To The Journey And Its End

To The Journey and It’s End
As written by Bradley N. Honig

         Part 1: Tusk

Her eyes met mine like laser beams, her massive head aiming for my soul. The ground trembled as she began to rush towards me, her two beautiful spears enroute to piercing my heart.
         I had a few seconds, so I took my time raising my gun, resting the butt on my shoulder and easing the long barrel towards my enormous target. I peered into the ancient sighting mechanism, and rested on the gray folds between her eyes.
I discovered my prize by accident, using an old satellite to peruse the nearly deserted continent of Africa, and found her, alone, with those long, white staves. If I could get them, I would become wealthy enough to retire in luxury, a life I’ve dreamed of. Countries would bid on the last ivory known to man, and maybe not make the same mistake again.
         In the forty-plus years since the healing properties of ivory were finally discovered, every elephant in the world had been poached, hunted or slaughtered for their gift. In their haste to utilize the cancer-healing properties that the Chinese had known about for centuries, their greed and carelessness left the world without a sliver of ivory, or a living being that could create it naturally.
         My aim was true, and she crumpled merely ten feet from where I stood. It took several hours, but I extracted the tusks fully whole, and wrapped them in canvas. I turned to give her a final look, and found that I felt little for the life I just took.
         I felt a sting in my back. My mind thought insects, but my eyes cleared up the matter instantly, when I saw the pointed end of another tusk jutting out of my chest.

         I guess she wasn’t alone.


















To The Journey and It’s End
As written by Bradley N. Honig

         Part 2: Found Gifts

         Grusayae had been wandering the hot, arid desert for weeks, truly lost. She had been able to catch a few rodents for food and found liquid in the stalks of some plants, but she was hungry, tired and alone.
         As the sun set on the broad flatlands, she saw a glint, a flash of something. Being only eighteen and on her own because of her age and her small tribes’ tradition of expelling unwed and unwanted women, she grasped at straws. She sauntered to the area and began to poke around.
         She saw the large bones of an elephant first. Though she had never seen one in person, she knew what it was. A few feet away, not nearly as large, were the skeletal remains of a human. A rifle lay nearby, as did a canvas cloth filled with two long objects.
There was no one else around.
         Removing the canvas because it would provide excellent shelter at night, she found the two large and long tusks. To her, they were sweet to touch, almost a soft, white stone. She didn’t know what ivory was, or it’s worth; she knew that this could be carved into jubia, small soul tokens she had often seen other tribes carve from other rocks, to bring the bearer great luck.
         After draping the canvas around the enormous ribcage of the elephant’s skeleton for shelter, she found the dead humans vehicle, overgrown with plants and rusted. Inside she found sealed containers of food and water, and a large steel knife.
         She would stay here then, carve out the jubia, live off of the dead person’s food. When she finished, she would renew her journey to find a mate, and a tribe that would take her in. Her talent for carving wood would lead the way.



















To The Journey and It’s End
As written by Bradley N. Honig

         Part 3: Stoning the Soul

         The pain was greater than ever. For the moment, he could barely hear what the young lady was saying, could hardly see her rickety stand in this old, antiquated market.
         “It will bring you great luck, mister” she told him in broken dialect. She held a small, white statue, intricately carved. Carved into an elephant.
         When he touched it, he felt his pain subside. Not from magic, but because he instinctively knew what he had. His cure. He heard about ivory his entire sickened life as the one thing that would have healed him, but no longer existed. He had come to this forsaken wasteland to try tribal cures, as his last hope.
         She obviously was unaware of what she had.
         “How much?” he asked her in her own language.
         “$20, American, for food.” She replied with a gentle smile.
         He understood bartering was a way of life here, and so he pulled out $10.
         She shook her head, saying, “No mister, please. $20. It is my last one and I need to eat.” Her eyes portrayed genuine concern, hunger. But he threw the ten dollar bill on the lip of the stand and began walking away, saying “Thank you”.
         She cried after him, but he ignored her, basking in his wonderful ability to barter for his benefit, and the untold possibilities that this little piece of ivory would cure him of his cancers, and possibly make him very rich.
         He held his elephant statue up in a private victory pose. He walked through a throng of young tribers, spear-tossing and throwing large rocks. Just as he reached the guide bus, it slipped from his grasp; he lowered his head and tried to catch it. At that exact moment, an errant spear pierced his neck and severed his vertebrae.



















