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The Boy Who Turned into a Fish



Nick

Kat had disappeared to God knows where, which left me with Taji and the other guys, who were trying to show me how to build the house they were working on. I’ve never been much of a handy-man and it showed as they tried to get me to help but I was more of a problem than anything else. I could tell they were all thinking it, muttering to each other in Swahili.

“What are they saying about me?” I asked Taji under my breath.

“Nothing, friend,” he said. “We are all thankful for your help.” But he looked guilty and I had a feeling he was lying.

I couldn’t blame them. It must be annoying, having such shitty, inexperienced help as I was messing with the workflow and not even being able to cuss me out in a language I’d understand. I’d be frustrated and muttering, too.

I kept hoping Kat would come back from wherever she’d gone off to and overhear them talking down about my so-called assistance and get me out of the mess I was in, but she didn’t come back with Azizi until the sun was starting to set and the sky was tinged pink and orange overhead and the fire was blazing. Taji suddenly took the hammer from my hand, “We are done for today,” he said, “Come, let us go and eat.”

I was all too grateful to call it a day on the half-finished house. My back ached from sleeping on the ground the night before still and the long day of hard labor hadn’t exactly helped in making my back feel better by any means. I was starving, too. What I wouldn’t have given for some good stick-to-your-ribs food, like Lauren’s turkey burger chili. I could almost feel myself salivating just thinking of it. I’d give anything for that over the ungali which was about as delicious as stale oatmeal. I’d had some of the ungali that morning, once I’d calmed myself down from the fake rhino attack. It hadn’t been exactly great but it was better than nothing at all, so I settled myself onto the log between Taji and Kat and shovelled some of the bland stuff into my mouth.

“So where the hell were you all day?” I asked Kat, looking over at her as we ate.

“I went to talk to Azizi,” she replied. “He was pretty upset.”

“He was upset?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “He didn’t think he was about to be gored by a rhino.”

Kat shrugged.

I know it’s stupid, but some part of me felt kinda jealous that she’d felt the need to go comfort the lil shit instead of me. I gnashed my ungali in silence for a few moments, holding the bowl and glaring at the fire.

That’s when Nanny stood up and a general hush fell over everyone around the fire. I glanced up at her small, hunched figure above me. She took a deep breath, and started talking in low, rolling tones that seemed to wash over the people. I had no idea what she was saying, but I watched as her mouth moved, her eyes bright and damp as she spoke, moving her hands before her in various motions that I didn’t know how to interpret. Everyone was transfixed, though. Even me, even without understanding her.

When she’d finished talking, Nanny smiled around at us all. “Usiku mwema,” she said thickly.

“Usiku mwema,” chorused the people, and just like that, everyone started getting up. Even Kat.

“Is that like Swahili for bedtime or something?” I asked.

Two of the men were dousing the fire. “She said good night,” Kat explained.

“Got’cha. So… so now everyone just goes to bed?”

“Yeah, basically,” Kat answered. “We have a long day tomorrow, more building to do.” She led the way through the camp to the tents and I followed, reluctant to leave the warmth of the fire, not looking forward to another long night under the stars on the hard ground. “You okay?” Kat asked. I nodded. “You sure?” she asked.

“Never been better,” I said. We’d reached the tent, so I went for mine and pulled the door back. “Yo’ sookie me weema,” I told Kat.

She chuckled. “Usiku mwema, Nick.”

I zipped the tent door shut behind me.





Kat


I laid in my tent that night, staring up through the sheer ceiling at the stars and the silhouette of the tree tops. It was eerily silent in the village these days without the chirruping of the monkeys in the forest or the call of the birds that usually filled the night. The only sound was the distant thrum of the ocean waves, the wind rustling leaves, and somewhere, in one of the tents, one of the women was humming a lullaby to her children. I felt uneasy, listening to the gaping silence, as though waiting for something. It felt like an awkward pause in the middle of a sentence, as though not everything had been said that needed to be.

The zipper was loud compared to the night. It was Nick's. I listened as he got out of his tent and started to shuffle by. I sat up and unzipped my own tent and watched as he moved toward the forest quickly.

Not wanting to disturb anyone else, I didn’t call after him. Instead, I climbed out of my own tent and hurried after him. He disappeared into the trees. I hesitated, torn between letting the guy have some privacy and ensuring he didn't go getting lost. I decided that, in the dark, in the woods, it was best not to leave him alone, so I followed behind him down the path. I could only just see him ahead of me, a dark shape moving against the blue of the forest. When we’d walked far enough from the village, I called to him, “Nick.”

He turned around in surprise. “Kat?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Where are you headed?”

“I had to pee,” he explained.

“Got’cha.”

“Where are you headed?” he asked, trying to mimic my suspicious tone.

“I didn’t want you to get lost in the woods,” I said, smirking. “Now go pee.”

