Black and Silver

Chapter 3: Restless Night

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~ 3 ~

            I didn’t take Ehjiro back to his hotel room.  I took him to the shelter where Daidai and I usually slept.  I call it a shelter because that’s about all it was good for.  The family next to us had built a large room out of plywood and drywall that they had stolen from a construction site in the city, and since they were absolutely lovely people, they had hung two bed sheets to section off a piece for Daidai and I to share.  It was a roof over our heads, but it was draftee and the walls shook when the wind blew.  If it weren’t for the drought, Daidai and I would be a pair of drowned rats by now.

            I guess I didn’t go to the hotel, because I didn’t know how to explain to Daidai what had happened to me.  Even without a mirror, I knew I looked drastically different than when I’d left him.  And I guess I wanted him to get a good night’s sleep in a real bed.  Next door, they had just had another baby, and this one seemed to do a lot more wailing than sleeping.  I think Kini was having trouble producing milk.

            Tonight though, the baby only cried once.  Maybe she was finally starting to sleep through the night.  I wished I could say the same.  I laid awake on my side with my back to Ehjiro.  I sat up against the wall.  I sat in the doorway and watched the night.  I crept up to the bed sheet and peeked in on Kini and her little growing family.  I laid back down on my side with my back to Ehjiro.  I paced the floor.

            I would sleep, if I weren’t so distracted.

            I could hear people’s thoughts, see their dreams play out.  I could open myself wide and feel all the minds of the hundreds of people in the ghetto surrounding me.  Or I could close myself off and hear only a soft din at the back of my consciousness.  I could focus on one person at a time and block the others.  But silence no longer existed.

            Except I couldn’t read anything from Ehjiro.

            He seemed to be sleeping, yet, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t read anything from him, like hitting a wall.  At the same time, I found I didn't mind.  His mind was the closest thing to silence I had.  I put my focus on his silence and the rest of the noise died off.

            I went back to pacing.

            The chest.

            I looked down at what I had started referring to as my new body.  I should fit them now.  I didn’t used to because I was skeletally thin, but I looked more like my Mama now.  If anything, her clothes might be too small.

            I dropped to my knees in the centre of the dirt floor and started digging.  I hadn’t put it deep, and after clearing a few inches, my dusty fingers brushed against the polished wooden surface.  I hurried to clear off the rest and get the chest open.

            The smell that flooded out, I’ll never forget.  She always smelled like flowers and sunlight and wet earth, like after a good rain storm when the air was still crisp but the tropical sun seared through the mist.  Mama.  I’d kept her hand sewn clothes of carefully worked deer hide tanned until they were a rich earthly tone, accented by thousands colourful beads.  They were the clothes of a leader of the Tribe, something I had hoped to be one day.  I thought after years of disuse the leather would be stiff and cracked, but it was just as soft and supple as I remembered.

            I stripped off the black shirt Ehjiro had given me and lifted my mother’s out of the chest.  Karajha women didn’t normally wear a shirt of any kind, just a multitude of beaded necklaces, but Mama was a huntress.  She said this was necessary for a hunter and to keep the sinew stays on the side laced tight.  I pulled the unadorned leather over my head.  It was very simple with no sleeves and cropped right at the point were my ribs divided.  As I adjusted it and myself within it before tying the stays, I realized that it’s sole purpose seemed to be to support my chest without restricting my range of movement.