SOLOMON'S BRIDGE {Part I}

THE COUNCIL *17*

1891: Provocation and Injustice

Ekpenyong was still arguing with Ndarake.

The two men remained facing each other, standing with their peers in an informal gathering around the King, who kept his royal head supported at an angle by balancing his right hand in a fist under his double chin. The king was bored. His people liked to talk a lot. Everyday was the same story, the same endless debates.

The clans were divided; some factions wanted a complete end to the slave trade, and some factions wanted to re institute the killing of twins, and some factions wanted the Ibibio out of Efik land...

"Ekpenyong! You make yourself obese from the sale of other people's children into slavery! But in ignorance do you do this, because you don't know what the white man is."

Ndarake held his tasseled toga to one side in the crook of his elbow, his eyes searching the faces of their audience,

"Men of the council: the Tall Whites! They are brothers," he raises up his index finger for emphasis, "-but from another bloodline; man but not human, not made in the original image and likeness!"

He takes a turn about the room, each step paced with the passion and voracity of his argument; his position had not changed in three weeks. White men were evil.

"Their Bible records in the book of Genesis 4:14; Cain was driven out from the face of the earth; take your mind back to Adam and Eve's banishment from Eden... note that God returns Adam to the place he'd been taken and molded from, he was put back to till the ground. So Eden is a garden that is not on ground; it is not on the face of the Earth. Cain, was driven out of the face of the Earth..."

Ndarake locked eyes with the king, who, in spite of himself was quite intrigued, nodding his head at the referee, Okpo, conceding the point.

"The killer of mankind is the serpent, followed closely by Cain, who killed his brother, recall, Cain, is of the wicked one, as it is written, in 1 John 3:12; thus the works of his father he shall do, this is explained in John 8:44; can you see what is happening, here? Cain and Abel, have different natures; they have different fathers! So Cain has murdered Abel. After being driven out of the face of the Earth, both land and sea, in Genesis 4:16; Cain dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden, and knew his wife, on the east of Eden! A place that is not the face of the Earth; not land or sea. Is Eden the universe, and east of Eden, another Galaxy? Is Cain the original half alien, or half demon, establishing another race, existing parallel to Seth, his descendants... And now, Genesis two verse one begins to make sense! For angels cannot procreate! Yet it tells us; these are the generations of the heavens, and of the earth---"

Ekpenyong vibrates with anger, kneeling before the king, waving a derogatory hand at his opponent,

"My king! We are full grown men at this council; not little boys gathered to hear tales by moonlight! We deliberate on real issues; food security, international trade, there is so much to achieve from business with the white men, and here is Ndarake singing verses from a book. A book!"

"My king!" Ndarake protests sharply, "-I shall have my say just as he, and Okpo marks the time. Strange, powerful men come to our land with a book of record, of all the races of this world, so why the scorn? Can we not study their origins?What better way to know an adversary, is there?"

The king agreed with Ndarake, nodding at Okpo to concede the point, while telling a very displeased Ekpenyong to rise to his feet and wait his turn. Its the rule of law: every council man shall have his say. Ekpenyong is a merchant, used to fast solutions like gold. Ndarake is a scholar, the scribe of Canaan. They were all in for a lengthy session.