14

He was tired, hungry, and thirsty and felt beaten down by the sun. He wanted to climb to the top, when suddenly he felt very weak in the knees and collapsed at the foot of the mountain of garbage. He could not tell whether he was in a temporary coma or a deep sleep, but when a slight breeze blew it lifted him out of himself to the sky, where he now floated. He could still see his own body lying on the ground and the mountain of garbage, where children and dogs fought over signs of meat on white bones. The body needs a rest from you and you need a rest from the body, he heard himself saying to himself. He decided to let his body lie there in the sun, and, free of the body, he wandered Aburiria—why leave the exploration and enjoyment of our country to tourists? he said with a chuckle to himself—comparing the conditions in the different towns and regions of the country.

This is really funny, he said to himself when he saw that he looked like a bird and floated like a bird; he enjoyed the rush of cold air against his wings. He now recalled a Christian song he had once heard:

He started to sing but because he could not open his beak as wide as his mouth what came out was a whistling reminiscent of the song of the birds he had listened to in the mornings in the wilderness.

From his vantage point, he had a bird’s-eye view of the northern, southern, eastern, western, and central regions of Aburiria. The landscape ranged from the coastal plains to the region of the great lakes; to the arid bushlands in the east; to the central highlands and northern mountains. People differed as much in the languages they spoke as in the clothes they wore and how they eked out a living. Some fished, others herded cattle and goats, and others worked on the land, but everywhere, particularly in towns, the contours of life were the same as those of Eldares. Everywhere people were hungry, thirsty, and in rags. In most towns, shelters made out of cardboard, scrap metal, old tires, and plastic were home to hundreds of children and adults. He found it ironic that, as in Eldares, these shacks stood side by side with mansions of tile, stone, glass, and concrete. Similarly, in the environs of cities and towns huge plantations of coffee, tea, cocoa, cotton, sisal, and rubber shared borders with exhausted strips of land cultivated by peasants. Cows with udders full with milk grazed on lush lands as scrawny others ambled on thorny and stony grounds.

So I am not alone, he heard himself say to his bird self. Maybe he should abandon his human form and remain a bird, floating effortlessly in the sky, bathing in the fresh air of Skyland, but then he started sneezing as a whiff of gases from the factories below reached him. Is there no place on earth or in the sky where a person might escape this poison? A bit confused, he thought that before making any decision about the form in which he would lead the rest of his life he should return to his body lying in the sun to recover and review the shocks of the day. But what if his body had been completely scorched by the sun? At the thought he flapped his wings and hurried back to Eldares.

He arrived not a minute too early. A rotation truck full of garbage had just pulled up at the foot of the trash mountain. He was about to reenter his body but he held himself in check and floated a bit longer to see what they would do with his shell.

The driver and two men got out and looked at the body for a few seconds. Then one of them bent, put his ear to the chest, and proclaimed the body dead, provoking an exchange as to what they should do with the corpse. They did not want to call the police; it would take the cops a whole day to come, and they had work to do. In any case they did not want to get caught up in endless court proceedings. There was always the possibility that they might be accused of murder and end up in prison or have their heads chopped off or lose a lot of money to bribe their way out. But to leave the body there might result in as much.

The corpse was in a somewhat threadbare suit. Was there money in the pocket? At the thought, all fears about touching the body disappeared and the three searched frantically but found nothing. No money. They noticed that the corpse still clutched a bag on which it partially lay. It had to contain something important for its owner to cling to it so tenaciously through his death throes. The three read one another’s minds and unceremoniously they quickly turned the body over and searched the bag. They were so sure that the bag was full of money that they became very angry at the corpse when they found it held nothing but rags; one of them started cursing the corpse as if it were alive. You stupid liar. I am sure these rags are your real clothes and the suit you have on is stolen property. Have you no shame, stealing other people’s clothes? And you did not even have the good sense to steal a suit less worn out; at least we could have taken that.

They were about to go when they suddenly realized that their fingerprints were all over the body. They could not leave the corpse there and decided to bury the evidence of their involvement. Dead men do not speak, especially if they and their bags are buried in a rubbish dump. So many were dying of hunger or illness, not to mention the ones in despair who took their own lives, that the police would have no reason to search for yet another corpse amid the stench.

Maybe I should let them bury my body, he told himself, or rather his bird self: What use am I in Aburlria? The body is a prison for the soul. Why shouldn’t I cut off the chains that now tie me to it, let the body and the soul say good-bye to each other? That way my soul shall be free to roam across land and all over this sky. Yes, to go wherever it wishes without the endless restraining demands of the body: I am thirsty, I want water to drink; I am hungry, I want food to eat; I am naked, I need some clothes; I am out in the rain, I need some shelter; I am ill, I must find a doctor. I must catch a bus but I have no money. I must pay school fees, taxes … isn’t it simpler to let everything go?

But when he saw the men actually lift him, or rather his body, and throw it onto the pile of rubbish in the back of the lorry headed for the dump, he heard a voice from within cry out that the body was the temple of God and the soul had no right to cut loose its connection to the world before it had completed its sojourn on earth. I am human, I am a human being, a soul, and not a piece of garbage, no matter how poor and ragged I look, and I deserve respect, he heard himself say time and again as he descended to and repossessed his body.

The stench, which hit his nostrils, was so strong that it made him sneeze even as he tried to sit up. He started removing garbage from his face. About to get into the passenger side of the lorry, two of the men heard the sneeze. They each stood fixed to the ground. The driver also froze, his hands on the door, one leg on the rung and the other still on the ground. What was that? he asked. But his men did not answer. Having gone to peer at the body risen from the dead, they just ran away. The driver also fled the lorry after his friends, beseeching them not to leave him to the mercy of the Devil. But the word Devil only served to spur them on; the three were now screaming out Satan! in different pitches. Not until they saw a group of young men and women with crosses and a banner on which was written the words SOLDIERS OF CHRIST did they stop to compose themselves and ask for help …