To The Journey and It’s End
As written by Bradley N. Honig

         Part 4: Romancing the Bone

         Arguliae let the statue rest in her fingers. This was the only possession her mother, Grusayae, had left her. She had heard the story her mother told about the greedy man who died while running from her mothers stand after only paying her half. She had retrieved it when the man was struck down by a spear and spent the rest of his life paralyzed.
         Now it was hers, her first jubia. Her mother was sickly and bed-ridden but chose to send Arguliae away.
         Shambikuti had tried to take it from her once, and she told him to go away. Now, in the nice restaurant the tourists and hunters ate from, she had saved enough money to have a fine meal of her own. She let the statue go, and it dangled on her neck from the fine silk rope her mother had long-ago added.
         His shadow loomed over the table. Arguliae craned her neck upward to see the tall, handsome fellow standing to her side. Her eyes met his, and he smiled a charming and disarming dream.
         At 18, like her mother, it was time to find a mate. This man exuded confidence, charm and financial stability. She gave her sweetest smile back to him.
         They were married in less than a month. He lived on the land he owned, and raised various animals for meat and poultry. She learned to love him, as he was much older than she, and a year later became pregnant.
         Then she learned he was dying, of cancers untreatable. She wondered if the baby would get sick with his illness. She decided to see her dying mother once more, and tell her of the baby. When she went to bring her jubia, she found it- and him- gone.

         She returned home to Grusayae.

















To The Journey and It’s End
As written by Bradley N. Honig

         Part 5: Epic Roads

         Arguliae returned to her new home to find her handsome husband in his best chair. He looked healthier, vivid. She hadn’t seen him for eight months, since she went to see her own mother. She carried their baby daughter in to see her father for the first time.
         Later, she asked where he went, and why he stole her jubia. He told her it was the last piece of ivory in the known world, and he used it and his money to harvest the healing properties and turn it into the medicine that would cure him of his cancer. He said it worked, and he had enough to last him the rest of his life. She asked why he had to steal it, and did not ask her.
         He said he didn’t steal it- he owned her and everything she had. She took the daughter and ran to her room.
         She later found where he kept the medicine while he was away, and took it all. She took her baby and again, went home to her ill mother.
         When the handsome husband saw what she had done, he was enraged. He knew the area where the mother lived, but not exactly. He called in favors, but little was discovered. He raged from tribe to tribe, waving his guns, threatening his wrath if no one would help find her.
         He felt full of vigor, energetic, wild now that his cancer was gone. Invincible.
         When he came to the tribe closest to Grusayae’s village, their manner made him the angriest yet. He took his gun and aimed it at the oldest woman there, his voice full of violence. Shambikuti threw the hard steel knife once given to him by Arguliae’s mother, striking fatally deep in the center of the handsome husbands’ chest.
 



















To The Journey and It’s End
As written by Bradley N. Honig

         Part 6: Ironies End

         Young Kaliekie tucked in her mothers hair, smoothed away from her face. Even in death, she looked like her mother.
         She took good care of her family, wedding Shambikuti, who raised her as his own before he died while hunting, not so long ago. And with grandmother passing away while she was so young, Kaliekie was now alone in the world.
         She lived on the land of her birth father, which was hers by birth, and his early death. Shambikuti never stood upon that land, and it wasn’t until his death that she and her mother returned.
         Cancer didn’t take her away from Kaliekie, it was her frail heart. The medicine she had been handed down could not save her mother, or grandmother, or even Shambikuti. But it would save her.
         She went to the room where things were secured, and opened the large door that held her fortune. Inside were the vials of white powders, all evenly measured in shatterproof plastics. And on eight shelves, sat 35 intricately carved elephant statues, all made by her grandmothers’ hand when she was just a young woman and all made from the tusks of the same elephant.
         People would be coming soon, to say good things about her mother. She closed the door and let the curtain drape over it. She wouldn’t need her medicine again for a long time. And now that she knew what help could be made from those statues, she was going to offer them to all, to help in some way. But not now.
         When the people had said goodbye, young Kaliekie locked up the home upon her land, and began her journey for her mother, and her grandmother. To the burial spot of the elephant that gives her life today, and hope for the many tomorrow.