Spices and flowers float and linger on the surface of herbal water. Candles are lit and surrounding the bath. Descending into the water's spiritual depths is the boy, Kafrapa. And when he closes his eyes, the water turns into an ominous and celestial blue. Above him is a window from which the crescent moon hovers and shines. The moon is three more phases to become new—to become an empty hole in the sky, waiting to be filled with new life, and be rid with old. He parts his lips to pray.
"O, Benevolent Goddess of the night,
Why favor me not? I am yours, your son
Your brother, your worshiper. Do you not
See the admiration for you in me?
Instead, you grant your power to the ones
Who abuse your treasure, abuse your light?
To woman alone, leave man to suffer
In silence, powerless. Are we unloved
By you? Are we the low, forgotten ones?"
In his world, women are blessed by the grace and power of the moon and the water. They are blessed with immense spiritual power. If desired, they can send raging cyclones and tsunamis throughout the world. The moon favors women due to their menstrual cycles. For that reason, this abundance in potential and possibilities are lost in men. They can complete simple spells, but nothing beyond. This is Kafrapa's world, the land of the Majai clan. And in this land, Kafrapa is a poor boy with no power or property in his name. Because he is a boy, there is no hope for success for him. There is no suitable job, no social mobility. This world grants him neither pleasure nor room for happiness.
"I fear for my dear father's precious life.
This may be the last time he lay in bed.
Spiritual power may heal the flesh
Or grant the soul safe passageway to thy.
Your son, your brother, your worshiper begs
Lend me your power, Grant me thine power."
His only pleasure in life is his father, Patiba. He is the only man that ever loved the boy with whole heart and soul. But he is dying. Though the boy prays with all his strength and passion, the moon gazes down at him in silence. What else was there to be expected of moon Goddesses? They show no love to men. They are cruel.
"You're not hearing anything, are you? I was stupid to think you would listen to me." Kafrapa says in disgust. The boy despairs and buries his head low into the herbal water. He lingers, holding his breath and for a moment, staying there seemed beautiful. Time passes slowly in the water, and sensations are stronger. Life is still, cool, and calming here. If one can die, pass on through the loving embrace of dew, wouldn't that be fine? I would be peaceful Kafrapa thinks to himself. I would be happy.
Suddenly the boy has a vision of a woman rising from an ocean. She's the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on, with skin a beautiful brown color and hair as dark as the deepest sea. And her eyes are a fierce golden tint that shines like a thousand mystical suns. She is brimming with spiritual power, one can see it emanating from her body. The woman opens her mouth as if to speak, but before she can speak her mind, the vision ends and Kafrapa rises abruptly from the herbal bath. He breathes heavily in shock, confusion, fear, and oddly enough a euphoric sort of excitement. He quietly remembers that the new moon is coming. Perhaps this is the coming of something new.
In the living room of their small and poorly furnished home, was Patiba. He sat down by a dim fire with sparkling liquor shimmering on his lips. Kafrapa goes to sit by his side. Patiba offers him a drink.
"You're wasting your time. The goddesses heed no ear to men. After all, womb favors womb..." Patiba says to his son. Kafrapa scoffs and the father finds it amusing. However his happy chuckles shift into vicious and violent coughing. This sickness quakes his entire body, and flowing his mouth is a mixture of bright red blood, and a dark tar like substance. Something inside Patiba, inside the depths of his anatomy, is slowly rotting. Kafrapa can feel it in his own heart. There was something about watching a father in pain that destroys the soul. Kafrapa's own belly felt disgustingly wrong, as if filled with rotten cheese and stale bread, washed down with brown and unclean water. For seconds, Kafrapa would entertain the notion that he was getting sick too, but part of him could not shake of the reality of the matter. The only sickness swirling around in his body was sadness. The father holds his chest and calms his breathing.
"Kafrapa...I sense my time is coming" says the father. In all seriousness, it's quite obvious that this man will die in the near future. Obvious, however it is an unacceptable sort of truth. Kafrapa would rather believe in acceptable lies.
"You're sensing nothing," says the boy "You'll be fine. We'll find a way to heal you."
