Prologue
“What should we do?”
“What do you mean…what should we do?”
“What should we do, means what should we do?”
The sun glares on my glasses as I sigh heavily. There really is a lack of peace in everything. Perhaps it just can’t be the same.
“I thought this was doing something.”
There is some shuffling next to me.
“What?”
I sigh again. It really isn’t the same. Calm, as it might be. I turn to look at her. She is, as I had expected, looking up into the sky, hand over head to cover her eyes from the sunlight.
“Laying here.”
It’s an early Friday afternoon. There is a slow breeze and effusive sunshine. The grass is dry and thick beneath me.
It’s not the same.
She looks at me rather benign. And I can’t help but ask again.
“Naomi, can’t we just stay here? The quiet's nice.”
She looks up again at the sky and seems inquisitive. She thinks about it.
“I think we should do something.”
I lay back again. The sky is embellished by veins of clouds. The wispy kind, the kind that flows with wind you can’t even feel.
“I don’t know.”
She makes to get up. It’s strange but for some reason I really don’t want that to happen. It’s a lazy day; I could be alone all day long. I could stay alone in the quiet of my dorm and relax. Sleep if I felt like it. But today, not quite.
“Wait.” I just manage, as I touch her arm. “Come, let’s do something.”
She looks down, and thinks a second. Then with a rather cursory smile murmurs, “Alright.”
She sits back down next to me, “What?”
I would rather sleep, I would rather lay in the sun, I would rather stay in the quiet. With someone? I guess so. Just nearby. I don’t really want to go anywhere. What to do? What to do?
She looks on, still inquisitive. I guess there’s one thing I can do.
“Okay, close your eyes.”
She does. “Alright, now what?”
I think about, I look around. I wish it were the same. How could I make it the same?
“Okay, now imagine this…”
I can try at least….
“You’re at the school, coming out for lunch. We're both late….
But first… we need to take out the trash.”
She smiles.
“And look… there’s the dumpster….”
Chapter 1: Into the Brine
And look, there’s the dumpster.
I was taking out the trash, a disturbingly noisome bag of garbage in one hand and my watch on the other side. We're late, I know it already.
“Come one Amir, we're late, I’m hungry.”
“Yeah, I know,” I respond, “Let me just throw this away.”
I motion towards the black bag in my hand, and approach the dumpster. It really is just a normal day. Just a regular old day and although I know Naomi and I have a lot of work to do, I don’t mind. It does not perturb me, not yet.
“Hurry up.”
“There aren’t many other ways for me to do this faster, ya know.”
As I answer, I throw the bag over my head dramatically but derailed by my talking, something strange happens. I accidentally smack my head.
Never mind Naomi’s childish giggling behind me, and my sheepish grin at the fact that I’ve just dealt a ferocious blow to my ego, but my glasses fly off and land within the dumpster.
“O my god… That wasn’t smart.” She snorts a little as she doubles over.
I can’t help but laugh a little at myself, “Okay, okay, help me find my glasses.”
She glances down into the green container, and looks at me, perplexed, “I ain’t going in there.”
I look at her, unsurprised, and then at the dumpster, “Well, I might as well.”
“Yeah, it’s not like you didn’t just get beat up by a pile of trash.” She giggles again.
I sigh. Lunch will just have to wait. “Alright…”
So I lean in and immediately I know they’ve fallen into some distant dimension within the garbage. I’m really going to need to dig deep.
I dig in, shoving trash left and right, until I even lean against the edge of the container, raising my feet. This thing, O my God, is deep.
I hear Naomi’s muffled voiced by all the layers of rubbish between us. I can’t, however, make out any words. I reluctantly pull out, and look back at her.
“What’s that?”
She looks, now worried, “Don’t fall in.”
“Here, come on to my feet,” I plead. Now I’ve become worried, “I really can’t lose my glasses.”
She glances towards the cafeteria, doubtfully she answers, “Okay…”
I restart my search, delving as far as before. I feel the slight grasp of Naomi’s finger on my ankle. Not feeling any safer, I silently hope I don’t actually fall into a dumpster today. It wouldn’t be ideal. As soon as I think it however, I see the slight glint of something scintillate.
