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Where the Sky Meets the Sand

By Chris Loehmer Kincaid

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Thunk.

A stick hit the boy on the side of his head. Thunk. It hit him again. He knew it was his brother, so he was slow to turn around. When he finally did—thunk—a blow landed on the other side of his head.

Without a word, his brother, younger by a few years, pointed into the distance where a she-goat with her kid nibbled on red oat grass. The boy rose from his perch on a termite mound, grabbed his own stick, and trudged off.

Up until around his twelfth year, this happened frequently in the boy’s otherwise uneventful life. Each day, he and his brother took their herd of goats out into the wide bare plain, where the animals would eat what sparse grass and shrubs they could find. The boy would stare off to the edge of the horizon, not paying much attention to the nothingness that was in between, and not paying much attention to the herd or his brother. He would look to where the pale-blue sky met the dull-tan sand and not think at all.

His brother would finally urge him, often with a stick to the head, to help lead the goats to the wide muddy river, where the animals would drink their fill of murky water.

Sometimes the boys waited on the hillside for great herds of cattle to finish. Sometimes the mommas washed their clothes among the rocks, singing their songs and acting as if they had all day, as the brothers waited. In the evening, they returned to their home within a thorn bush fence, where the family and their livestock slept in relative safety.

The family included not only the boy, his brother and his mother, but many other people. His real father had died years before, when the boy was very young. His momma married a new husband, an older man who already had three wives with seven children between them. Because his momma never gave any children to her new husband, she and her two sons were sometimes overlooked by the established family.

The boy knew he wasn’t as smart as his real brother or his other brothers and sisters. When he stared off into the distance and let his mind go blank, he knew he was doing something wrong but couldn’t make himself stop. He tried, but he couldn’t help himself. The goats would wander off and his brother would call him, but he would stand there, watching clouds pass.

Or someone from his household would ask him to run an errand. He would set off in the right direction, but suddenly find himself some place altogether different and have no idea how he got there.

Then one day, when the other boys were considering their journey to manhood, a stranger came into the enclosure, a man not from the area. All of the tribesmen that the boy knew were tall and thin, but this one was a head shorter than most and round around his middle. He wore many beaded adornments about his neck and on his arms, more even than the women of the tribe.

The man talked to the boy’s stepfather, who nodded and then turned away. Outside of their hut made of mud and dung, the boy’s momma stood silent. She also walked away without a word.

The man told the boy that it was time to begin the journey towards becoming a man.

The boy understood what that meant under normal circumstances, but he sensed that these circumstances were not normal.

“You must pay attention to what I am going to do.” The man placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Remember, I am here to help you. I am here to help your family.”

The man then took the boy into the hut.

Alone.

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