The sky was stirring. Little Thomas watched his shadow fade under the clouds. When medicine men go on spirit journeys, they will appear inchoate, as if dead, and on-lookers will say 'his shadow is darkening' when his spirit is returning to the body. Thomas always wondered if that meant his spirit was leaving him when his shadow would fade.
Thomas felt nauseous. Once a week for the last few moons he would visit the Medicine Man, ever since he had slipped on the icy creek and cracked his head. He remembered the warm flush of blood as it gushed down his hair and neck and under his parka. He had been dizzy ever since.
The spinning sat heavy on him this morning. Thomas was on his way to see the Medicine Man now but he had lost control of himself. He was laying on the snow holding on to the ground for dear life, hoping it wouldn't fling him into the heavens. Everything was careening. Silla was fleeing him and returning forcefully, over and over again. He had learned about Silla all his life, how it was in him and in everyone and it was everything and it had unknowable power. And he was skeptical. In fact he was apprehensive and scared. Thomas' mother, his Aama, had told him that Silla had coaxed his cousin into the great wide tundra and that's why he had never met him. That worked very well to keep Thomas close to the tent all those years.
The dizziness flushed in softer now. Thomas tried to roll onto his back. He managed to lay supine but the world kept rolling on, crossing his eyes and stirring his nausea. Thomas begged Silla to do something. It never worked. Suddenly a dark thought entered Thomas' mind. Perhaps it was Silla that had tripped him on the ice that morning. A sense of foreboding came over him. He hauled himself up on his elbow and looked around to see if there was anyone watching.
The sky kept reeling. Thomas considered trying to get up but he didn't feel equal to the task. The amulets on his neck were so heavy. Thomas carried no less than four cumbersome amulets to keep him safe. He was always so ill as a child that his Mother and Father and the Medicine Man and even the Chief felt it necessary to give him these protecting spirits to dangle heavily from his frail neck. If that wasn't enough, Thomas, that being his christian name, had in fact fourteen Netsilik names, each carrying protection for him against illness and wild animals and starvation and even one for the arctic wind.
He gathered himself up onto his hands and knees and tried once more to follow the familiar trail to the Shaman's tent. The thought that perhaps Silla had cracked his head on the ice that day truly bothered Thomas but it was a thought he couldn't dismiss. He had always seen Silla as something or someone more malevolent than his elders had presented him to be. Every time the seals were scarce and Nuliayuk was unrelenting and the Medicine Man couldn't convince her to let game out for the men to catch, Thomas would feel his misgivings swell up. He took out the amulet the Chief had given him, a bear carved from stone. It was the heaviest amulet of them all. The Chief said it had something to do with Silla, Thomas couldn't really remember, he was in the throes of a fiery fever at the time. Thomas examined the heavy bear carving resting on his knees. His focus wouldn't stay still. The bear kept fleeing to the right of him. His eyes needed to slide back over to the carving over and over again like a typewriter. He had almost slowed the swing of his focus down enough to feel steady when the direction shifted suddenly and now the bear was fleeing to his left. He nearly screamed in frustration. He vaulted the heavy stone high into the air and watched it slam into the snow a few yards ahead of him.
He crawled over to it and stared at the amulet, face side down, lodged in the packed snow of the trail. Thomas looked around for any witnesses. He knew something like this could keep the spirit of the seals away. Someone could starve because of this infraction. But Thomas could feel the absence on his neck and his dizziness almost abated for a few moments. He sat on the snow and looked around at the world, almost still, complacent and at ease. He remembered this. He could feel the empty lightness where the amulet use to anchor him. He took a deep breath of cold calm air.
But the world began to rev up once more and Thomas got back on his hands and knees and crawled away, leaving the old stone face-first in the snow. Thomas knew this was forbidden but he could taste a certain rebellion, new and warm, in the stomach of his soul. It was like soup. He was glad for what he'd done.
And crawling came easier now. His neck felt unyoked and easy. He passed on all fours along the shallow frozen creek where he had had his accident. There was a spider web of small inconsequential cracks where his head had slammed and a rosy hue remained, still fading into the past. He felt that same rebellion stir warmly in his gut and he pulled off another amulet and smashed it against the frozen lattice, grinning maniacally. It was then he realized that it was the bone ptarmigan claws his Aama had given him when he learned to walk. The ptarmigan claws were suppose to make him quick-footed. The irony was not lost on him. He choked down a dizzy sob and stared at the amulet scattered in piecemeal. He stayed there on hands and knees for a long time, crying and apologizing to the wind. He sat back on his knees and wiped his snivels with his sleeve.
Thomas resolved to stand up, for his Aama. Thomas knew what a bad idea this was, to stand up on the ice, in the very place Silla cracked his skull, but even still, he could feel an even greater lightness around his collar where the claws use to hang and the dizziness of the world felt more manageable now than it had only one moment before.
