Marakat

Marakat

Sitting on the ledge of the building, she could oversee the town, feet purged beneath her, her hands clawing the edge. Het green eyes skimming over the heads beneath her, as they swarmed through the market like ants. Somewhere at the market was her father selling trinkets he bought all over the world. The girl on the roof could see the stand but could not distinguish her dad. It was a very warm day and the sun was shining high above the palm trees and straight into the houses around the market place. A bird flew low overhead, startling the girl, she lost her grip and started falling down, but her catlike reflexes made her grab the ledge of the house and scramble back up on the ledge. Her heart never skipped a beat during those few seconds. Skilfully she leapt from the ledge unto one of the small edges the house had and used them to get both her feet back on the street. Hands and feet on the ground before she ran off to her own place where she would curl on the rug and take a nap until her father would come home.

She didn’t hear him enter the room, her mind was in another world. Her father was an intimidating man, who always got his way by just speaking but at home his muscles did the talking. In her dream world the girl could hear somebody call her name. “Kaela, Kaela, Kaela!” She wouldn’t wake, perhaps if she stayed asleep he would forget about her, but he did not. She felt his hands tighten around her wrist as he picked her up and dragged her onto the little mattress in the corner of the room. Kaela’s eyes widened with fear as her father’s hands forcefully blemish her skin, making her less worth than the stray dogs in the streets. Her animal instinct clawed at the face of the monster but he struck her attack down. His hands found the string of her shintijan, which he loosened and pulled down. Kaela’s frightened mind did the only thing it could, he called for Marakat the fearless. Kaela disappeared into her dreamworld, where the sun would shine on the endless oceans of sand. The air quivering from the heat radiating from the sandwaves, in the middle of that an oasis blossomed from the abundance of water. The travelling pack on her bag became heavy and the sweat was dripping down her neck and back. She would rest from the travelling down at the oasis. However, how much she walked didn’t matter the oasis didn’t come any closer. Her feet started to bleed and the water in her watersack had run dry and the food she had gathered had moulded and was inedible. Sleep and exhaustion came over her body, like the veil of death. Kaela’s body gave out, there in the hot sand of the desert, somewhere between freedom and slavery. Slipping away.

The sun has crept down to shin a golden ray of light on the sleeping girl’s face. Her naked lower body felt sore and bruised and she got up. Quietly she slipped into her clothes that were scattered next to the mattress she probably had slept on, instead of the rug she thought she had fallen asleep on after coming home. Quietly, Kaela looked out of the window, the sun was burning the palm threes on the outskirts of the small desert village. Her father wasn’t there, if he was asleep he would hear him roar like a tiger, but everything was quiet. He had probably gone out to friends to discuss today’s business and looking at the sun he couldn’t be out much longer. She better had tea ready for when he would come home, it would at least keep him calm for the night and change the roaring into a gentle snoring, if that is what you could call the sounds a sleeping demon makes.

She raised the curtain and bound it up to reach the kitchen area where a fire was still smouldering. A few small logs and the fire would be big enough to boil a kettle of water on. As she was pouring the tealeaves into the kettle she heard her father stomping around the house, one foot after another, almost shake the earth as he tread along. Something was wrong, she could hear it, something was off about his normally so intimidating and self-secure tread. Quickly she prepared a small tray with the teacups and the kettle to put on the little table in the middle of the room. Her father half tumbled half sat down on a small cushion next to the table, with a look of destruction on his face. Kaela said nothing, his anger could be as devastating as a sandstorm. So she put the tray on the table and picked up the kettle with the hot tea. As skilled as a Chinese geisha she poured the tea into the cups, put the kettle down and waited for her father to take the first sip. His big, strong hand grabbed the cup with unusual force and gulped the tea down as if it was water. His expression turned from anger into pain and straight into rage. The hot tea he so greedily drank had burned his mouth and throat. With a deep roar from pain the demon in front of Kaela swept with his strong arms the tray with tea from the table.

The only thing the girl on the floor felt was excruciating pain. She could cry, she never could, the pain was overwhelming. Her father had left the house, she didn’t care where too, she didn’t want to care. Her beautiful black hair stuck to her face, soaked from the tears and sweat. With both hands she held her chest, the burns were glowing red on her amber skin. Her hands were blistering and her shintijan stuck to the skin of her legs. Groaning and moaning from the pain she crawled through the room to find the only friend her father ever allowed her to have. She crawled under the bed and found the soft black hair of the friend she always had in relatively short years she had lived so far. Her green eyes disappeared under eyelids and her feet touched the sand underneath them. The oasis was still close, the blister on her feet hurt but she was determined to walk on till she found that bit of paradise. Her water had run out again, but now Kaela could hear birds singing and water splashing. Suddenly her feet no longer touched burning sand but cool grass. There was nobody there but the birds, singing from their safe spots in the palmtrees. She undressed and lowered herself into the water, feet, legs, hips, belly, breasts, neck, face, hair. She disappeared under the surface of the water. The black water of paradise had swallowed the girl.

Underneath the bed he found his daughter, curled up. The smell of death penetrated his nostrils and the taste of stomach acid filled his mouth. Kaela was holding her cat, Marakat, the insides spilling out, maggots crawling over the animal’s face and through her once shiny black fur. He thought Kaela had buried her when she died a few months back. But there they were, lying in each other’s arms, one soul, two hearts.