Dazzling by Chikodili Emelumadu

Author:Chikodili Emelumadu [Emelumadu, Chikodili]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-05T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Ozoemena: Then

Ozoemena looked down on the world from a great height and then began to fall. She recoiled within herself and tried to break her descent, but the ground was a long way away, and gravity and the wind whistling past her ears flowed with her body, instead of against it. She found herself surrendering, and in that one moment between heavens and earth, tried to recall all that was. Ozoemena knew herself. She was the same, and not the same. Ozoemena was new and old, torn from nothingness, dripping celestial afterbirth, eyes open, eyes shut against the approaching earth, eyes open.

The ground welcomed her softly, silently, muffling her footfalls, cushioning her bones. Surprise widened her eyes, and when she opened her mouth to speak, a bark, short and authoritative, shattered the space. Within, Ozoemena tried to recoil again, to pull herself back, but regardless of her wishes, the body containing her spark of life moved without her. She could do nothing but go along.

Ozoemena’s leopard shook itself off, shook from head to long, proud tail, shook off the muck of its rebirth and let its fur dry. The night and all that are in it belonged to the leopard. Regent of jungle, of swamp, of grassland and mountain. Regent of all the places in between, slipping through worlds to protect and mete out justice. That was its design, but not without a human mind to drive it. The leopard stretched, yawned, looked around, stretched again.

The tug, when it came, was faint. The leopard had a will of its own; unshackled, unbound, it could choose to answer, but hunger gnawed at its belly, and it decided to hunt for sustenance instead. Eyes aglow, it stalked its prey a while, its liquid form pouring through the dark. A pounce, and it had it: a juvenile antelope. The rest of the herd scattered. Its mouth watered. The leopard clambered up a tree, bearing the rapidly fading animal up into its highest boughs. The feasting went slowly and deliciously, rich and warm and wet. The leopard draped itself deliriously on a branch, but the night was not over. Sated, other calls now tugged at its senses. The leopard descended gracefully. It peered, found the right joint in the world’s bones. One swipe of its claws and it went in and through, rushing like wind through a tunnel, and it was there, here, everywhere.

The ground near the metal gateway smouldered. The leopard slipped through the bars as if they were made of permeable tissue and sniffed the scorch mark. One long tongue tasted the sooty residue. Ozoemena within, and yet separate from the leopard, also tasted the bitter, sour flavour on her tongue, delayed as if through layers of dry fabric. The leopard raised its head to the air, searching out another join. This one already lay half-open, exposed by the ruined object that did not belong in this realm. It followed the odour through to another plane.

At the sight of violet skies,

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