by Asha Oshun'Mali

Created on: September 02, 2009

The Silent Crying Drum.

It is Timothy that I think of now as I contemplate the dank darkness around me. This is a place with no sound. Dust rises. Heat fills the stifling air. Smell floods with no mercy into my nostrils. It is sickening-this smell. It is death, plain and simple. I can feel the weight of a distant drum. I feel it's pulsating off beats in the essence that I have become.

My body, or rather, the layers of energy that I am now, tense. Sound floods into the silent space. This sound is akin to a million bees ripping into my consciousness. Sound in this space-is pain. I resist the urge to cry out. The judge has come. He is the drummer. He is the drum.

I try to fend off the drummer's coming and the pain that rips through my thoughts. My sight dims until I can see little more than shadows. But I can feel a familiar presence.

"Umi" I whisper. The sound of her name uttered from my thoughts weighs down on me. Feelings form that I can not force away. She is near me, my mother. Her silent question forms in the mist that surrounds what we have become.

"Why, Daughter? Why?"I ignore the sadness that hangs in the stale air along with her words. I have no time to answer her now. The drummer draws nearer. He will be upon me soon. The feeling of the pulsing soreness has grown stronger. I will not cry out. I am too weak to. Still, I am defiant in my conviction not to give in to the drummers demands.

I have committed a crime; a most unnatural crime. I will be punished. Judgment must be weighed upon my soul. I could run away. I know this. But I wait on, thinking of Timothy, with no shame.

A sudden wave of new pain grips me. I brace myself. I have been here before at this juncture. It is not the first time that I have violated nature's law. But, never has the weight of my injury been so severe.

Over and over again waves of new agony cover me. It is like a shroud that I can not remove. The drummer is with me now. For the first time since coming back into this place again, I taste the familiar pungent dust. I know that I will soon be hacking.

Umi remains near me. Other family members old and new have come to watch the reckoning. So too, have the strangers. The curious spirit of a small frail man moves closer to me. I send him a warning with my mind. He scurries backward.

I smile. What else can I do? Here, as with there, I have no real power? All I can do is focus on memory and even that is exactly what the drummer wants me to do.

Before I can go back, the crafty drummer

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