With measured and tenacious movements, Thomas lifted himself up onto his left foot and slowly pulled up his right foot behind it. He stood like a teetering tower, his feet adorned with the rosy gossamer ice and the shattered bone carving of some godforsaken ptarmigan claws. A slow uncertain smile crept across Thomas' face. The horizon sloshed about like a bucket of water and Thomas sort of bobbed his way off the ice and back onto the pathway. He put his hood down and felt the cold rush into his ears. His head began to ache in a different more tolerable fashion than it had for the last three months. He slowly plodded his way down the path through the barren tundra field.
He could see now the smoke in the distance dwindling from the Shaman's tent. He wondered what the Shaman would say when Thomas told him how much better he was feeling. He wondered what the Shaman would say when he told him that he had discarded the Chief's amulet and smashed his mother's. Thomas' spirit darkened. He had done something he shouldn't of. But just look at me, he thought, I am walking on these my two feet! The world has slowed down. Even the sky looks more contented.
Thomas decided he ought to sing the song the Shaman had taught him when he was feeling uncontrollably dizzy and see if it helped even more. The song had been his endless refrain for weeks now. He pulled out the bear teeth amulet the Medicine Man gave him and held it tight, as instructed by the Shaman. At times of great nausea he had held it so tight that the teeth dug into his palm and even broke the skin. He began to pour out the deep guttural song in long heavy breaths, letting it mingle with the trudge of his mukluks. The steam lilted away from him. His words turned to water and floated into the wide bright sky. He watched the steam unfold and he actually began to grow faint. His dizziness began to return and he stumbled to his knees and vomit. With each heave Thomas felt his rebellious spirit double up with a familiar anger. A familiar anger that Thomas endorsed when his mother's superstitions would interfere with his child play.
When he had brought up everything he could he lay on his back until his half stable state returned to him. He got up onto his feet again and gained control of himself. With a sneer, he casually lobbed the bear teeth into the vomit and cursed at them. That moment his headache ceased and the world began to spin so softly it might as well have been perfectly still. He spit the vomit taste out of his mouth and looked around. The land rocked serenely like a cradle. Thomas felt drunk and jovial.
He marched toward the smoking distance, staggering joyfully. He knew the Shaman would be upset but he didn't much care. He was too busy relishing the new joys of normality. His floating drunkenness came with an enjoyably smug contempt for Silla and the whole lot of those superstitious elders of his.
A gull circled above him and perched in the near distance by some shrubs. Thomas' last amulet lay placidly around his neck. The mathematics made sense to him now. He pulled out the owl claws his father had given him, for strength, and threw them at the gull, hitting the creature rudely.
Thomas watched it fly away through the still sky and his focus was steady and his feet were stable. He stood still and felt the static land stay exactly where it should. A light breeze came up and didn't move him, didn't make him nauseous. Nothing was agitated, nothing was restless. The calmness was complete, in his world and in his soul.
Thomas broke into a run. The spirit of rebellion had left him. Now all he wanted was to celebrate with his Shaman. To, in fact, evangelize to him, to share the good news, to share a new superstition - the superstition of superstitions. His heart was full of joy and love for the wise old man, devoid of fear and worry that he would be upset or angered. Thomas felt as though he had passed some test and the two of them would celebrate gaily. He approached the tent in a hurry, his quick steps pulling up a loud crunch from the snow. The Shaman heard him coming and came out to meet him. Thomas was burning up from having ran there. He peeled off his parka as he approached the old man.
The Medicine Man was so tall, Thomas thought. His towering mask and head dress pierced the sky with ornate feathers. The large wooden mask was painted in such a menacing pattern that Thomas felt the old fear and respect return to him immediately. Cold stiff feathers jabbed out from the sides of the big planking face and suggested so much importance and grandeur that Thomas could not argue with. The big hands reached toward him and grabbed his shoulders. They were large ominous wooden things, deaf, dumb, and blind, but so full of spirits, full of experience, full of wars and cold drama. The mask tilted in towards Thomas' face and inched closer. The deep husky voice came out from behind it, "Thomas, where are your amulets?"
"I'm all better!" replied little Thomas.
"Yes, I can see that."
"I'm all better!" he repeated.
"Where are your amulets, Thomas?" The Shaman stared into him.
Thomas' eyes began to dart here and there. He was deciding whether to run or to cry or to hit the old man.
"Where are your amulets?" the Shaman repeated, monotone now.
Then something changed in Thomas' heart. His soul glazed over and he stood looking the Medicine Man in the eyes, through the hard walls of the mask. A pool of haughty silence filled the air. The grim mask stared back at Thomas, casting shadows.
The Shaman pushed Thomas hard into the ground. "Never come back here again." He turned around and hulked his body through the small opening in the tent, closing the fur entrance behind him.
Thomas scampered to his feet. He started to sob. He could hear paws rushing through the snow in frigid stealth, coming up behind him. He turned around. Through the watery gauze of tears he saw the pack of wolves just as the first teeth began to pull the meat off his shoulder. Another wolf leaped at his neck.
The Shaman sat mournfully by his fire and covered his ears with his big big hands.




Jaded Hipster Choir's BANDCAMP MYSPACE FACEBOOK


Jaded Hipster Choir - I Will Not Sing Your Praises Here


art by Car Buckley

Jaded Hipster Choir - Big Hands


  art by Car Buckley