In fact, Jothamus was able to understand and respond to nature’s languages. It was a gift from the three wise men who came to stay with him for one night during his short stay in the dark woods where nobody, even the gods could visit more than once in life.

  In order to make sure how Jothamus finished off to not qualify as his son-in-law, Uglyface, on the sixth midnight of the sacrificial occasion, got a bowl filled with water and asked Jothamus to empty the bowl using a needle as his tool. ‘No creature can help him now,’ he thought and then said with a sarcastic sympathy, “You shall qualify to be my worthy son-in-law when this bowl has not even a drop of water left.”

  Jothamus was certain that he was crushed this time. He could not think of anything that could possibly lend him a hand to outdo this ordeal which was more difficult than any of the other trials he had outdone before.

  In the meantime, Ajubel had been observing and judging that her father was way too harsh with her lover. She walked past the way where Jothamus was despairingly squatting over the bowl of water on the floor with a needle in his hand. She pretended to slip and accidentally stumbled on the bowl of water. The bowl clanked, skewed and then settled. The water was all spilled.

  Hmmp! Uglyface was unimpressed but wordless. He found just about a drop or two remained and told Jothamus that he had to thoroughly drain the bowl using the needle as his tool. It was easy for Jothamus to do that part. He tied a piece of yarn on the needle end and dipped it on the little fluid that remained. The thread absorbed it. Every drop of the water in the bowl was then drained. The challenge was conquered.

  Then on the seventh and last night of the rare centennial carnival, Uglyface asked Jothamus to split the giant stone platform which had been laid as a stage upon which the ceremonies of sacrifices had been carried out on the blood moon episode, and upon which immoral activities of sexualism among the demonic clan had been going on as part of the infrequent celebration.

  Jothamus was pleased with the last trial which was too easy for him to do with the help of the sword which could cut into anything. The task was done without effort. Uglyface was beaten!

  14

  The Man Behind Everything

  Unable to roll back his promise, the ruler of the immortal world on earth had only to give away his dear daughter’s hand to the champ of the tests he gave, whom he knew was a mortal. Jothamus demanded from his father-in-law, the customary blessing to be given to him in fullest measure.

  So Uglyface gave him his blessing. “I bless you with a thousand times old age. You shall live and love your wife for as many centuries as you want. But she shall bear no pain for you (indirect way to say that Ajubel would not be allowed to labor in childbirth). You shall see the world changing and you shall be the cause for the changes. You shall live and imitate the lifestyles of the people. You shall both travel to every part of the world and you shall toy with the whole world as long as you are together. Your wife shall always be the means to an end of whatever you want to achieve in your lifetime. But your wife shall cease to be your wife as soon as you, by intention or by accident, in fury or in serenity, say that you are tired of her or of anything in your life. You shan’t die as long as you don’t say the words. But when you say the words, you shall stop living and she shall come home.”

  Jothamus considered the blessing quite immeasurable. He needed no children. He could live like gods for thousands of years provided he always remembered to exclude the two words ‘tired of’ in his terminology. He thought those were two silly terms which he had never once used in his life.

  The man-goddess couple came to live among the people for centuries in many descriptions at different places as different people, imitating their lifestyles. They traveled the whole world, learning, trading, building, manufacturing, sculpting, acting, teaching, ruling, serving, sporting, mastering in arts, sciences and technologies. They lived among all the creeds, castes and kinds of the people on earth.

  Jothamus in particular had played countless numerous heroic roles with Ajubel always on his back. It was the different personality of him who was in most of the legendary tales of the world. He was the one holding records of the infamous feats and attainments of the past. He was many times ‘the first person in the world’. He had been the pilot in the air and the sea. He had been the villain and the hero. He had been the winner and the loser. He was behind the solutions of numerous problems that he himself had created. He was behind the findings and the missings; the infections and their cure. He and his wife Ajubel had been, if truth be told, everything and everywhere. They had lived as children, as youths, as lovers, friends, adults and old people. They had been brought up as left behind babies. They were raised in different communities by different people. They had lived as decent people and also as elites and celebrities. They climbed mountains, traveled to space, crossed the oceans, played games, won trophies and acclamations, invented machines and devices. They had built and destroyed civilizations. They were the ones in the renowned true love stories narrated in every part of the world. They had died (but not really been dead), a thousand times as professionals, as celebrities and as notorious citizens. The happenings and occurrences on earth were their games of amusement on the earth.

