Idwel: Introduction

The boy knelt down on the dark rich soil beneath him, as the crow flittered down onto his shoulder, clicking and chirping softly. It turned its head and gave a stared sideways at the boy.

He reached down and grasped a small handful of dirt, and began muttering softly into his hand. The light breeze that had picked up earlier in the day stilled, and the crow raised its head up to look around.

“You know what will happen.”

“Quiet.”

“It will all die.”

“Maybe it won’t this time.”

The boy stood back up using the hoe that was beside him as support. He looked out over the new crops he had just planted with a concerned countenance. The crow leaned back its tiny head and gave out a short caw before flying over to a small perch next to a run-down hut. The boy had hoped to prove himself to the villagers again, to show that he could indeed grow crops, and that he wasn’t some curse upon them all.

But the crow was right. Every crop in the village he dared lend his hands to growing died. And it was worse than that. The soil dried out to a completely unfertile dust that no amount of rain seemed to be able to restore. It all came back to him too. First it was astonishment, followed by suspicion and doubts, then finally the accusations and the exile. Their suspicions were not ill-placed though, indeed he was the cause of this blight, but the boy just hadn’t accepted it yet.

The boy hadn’t accepted a lot of things. Why wouldn’t his family speak to him anymore, why did the land around him wither and die, and why was this crow talking to him. The boy was having trouble accepting why several of the villagers were walking towards him now with some rope and a few makeshift clubs, or why they were angrily raising them up above their heads and-

The boy awoke tied up to a post with the smell of oil heavy in the air around him. As his eyes opened they recognized the figure holding a blazing torch in front of him.

“Papa?”

The man’s fist twisted in anger, as he looked over to the rest of the villagers.

“I will take responsibility for this pox, this pestilence I have brought upon us. It ends today!”

The man turned back and began lowering the torch.

The boy looked around frantically, back and forth between the villagers. He saw his mother, jeering at him from among several others of the womenfolk of the village, his former friends, cursing and throwing small rocks at him. The anger and resentment of the villagers flooded into him.

“You are abandoned.”

“No, I-“

“You are about to die.”

“Why, why would father-“

“We will help.”

The boy’s father began to lower the torch down to the oil soaked wood at the boy’s feet. The boy’s face communicated one last desperate plea to the man, then vanished.

“HELP ME!”

The man paused, startled by the sudden outburst, then suddenly dropped the torch at his feet and shouted in pain. Black pustules began rising up all over his hands. Gasps spilled out from the crowd. As the man dropped to his knees and gazed in horror at his mutating hands, the pustules popped. Flies poured out from the open wounds. Hundreds of flies, they swarmed around the man and dispersed into the crowd. The last thing that the boy heard were the screams of the villagers, though as his vision faded to black his eyes made out even more sinister shapes swarm about.

He awoke to a silence. He was still tied up, but there wasn’t a soul to be seen. A familiar bird landed on his shoulder and cocked its head sideways.

“It’s time to go.”

The boy began to cry as the bird pecked at the ropes that bound him.