Estuary 11

Pumala said, Many years ago a man lived in a city surrounded on three sides by walls. The open side faced the sea. The city, let us call it Kamthpa, feared no attack from this direction because its bay was filled with sandbars and sharp coral. It was a prosperous city with merchants who built wonderous temples and a seat of government. The man, let us call him Ika, was a swineherd by trade. He raised a family blessed with an abundance of sons. When he and his wife were advanced in age she began to show. Most unfortunate, this displeased the ones above, and the birth took both mother and child. The family of Ika came to him then in his sorrow. He learned nothing from the passing of his wife and soon his love awakened in his cousin. He sent his children out of his home to lay with her. The morning next some of his swine were missing. They had broken from their pen and gone to the river. The misfortune of Ika was a full belly for the crocodiles that prowled its muddy reeds. Ika repaired the pen, but the morning next some of his swine got into the market vegetable patch. Many could look forward to hunger that winter. The swine had never been able to escape before, and now it was twice in a row. The ones above sent evil spirits into the swine. This was confirmed some days later when an infant disappeared from the open doorway of a neighbor. The men arrived to count the swine of Ika, but he claimed their number was unknown to him now. Prints were found. The swine was tracked into the jungle and its belly slit. The relief that comes with proof was no salve for their anger. Ika was shunned. His children were marked, his cousin took another. Again the swine broke free. This time they ran through his home and destroyed it. Each day new ships appeared on the horizon. The boats of the city navigated the bay to deliver spice and retrieve the wealth of the world. You should go to those ships, the people of the city told Ika. Go, find a new home in the world. Ika sold his clothes for paper and rope. He sat on his stoop for many days, drawing a map of the city. Its detail was fine, every building, footpath, garden carefully rendered. At times he was seen pacing the distances between nothing, it seemed. Once he knelt upon the roof of a neighbor, gazing on the south wall of the city. The evening next Ika went into his pen and slaughtered his remaining swine, the few who had not escaped. He woke his eldest son to help hang them in the smoke house. Then, with the map tucked into the band of his tunic, he gathered the rope and went over the south wall. Ika lived until he became infirm or he died of exposure within a week. Either way, he passed his days outside the city he carried with him. This is what Pumala said.