kao and the gods

8/8/2019 Kao and the Gods

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Kao and the godsOn a dune

Copyright to Rowan Visser

9/14/2010

When I leave this world I want to take the sky with me. Anon 2009



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behind, they had simply been forgotten. Kao does not ask for rain or food or wealth or

anything with which the gods may toy and tease him with. Kao listens.

For days he sits on the dune, his ear pitched to the heavens. At night, when the frost sits on

his hair, he hears to gods hold silent conversations about the world and he can see their eyes,

too many to count, look down on his dune. During the day, when the sun stings him and

makes his eyes burn, he hears them cackling again, all around him. Scrrr... scrrr... everywhere

around him. He does not turn to look when he hears them, he only sits. Waiting.

After a week Kao hears what he¶d been waiting for and he stands up on his dune. The silence

in heaven and earth bid him forward and he raises his head to look straight up.

µHello, my name is Kao. I have a wife, Nti and two sons, Telu and Bao. I don¶t think you

know them. I told them about you, just like my father told me and his father told him. All the

stories of the games you play. They liked that. It made them laugh. But...¶ Kao sighs, µthey

don¶t laugh anymore.¶ A long time passes before Kao speaks again. He wants the gods to tell

him why, but he knows they don¶t understand him. They do not live, do not love, do not see

anything as magical or wonderful for they are what they are and know nothing else.

µFor you it is nothing to make it rain, I don¶t think. Tip your cups slightly and my people

would dance as if they were puppets or don¶t and watch them die. Nothing to you, I don¶t

think.¶ Again Kao stares up at the sky, squinting against the sun. For a long time he stands

like this, his shadow growing longer behind him.

µWe are kind people. We don¶t shout or demand, we do not threaten and we do not covet

what is not ours. We do not complain and are content with the sand, the sun, the baobab and

the animals. We say please and thank you and respect each other and your world you set us

in, but I have come to tell you something.¶ The sun, now in front of Kao, touches the horizon



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as if the gods were taking a seat to listen what he had to say. Kao had thought about it often

and many times, but now the words seem so final, so mocking. His heart pounds in his chest

and he clears his throat.

µWe are not yours anymore. You forgot us and now we forget you too. If you want to kill us,

do so. If not, don¶t, but we are not yours to play with anymore. I don¶t propose an ultimatum,

I am here to say goodbye.¶

Kao watches the last rays of the sun disappear beyond the edge of the world and his shoulders

drop. He had said what he wanted to.

kao and the gods

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