My glasses, perhaps, I think. I reach in, still unable to quite grasp the slight sparkle. Now desperate, I pull myself even further into the container, and feel the panic as my balance goes. Then, luckily, I also feel the slight hold of Naomi, as she balances me from my ankles. Then I hear again her muffled voice, something probably along the lines of “Woah! That was close.”
However, then I felt a slight tug on my arm, which was extended towards the object. Obstructed by garbage I could not see it, but it was enough to once again set me off balance. The strength of Naomi to try and hold me out, was not enough, and to my dismay I felt myself falling. This tug, however is more than the two of us had expected. And I feel, oddly enough, Naomi not let go. In fact, I feel her fall in too.
The two of us pulled in, I felt the tug dragging me down, and down into what I could no longer assume was a dumpster. Panicked, I struggled against the grasp, but soon found it only quickened with my wiggling. My view completely obscured by trash, or at least what I hoped was trash; I would not see anything at all. The trash only thickened, first in lumps of black rubber. Then in not nearly as distinguished.
I felt the helpless Naomi intensify her grip as she made these observations as well.
But then, as we fell deeper, the bags of trash lost all form, and I began to notice their moisture, which began to slather me. The entire mass around me became liquid, slowly, first thick, then wielding, till I came to realize that I could no longer breathe.
We were suddenly under water, being pulled deeper.
I heard the muzzled yells from Naomi behind me, when suddenly it all grew quiet with a single burst.
Suddenly, we hit air, the tug pulled me out of the liquid and Naomi with me, and suddenly I realized what the pull was. For, gasping and gapping for a breath of air, I found I was at the surface of the water. The pull was gravity.
Naomi, who bobbed up right after me, seemed as startled as I imagined I looked. We both dazzled glances around us rapidly, looking at our surroundings. The two of us, panicked and breathless, were suddenly swept away by a wave, and dragged. Submerged again, I struggled to pull myself out of the water. My head out to the air again, I hear the cursory, and nearby yelp of Naomi gurgle out, “AMIR!”
Looking around, desperately trying to find her I touched something with my foot I had not expected. Sand, the ground, the earth!
I quickly grabbed on with my toes, sinking in as hard as I could. Fighting hard against another wave, I finally found a safe hold and managed to stay on my feet.
Then with all of my might, I yelled, “NAOMI! NAOMI! Where are you?!”
I heard no answer.
I attempted to call out again but just as I prepared my voice for the task, a massive wave crashed into my body and I lost what little hold I had had. I emitted only a muffled, “NA!..,” before I was taken entirely under the waves. The current, stronger than I could have imagined, churned me and spun me, till I had no idea where up or down had ever been.
I struggled for air, and managed to just barely reach out of the surface, gasp for a breath, and then be smacked again.
And then again, and then again. Till I felt the sand beneath my feet scrape my back. A shore! , dry land lay somewhere ahead, I thought. But then, as soon as I had made the jump, I felt myself pulled again by the waters, and suddenly, face down, I slid, quite painfully, against dry land.
At first, I did not move, completely still, still confused as to what had just happened. But then the returning surf brushed my feet again, and I realized I really didn’t want to be dragged out to the sea. I picked myself up, staggeringly and attempted to run up the shore.
I could not see, and I’m sure my ears were full of salt and water. My body was scratched by the sand. I stumbled around the sand, barely able to keep up, when I heard her voice again.
“Amir!”
I was worried and confused, I turned to see a blurry sight fumble out of the water and instantly knew it must have been Naomi.
Relieved I called back, “Naomi! Is that you?”
I lost my balance and sat hard on the moist sand. I was completely soaked through, disoriented and panicked.
I heard her soft steps run up next to me, as she put her hand on my shoulder and sat down next to me. “Are you alright?”
I squinted at her, then asked back, “Um, I think I’m okay. How about you?”
She sighed in relief and then, looked around herself, “Okay I guess.”
We both sat in silence then, for a few moments, at least so that we could re-gather our heads. We both were wet to the bone but an intense sun beat on us, with full force. It was hot and arid, we soon realized. I looked around and began to examine our surroundings. There was literally nothing at all. The sand did not end with the beach, but seemed to go on into the horizon. We were surrounded by desert. A swift, cool wind streaked us both dry.
