Keiko’s were gripping the ship’s metal railings as the wind howled in her ears and pulled at her hair. She had been out on deck for hours, scanning the skyline in desperation to catch a glimpse of what her mother had searched for all her life: iziqhingi efwini — the islands in the clouds. It was Keiko’s grandmother’s grandmother who had first begun the quest that would become the Wakahisa family tradition.
As the story goes, Keiko’s great-great-grandmother had met a Zulu man who told her the story of a tribe of people that had grown wings like an ibis and took flight to live in the skies. Great-great-grandmother Wakahisa had then on done all she could to find this tribe, and implored in her daughter to do the same when she no longer could. Since then, every successive Wakahisa daughter was told the legend and encouraged to journey out in search of the fabled izighingi efwini. The tradition nearly died with Keiko’s grandmother, who was a bit more skeptical than her predecessors — but despite that, she felt duty-bound to pass along the story to Keiko’s mother.
Keiko wished her grandmother could be there with them now, so that she could feel the exhilaration and wonderment of seeing the islands come into view on the horizon.
Keiko’s mother, Akane, had joined her daughter on deck when she heard Keiko’s excited yell. They stood side-by-side, gazing outward with white-knuckled holds on the railing and wide grins on their faces. The closer they got, the more beautiful the islands looked. Keiko could see trees with leaves colored fuchsia and teal, and red spires that protruded high up into the clouds. Akane pointed at what seemed to be birds flying around the island they were nearing. Huge birds, with massive wingspans—
“Those aren’t birds, okaasan,” Keiko shouted above loudly cranking propellers, “those are people!”
They were near enough to the island to make out the definitive human shape attached to the wings — wings that really did look like those on an ibis! Some wings were black, others were white, and others still had the intense pink of the Scarlet ibis, which surprised Keiko because Scarlet ibises were not native to Southern Africa. It was then that she realized that she no longer had to theorize about what the sky-islanders would look like because they were right there in front of her.
Keiko clapped a hand over her mouth to quell the immense sob that formed in her throat. Her mother put an arm around her, and Keiko looked up to see that Akane, too, was teary-eyed.
The ship was almost upon the first island now. Akane left to turn the auto-pilot off and “park” it a little ways off so that they could plan their next move; it wouldn’t do to just cast anchor on the island and invade the peoples’ privacy. They wanted to get their permission somehow, but hadn’t thought of a way to entice a representative to maybe board their ship to speak with them.
Keiko put her elbows on the railing and rested her face in her hands, gazing at the island. The ship was now close enough to make out details of the environment; round yellow fruit hanging from tree limbs, rivers of iridescent water flowing through the pale blue grass, strange creatures flitting through the air. It seemed like every animal had wings of some sort. As she had for the past nineteen years of her life, Keiko wondered how the sky-people had grown wings. No where else was there such an incident, so what made this particular Zulu tribe special? It boggled the mind. Keiko desperately wanted to ask a sky-person herself — actually, she wanted to ask them many, many things, but that was definitely within the top five questions.
She was so lost in thought that she screamed in surprise and stumbled backward when a figure appeared directly in front of her. Keiko heard Akane come running out of the helm, calling out to her, but when Keiko looked up she could not focus on anything else except for what — who — had startled her.
A man was sitting on the ship’s railings staring down at her with curiosity. He was totally bald, and his dark skin seemed to glow like starlight, his eyes the same fluorescent blue as the sky around them. But the most enchanting thing about him, of course, was the huge pair of wings neatly folded on his back, white feathers tipped with black ruffling gently in the wind.
Akane helped Keiko stand, who was too spell-bound to do anything on than stare with a gaping mouth. The man narrowed his eyes in suspicion. Akane elbowed her daughter.
Keiko snapped to her senses and quickly bent in a straight-back bow. “Hello!” she said in Zulu, maybe a little too enthusiastically. “It is very nice to meet you.”
After a long moment, Keiko glanced up, hoping she had not offended the man. Instead, she saw that he was smiling. He stepped down onto the ship’s deck and stood before them. “Welcome to iziqhingi efwini.”
No comments:
Post a Comment