Business Man: 7

In a meeting. Taking the minutes. I’m writing these words instead of “Mr. Firewell inquires about a new lunch hour directive,” or “Ms. Claire shows her report for monthly profit – what’s that yellow stain on her sleeve?”, or “Bob chews his gum like a mad cow”. We’re sitting in the boardroom, which rests at the northwest corner of the building. Glass circumferences us, from floor to ceiling, and we have a broad view of the domain about us, the structures of power jutting up from the ground like quills, at their very tops antennae, syringes, pricking the sky with red and white winks. It is overcast. I hope for rain. Cathy smiles at me, she has told a joke, chuckles trickle out politely. She turns back to the overhead, her hair black silk swinging. Outside it is raining. I see the drops beginning to collect on the glass, peppering crystals. My daughter loves the rain. She’s running to the window right now, her finger touching the glass, her nose pressed up to the pane, she’s asking if she can go outside. The sitter concedes, and she puts on that pink outfit – pink boots, pink raincoat, pink umbrella. She’ll decide not to take the umbrella, and she’ll drink the sky with a tiny outstretched tongue, levelling her gaze once in a while to look at me and laugh. Look at the sitter and laugh. Chuckles offer themselves politely again, Cathy has told another joke, profits are up, the meeting is over, and the minutes, the fast-moving, slipping minutes are safely locked inside my laptop.

Kulkaran

Kulkaran? Bound, but just now let loose into the ball field. This is his second trip to the Great City, a prisoner of the cocoa masters, but his nakedness is all glory and jungle oil as he walks across the grass, wooing the eyes of the crowd his way. There are other prisoners, but he does not look at them. He keeps his pantheric gaze firm on the team across the way: they are stone-armoured, feather-headdressed, jade-painted. At their feet, one ball. It might as well be the globe of the earth.

On both sides of the field high stone walls, lined with small loops, contain the players. Ball in loop, earth in void, and Kulkaran lives. Ah, but he is not like them, these stone makers. He has secrets collected in the net of his hair – caught as he passed through trees and under rivers and over mountains.

The match begins, and they have weapons. Kulkaran is lake-weed, hovering at the edges. There are fonts of blood, and prisoners dying, and a ball knocking around in the air, spin-struck.

Kulkaran sees an opening, and he is yellow adder, fang-striker, snagging the heel of a jade runner. He clamps upon him hawk-swift and taloned, removing the headdress and the armour, smearing the paint on his own body. Foot-stomp, face-crush, he dons the stolen outfit. He remembers the sting of the tree ant, and becomes pincer-toothed. He bites, and bites, and avoids the ball, biting. He is killing prisoners. He is gaining trust. He is standing by the crowd, smiling, red-tongued.

The ball comes towards him then, a rubber sparrow of speed. Now Kulkaran swats away the tree ant, and is tender-foot, the puma. He turns and warps his way forward, keeping the ball from touching his hands, powering up on pounding thighs and curling shoulder blades. Trickle-step, stutter, and thunder rolling on the field. Kulkaran heaves the middle name of lightning and throws it into the ball, rage-wise. Through the loop spinning is freedom; sweet, sacrificial freedom, burning cocoa in the morning sky.