I was the first to really ask, “Where are we?”
I looked around. “Uh, I don’t know.”
She looked around as well, “What happened?”
“Hmmmm,” I thought about it, “I don’t know.”
She stood up and walked down to the water, touched it then walked back. A gleeful wind pulled on her hair. She took a few steps to the left, then the right, picked up some sand, let it fall through her fingers. Then she walked back over to me, and sat again, legs stretched out, hands in front.
“I don’t know either.”
Rather confused as how to react, I looked at her and began to wonder, “I think basically a dumpster pulled us into a different dimension, and now we're in the desert. Or maybe a magical else decided to tele….”
I trailed off as I noticed she was not paying attention. Something behind me had caught her eye, something that made her stare intently.
She stood, silently, “What is it?”
“I think I see something.”
I turned my head and asked, “What?”
But then I saw it. Beyond the shore, the sands were being picked up into massive clouds of dust. And what caused this to happen looked like a long line of camels, running along the desert, a few 100 meters away from us.
“Who’s that?”
She did not answer, but instead, grabbed my arm and began to pull. “Cmon, let’s go see?”
I did not move, “What? Why?”
“C'mon,” she let go of my arm and began to run after the column of sand. “C’mon!” She called, now a ways away.
I stood up and stared, unsure of what to do.
I looked down at the sand and saw a slight glint, a shimmer in the sand.
“Where is she going?” I thought.
Then I picked up my glasses and ran off after her.
Chapter 2: Ukulele Town
I ran across the sandy surface with some difficulty, slipping and tripping on slight dunes, my shoes digging into the sand. I called out to Naomi, “Wait up!”
She did not stop, but kept running, drawing closer and closer to the column of dust, and dragging me with her. As we approached I began to distinguish the figures up ahead. It was something like a caravan of camels and I soon recognized people among them. They were going fast, but not at a run.
I caught up to Naomi, just as she ran alongside one of the animals. The beasts were covered in sacks, all of whose contents were disguised. Naomi smiled as she tried to grab hold of a loose strap to pull herself up on the animal.
Then suddenly the entire column slowed to a halt. We stopped as well, rather confused as to what had happened.
Naomi looked at me and asked, “Why did it stop?”
“Look, how am I supposed to know? I’m just, if not more confused than you about this.”
I tried to spy and see what was going on up ahead, but could not through the unsettled sand.
I turned to Naomi, “Don’t you think we should stop first and ask some very important questions first?”
“Like what?”
“Basically, where are we? What just happened? And how did we get here?” I was really surprised by her lack of concern.
However now she looked over past me, and pointed, “Maybe we should ask him.”
I turned and saw a figure emerging from the sand. The sight was a relief, finally another human being. I called out, “Hey! Hey, out there!? Can you help us please?”
The figure emerged from the dust and my relief was soon exchanged by fright. The figure, a heavily dressed, bearded man wearing a turban appeared, but carrying a curved sword, a scimitar, at his side.
He seemed to have first laid eyes on us as well, for as soon as he appeared he began to flail the weapon upward screaming something completely unintelligible. A language neither of us understood, but sounded a little like this:
“WATADNAYA! WOOTARADNAY ! AKSAWADA!”
Terrified, the two of us began to back away, and in doing so noticed that the man began to run, screaming the same as before. Now thoroughly afraid, I turned to Naomi and yelled, “Run!”
We both did, but as soon as we had, we both crashed into another figure behind us. We crashed on the ground, and saw that it was another, similarly dressed and bearded man, who examined us with intent, yet angry eyes.
In an agitated, hostile voice he began to yell at us. Again neither of us could understand but I sensed he was asking us questions. Probably along the lines of, “What were you doing with our stuff?”
Confused and on the ground, I began to raise my hands, as if to surrender and plied back, “I swear, I didn’t do anything! We're just lost.”
Naomi nodded next to me but the man and his companion who, wielding his sword, had just come up behind us, did not seem to understand a word of English. The two continued to yell at us in this unknown language. But the two of us did not know what to do.