Nick looked at the woods, then up at the canopy of tree tops, the moonlight coming through them. He glanced at me, “I dunno if I can.”

“Why?” I asked.

“‘Cos… you’re here… and… I dunno… I can’t pee in front of an audience.”

I laughed, “Stage fright are you?”

Nick shrugged.

“Well, tell you what, we’ll walk until you can’t hold it anymore, then,” I said, and I started trodding off along the path again. Nick hesitated only a moment, then rushed to catch up with me.

“Where we goin’?” he asked, and I noticed that the further down the path we went - the darker it became - and the closer to me Nick hovered. He reminded me of the Cowardly Lion, afraid of his own tail.

I shrugged, “We’re just walking until you have to pee bad enough to ignore the audience,” I replied.

He looked around and continued to hover closer as we walked along. The silence only grew the deeper and deeper we got into the trees. I looked around, staring up at the low lying branches, wondering what had become of all those monkeys. There’d been so much life among these trees before… now, there was a lot of devastation and loss. A lot of grief was buried among their trunks. I felt a chill and rubbed my palms over my arms, trying to warm them up.

“So what was Nanny saying tonight?” Nick asked quietly, his voice low, “At the fire? Just before everyone went to bed?”

I’d forgotten to translate for him, I realized. “She told a bed time story,” I explained, “For the children.”

“A bed time story? What was it about?” he was cowering close to me, eyes darting about still. I had a feeling we were talking to keep him distracted from whatever he thought was lurking around in the trees. I wish I could’ve expressed to him strong enough to quell his fears that there was nothing alive in the trees. Everything was gone. So much so that it was more frightening than the prospect of anything that would’ve been out there, hidden by the leaves.

“A boy who could turn into a fish,” I told him.

“Like a dolphin or something?” Nick questioned.

I shook my head, “Nothing as impressive as that, just a regular fish. The boy had gotten this power from the mgnanga wa kienyeji - or a witch doctor, basically. It was a curse, placed on the boy when he refused to sit and listen to her monologues about channeling the spirit of a great fisherman of the past. So the boy and his family had to move from that village because they didn’t live near the water and because the boy was now a fish they needed to be near to the water so that he could swim when he changed over…” I looked at Nick and he was staring at me with intrigue, interested in the tale. So I continued, “They found a village close to the shore, like this one; actually, in Nanny’s tale, it is this village… It was much closer to the shore before, when this took place. The ocean has receded quite a bit since the old days, giving us back a lot of the land that we’re walking on now, you and I.”

“So all this used to not be here?” Nick asked.

“Many, many, many years ago when this story took place, supposedly, yes. Nanny has suggested that the tsunami might have been the sea’s way of attempting to reclaim the property that has been stolen from it by the earth.” I paused, hearing how crazy it sounded, as though I were talking about an ornery neighbor in an suburban neighborhood. I smiled. “The elements have quite distinct personalities in the belief systems here, you see.”

Nick laughed, “The sea sounds like a bitch.”

“It really is. Anyway… this boy… he found the village and they were very poor, nearly dying from their need. He and his family realized that this curse could be a gift and they tied the boat to him when he as in the form of a fish and he was large enough to pull the boats through the water to bring them to Lamu, where, even in those days, there was hope of food and supplies and medicines that the village couldn’t access on their own. The boy’s name was Kiwayuu and that is why the village is named Kiwayuu, because of his bravery in helping the village to survive. The purpose of this story is to know that a curse is not always a curse, but is also a blessing, which you will learn in time, when you think of others outside of yourself.” I’d recited the moral word-for-word to what Nanny had said.

Nick nodded slowly, “That’s a pretty cool origin story.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “It’s nice. There are alternate versions - in one of them, the villagers eat the boy while he is in his fish form and the fish is large enough that it feeds them for an entire winter.” I laughed at the face Nick made in response. “Yeah, it’s not as pleasant as a giant fish helping the boats get to Lamu. It’s told further north mostly.”

“So more than one village thinks that’s how it started?” Nick questioned.

“It’s an old folktale, Nick, everyone takes it and make it their own. There’s little differences. In some of the villages and cultures that use the tale the boy becomes a lion and defends his village from an attack. In another, he’s a werewolf-type creature and only changes on the moon. Others, he can turn into the boat itself. It really varies, depending on the needs of that culture. Kind of like how different countries have different versions of Santa Claus or whatever.”

Nick said, “That makes sense.”

Somehow we’d walked all the way to the shoreline and I came to a stop at the edge of the trees, where the path we’d been following melted seamlessly into the sand that lined the edge of the ocean. The white-capped waves glowed in the moonlight on the dark black abyss that was the seemingly unending sea. Nick stopped behind me. We stood, watching the water roll.

“Okay, I really gotta pee, and that water is not helping...” he announced, and he dove into the trees to the left, crashing through the low branches until he was out of sight.

I smirked to myself and ran down the beach, leaving behind only footprints for Nick to follow to find me.