Mani He

by Joseph Carrabis

Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

part 2

Tony rolled on the cot and almost fell off. Badger nudged him, “Come on, Mani He, get up. Grandfather Sun is awake. See? He’s yawning and stretching his arms way over the eastern mountains. Get up.” Tony mumbled something and rolled back the other way, away from Badger and the sunlight coming in through the cabin window.

“Mani He. Get up. You’re the one who wants to take this journey.”

Tony reached behind his back and swished his arm back and forth until he felt Badger’s warm, soft, thick fur. Then he pushed Badger away.

Badger curled into a ball and rolled with Tony’s shove, then came back, ripped off Tony’s covers and buried his teeth deep and quick into Tony’s rump.

“Ouch!”

“Ah, you’re awake.”

Tony sat up and realized suddenly, forcefully, that he wasn’t home and he wasn’t talking to Grace. He snatched the covers back and held them tightly against him, one hand at his throat and the other at his groin. “You bit me.”

“Oh, that I were Coyote. I could look at you and say, ‘Me? Never,’ with such a straight face. But I am Badger. Now get up.” Badger bit Tony again. “Besides, you’ll meet Coyote later.”

“I’m talking to a badger.”

“No, no. You’re talking to Badger. No ‘a’. This is me. I’m it. Now get out of bed.”

“Where are we going?” Tony asked as he filled a basin with water and washed.

“I don’t know. All I know is that I’m Badger. And it’s morning. See?” Badger pointed out the east facing window. “Grandfather Sun is winking at us. Soon he’ll be smiling.” He stood beside Tony as Tony toweled off. While Tony dressed, Badger pushed the soap down into the water and watched it pop up again. He laughed. It was a chittery sound. “I love this stuff,” he said, pushing the soap down again. “Besides, when we find the others, they’ll know.”

“The others?”

“You don’t think I’m going to do this all by myself, do you?”

“Do what?”

“Not what, who. Go.”

“Look, I haven’t dropped acid since ’79 and it was out of place then. You’re a hallucination at best, you’re work-related stress at the least. I’m going to make myself some breakfast, go into town for a paper, then you’ll be gone.”

Badger slashed Tony’s face with his claws. “Get going, or I do the other cheek.” He raised his other paw.

“I’m up, I’m up.”

“Ah, yes. Give them a little pain and they’ll believe anything.”

“Where are we going?”

Badger sighed. “Follow your nose, Two-Legs.”

“Are you going to bite me again?”

“Not unless I have to. You don’t taste too good. Besides, my nose is much longer than yours and I follow it. It doesn’t usually get me in trouble. You have eyes, too, you know. I wouldn’t expect you to listen to just me, why should I expect you to listen to just your nose? Now” — Badger pulled back a paw. There was a slight click as his claws spread —“you going to move, or what?”

“I’m talking to a goddamn badger.”

Badger hissed at him. “To Badger. I’m talking to Badger.”

They walked through the forest with Tony in the lead most of the morning, up hill and down yet never leaving the mountains. Near noon, Tony stopped. “Okay, that’s it.”

Badger stood beside him and looked around. “What’s ‘it’?”

“Where’s the cabin?”

“The cabin?”

“Yes, the place where we started.”

“Gee, Mani He, you’ve got lots of traveling to do before you can get back to where you started.”

“Listen, Badger, or whoever you are, I’ve purposely walked in a big circle—”

“Good for you!”

“And I know we should have reached the cabin by now. Where is it?”

“I’m glad you’re interested in circles, Mani He, but we can’t create them. All we can do is become aware of them and make good use of them. Besides, with me, with you, we go east.”

“Do we ever stop to eat?”

“Plenty of things to eat, Mani He.” Badger pointed at the beetles, snakes, mice, and other things crawling around them.

“You expect me to catch things?”

“You expect me to feed you?”

“What am I suppose to do, then?”

“You can do what I do, if you want. It works for me.” Badger closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, a small snake scurried in front of him. He snatched it up and put it in his mouth. Half the snake’s body whirled around his nose as he crunched the other half. “See?”

“No, thanks.”

By late afternoon they’d traversed what seemed like several mountains. Tony wasn’t even sure if they were still in New Hampshire. “Can we take a break. I’m tired.”

“Hmm. Grandfather Sun is almost home. Are you a little bit tired or a lot tired, Mani He?”

“Grandfather Sun?”

“Not tired at all, eh?”

“Just a little tired. Maybe. And what’s ‘Mani He’ mean?”

Badger stopped and stared at him. “It means you, Mani He. I mean, it must. You answer to it.”

“Yeah, right. But what do the words mean? For all I know, you could be calling me ‘shithead’.”

“No, no, no, Mani He. That would be ‘ceslí natá.’ Trust me. There’s a difference.”

Eventually they stopped at the edge of a marsh so vast Tony couldn’t see the other side. “A marsh? We’re still on the top of the mountains! Where’d it come from? And what’m I suppose to do, cross it? Look, I’m tired. I need to rest.”