Then suddenly, the second man motioned to the first to put down his sword and calm down. The first did so reluctantly and began to bicker with the second, in a voice that seemed annoyed at the very least. I could not understand a word, but I at least could tell that the two did not know what to do with us.
Turning my head to find Naomi, with her eyes closed and her arms wrapped around her body in fright, I whispered “Naomi… are you okay?”
She opened her eyes but did not answer.
The first man, seeing me open my mouth, grabbed his scimitar again and pointed the blade at my face screaming, “YEDE! RAYDAW! RAYDAW!”
Confused and afraid, I raised my arms again in surrender, “Please don’t hurt us,” I pleaded.
The first man, still holding his sword, now questioned me in a voice far calmer. Unable to answer, I simply answered, “My name is Amir and this is Naomi, we’re lost and alone.”
The first man, confused, looked to his companion who shrugged and looked down at me again, and in a very soft voice asked me, “Lwoost?”
I nodded slowly, putting my hands down.
The second man, burst into laughter, muttering some strange comment in his language. The first, now sheathing his sword, addressed the second, and began to grumble in distaste.
The second, now jubilant, as if laughing at some kind of joke, laughed and pointed at the first, the sound of which I had never heard before. The language was probably the weirdest thing I’d ever heard.
Naomi tapped on my shoulder behind me, “What’s going on?”
I had no idea.
“I have no idea.”
The second man, now noticing the two of us on the ground, seemed to speak to address me. In a rather calmer, and sounder voice he told me something that sounded like this, “Ni Yebme Yedehalfi mayjiutkhe ko lamga saitegere ambi. Ni ambdi Ylleesayte?”
I knew it was a question only from the slight pitch at the end of every sentence. You know the kind you hear in all languages. But all I could answer back to this gibberish was a slight nod.
However, the man offered his hand, and I pulled myself up. Looking down at Naomi I told her, “I think they don’t want to hurt us. There was just some kind of misunderstanding.”
She looked at me, now as calm ass before, and in a low voice answered, “Okay.”
She then got on her feet, “Can you ask them where we are?”
I looked back at the man, who was now dancing around the first, poking him with his finger and chanting something around the lines of, “Tehleyama! Tehleyama! Uydetnaya Tehleyama!”
I turned back to Naomi, “I don’t think so.”
The second now began to laugh uncontrollably. And the first simply punched him in the gut and began to walk away. The second, still crying from laughter and doubled over, walked over to us and asked, “Urlefende Lavgnagie, soreida Ukulele Ni hmakheder so un dar Kalyntma. Yeud gad sade et?
Speechless, the two of us nodded, and the man, approaching the nearest camel, began to untie a set of bindings on its back.
Naomi tiptoeing toward the man asked, “Can you help us? Do you speak English?”
The man, now done with whatever he was doing, swung around and with a sort grunt, picked up Naomi and tossed her on the camel’s back.
He then looked at me and with a couple of words which sounded something like “Fetyer Daal” motioned me to come over.
I did not move, confused as to what exactly was going on. If there was one of the thousands of questions flowing through my mind, which was most confusing, “What did you say?” was not it.
The man, seeing my stillness, approached and with the same leisure, picked me up under his arm. Then with a swift, clunk, set me on the camel’s back with Naomi.
Then with a waving of his hand off to where the man with the sword had run off and a small yell, the entire column of animals began to move again, elevating the sand in the air around them.
The two of us, quite thoroughly confused, did not know quite what to do. We just sat there, the two of us, jostled around the animal.
There was silence, until Naomi looked back at me and asked, “Where do you think they are taking us?”
I looked at her, but did not answer. Everything was becoming more and more confusing. The first questions seemed to get in the way of those which may have been more important like, “Who these men were? And where they planned to take us? Try as I did though, I still felt like I was missing something. I had forgotten something important.
How we had even gotten here in the first place, I couldn’t even remember. All that seemed to come to mind was something about lost glasses. I reached up to my eyes in response, but they were there, my glasses.
I looked at the back of Naomi’s head. Could I ask her? Did she know?
No, of course not, she had just asked the very same question.
I looked around, examined the desert landscape that passed us by at our fast walk pace. It was only dunes after dunes, endless red hot sand.
