudn’t roast nothin’. So the tribe went to Wise Man an’ asked, Wise Man, help us, see we f’got the makin’ o’ fire, an’, oh, woe is us an’ all.

So Wise Man summ’ned Crow an’ say-soed him these words: Fly across the crazed ’n’ jiffyin’ ocean to the Mighty Volcano, an’ on its foresty slopes, find a long stick. Pick up that stick in your beak an’ fly into that Mighty Volcano’s mouth an’ dip it in the lake o’ flames what bubble ’n’ spit in that fiery place. Then bring the burnin’ stick back here to Panama so humans’ll mem’ry fire once more an’ mem’ry back its makin’.

Crow obeyed the Wise Man’s say-so, an’ flew over this crazed ’n’ jiffyin’ ocean until he saw the Mighty Volcano smokin’ in the near-far. He spiraled down onto its foresty slopes, nibbed some gooseb’ries, gulped of a chilly spring, rested his tired wings a beat, then sivvied round for a long stick o’ pine. A one, a two, a three an’ up Crow flew, stick in his beak, an’ plop down the sulf’ry mouth o’ the Mighty Volcano that gutsy bird dropped, yay, swoopin’ out of his dive at the last beat, draggin’ that stick o’ pine thru the melty fire, whooo-ooo-ooosh, it flamed! Up ’n’ out o’ that Crow flew from the scorchin’ mouth, now flew with that burnin’ stick in his mouth, yay, toward home he headed, wings poundin’, stick burnin’, days passin’, hail slingin’, clouds black’nin’, oh, fire lickin’ up that stick, eyes smokin’, feathers crispin’, beak burnin’ .?.?. It hurts! Crow crawed. It hurts! Now, did he drop that stick or din’t he? Do we mem’ry the makin’ o’ fire or don’t we?

See now, said Meronym, riding backwards on that lead ass, it ain’t ’bout Crows or fire, it’s ’bout how we humans got our spirit.

I don’t say that yarn’s got a hole sack o’ sense, but I always mem’ried it, an’ times are less sense is more sense. Anyhow, the day was dyin’ in soddy clouds an’ we was still some miles shy o’ Honokaa, so we tented up for the night an’ throwed dice for watch, see, times was bad an’ we din’t want to risk no ambush. I got a six ’n’ six so maybe my luck was healin’, so I thinked, fool o’ fate what I am, yay, what we all are.

Honokaa was the bustlin’est town o’ noreast Windward, see, Old Uns’d builded it high ’nuff to s’vive the risin’ ocean, not like half o’ Hilo nor Kona neither, what was flooded most moons. Honokaa men was traders ’n’ makers mostly, oh they worshiped Sonmi but they divvied their chances slywise an’ worshiped Hilo gods too so we Valleysmen reck’ned ’em half savages. Their chief was called Senator, he’d got more power ’n our Abbess, yay, he’d got an army o’ ten–fifteen knuckly men with whoah spikers whose job was to force Senator’s say-so, an’ no un chose Senator, nay, it was a barb’ric pa-to-son bis’ness. Honokaa was a fair midway for Hilo ’n’ Honomu folks, an’ Valleysmen ’n’ Mookini b’fore they was slaved, an’ the hill tribes upcountry. The town’s Old-Un walls was rebuilded fresh an’ blown-off roofs mended over ’n’ over, but you could still strolly round its narrow ’n’ windy streets an’ ’magin’ flyin’ kayaks an’ no-horse carts wheelyin’ here ’n’ there. Last there was the bart’rin’ hall, a whoah spacy buildin’ what Abbess said was once named church where an ancient god was worshiped, but the knowin’ of that god was lost in the Fall. Church’d got strong walls an’ beautsome colored glass an’ sat in a lushly green space with lots o’ stone slabs for pennin’ sheep ’n’ goats ’n’ pigs ’n’ all. Durin’ the barter, Senator’s guards manned the town gates an’ storehouses an’ they’d got a lockup too with iron bars. No armyman never knucklied no trader tho’, not unless he thiefed or busted peace or law. Honokaa’d got more law ’n anyplace else on Big Isle ’cept the Nine Folded Valleys I s’pose, tho’ law an’ Civ’lize ain’t always the same, nay, see Kona got Kona law but they ain’t got one flea o’ Civ’lize.

That bart’rin’, we Valleysmen did a whoah good trade for ourselves an’ the Commons. Twenty sacks o’ rice from the hill tribes we got for the Prescient tarps, yay, an’ cows ’n’ hides from Parker’s Ranch for the metalwork. We telled no un ’bout Meronym bein’ an’ offlander, nay, we named her Ottery o’ Hermit Dwellin’ from upgulch Pololu Valley, Ottery was a herb’list an’ a lucky freakbirth, we said, to ’splain her black skin an’ white tooths. The Prescients’ gear we said was new salvage we’d finded in a stashed hideynick, tho’ no un ever asks So where’d you get this gear? an’ s’pects to hear a truesome answer. Old Ma Yibber keeps her slurryful mouth corked outside Nine Valleys, so when a storyman named Lyons asked me if I was the same Zachry o’ Elepaio Valley what’d climbed Mauna Kea last moon, I was diresome s’prised. Yay, said I, I’m Zachry o’ that Valley, but I don’t hate this life so much I’d go anywhere near the roof o’ that mountain, nay. I said I’d gone huntin’ presh leafs ’n’ roots with my last-life Aunt Ottery, but we din’t go no higher ’n where the trees stopped, nay, an’ if he’d heard diff’rent, well, I were here tellin’ him he’d heard wrong. Lyons’s words was friendsome ’nuff, but when my bro Harrit telled me he’d seen Lyons ’n’ Beardy Leary mutt’rin’ down a smoky dead end I reck’ned I’d tell-tale him to Abbess when we got home an’ see what she thinked. A rat’s ass tang I’d always smelled comin’ off Leary, an’ I’d be findin’ in jus’ a bunch o’ hours how, oh, how right I was.

