constrainedwriting #18 The Story of Oi

The Story of Oi, African God, Spirit of Disease and Illness - and his day as a cleaner.

Oi was a rambunctious God who thoroughly enjoyed nothing more than watching the little people on the earth suffer at his hand. Occasionally he would touch one and overnight spots and rashes appeared as if by magic. The suffering human would get a fever and a chill, but it usually wasn’t serious.
However, sometimes Oi got bored and would hand down swathe of fevers, even the odd plague, just to see people suffering. He loved to watch the well people worry and work so hard to help the sufferer of whatever unimaginable illness he had bestowed upon the population. He got his kicks form being nasty.

Arawa, the moon Goddess was the same age as Oi, and the daughter of the creator god Tororut and his consort Seta. Seta was the Goddess of fertility, and her daughter would stand by her proud and shining bright a few days of every month to help guide the unborn given by Seta to the bellies of the women of the earth.
Arawa didn’t much care for Oi and his antics. She and her mother were life givers and guides. He was just spiteful and so she would chastise him when she could, but their regular fights made sure she soon went to hide in the Garden of Happiness for a few days to avoid Oi’s nastiness. Sometimes he would taunt her so much that she would get angry and would glow red in the night sky. The people below would watch and wonder if she would win the fight, for if Oi won there would be another bout of sickness very soon after. Sometimes he did win.
After one such fight, Arawa sat low in the sky and shone blood red over the earth. She was furious. Oi had given many of the new-born babies she had recently guided to this world a sickness and it was a bad one. Babies were dying. Arawa, sat on the horizon blazing her fury so brightly one night that her father, the God Tororut asked her what was so troubling. When she told him, he was also displeased! Oi had a purpose, that was true. Illness and disease had been created to take the weak from the strong, the chaff from the wheat, to allow strong life to continue forward. But it seemed that Oi was toying with it, playing games. Tororut didn’t agree with that and decided he’d do something about it. He looked down on the people with sick babies and children. He watched the mothers cry, begging Oi to leave them alone. Then he saw the village Healers as they emptied the house where the sick child cried or slept in fever. They would empty everything out, cry upon the evil spirit to leave the home, pleading for Oi to show mercy on the child. Then the mother would be left to return. Her first job would be to clean everything. Every pot, pan, cloth and belonging they owned. He noted that when this was done, Oi’s illness sometimes left the place.

There was one house though, a young girl, un-tied – not mated, yet she had a child. This was unusual. The village people had cast her aside, for her child was not of a recognised mate. The child was barely old enough to have see Arawa shine bright more than 3 times yet was so frail and sick. Oi had not cared who he chose. Tororut watched as the young mother, barley more than a child herself, struggled to take care of the child.
As God of All, Tororut’s power was untouchable. Everyone obeyed him. He called for Oi and chastised him for the misuse of his powers. As punishment he told Oi that he was sending him down to the earth to help the girl, but he would have no powers – not until He, Tororut was satisfied that Oi had learned his lesson.