Had we wondered through the desert for long? How long? How had we even gotten to find these two strangers?
All these answers I could not remember.
And as I pondered and pondered, one question remained in my head, “Where are we now?”
Then, as if in response, Naomi, who might have been staring at me for some time, shook my arm, breaking me from my emersion and thought.
I looked at her and saw that she was pointing, and as I followed her finger, I saw beyond the vast red horizon, the answer to my question.
“Look Amir, look!” She called.
I did, it was a beautiful sight as it loomed over, gleaming in the sunlight. The tops of a city. At first, the very tops, spiral minarets of whitish stone. These shined in the desert sun. And as we came to the top of the final hill, we saw the amazing city, from the back of our camel.
It was massive, made of white stone. The entire thing round and expansive, spread out beyond the eye could see. The sand and red dunes immediately stopped at the advent of one massive, tall wall, made of sandstone brick.
The whole city, a collection of houses of all sizes, palaces, temples, and streets of every shape and size imaginable.
I saw Naomi, her eyes and mouth wide in amazement and I knew I gave the same impression.
“It’s beautiful,” I muttered.
She nodded softly, and replied simply “Yeah.”
Then I couldn’t help but ask again the unanswerable question:
“Where are we?”
Naomi, this time, did not answer.
As the caravan, approached the city, the walls became more and more imposing. But what really caught my attention was that within the dry desert wind, I caught the sound of melody. Music emanated from the city in all directions. Music of all kinds. At first it was just a mix of unrecognizable songs, but as we approached I began to distinguish different instruments.
There were guitars and flutes and trumpets and drums.
“Can you hear that?” I asked Naomi.
She looked back to me, “What?”
Then I pointed to my ear and whispered, “Listen.”
She did and slowly she began to smile, only silently muttering, “Wow.”
We finally passed by the massive arch of white stone that made the arch and in a flash of light we, along with the caravan, had entered the city. And when the shining of the sun dissipated in the shadow of the tall buildings, we saw a sight I would not quite forget.
Unlike what I could see from outside the wall, every wall and every surface of every house and building was painted ridiculous bright colours. The city dazzled multi-coloured crenulations and majestic arches with rainbow schemes in all directions.
If not even more ridiculous was the crowd on the street by which we had entered, for each held a musical instrument and played it viciously while smiling.
There were men and women of all ages who carried all sorts of instruments. There were drums of all sizes, guitars of all lengths, flutes of all pitches and trombones of all colours. There were quires of all numbers, clarinets of all shades, violins of all tones and unamable instruments of unamable shapes.
And one very large, double wide keyed piano.
And all these voices and instruments sang and played a different tune. Even the very large, double wide keyed piano.
And not only these, but the streets were covered in rivers of flowing painted water, as every inch of the street and main plaza we now approached had a canvas with a painter who let his imagination fly. He would viciously stroke with his brush to the song of millions of instruments and one very large double wide key piano.
And even the walls were covered by people on ladders, painting beautiful murals on every surface of the rainbow themed city.
But not only these, but as I saw from the rooftops, I noticed the raining of papers, whose content used up every inch of the paper. For, as I looked up, I saw from the highest of windows, men and women writing writing writing away in inks of all colours. They wrote and wrote, either poetry or essays or theories of mind, I could not tell. But they wrote, wrote all their pages out the window. And these rained down on us all.
I saw Naomi in front of me and she smiled a smile I had never seen before. One of wonder and amazement. And I myself, gave the same smile, but first yelled to her over the ruckus, “This is unbelievable!”
She looked back, unable to hear and asked, “What!?”
“This is amazing?!”
“WHAT!? O! No, I don’t have to go to the bathroom!”
Then we went on, on our camel tour of what I imagined was a main street.
And the people we passed by all waved at us as we waved back, giving us smiles so gleeful and happy, I did nothing but answer in the same way.
As we arrived in what appeared to be a massive central square to the city, where the music and noise had gone down only enough for us to hear each other speak, our caravan suddenly came to a halt. The entire city square was covered in what appeared to be a market place, with stands and kiosks of all sizes and colours.
