John Burkitt - The Spirit Quest

“It’s quite all right, my dear. Thank you.” He patted her forepaw. “Things like this happen. It’s life, I guess. Good or bad, we can all die at any time.”

She looked at him for a long moment. “You seem to be taking it rather well.”

“Yes, well, as a shaman, I’ve learned to accept death in one form or another. It happens. We should not fight it; we should prepare for it.”

Her eyes focused on him sharply, and she frowned. “I would think instead that we should try to enjoy life all the more for it.”

His lip trembled and he turned away to face the wall again. “Perhaps you should go.”

As he shifted, she spied the paste on his finger. “What’s that?”

“Oh, just something to help me feel better.”

Uzuri sniffed at it. An acrid odor burned her nostrils, and she flinched. She drew back, the muscles at the corner of her jaw tightening as she looked at him. “Why don’t I try some? It will make me feel better too.” Quickly, she bent and touched the paste with the tip of her nose.

The response was immediate. Rafiki sprang up as if shot. “Don’t lick that off!” Desperately, he seized a gourd of water and splashed the end of her nose, rinsing away the paste that had stuck there. Picking up a soft leather cloth, he dried it carefully. He bent and sniffed it closely, his own nostrils twitching intently, then shook his head and repeated the process.

While he was drying her nose a second time, Uzuri flicked a paw out and slapped the bowl away. It clattered over the edge of the baobab and dropped silently through the air to shatter on the roots below, spraying the ground with white death.

Rafiki observed this silently as tears began forming in the corners of his eyes. “It will take me three days to collect that much,” he said. “Please be a good girl and leave me alone.”

She looked him directly in the eyes. “Make up your mind. Should I be a good girl, or should I leave you alone?” Flopping to the floor on her side, she motioned to him with a paw to join her. “We lions have a custom that might make you feel a lot better.”

He looked at her but said nothing.

Inwardly stung by his refusal, she pressed on. “When someone we love dies, we roar. It’s our way of getting the grief out. Don’t you shriek or make some sort of noise when you grieve?”

“We cry.”

She shook her head. “We do too. But I mean something big. Something that tells the whole world how you feel.”

“No, we don’t do that.”

“Try it.”

“I’d feel like a fool.”

“You’d feel better. Shout it out. If you can’t roar, just yell, ‘She’s gone!’”

“She’s gone!” He sighed. “There, did that make you happy?”

“No! Not gone hunting herbs. Gone! Make my ears tingle!”

“She’s gone!!”

“Didn’t you love her more than that?? My gods, she was your wife! It was your daughter! It’s not fair! What kind of husband and father were you??”

“Stop this! You’re making me angry!”

“Good! It’s not fair, and you SHOULD be angry!”

Rafiki’s hands began to tremble. His eyes narrowed to slits. The tides of his breath rushed in and out. “I’m mad as hell! I try to live the good life, and what do I get?? First my mother, and now this!! All my training is not worth a pile of Kavana husks!!” He picked up the paint pot and viciously swung it at the paintings, spattering them with red hemorrhages. “Stupid, useless paintings! Stupid house in the middle of stupid nowhere! No one to stop her from taking the child! Stupid brother in a stupid meeting of the stupid council! Oh gods, why did I bring them out here!!” He took his staff and began to beat on the paintings as he shrilly shouted, “And where were the gods in all this?? I gave my life to them, and look at how they repay me--nothing but heartache, neglect and bitterness!!”

Rafiki faced the wall and sobbed for a few silent moments. Finally the staff dropped from his hand and he meekly said, “I didn’t mean it, Aiheu. I’m sorry. I’m sorry! Please don’t hold it against me. Please don’t abandon me!”

With mixed penitence and desperation, he wiped a few red spots off the eye of Aiheu and used some of the spilled paint to fix the smears. It looked like an eye again. In one corner of it he drew a tear.

“He understands, Rafiki. It’s OK that you’re mad at him right now.”

At last he turned to face Uzuri, his face drawn and tear-stained. “Is that how it feels when you roar?”

“Perhaps.” A tear began to run down her cheek. “Do you feel better?”

“I feel so.... I feel....” His lip began to quiver, and he broke out in deep sobs. “I’m so alone! All alone! My youth is gone, and everyone I love I hurt!” Uzuri nuzzled him, and he grabbed tightly around her neck and sobbed on her soft fur. If he hugged her too tightly, she didn’t complain. She stroked him with her pink tongue, wiping away the salty tears.

“Maybe I feel better now,” Rafiki said. “Maybe I’ll make it.”

Uzuri stayed with him. Every moment she was off the hunt, she spent trying to bring Rafiki out of his shell of severe depression. She would tell him stories and groom him like a cub. She even searched out special things for him to eat, though she recognized very little of what was in his diet. A few eggs, a few fallen fruits that she learned to recognize. By and large, he had little appetite, but she would cajole him to eat. He would stare vacantly, but rub her soft fur with his arm as she talked. When she could not be there, she had Makedde sit with him with strict instructions that he not be allowed to mix any of his own medicines.

Finally after a week, he turned to look at her, meeting her gaze completely. “I have made a decision.”

“Yes?”

“I have decided to live.”

She nodded, purring. “A wise decision.”

He stopped her as she rose to go. “Thank you, Uzuri. The gods will bless you for what you have done for me. You will have your reward in Heaven.”

“That’s nice to know. However, I intend to wait a while to collect. See you do the same.” She nuzzled him quickly, the turned and headed into the dry grass, the brown stalks parting before and then closing behind, whispering together in the warm breeze. Rafiki stared after her for a moment, his white hair floating about his face, then turned and went inside.

Zazu glided upon the thermals that wafted gently upward from the ground below. His eyes roved restlessly, scanning the grassland far beneath him, cataloging everything he saw for later reference, should it prove useful to the king. Dipping the leading edge of his wings, he descended slowly, arcing around the great spire of Pride Rock to come to a graceful halt at the base of the promontory. As he headed inside to report to Ahadi, he noticed Mufasa and Rafiki at the point of the promontory, having an extremely animated discussion. He chuckled to himself at the pinched look of concentration on Mufasa’s face.

“Oh my, looks like it’s time for mantlement rehearsal again.” Ruffling his feathers in amusement, he waddled inside, leaving the mandrill and lion to themselves.

Rafiki motioned with his arms energetically. “Ah! No slouching. Straighten up, there...yes. Head up!” he exclaimed, jerking his chin up at the lion.

Mufasa raised his chin up until he was nearly looking skywards. “Like this?”

“No...” Rafiki reached out and took hold of Mufasa’s head, feeling the huge jaw muscles playing under his fingertips as he turned his head slightly. “Hold your head just so, son.”

Mufasa stood, unprotesting as the mandrill turned his head this way and that. In his mind’s eye, he saw the assembled host stretched out on the plain before him, all come to see his great day. His chest swelled with pride, and he unconsciously raised his chin higher.