  They were behind the news of great discoveries and explorations, exciting them so much as men celebrated the conquests made. Many primeval, classical and historical monuments, paintings in caves, wood and stone engravings here and there, which were designed with much more sophisticated and advanced skill which modern scientific knowledge cannot imitate even today, were said to be their handiworks created as pastime activities whenever they got tired of their life to avert Jothamus from using the phrase prohibited by his father-in-law. Some of the pastime activities included the making of the megalithic temples, the Neolithic and prehistoric monuments and tombs which had stood the test of time. They left behind their hoof and paw marks at different places of the earth. Man discovered these marks and called them as footprints of the extinct animals.

  Jothamus would use his extraordinary gizmos which he had acquired from the dark woods where Ajubel had once placed him with an instrument so admired. He used them and their impact to play pranks on the people and sometimes to teach them a lesson. For instance, when he wore the sandals, he could run so fast and round causing disaster wherever he saw the proscribed ruining the world, wherein even the blameless innocents too became the victim of his actions.

  Jothamus in fact, was the man who had lived longest ever on earth. He used the power and wisdom that he inherited from his mother, acquired from Ajubel’s magic instrument and gifted by the three early magi. Unknown to man, he was the change-maker, the builder of the present-day world. He worked out solutions to the affairs of the world, he created arts and sciences. He gave ideas to the people. He killed and destroyed autocrats and helped the dignified to replace them.

  And so this was the fulfillment of what the King of the firmament and Maker of the earth had said to the archangel who opened the back door of heaven:

  “Go then and satisfy yourself and the woman, you lustful herald. Make love to her and let her have a child of her desire from your covetousness. If she chooses wisely for a son, he shall grow up to behead the man-eater and the earth shall be blessed again with the peace and glory of Eden. But if she chooses for a daughter, the earth shall not retrieve its glory. Yet she shall be the most beautiful creation ever created on earth who shall grow up to revolutionize the world. Out of her number-of-the-days offspring, shall a mastermind be born who would both intimidate and reassure the world.”

  Jothamus was indeed the mastermind in every transgression as he interfered in the affairs of the world to daunt the malevolent political heads and unlawful citizens of the world in order to restore normalcy on earth. He was also the one responsible for every virulent disease that became pandemic.

  Although he had lived for centuries conquering and experiencing every taste of life, Jothamus, as a human being himself, was quite far from perfection. He would find himself lost in the world in the excitement of his company with the people. He had to be warned a thousand times by his wife to save him from the spell of her father. In the absence of his acquired instruments and his wife, he was just a man who would eat, live and grow like any ordinary man. The only difference was he would not die until he got tired of living. And when he had grown old, he would wish to be young again. And so he was old and young again over and over, time and again.

  Having been involved in every activity of life using his extraordinary gifts and powers so much so that one day, Jothamus and Ajubel decided to live and grow like ordinary children without using any of their extra potential.

  At one time he and Ajubel faked themselves to get found by some institutions somewhere on the earth. They grew up at different orphanages in the same city. They attended the same school, topped the exams, graduated from the same college, pretended to have fallen in love and married each other. They grew old with their hair turned white and their skin lined. They left their property behind and disappeared, leaving behind a mystery unsolved. The newspapers carried the headlines of missing old couples.

  The process was repeated at a different setting. This time they made themselves found as abandoned babies at different hospitals in a city. They grew up as ordinary children at different places where they were adopted. They pretended to like each other. They went dating like the others. They partied. They drank beers and smoked cigars and kissed in public places.

  At another point, they grew up as dutiful children on the other side of the world, attending Sunday schools and church services; sometimes secretly messing up things and splitting up members of a society and causing divisions among them by throwing in a bone of contention in the midst of harmony. They got themselves engaged and solemnized. They even got divorced and live like separated couples. In fact, they had mischievously played every part and pursued every profession everywhere during their extensively protracted life. Their stories couldn’t be counted; their tales were innumerable. They discovered; they made; they conquered; they defeated; they sang; they played; they fought; they won; they built; they overcame; they served; they helped; they punished; they recompensed. They did every part of life and lived everywhere on earth. They caused the wind and the storm; they shook the world and caused catastrophes. The wicked were destroyed and the upright rewarded. All happenings on earth then, now and later, being their intentions; and all these being the consequence of Lilium’s choice.

  The world today will acknowledge a completely different state of affairs only after the bereavement of this man who is behind everything. But nobody knows when.

  Annotation

  (The Forbidden Words Enunciated)

  During the historical era of 2040 A.D., there was a young yet striking child artist who was frequently featured in small scale feature films and dramas. The film production company was taking advantage of the young actor’s unmatched skills and unparalleled talents profiting themselves from the expertises of this young actor. The child actor gradually gained global popularity and he later took his career into big motion pictures.