I saw the man with the sword walk down from the front of the line and start to talk to some sort of clerk at one of the many stands that riddled the market place. The second man, who was apparently riding behind us, passed us by on a tall, black horse. He glanced at us, smiling wryly and said something along the lines of “Meyrede ut gefre Kher ni udaf ukulele!”
We both stared blankly at him and watched as he passed us by and gave us a slight wave with his hand. He then went on to dismount his horse and join his companion, the two characters again yelling at each other in the strange language.
As soon as he did, a line of 15 men and women playing guitars began to pass us by. They all played a different tone of the same melody and proceeded in line towards the two turban wearing men who paid no attention to them at all.
The last of the people playing guitar was a woman with black hair and a small whitish hat. She wore cracked glasses and smiled almost impossibly, looking towards the two of us. Then in a loud and very enthusiastic voice to be heard over the ruckus of another group of musicians playing only a few yards away, said, “HELLO!”
We did not answer, mainly because we were well bewildered by all that was happening around us.
“Welcome to Ukulele Town! The most wonderful place on earth! I can tell you to are not from around here! SO let me be the first to say WELCOME!
We still did not answer.
“WELCOME!” She repeated, still smiling.
I still did not answer, but Naomi behind me asked in almost a whisper, “Where did you say we are?”
The woman, her eyes growing eve wider drew closer and yelled at us, “What’s that?!”
“Where are we, you said!” Naomi tried again.
The woman, now pointing her ear in our direction and drawing close, yelled again, “What!”
In unison me and Naomi yelled at her, “WHAT DID YOU SAY THIS PLACE WAS?!”
She then pulled back, and laughed replying, “Why, this is Ukulele Town, home to all the music in Nitzanland. You really are not from here, am I right? Well, let me get you down and on our way.”
She held out her hand and I grasped it, jumping down from the camel’s back as did Naomi in the same way.
“What is your name?” she asked, as she jumped down.
“O!” she yelled back, “It’s Yasmim, and I am not from here either, I am from the magical land of…”
As she spoke a man on a bicycle and playing a trombone passed by and whatever place she named we did not hear.
I looked back at the two men wearing turbans and looked back at Yasmim, “Who are those two?”
“Who?” she looked where they stood, surrounded by guitarists and one trombone on a bicycle, “O! They are Marius and Dan. Travelling caravan drivers. They are in charge with bringing the fruit for Queen Lavinia.”
“Who? The What?” I asked, as confused as ever.
Yasmim pointed at one of the bags on the side of our camel, “The fruit, why, without it Lavinia could not host her daily feast!”
I lifted the flap on the bag and revealed that the leather bag was filled with just about hundreds of golden apples.
Naomi attempted to ask, “Who is Lavi…” When Yasmim interrupted in a very joyful voice, “O! we should really be on our way! The show is about to start!”
She then, grabbing both of our hands, began to pull us away from the caravan. As she did, I last noticed the man who was either named Marius or Dan waving at me goodbye, before he was covered from sight by 20 dancing ballerinas.
As Yasmim let go of our hands and we began to follow regardless, the two of us looked around the city, our mouths open in wonder at how loud and colourful the entire thing was.
I grabbed one of the many sheets of paper on the floor and read the first line which said, “O misses Roast, I do believe there is more to it than that!”
Then leading us, Yasmim picked up her guitar and began to play her own melody, while humming to it softly.
I approached her and in a soft voice asked, “Where are we going exactly?”
She looked over to me and only taking second to stop humming said, “Why, to the show of course!” Then she continued to hum incessantly.
Finally we arrived at some sort of door, which was wide open and as we went under the sky blue arch we came into a beautifully lit amphitheatre. All the seats were full of silent patrons and in the centre, the stage, a band of nearly a hundred different instruments played a song which I could not recognize but I found very beautiful.
Yasmim, no longer playing her guitar, led us through the rows of sitting people. As we passed by, each sitting person would look at us and smile saying softly in a whisper, “Welcome. Welcome, welcome.”
We finally came to a stop at 3 perfectly empty seats and Yasmim pointed for us to sit down. We were at the top of the stands, and nearly up on the street. As I noticed, we were actually still on a street, but the theatre had been hollowed out of the middle of an avenue. The top of the theatre was again the open, busy city.
