Nothing more I can say

From first bird twitters to late afternoon, the day accelerated all in the slinging red discus of the sun arching overhead, leaving in its wake a ripple of shifting blues. But the gypsy cyclist barely recognized the passage of time, and, catching in the dim ambiguity of his awareness, the red disk seemed to slow up as if to fatigue suddenly in the lateness of day. A vague perception percolated his thoughts that, really, the day had only just started. Acknowledging his own fatigue and the fire in his quads, he discovered the sound of his own voice, saying: “my, how quickly the day has passed. It seems like it has only just begun.”

But his consciousness shifted as the flames in his legs fanned through his body, upward to sear the hollows of his innards and cheeks. He knew he had consumed nothing in eight hours of riding; knew that instantaneously there was not one pedal stroke more for his legs to take, recognized his imminent collapse as the universe before him shriveled to a dot, and he thought, falling, “What an idiot, I am. I never ride that long without eating.”

For a moment he lay beside his bicycle without capacity for motion. Then, when an ember of consciousness flecked among the whiteness, he grabbed for every granola crumb that lined his jersey pockets, frantically and shaking, and a voice nearby, saying: “I think he’s ok. He’s coming to.” But the voice faded and he grabbed at the water bottles in their cages and slung back dregs of sugary fluid. Soon the dimming sky again became visible; the space around him expanded and a hot evening breeze enwrapped him. He needed more food, but for the moment he was content simply to lie still under the purple sky.

A man spoke to him. “You should not travel through here,” he said.

The gypsy cyclist, with only just enough awareness for a simple conversation, said. “Oh, why?”

“There are rebels in the bushes, roaming the lands, everywhere. They are not targetting foreigners, but they are ruthless and will cut you into pieces with their machetes if you cross them when they are in the mood for blood. You should turn back here. You are lucky to have made it this far.”

The gypsy cyclist needed no more prompting than that. “I will. Does anyone have any food? Fruit? Water? Please, I nearly passed out.”

“Yes,” replied the man with a smile. Others nearby chuckled. “We saw!” The man pointed to a young boy nearby. “Acholeli, give him some water and bananas.” The boy, Acholeli, pulled two bananas from a sack and a flask of water, handing it to the gypsy cyclist. The gypsy cyclist thanked him.

“There, in that village,” pointed Acholeli to a place in the distance where thatched roofs could be seen over the top of a wooden fence. “They are all orphans. We are from the south, and are here to help. But all their parents have been killed by the rebels. The rebels commit the most brutal atrocities. For some of those children, the rebels brought their dead mothers’ heads in a great urn, and told the children to find their mother’s heads. How many children have lost their minds. But we are here to dance and to sing with them, to help them to find solace from their wounds.”

Still acutely aware of his depleted body, moreso than the words of Acholeli or the man, the gypsy cyclist rapidly consumed the two bananas, and drank the water. He began to feel better, wishing he could have more, but could not ask for it. “That is utterly horrible,” he said. “I hope for all your sakes that the rebels are brought to justice. Why do they do it?”

“It is about power,” said Acholeli. “It is a simple thing. The more children in a tribe, the more powerful it is. The children are made into soldiers, or slaves. Yes, it is almost unbearable. I have written a song”.

Acholeli sang

softly and slowly at first, rising in volume and finally to heart-wrenching passion.

“I was twelve years old,
Nothing but twelve years old,
Rebels came, took me, my sister away,
Killed mother and father,
Showed me a pot full of heads
And said, ‘where is your mother now?’
I was losing my mind,
And there is nothing more I can say,
Nothing more I can say,
Nothing more I can say
Nothing more I can say.”

For the gypsy cyclist, the flames that fanned from his legs to the hollows of his cheeks transformed to a fire in his mind. Though his body cried out for yet more food, of that he was no longer aware, and for his head there was nothing to feed or fill a mind from which all thoughts had fled, diffusing into all the molecules of the hot muggy air, propagating into the deep purple sky, out into the vacuum of space to vanish, to hide behind a crowd of stars.

He told the people he would turn back in the morning. First, though, he needed much sleep.

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