"Be realistic. We have no money and no power. You and Hani are not children anymore. You can survive on your own without me." He takes another sip of his drink and sighs heavily. "And frankly, I am very tired of living this way. I'm tired of being old, sick, and living in a world where men are not free." Patiba, being the only parental figure in Kafrapa's life, is an outstanding role model to him. Everything the boy knew came from the wisdom of his father. The man taught the boy to fight, to pray, and to maintain himself when survival seemed impossible. Most importantly, the father taught Kafrapa that dreaming, despite the severity of circumstances, is neither wrong nor foolish. Dreams serve an important service to people, and if it did not, they would not exist. A majai without dreams will lose their mind in cold and harshness of reality. "So dream," Patiba would say, "for your sound mind and body is too precious to rot under reality's disease." But the boy's dream, from the moment he was born, is to spend eternal days with his father. What good are dreams really, if they stand no chance to come true?
"Father, you are the strongest person I know. If you lose hope, then there's no hope for me, or any other man."
"There is hope for you. You never needed magic or guidance from anyone. Not the Goddesses, or the priests...not even from me. There is nothing I've taught you that you could not discover on your own. You'll be fine." But how can this be true? Did the father honestly believe that the son never needed him? On the contrary, this man was the only one the boy believed he ever needed. Kafrapa feels certain that his father is wrong-- he needed him if not for his teachings, then for his kindness and love. He wants to tell his father how wrong he is, how necessary Patiba is in his world. However, to be unnecessarily defiant and argumentative to his father may cause stress. He humbles himself and sits up to see his sister Hani looking at them through a crack in the door. The beautiful young lady seemed visibly worried about her father but does not inch any closer to disturb the bond between father and son. The right and kind thing for Kafrapa is to welcome his sister inside, so that they may come together as a full family. Kafrapa however, had no interest in welcoming his sister. Instead, he intently stares at her face. Lovely yet stern attributes are all over the young girl's face. She shares Kafrapa's and Patiba's dark and wavy hair, and it cascades down her back. Her eyes, however, are her mother's, whom they haven't seen for over a decade. Those eyes are red and dark like blood. Kafrapa hates Hani's eyes, hates how a sister sees the world through such tainted lenses.
"You must promise me Kafrapa" says the father "that you will protect your sister and always be by her side." In that instant, the eyes of Hani and Kafrapa shared something in common: disgust, disbelief, and anger. The boy speaks to the father, but his eyes never leave Hani's own.
"Hani doesn't need me. She is a woman. She can use magic; it is her who protects me. 'Womb favors womb' no?" Kafrapa grinds his teeth.
"Don't you dare be bitter towards your sister. She cannot help the way our world is. You don't understand yet, but because she has magic, because she is a woman, she needs you." To mind his father's health, he once again humbles himself with obedience.
"Yes Father."
When everyone goes to their beds, Hani is in her room practicing her healing magic in the hopes of healing Patiba. With a knife, she makes a shallow cut on her hand and begins to work. With intense concentration, she levitates the pure water within the bottle. She then mixes them with spices and herbs. She parts her lips to pray.
Sisters of love and nourishment hear me
For I am humble and weak, I need you.
Let the power in my core be set free
For the healing of love. Be so, shine through.
Hani begins to speak in her native majai tongue. The words roll out her mouth with fluency and grace, but she begins to lose focus. All levitated objects are shaking and unstable, and though the young girl tries her best to remain calm and still, all objects tumble and collapse around her.
"Damn" the girl swears as she falls back on her bed. Often times the girl would practice her healing magic, but she would often fail miserably. No matter how much effort and concentration she strives to uphold, the results were always abysmal. What is the purpose of magic, the force of bending nature and twisting the physical world, if she honestly could not heal? What good will it do in a crisis such as this, when Patiba's death is so imminent? Is she really so powerless that Patiba believes it falls to her brother to protect her? No, thinks the young girl, I am strong. I can protect myself and my family. That is what spiritual power is for. What good will a man do at protecting me? What could Kafrapa do that I honestly could not? The young girl clenches her teeth in disgust
"Protect your sister... always be by her side" Her shaking hands make angry fists. "Oh, Please" she mutters out loud. However, in an adjacent room, her brother mutters those same words. Those same words escape both of their lips-- with that same disgust, and that same hatred for the sibling living just beyond their bedroom wall.