As we sat down, I began to pay attention to the song and noticed truly how carefully melodic and beautiful it was, unlike the chaos outside. The hole in the avenue for the theatre was just deep enough so that barely any sound would disturb the players. With smiling Yasmim in between the two of us, I leaned over to Naomi and whispered towards her.
“Hey, hey…” she turned her head, “How amazing is this, right?”
She nodded in agreement, “It is. I can’t believe where we are!”
I smiled at her, but then a small nagging came into my mind and I suddenly was compelled to ask, “Where are we?”
She smiled at me, and pulled her eye away from the playing orchestra for a moment, “What do you mean?”
I looked at her, myself confused at what I was asking.
“I mean, where exactly is he….”
I was suddenly interrupted by the ruckus of all instruments in the orchestra stopping their song unequally, creating a disaster of incoordination.
The entire band seemed to be backing away from a particular corner of the theatre.
I stared, trying to determine what was happening and then heard the screeching call of a figure coming from an arch near the stage, at first it was just a horrible scream and then I saw the figure emerge. It was a very lean man, skinny and bony alike. His eyes looked half crazed and he seemed almost like a skeleton. This man was clearly starving.
He screamed again, causing the crowd and the band to jump back in surprise and cause a few to gasp and murmur. Outside of the theatre, a large crowd on the rim began to appear. I realized suddenly that outside everything was quiet and the ruckus outside had disappeared. The painters and artists and writers and dancers had all stopped to see what the commotion was. There was calm and silence which I could tell was alien for Ukulele Town.
The man screamed again to his new audience, but this time in understandable words, “DOOMED! WE ARE ALL DOOMED!”
The people all around murmured in disbelief.
“THERE IS A CALAMITY THAT WAITS FOR US ALL! AND THERE IS A TRIAL NO ONE HAS SEEN. THEY! THEY HAVE HIDDEN IT!.”
The man pointed up to the sky, and then he looked at the crowd angrily.
I stared transfixed on the corpse man. I stared so hard that I did not notice that Naomi suddenly left my side and began to wonder off, towards an alleyway, up on the street.
The man, however, continued.
“EVERYTHING WILL DRY UP. THERE WILL BE NO WATER. NO SUNSHINE. BUT MOST OF ALL THERE WILL BE WAR. WAR COMES TO US ALL. FEAR. FRIGHT. DEATH. AND WE WILL BECOME A FACELESS ABOMINATION.”
Then the man paused for a second before continuing, “AND NO MORE FOREVER!”
As soon as he said this, three men, emerged from the arch opposite to his own, dressed in a green uniform. These men approached the man and grabbed him by the neck and legs. They pulled him off his feet and began to tug him away.
Then the man was pulled away and so were my eyes from the spectacle. I looked around the crowd which was aghast with murmurs and whispers, and every smile had left every person’s face.
They all began to clamour out of the theatre. I did as well, half following Yasmim, who was bone quiet. At the top of the street, there was the familiar sight. Silence and frowns. Not the music, nor the painting, nor the writing, nor the dancing continued.
Then I noticed Naomi had disappeared. I panicked and looked in all directions. She was nowhere to be seen. I grabbed Yasmim’s arm, “Where did Naomi go?”
“O!” she said, as if snapping out of a daze, “I don’t know.”
Looking around frantically I finally saw her figure in the shadows of an alley way. Running out towards her, I caught the glance of a bent over woman walk away from her. The old woman, heavily dressed and covered in grey tatters, walked away slowly, but I only watched as she rounded the corner and disappeared.
Seeing the last of her, I looked over at Naomi and asked, “What was that? Why did you walk away?”
She looked at me and in a calm, equally confused voice told me, “She called to me, she wanted to ask me something important.”
I looked at her, still bewildered, and then back at the empty corner she had disappeared behind. “Who was she?”
“I don’t know. But she says she needed to ask me something important, but not now.”
“Then when?” I asked.
“She said you and me both…” She walked out of the alley way and pointed up over the walls of the city. “Are invited to the feast today. Over there,”
I followed her finger and saw the multi-coloured masterpiece of Ukulele town, the grand palace.