The following morning a youth of around 17 walked into the village. Oi took the earth name Zane which meant Well-born.
Zane’s first complaint was that he was too hot, so the village elders took him to the well to drink. Zane’s second complaint was that the water was dirty, and he’d get sick drinking it. Zane walked through the village and complained he was hungry. The village elders took him to a home where food was laid for him. It was a meagre amount and he complained again. The village elders explained that sickness had taken hold of most of the village babies and children and that the women had not had time to prepare foods. Zane ate what he was given.
Oi, known as Zane, had annoyed pretty much everyone in the village with his complaining and lack of compassion. He found himself without shelter and without and he sat huddled by a post at the edge of the village.
The young outcast girl came to him. She carried her sick child on her back. It murmured quietly, a lacklustre, low whine. The child was walking towards death.
Zane looked up from the spot of ground he’d been staring at, the girl said her name - Kichaka - The one Who Blushes . As she spoke her cheeks flushed. She asked Zane if he wished to come inside and get warm. He agreed. He went into the tiny housing and noticed a bed, a stand with a bowl, a fire pit and a pot. Kichaka said that she could only offer him bread and she was not welcome to have village food and that her child had been so sick she had not had a chance to go and forage. By this time Zane was so cold and hungry he was grateful for the warmth and meagre offerings. After he had eaten Kichaka offered him her bed for the night. Without a thought he accepted and lay on the pile, wriggling to make it comfortable. Then he saw Kichaka unwrap her baby and try to feed it. She hadn’t eaten so she had little milk. For the first time in his life Zane felt guilt. He realised that he had taken the bed and Kichaka was sat on the cold floor. Again, a swathe of guilt passed over him. He was unused to this feeling. He sat up and beckoned her to sit beside him. In the firelight she was pretty. Not beautiful but definitely pretty. They talked, and she told of how a man from her tribe had force her months ago and now she had his child, but he denied it and made the village believe that she had been with a stranger. She was outcast as an unmated mother, and as the village believed, a liar and troublemaker. Even her own aunts had turned against her.
Zane asked Kichaka how she was coping with the baby’s sickness. She cried. Her baby was dying and the only thing to save him was to cleanse the home, but she had no one to help. Zane made a decision. This girl has shown him kindness when he had done nothing but complain. Her child was dying of the illness that he, as Oi, had given, yet still she saw to the comforts of a stranger. He would help her to cleanse the house.
Zane began by moving out the meagre possessions that she had. Then he went to the well and drew a bucket of water into which he put some leaves of the Neem plant and boiled it. This helps against fevers and infections and can disinfect. He then wiped down all the things he could inside. It was hard work and Zane stopped often, complaining about the heat, the sweat, the discomfort in the muscles. Kichaka, brought Zane a little food and he shared it with her. She smiled. Zane continued to clean. He took the bedding down to the small river and washed it with soap root. Again, he complained that he was hot, tired, thirsty, hungry. Again, Kichaka served his needs.
Zane lay the covers across rocks to dry. After The covers dried on rocks, Zane carried them back but Kichaka said that there was no point putting clean covers on a frame that had been touched and diseased. Zane worked until late in the night. He cleaned the bedframe, the table, the stool, the pot and the utensils. When it was all done his arms ached beyond any pain he had ever known, which was none. His back was stiff, his belly was empty, and he was tired. He went into the house sat heavy on the bed. Kichaka was sat the other end with her baby in her arms, rocking back and forth. She hummed a tuneless tune in a low voice. Zane noticed tears in her eyes and he asked why. She spat out the name Oi. She said that if it wasn’t bad enough that she had been force and had a baby, the village had then outcast her. Then to top that Oi had taken no care and given her baby a sickness. She had to care for him but that meant that she couldn’t find food and without food they would both die. Zane felt the biggest load of guilt descend up on his shoulders. He pointed out that he’d cleaned the house for her and she said that she was grateful, but if she were to die of starvation what was the point. Turning to him, her tears flowing freely from her eyes he was captured.

The following day, Zane explained to her that he had to leave, he was on a journey. How true those words were. He went to the villagers and apologised for his mood and asked for food. They knew it was for the girl Kichaka and some refused, but some felt the tug of kindness and offered a little. He took the food to her and watched her cry some more. Then he placed his arms around her and her child and felt something that he never had – sorrow.
Zane walked away as the young girl stood at the village boundary, babe swaddled on her back, watched him leave.
When out of sight Tororut took Zane back to the heavens and once again he was Oi, God, Spirit of disease and illness, only now he had some compassion. He still had a job to do. He still had to give diseases to the poor and weak so the strong could grow stronger, but now he was careful to do this when the need was necessary not just for fun. As for his time on earth he remembered always the weakness of the human body, the pain of labouring to live, the hunger, the tiredness and the compassion of a girl who lived this way all the time yet still cared for a stranger. To repay her he allowed her son to become well again and asked Tororut to send a stranger to her that would care for her. Tororut, seeing Oi had indeed learned his lesson did just that and Kichaka mated a boy called Hami – meaning Defender, Protector. Once mated they could name her child and she called him Zane.