“Oh, so now you’re a lot tired. Okay. We’ll rest. Besides, we’re here.” Badger lay down and patted the ground beside him.

“Anything I can eat here?” asked Tony.

Moose rose from the marsh and stood on legs like tree trunks. He bellowed deep and resonant. The sound made Tony tremble and cover his ears. Badger rolled on his back and laughed.

“Plenty to eat here,” said Moose. Moose dipped his head down and came up with all sorts of grasses and twigs hanging from his mouth, mixing with his beard and dripping down. “But first you must ask.”

“Ask you?”

“No, no. Ask who you’re going to eat. When I’m hungry, I ask the Standing People,” said Moose, nodding at the trees. “They tell me which is safe and which isn’t. Sometimes they play tricks and make me a little crazy, sometimes and just a little. Sometimes, when I don’t ask, they reach down and grab me by my antlers until I apologize. Sometimes they get bored and grab my antlers anyway. Then I bite them, nibbling off their bark so they’ll have something to talk about. Sometimes I rub my antlers against them to make them raw. I do that when the Standing People act too wise. But when I eat, I ask, and they show me.”

“Badger never asks.”

“Yes, I do,” said Badger.

“I never heard you.”

“You never listened. That’s why you went hungry all day. You never asked.”

“How come you never told me this?”

“Hey, people who don’t ask for what they want deserve what they get. Besides, I teach you my lessons” — Badger pointed to Moose — “he teaches you his.”

“Okay then, I want to go home.”

“Which is exactly where we’re taking you,” Badger said.

Now Moose laughed. The sound was deep and wide and moved through the marsh like ripples on a pond.

“So what happens now?” Tony asked Badger. “Do you leave and I go with him?”

Moose turned to Badger. “Did you tell him about his eyes and his nose?”

“A-yuh, I did.”

Moose turned back. “Who are you?”

Tony folded his arms across his chest, “Anthony David Morelli.”

Badger’s claws clicked open and Tony held his hands up. “Don’t worry, Mani He. No wounding this time. You have to decide who you are, who you’ll be. That’s always been up to you.”

Tony looked at his watch. “Mani He?” he whispered.

Badger smiled over Tony’s shoulder and Moose looked back at him. “That’s a real fancy watch, Little One, but I don’t think it can answer you.”

“I just remembered. ‘Mani He’ was what my grandfather use to call me. What’s it mean?”

Grandfather Sun fell over the western mountains just as Grandmother Moon came up in the east. “Badger, Moose, who is that with you?”

“He’s finding out, Grandmother,” said Moose.

“Oh. I thought it might be Grandfather Sun disguising himself again.”

“No, no, Grandmother. If this were Grandfather Sun,” said Badger pointing at Tony, “I would have burnt my tongue when I bit him.”

“He went that-a-way,” offered Tony. Standing behind him, Badger held his paw low and palm up. Moose gave him five and both smiled.

“Thank you, grandchild.”

Tony snapped the watchband against his wrist. “Are you looking for Grandfather Sun?”

Moose held his hoof out and Badger returned the five.

“Of course. He either chases me or I chase him. Often, when it is my time, I hide. Then my magic is strong and might kill him, and without him where would the Day-Eyes be? Once in a while we embrace. If I catch him, the sky goes dark as I bring Night with me. Sometimes he catches me, and I cover my face to delight him. Always, when we embrace, we make our children.”

“Your children?”

Grandmother Moon laughed and it covered the marsh like feather-blown rain, “Great Star Nation, Mani He. They are our children.” She laughed and continued on her way.

Badger and Moose called out, “Good night, Grandmother. Happy hunting!”

A moment later Tony whispered, “Good night, Grandmother.”

* * *

Grandfather Sun was just starting to reach over the east when Tony woke up sneezing and cold. Beside him was a heavy blanket or rug, he didn’t know which. He tried to slide under it. It didn’t budge. The rug smelled like a swamp, but it wasn’t wet or damp or even mildewy. Despite its smell, it was warm. “Stinking or not, I’m cold.” He gave the rug a firm tug.

“Ouch!” bellowed Moose. He rose and peered down at Tony, now quivering with more than the cold. “You wake up a little bit grumpy?”

“It wasn’t a dream.”

“No,” said Moose, “I think you really pinched me.” He waded into the marsh. “You hungry?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“You remember your lessons from yesterday?”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, who do I ask?”

“Who’s the one being you know you can always trust, Mani He?”

“I don’t know. God?”

Moose kept walking into the marsh. Tony hesitated in the early dawn as Moose moved into the still, gray shadows. Soon Moose would be out of sight. Tony, kneeling at the edge of the swamp, slammed his fists into the mud. “Damn it, this is crazy.”

Moose called over his shoulder, “You think this is crazy, you wait till Coyote.”

Tony waded into the swamp. “Can we wait until it’s light out?”

“We could. Or you could use your feet to feel ahead of you. When you feel firm footing, step. When you don’t, keep feeling until you do.”

“Is this part of that follow your eyes and nose stuff?”