  As he grew up, he got recognition in an international film industry and began acting in blockbusters, super hits and mega hits. Lastly, he attracted the attention of one of the biggest international film production corporations.

  In the later part of the era, as a celebrated luminary, the actor had to play the role of a convict imprisoned in a cell. The supposedly documented film had a part during which this eminent actor had to be chastised many times by the one who played the role of a rude black gaoler who would call him a filthy swine. According to the script of the documentary, the main actor would get dejected with the constant torture, of being repeatedly abused, spitted on and whipped by the arrogant custodian. He then had to plan his escape, landing blows on the cheek and dick of the gaoler and his men that played tough on him.

  The actor discreetly and carefully read the screenplays, obeyed every instruction and played his professionalism to more than the best he could do. He followed the directions and strictly acted and spoke what was written on the script only.

  When the documentary film approached its end part, the hero, in accordance with the movie script, twisted the gaoler’s neck after a tough fight and killed all his men as part of the retaliating scene and said, “I’m damn tired of your fuckin’ prison, you double smart filthy black swine!”

  That was said and done only for a movie. But it seemed to be the end of everything! There was a sudden godsent gust of wind at the shooting site; then a short-lived whirlwind accompanied by a mild storm. When the action was cut in the state of interruption caused by the easygoing but sudden calamity, an anonymous woman was seen approaching the shooting site uninvited. She was more beautiful than all the beautiful actors at the backlog studio. It was the actor’s clandestine wife. (The actor was said to be married but no one had seen or known his wife). Earlier that day she had warned him not to go for shooting, saying that she had an unusual dream wherein she saw people visiting a graveyard where all the graves were open and hollow. The dead bodies were all gone and people were wondering. Then her father in black suit pushed a man into one of the hollow graves and the graves were all closed again.

  But the dream did not serve the actor as a warning. He wanted to contribute one more to the film world.

  She seemed to have come to take him away. She greeted everyone with a smile and moved up to where her husband was. She was then seen whispering into his ears. They smooched and cuddled for an elongated time and then she left without him.

  Minutes later, a noisy commotion diverted people’s attention towards the other side not far-off from the shooting spot. The tornado had carried away a woman, they said. Eyewitnesses claimed to have seen the woman departing from the actor and standing in the hub of the street as if waiting for someone to pick her up. She was then, as a matter of fact, like a snake that was grabbed by an eagle’s claw, captured and caught up into the air by the shadows of clouds that swooped down like a hungry bird. Some religious fanatics shouted, “It’s the rapture! It’s the rapture! It’s all written! Yes, it’s the rapture!”

  What later astounded the people more was that the actor, well known all over the world for his exceptional ‘master-of-all-trades’ skill was lying out cold at the spot where he was seen with the woman. He seemed to have wept a lot because there were streaks of tears on his face. Later at the hospital he was declared brought dead; died during a film shot after a sudden disaster. Some termed it ‘a death caused by a kiss’. ‘The hell of a kiss!’ they thought.

  The amazement did not end there. The actor’s corpse started showing wrinkles all over. He looked a great deal older than when he lived only hours ago. An autopsy failed to tell the cause of his death or his aging post death. There wasn’t any sign of infection. He wasn’t poisoned either.

  When the US intelligence agency and the genetic expert searched his estate, they discovered from the basement, a big wooden chest filled with human teeth.

  It was a bolt from the blue incident which remained an unsolved mystery. However, the hypothesis which could be deduced from the boxes of teeth was that the man had grown old a thousand times before his eventual death.

  A Bit About the Author

  Q-sian Kahmei, born on 25th November 1979, is a pseudonym for Kiusianang Kahmei, who upholds his family with a paltry income that he earns as a small businessman in one of India’s most overlooked north-eastern tribal areas of Tamenglong District, Manipur. In spite of a limited education that he was given due to early settlement which was a direct outcome of poverty, he has had a strong desire to write since his early childhood. But he couldn’t really start his most passionate undertaking of writing story books earlier as a result of his preoccupation.

  The present story is an out-pouring of his wealthy imaginations which was written with the humblest effort in many shades using many computers. Although the work was done intermittently in fits and starts, much care was taken to make every page a tempting installment.

  The writer may kindly be reached at

  qsiankahmei@gmail.com.

  Your valuable feedback, advice and suggestions will be highly treasured.

  All the characters, names of places, persons, animals, objects, occurrences, incidents and descriptions in this story are only fictitious and invented. Some names are simply borrowed for amusement’s sake. Any resemblance/s and similarities are purely coincidental and unintentional.

  Q-sian Kahmei

  Happy Reading!

 

 

  Q-sian Kahmei, The Consequence of Lilium's Choice

 

 

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