It takes strength to end the dream. Laughter remains in my ears over muted drums. I sit on a matted floor under the roof of a large meeting hall beneath a twilight sky. Standing before me is a line of village girls and behind them a band of drummers. Wide smiles and hips sway in time with the drummers, faster – the rhythm of a heartbeat in chase. Further behind, several rows deep, are crowds staring not at the performance but at me. They grin and look in awe as if staring at a god.
Shadows from the dancers fall on my legs, cast by the last of the sun. I feel satisfied, warmed by the ritual of the moment. I want to stay in this place despite the throbbing in my face - a pain and reminder - of a broken body awaiting my spirit’s return. Coconut oil and candlenut leaves, the scent of it, keep me afloat. My senses fill like waves washing into a tidal pool, awakening a yawning stomach. And while the bodies of the women are tempting it is only real and earnest hunger for food I desire.
Villagers lay down gifts before me: banana leaves filled with strips of roasted pig and chicken, steamed crayfish, clay-baked pigeons, smoked eel, kumara and taro. All this bounty, from forest to sea, are presented around a full-grown Moa. My mouth waters. Seeing it, the rarity of it, marks the occasion as something extraordinary - certainly equal to a chief’s wedding feast. And it is all for me. But why?
I look to either side of the dancers where chiefs and nobles stare back stonily. Smiles faded along with the remaining daylight. One of them raises onto thick legs before hobbling over, laying a gourd at my feet. I pour a heavy blue brew into my shell. A strong voice from the back shouts ‘Puga!’ I nod at the nobles, the gift accepted, and drink from my cup.
Candlenut torches are lit and tied to beams by young warriors. Another voice announces, ‘the light!’ Flames sway, a participant in the dance. All before me slows while a weight descends upon my brow, as if a fairy has decided to rest along that soft ridge. When the drumming subsides the sounds of a distant shore resume, both here and there. The puga takes hold, numbs me to where I see only the dance: bodies scented with oils, hair adorned with flowers, leafy hips moving faster and faster. Takaroa’s waves crash in approval between drum beats. Each hand, each gesture, matches the words of a song I cannot hear over the shore.
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A second noble, older, approaches out of the shadows. I read his face and determine his mana, high ranked but from an unknown tribe. Thin parallel lines stretch from chin to neck and below, honouring his ancestors and their homelands along a mighty river. He kneels beside me, extracting a fresh piece of puga from the hilt of his maro. A warm smile turns to a grimace while the elder grinds the coral into the thick of his palm. A turn of hand reveals the blue powder briefly before it escapes between fingers into my shell.
The fine food, the moa, dancers and nobles from opposing tribes, all sharing puga - they’re celebrating something - but it is as if they are waiting on me to act first? Who was I again?
A heavy rumble shakes the ground beneath. Takali Foto, the volcano god, overseeing all on the island now speaks from the south. One of the dancer’s moves ahead hips a blur, matching the shaking of the volcano. She steps into light. Her brilliant green eyes shine through the dark and through me. As she approaches I recognise her. Selai the healer, most famous in all of Kafiki Island. The woman I once loved. She dances closer still, smiling. Her scent is the same. I read her chest of noble bloodlines tattooed in the style of her tribe, curling up past her long neck and chin ending above her lips.
She speaks to me. Mouth pushing out words that fail to carry except for one. ‘Sun.’ Everything else is muted by the crash of waves onto rocks. Takaroa, my god, the god of oceans, calls to me. And before Selai can finish Takali Foto shakes the world apart as a thick black cloud descends from above swallowing up all I see.