“Good boy, Mani He. Everyday a new lesson.” Moose dipped his mouth into the marsh to drink and blew bubbles through his nose. When he lifted his head, water dribbled down his chin and beard and mucous globbed under his nostrils. He licked them clean with his tongue.

Tony, up to his chest in the marsh, stopped beside him. “Eeech.”

Moose smiled, revealing lots of stump-grinding teeth. “Bet you wish you looked this good in the morning, huh? Now, where’s this god you’re talking about?”

“I don’t know. Up in the sky, I guess. Heaven. You know?”

“And you’re in touch with this god a lot?”

“Well, that’s the idea, anyway.”

“This god ever steer you wrong?”

Tony stammered, “Well, uh, you see... What am I talking philosophy with a moose for?”

Moose gently nudged Tony with an antler. “Mani He, if you learn no other lessons, learn that those you meet on this journey take no indefinite articles. In fact, everything else is a pale and shadowy image of the real thing. Brother Badger is more real than any you’ll ever find in a woods. I am what all other moose are compared to. If nothing else, learn that lesson well.”

Tony considered this as they sludged through the marsh. “I’m cold.”

“It’s those wet clothes, Mani He. You’d be warmer if you took them off.”

“You mean, get naked?”

“What, you think you got something you can brag to me about?”

“Well, no, I—”

“Trust me, Mani He. The sooner you get naked on this journey, the better off you’ll be.”

“Okay. We were talking about God. If things are working right, you do what God wants. If things aren’t working right, you go ask God for forgiveness.”

“Do I have this right? If things are cool, you give your god the credit. If things aren’t cool, you take the blame?”

Tony nodded.

“Nice deal. I’d like to be your god. Mani He, I don’t think it’s fair to divide the ‘attaboys’ and the ‘ohshits’ up like that. If things are going well and you give this god the credit, give that same god the credit when things suck. The other antler is to take all the credit for the ‘attaboys’ and ‘ohshits’ yourself. There’s lots in between, of course, but I’d go for that last one.”

“So who do I ask for food?”

“You got to grab that antler, son, then you’ll know.”

Tony grabbed Moose’s right antler. “This one?”

Moose stared at Tony a second. He smiled and his smile broke into laughter. Ripples moved across the surface of the marsh. Moose laughed harder and the ripples became waves. Tony felt the winds from Moose’s laughter lift him, and he held tightly to both antlers as he and Moose flew through the air to the far southern shore of the marsh.

* * *

Grandfather Sun was now mid-morning in the sky and Moose was lying beside a fire. There was a spit with some smoking meat over the flames, Moose took one end of the spit and turned it in his mouth.

“Where’d this come from?”

Moose mumbled, “You trusted and showed innocence, Mani He. You learned the lesson faster than I could have taught it, although you probably don’t know what lesson you learned.” He lifted the spit from the flames and mouthed it to Tony. “Here, eat.”

Tony was too hungry to argue. He tore at the still smoking meat with his teeth and nails, letting the juices bleed down his cheeks, neck, and chest. “This is good. What is it?”

“The only thing I can offer, Mani He; moose.”

Tony gagged as some of the meat stuck in his throat. “Oh, Christ. I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Oh, Christ.”

“Mani He, it’s okay. I offered. You probably don’t know it, but in your innocence, you asked.”

“So if I’m hungry again, and I want to eat moose meat, I should ask a moose to let me eat it?”

“No, Mani He. You should ask me to provide you with a moose. You’re not eating me. I’m not one to give my body so easily. But I will give you one of my shadows, probably one who can walk no further or who grows too tired to see Grandfather Sun again, one who is willing and ready to leave the Red Path and follow the Blue.

“But always you must ask. If you take without asking, soon I leave, just go away.”

“Go where?”

“Just go, Mani He, go where even Grandfather Sun can’t find me, to a place where I’ll cast no more shadows. It is like that for all of us.”

Mani He placed the spit and remaining meat over the fire. “Brother Moose, I am hungry. May I ... Is it alright if I... — I’m new at this, so bear with me — if I eat this?”

“Surely, Mani He. Partake and enjoy.”

It didn’t take him long to finish. He kept the fire going until Grandfather Sun had set, then stoked it large. He lay on his back, his feet towards the flames. Soon Great Star Nation appeared. “Where is Grandmother?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Mani He. She comes when she comes.”

Suddenly Tony sat up. “What the hell am I doing? Tomorrow’s Monday. I’ve got to get back to the office. I’ve got to kill something.” He stared over the fire to Moose.

“You can ask, but I’ll give you no more because I know you’re not hungry or cold. Hopefully, though, by the time we’re done, something will be dead. That’s the whole point of this. Don’t worry. These are the real days, everything else is a shadow. When you return, you will have never been away.”

Slightly more at ease, Tony asked, “So what happens tomorrow?”

“See those mountains in the west? That’s tomorrow.”

Tony put more wood on the fire and went to sleep.

* * *

To be continued...

Copyright © 2022 by Joseph Carrabis

Proceed to Challenge 948...