The political parties waged their battles in the spirit spaces, beyond the realm of our earthly worries. They fought and hurled counter-mythologies at one another. Herbalists, sorcerers, wizards and witches took sides and as the trucks fought for votes in the streets they fought for supremacy in the world of spirits. They called on djinns and chimeras, succubi, incubi and apparitions; they enlisted the ghosts of old warriors and politicians and strategists; they hired expatriate spirits. The Party of the Rich drew support from the spirits of the Western world. At night, over our dreams, pacts were made, contracts drawn up in that realm of nightspace, and our futures were mortgaged, our destinies delayed. In that realm the sorcerers of party politics unleashed thunder, rain flooded those below; counter-thunder, lightning and hail were returned. On and on it went, in every village, every city of the country, and all over the continent and the whole world too. Our dreams grew smaller as they waged their wars of political supremacy. Sorcerers, taking the form of spirits and omens, whispered to us of dread. We grew more afraid. Suspicion made it easier for us to be silent. Silence made it easier for us to be more powerless. The forms of dominance grew more colossal in the nightspaces. And those of us who were poor, who had no great powers on our side, and who didn’t see the power of our own hunger, a power that would frighten even the gods, found that our dreams became locked out of the freedom of the air. Our yearnings became blocked out of the realms of manifestation. The battles for our destiny raged and we could no longer fly to the moon or accompany the aeroplanes on their journeys through rarefied spaces or imagine how our lives could be different and better. So we had bad dreams about one another while Madame Koto, dressed in red, her hair covered with a white kerchief, three green umbrellas in her hand, extended her powers over the ghetto and sent her secret emissaries into our bodies. Our fantasies fed her. Many of us dreamt of her as a future spirit-bride to heads of state and presidents. She became known as the Queen of the Ghetto Night. Anyone who wanted help went to her. She received only a few callers. Because she expanded so much at night, she suffered untold agonies in her body during the day. She showed no signs of pain. But the sweat on her forehead widened her wrinkles. Her prostitutes deserted her; they couldn’t forgive her for so quickly forgetting the girl’s death. When they left, the emptiness of her bar and the magnetism of her new powers drew a greater flock.
One night she appeared to me in my sleep and begged me to give her some of my youth.
‘Why?’ I asked.
And she replied:
‘I amtwo hundred years old and unless I get your youngblood I willdiesoon.’
Her enormous spirit lowered over me. Her spirit was about to swallow me up completely, when agreat lion roared fromabove, quakingthehouse, and drivingher spirit away. Then I realised that new forces werebeingborn to match thedemands of the age. Leopards and lions of the spirit world, dragons of justice, winged tigers of truth, fierce animals of the divine, forces that swirl in the midst of inexorable hurricanes, they too restore balances and feed on the chimeras and vile intentions of the open air; and with every monstrous breath exhaled, for every blast of wind from evil wings, and for every power on the sides of those that feed on the earth’s blood, a fabulousangelisborn;andIsawanangelflyingoverourroofonthethirdday of Dad’s sleep. It went past and the wind quietened and strange trees cracked in the forestandinthemorningtherainstopped,thefloodsofwatersankmysteriously into thesecretsoftheabsorbentearth.Mumwentup anddownthestreetshawkingand sold off allher provisions and shekept findingpound notes floatingon thedazzling waters and it seemed that the air had been cleared. But that morning I saw the first intimations; they were not intimations of a new season of calm, but of a cycle coming to an end. And how was I to know that it would be the beggars who would represent thefirst sign, with their expectancy, their air of peopleawaitingtheword of a Messiah’s birth, when in fact all they were waiting for was an omen to inform them that the time for their departure had arrived.
For in the evenings, as Mum prepared food, the fevers of the rally and its whispers of alongcurfew weregathering. Then oneevening, under thespellof incenseand prayers and mosquito-coil smoke, under the holes of our roof, with the multiplied bugs on the floor, and with the room invaded by the green moths that understood the transformativeproperties of fire, offeringthemselves as willingsacrificialvictims, Dad woke suddenly, he awoke powerfully, he rose from the bed as from death. His wounds had healed, his spirit had sharpened, his despair was deeper, he was a bigger man with a bigger madness. He got up and sat on his chair. And while the candles fluttered and burned brighter for the air that his sleep no longer deprived them of, Dad with his new deep sad voice began to speak to us. He spoke as if he hadn’t been away. He spoke as if he hadn’t made great journeys in spirit. And he spoke with the great enthusiasticinnocenceof arecuperatingman.
‘My wife and my son, listen to me. In my sleep I saw many wonderful things. Our ancestors taught me many philosophies. My father, Priest of Roads, appeared to me and said I should keep my door open. My heart must be open. My life must be open. Our road must be open. A road that is open is never hungry. Strange times are coming.’
‘What about thieves?’ I asked.
‘Shut up, Azaro. We are protected, you hear. We are fortified against invaders and wicked people. Nothingevilwillenter our lives.’
He paused, creaked his bones, and continued.
‘A single thought of ours could change the universe. We human beings are small things. Life is a great thing. As I am talking now they are holding elections in heaven and under the sea. We have entered a new age. We must be prepared. There are strangebombs in theworld. Great powers in spacearefightingto controlour destiny. Machines and poisons and selfish dreams will eat us up. I entered a space ship and found myself on another planet. People who look like human beings are not human beings. Strange people are amongst us. We must be careful. Our lives are changing. Our gods are silent. Our ancestors are silent. A great something is going to come from the sky and change the face of the earth. We must take an interest in politics. We must becomespies on behalf of justice. Human beings aredreamingof wipingout their fellow human beings from this earth. Rats and frogs understand their destiny. Why not man, eh? My wife, my son, where are we going? There is no rest for the soul. God is hungry for us to grow. When you look around and you see empty spaces, beware. In thosespaces arecities, invisiblecivilisations, futurehistories, everythingis HERE. We must look at the world with new eyes. We must look at ourselves differently. We are freer than we think. We haven’t begun to live yet. The man whose light has come on in his head, in his dormant sun, can never be kept down or defeated. We can redream this world and make the dream real. Human beings are gods hidden from themselves. My son, our hunger can change the world, make it better, sweeter. People who use only their eyes do not SEE. People who use only their ears do not HEAR. It is more difficult to love than to die. It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love. The heart is bigger than a mountain. One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us. The trees of the forest, the animals of the bushes, tortoises, birds, and flowers know our future. The world that we see and the world that is there are two different things. Wars are not fought on battlegrounds but in a space smaller than the head of a needle. We need a new language to talk to one another. Inside a cat there are many histories, many books. When you look into the eyes of dogs strange fishes swim in your mind. All roads lead to death, but some roads lead to things which can never be finished. Wonderful things. There are human beings who are small but if you can SEE you will notice that their spirits are ten thousand feet wide. In my dream I met a child sittingon acloud and his spirit covered half theearth. Angels and demons are amongst us; they take many forms. They can enter us and dwell there for one second or half a lifetime. Sometimes both of them dwell in us together. Before everything was born there was first the spirit. It is the spirit which invites things in, good things, or bad. Invite only good things, my son. Listen to the spirit of things. To your own spirit. Follow it. Master it. So longas wearealive, so longas wefeel, so longas we love,everythinginusisanenergy wecanuse.Thereisastillnesswhichmakesyou travel faster. There is a silence which makes you fly. If your heart is a friend of Time nothingcandestroy you.Deathhastaughtmethereligionofliving -Iamconverted