Red Jacket by Pamela; Mordecai Page B

Palestine, so, in a way, in Africa as well. He is transfixed by a vision in which Africa’s vastness throbs at the end of God’s outstretched finger.
    And then, Oh holy ancestors, assist us! Blue Mother of Sorrows, pray for us! At the tip of God’s finger he beholds a field of maggots feasting on tawny bodies, corpses tumbled down hills of sand, rotting on roadsides, putrefying in ditches, piled in middens that seethe and hum. He can hear the larvae squirming in an ecstasy of eating, the brush of a plague of tiny wings, the munching of a swarm of mouths. A bloody filter tracks across sand dunes and rocky desert, as gory bodies, baked in the sun, turn every hue of brown and black. The mouldering flesh stinks so high that it invades his senses. He can taste it. Dried blood encrusts his fingers, intrudes under his nails. Chorales of gnawing insects sing in his ears, as God folds his finger, and pulls his hand away.
    Shivering, clutching his belly, he hunches over, ready for the fit, stomach muscles taut, bladder squeezed tight, chin tucked into collarbone. He curses the fates for hurling this at him now, when he is just kneading his life into some kind of shape.
    The seizure never comes. Foresight but no fit! After minutes of shivering, arms still hugging his middle, breath in long draughts, he feels a trepidation so great he knows he must tell somebody. He drags on his shoes, grabs a shirt, and never mind he’s had his consultations for the day, runs to the director’s office, praying he will still be there. Mbuni are dozing near his door, eyes closed, pointed heads at rest between their front paws. In the scrub, tree frogs puff their tiny cheeks, trilling ko-kee noises. Night birds hoot and howl.
    Jimmy raps and hears a sleepy, “Come in.”
    â€œSorry to disturb you, Father John.”
    â€œAre you still up then, Brother Atule?”
    â€œAs you see, Father.”
    What he’s doing is unprecedented, Jimmy knows, but he’s leaving it up to the director. The priest can send him back, if he wishes.
    â€œHave a seat and say what’s on your mind.”
    â€œThank you.” Jimmy sits. “I’d better just confess it. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I’m a soothsayer. I see the future: I divine, foretell, whatever the hell it is.”
    â€œIt is hell, is it?”
    â€œIt is.”
    â€œWhy don’t you tell me about it?”
    â€œYou believe me, Father?”
    â€œShouldn’t I?”
    â€œYes. But first, I must assure you that I’ve never dabbled in the occult, nor my family. We’ve always had good teaching on that in Mabuli and not just from you Christians.” He smiles briefly at that; the priest smiles too. “We Mabulians know the difference between asking the intercession of the saints, and of our holy ancestors, who are watchful for us, and trafficking with evil spirits.”
    â€œUnderstood. Tell me what happened, or happens, if it still does.”
    â€œIt does, Father. It just did … That’s why I’m here.”
    â€œSo tell me.”
    He might as well begin at the beginning.
    â€œI was twelve.” The sound of his voice in the silence helps. Proper self-love, Jimmy thinks wryly. “They’d closed school for a month because of an outbreak of mumps. One morning I went tramping through the forest with Tjuma, my best friend. We were looking for mushrooms, the hallucinogenic kind, and we were lucky. We found a whole lot. We made a fire, and brewed up a drink. He had half the tin, and I had the rest, then we sat waiting, all excited.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œNothing. The fungi were perfectly safe. We trudged home, terribly disappointed. I had lunch, and went outside to nap on a bench in the yard. I slept — how long I don’t know. And then it happened.” He stops.
    â€œGo on,” the priest encourages.
    â€œI opened my eyes. Or so I thought. But I couldn’t move. Not my