HOUSE
ON THE HILL
BY
BRIAN MOSETI
Little dots stretching as far as the eyes can see, a
common decoration symbol you might think. A sore beauty.Some old with age,
neglect and the unforgiving African weather. Some new and shiny, proudly
proclaiming the alpha and omega of life. Yet others have simply ceased to exist,
having rotten away or been pulled down
to make room for others, think about overlapping.
Try as hard as you might to shut the scene from your
eyes and envision the land once as it was, fresh, virgin unburdened by age or
weary lives. Pure, lush and inviting. Stand on the hilltop the land rushing and
flowing beneath you.
Now open your eyes and witness the sight before you.
Space taken up by man all over, and then, the final straw, the grave yards!
************************
It had not always been like this, not when the
valley had been discovered. When the river coursed through the valley drinking
from the various streams as it went along and feeding the land as it ebbed its
way to beyond the valley. No one knew what lay out there. They had stood as we stand
now, on this same hilltop and drank in
the beauty1 it had intoxicated them. The moth had gone to the light. The moth
had killed the light.
None of this had been meant to happen, a common excuse
for lack of foresight! They simply roiled in the good times, a seed sown here
and the elements of pollination had done the rest. As the rule of nature
dictates, one and the other, another is
formed. Then another and another and then another! The cycle continued, the
numbers grew, the times were good, one son got the potion next to the river,
the other took the portion to the south, fair distribution. The land prospered,
the people got fat and lazy and continued to do only as lazy contended people
can do, got more lazy, and the numbers multiplied!
The house on the hill stood proud and tall, defying
all the elements of nature. A defiance only known by the gods. Then the reaper
came knocking! The father called the sons. The daughters had been married off
to lands beyond the valley; traded really for a few pots of broth and
innumerable fats goats and thin cows. The sons listened and took it up. Soaked
in the knowledge of the founding father, to immortalize his name in stone, a
stone placed at the head of his resting place, by the hilltop where he could
rise and set with the sun. so the sons took it up and passed it down
generations, a little twist was added. Rather by chance or luck, when the! The
alpha she wolf had been buried on the left of the house and the alpha male had
gone to the right. Thus the rule of the land. In the beginning, the stones had
not been curved, just a stone at the head as a mark than herein lies…
Times passed, the valley grew by numbers. No one
paid heed. Civilization took over, civilization indeed, when the sons started
going hungry and sleeping under bridges
and old buildings simply for lack of space. No one still paid heed. As the
numbers grew bigger the inverse happened to the beautiful vale. The people held onto the land rule. When one
of the daughters from beyond the valley got sent away, she came back home. Old
age, she had to lie with the alphas, after all she was an alpha. Before she
departed, she told the same tale of diminishing lands everywhere.
Culture grew and progressed to encompass a religion.
The sons stopped killing goats under the hilltops and gorging themselves on
brew. Rather they dressed in their best and sat in a stuffy crowded room and
sang hymns and listened to a guy drone on and on about water. Then miraculously
the water became wine and our man started to drink it. He never stopped talking
about water with his listeners though.
A son with a creative streak noticed that you could carve
the stone at the head and make it pretty, or the stone could be converted into
some grotesque symbol and placed on the head. Voila! His idea appealed to
people and he had a new job, then another son convinced the others that laying
the others to rest in blankets was a sure sign
of disrespect! He too got a job crafting timber boxes and with that came
the revolution. At around this time too, the son who worked stones realized it
was easy to manipulate wood too and added that to his expertise now he had two
items to trade with, wood and stone! Not to be left behind, the guy who
preached water had to stay relevant, so he saw a profitable business standing
at the head of the head and muttering words of encouragement and wading away
evil spirits to ease the journey to lands beyond the valley but beneath it.
Other jobs came up too, like digging pits! This one though was not embraced
until recently when the friends to the sons choose a fancy name to call
themselves as they carried one of them on a box. Then they donned on black
garments and called themselves too lazy to do the pit digging. Someone had to
be found. Remember the sons sleeping under the bridges, they suddenly had a
job.
All this while, the reaper continued to claim his
fare share. In as much as a new religion had been embraced, the house on the
hill still stood, and with it the head stones, now multiplied to a number. The
land rule still existed, to the right and the left they came and went, the sons
and daughters in between! The land rule had evolved to state that everyone
deserved a spot beside or in front of his house. The land rule was supreme, no
one thought o oppose it. It was not even scripted anywhere. It just existed,
like the house on the hill.
The end was nigh, the reaper got greedy, he took
more numbers. All over the lands, unsparingly. A plague perhaps or just nature
taking care of itself? The stone worker and the timber workers got so fat they
died and their sons took their places and also died and the cycle continued. Now
the vale no longer teemed with life as green but rather as little patches of
green and little white dots in front of each house.
A pattern, the land was eaten away, where you might
have expected a flower garden lay six of the most fearsome stones that could be
found, the son who took over the business must have been really dark. Cow pens and sheds were cleared
to pave way. Whomever choose the color white to appear on the heads must have
thought it fitting. The land once lush and green, lay a vast pale dry jungle
with whites sprouting everywhere, some bent with age, some new and stark and proud,
some leaning as if to say I’m watching, yet some stand as imposing gargoyles
that seem to be guarding a secret with a fury that screams vengeance if you
dare. And others are just humble and laid back you might think they are cowed.
And others stand alone, proudly alone, ignoring the cairns around them.
**********************
A cock crows with the evening dusk, a little child
of about six gets out and leans on a cross, the fading sun strikes a wise old
knowing face on him. The house on the hill stands weighed by age. listen keenly and feel the slow throb of time
and the land rule sharp edged and deep rooted. The house on the hill looks on
in the setting sun, picturesque against a fading light under a tree, a sunset
landscape. A postcard picture but too pretty. The first stones were forgotten,
no one bothered to replace the stoned with curved ones.
Three stones lie next to each other. Two slightly to
the top and one slightly beneath and between them. The two bigger stones seem
to be overlooking the smaller with love in their hearts and saying, “go on
child…” The little child sits on one of the bigger stones.
ENDS
@mossetti