Meronym ’n’ me bartered off our goatwool spinnin’s ’n’ blankies ’n’ all pretty soon on, yay, I got a sack o’ fine Manuka coffee, some plastic pipin’ in fine nick, fat oats an’ bags o’ raisins from a dark Kolekole girl, an’ more gear too what I don’t mem’ry now. Kolekole folk ain’t so savage I reck’n tho’ they bury their dead uns b’neath them same longhouses where the livin’ dwell ’cos they b’lief they’ll be less lonesome there. Then I helped with our Commons barter for a beat or two then strolled here ’n’ there, howzittin’ with some traders from round’bouts, savages ain’t always bad folks, nay. I learned the Mackenzymen’d dreamed up a shark god an’ was sac’ficin’ bladed ’n’ footless sheeps into their bay. Usual tales I heard too ’bout Kona rowdy-in’s eastly o’ their normal huntin’ grounds what shadowed all our hearts ’n’ minds. A crowd o’ watchers I finded gatherin’ round someun, nustlied nearer an’ seen Meronym, or Ottery, sittin’ on a stool an’ sketchin’ people’s faces, yay! She bartered her sketchin’s for trinklety doodahs or a bite o’ grinds, an’ folks was gleesomer ’n anythin’, watchin’ with ’mazement as their faces ’ppeared from nowhere onto paper, an’ more folks clustered sayin’, Do me next! Do me next! Folks asked her where she’d got that learnin’ an’ her answer was always It ain’t learnin’, bro, jus’ practice is all. Uglies she gived more beautsome ’n their faces’d got, but artists’d done so all down hist’ry so Ottery the Sketchin’ Herb’list said. Yay, when it came to faces, pretty lies was better ’n scabbin’ true.

Night fell an’ we tromped back to our stores an’ drawed lots for sentryin’, then partyin’ began in spesh dwellin’s named bars. I did my sentryin’ early on, then showed Meronym some places with Wolt an’ Unc’ Bees b’fore the musickers drawed us back to Church. A squeezywheezy an’ banjos an’ catfish fiddlers an’ a presh rare steel guitar there was, an’ barrels o’ liquor what each tribe bringed to show their richness an’ sacks o’ blissweed ’cos where there’s Hilo, oh, there’s blissweed. I skanked deep on Wolt’s pipe an’ four days’ march from our free Windward to Kona Leeward seemed like four mil’yun, yay, babbybies o’ blissweed cradled me that night, then the drummin’ started up, see ev’ry tribe had its own drums. Foday o’ Lotus Pond Dwellin’ an’ two–three Valleysmen played goatskin ’n’ pingwood tom-toms, an’ Hilo beardies thumped their flumfy-flumfy drums an’ a Honokaa fam’ly beat their sash-krrangers an’ Honomu folk got their shell-shakers an’ this whoah feastin’ o’ drums twanged the young uns’ joystrings an’ mine too, yay, an’ blissweed’ll lead you b’tween the whack-crack an’ boom-doom an’ pan- pin-pon till we dancers was hoofs thuddin’ an’ blood pumpin’ an’ years passin’ an’ ev’ry drumbeat one more life shedded off of me, yay, I glimpsed all the lifes my soul ever was till far-far back b’fore the Fall, yay, glimpsed from a gallopin’ horse in a hurrycane, but I cudn’t describe ’em ’cos there ain’t the words no more but well I mem’ry that dark Kolekole girl with her tribe’s tattoo, yay, she was a saplin’ bendin’ an’ I was that hurrycane, I blowed her she bent, I blowed harder she bent harder an’ closer, then I was Crow’s wings beatin’ an’ she was the flames lickin’ an’ when the Kolekole saplin’ wrapped her willowy fingers around my neck, her eyes was quartzin’ and she murmed in my ear, Yay, I will, again, an’ yay, we will, again.

Get up now, boy, my pa biffed me anxsome, this ain’t no mornin’ for slug-gybeddin’, cuss you. That bubbly dream popped an’ I waked proper under itchy Kolekole blankies. The dark girl ’n’ me was twined, yay, like a pair o’ oily lizards swallowin’ each other. She smelled o’ vines ’n’ lava ash an’ her olive breasts rose ’n’ fell an’ watchin’ her I got the tenderlies like she was my own babbit slumb’rin’ by me. Blissweed was foggin’ me still, an’ I heard near-far shouts o’ wild partyin’ tho’ a misty dawn was ’ready up, yay, it happens so at harvest barterin’s, times are. So I yawned ’n’ stretched, yay, achin ’n’ feelin’ all good ’n’ scooped, y’know how it is when you shoot up a beautsome girl. Smoky brekkers was bein’ cooked nearby, so I put on my