Quick As A Mongoose - 5. True Colors - March 2016

The sun made Mahui weak, where it made others strong. Warm rays of light had made his journey an exhausting one, and he found himself stumbling more often than not over the last few days to the jungle village. Citla, Mahui’s guide, glanced at him worriedly the first time he’d lost his balance, her brown eyes sparkling in that accursed sunlight as she helped Mahui to his feet. Now, weeks later, Citla rarely glanced Mahui’s way and no longer helped him to his feet.

This always happened after people came to know Mahui’s weakness. They thought him beautiful, exotic even, though he found their adoration as much a curse as the light which made his condition apparent. He did not want their attention, or their pity. He had skin much whiter than theirs, and didn’t need their eyes to tell him so. He wanted skin as dark as theirs.

“We’ve arrived, Sunchild,” Citla said, pointing through the trees to the first of the brown huts. Unusually, this hut had four walls; most structures built by the Nahu people only had two. The Nahu valued openness, and they referred to the winds and storms as ‘the embrace of Heaven’.

Mahui, curious and eager, followed Citla toward the structure, renewed vigor in his step. They had arrived, and he would have a chance to rest in the village, though not before he met with Tlaloc. Mahui had come too far and travelled too long; he would meet with the famed shaman, and he would have the answer to his curse.

As they entered the village, more huts became visible, these ones with only two walls. Mahui sighed in relief. These were definitely the Nahu he knew; the people he’d longed to become one with for so long. Several villagers looked up at the two travelers as they stepped around the break in the trees. Their stares told Mahui everything he needed to know. They saw him as defective.

The defective human he hoped he would no longer be.

“Should I walk in, or wait for an invitation?” Mahui asked before the doorway of the four-walled hut.

Citla’s expression remained neutral, but her eyes sparkled with amusement. “The shaman expects you, Sunchild. He would have seen you in the dream before you left your home.”

Mahui nodded. Of course Tlaloc expected him. Without waiting another moment, Mahui entered through the low entrance of the hut. He found himself standing at the end of an earthen hallway, another peculiarity for a Nahu structure. Most huts contained only one room, and rarely had two. Cautiously, Mahui moved down the hallway, guided by the light streaming in from the entrance until he came to a bend. As he looked around the corner, the hallway extended impossibly far into the distance when compared to the size of the hut from the outside. Perplexed but undeterred, Mahui continued around the corner and a cloud of smoke assaulted his nostrils.

The acrid smoke smelled earthy, with a touch of spice, and Mahui coughed and covered his mouth. He’d smelled this scent before, but he could not identify it, and he walked forward cautiously, seeking the source of the smoke. The smoke began to sting his eyes, and Mahui blinked back tears as he stumbled forward. Each step he took brought him deeper into the smoke, and Mahui fell to his knees and began to crawl, feeling for some way out of this predicament. He felt along the wall until the wall suddenly disappeared from beneath his fingertips and he fell to the ground. The smoke and poor lighting made it impossible to see, and he coughed as the smoke entered his lungs and made it impossible to breathe. Consciousness faded.

Thunder sounded in the distance, a loud crack and a rumble which reverberated through Mahui’s unconscious mind. Then came the sound of rain, a loud torrent followed by a slow drizzle before another crack of thunder interrupted it. Mahui opened his eyes, expecting to see dark clouds above him, but instead he stared at the leaf-covered branches of a Nahu hut. A large log supporting each corner of the roof, and no walls surrounded them. The hut stood on a low mountain peak, the jungle stretching out all around them, with thick grey clouds hanging just above the canopy.

He heard another crack behind him and turned over, rising to his knees to see a Nahu man cutting into a large cacao pod with a machete, splitting it in two. There was no thunder, and the mystery of the rumbling revealed itself as soon as the Nahu man emptied the white seeds of the pod into a large wooden bowl and stirred them around with his hand. Then he stood and took another bowl of similar size and shape and shook it, the dried cacao inside rubbing along the side of the wood and sounding like rain.

“You’re awake,” The Nahu man said without looking away from his task. “Now we may speak, Mahui.”

“You know my name?” Mahui asked, regarding the wizened figure curiously. There were several inhuman features to the man; his ears ended in points and his eyes were like a jaguar’s. Mahui nodded slowly as he realized the identity of his host. “You must be Tlaloc.”

“Yes. I know a great deal about you.” The Nahu man smiled softly before cracking open another cacao pod. “I have watched you for a long time, Sunchild.”

Mahui gritted his teeth at the title. He had allowed his guide to use the name, but he’d no longer tolerate the name. ‘Sunchild’ was a nickname he’d earned because of the brightness of his skin. He hated his skin. “Please, shaman, forgive my rudeness, but I would appreciate it if you would not call me Sunchild.”

Tlaloc bowed in response, then turned to look at Mahui for the first time. “As you wish, Mahui. I only want to help you.”

Mahui glanced around, feeling a slight breeze move through the hut and reminding him of their location. “Where are we? I walked into your hut last I remember, then the smoke . . .” he shook his head as he tried to reason out what had brought him here.

“You arrived while I roasted my cacao.” Tlaloc chuckled and walked toward the table. “I’m afraid the smoke can affect some people more than others.”

“But where are we? This isn’t the village!”

“Still inside the hut, Mahui. Would you like something to drink?”

For a moment, Mahui could see the walls of the hut, and a wave of dizziness nearly overtook him before they disappeared. “Yes, please. I’m quite thirsty.”

Tlaloc nodded and produced a ceramic cup from thin air in a puff of black smoke. Tlaloc added some powder to the cup, then took a small bowl of steaming water and poured it into the cup. “Do you know why you came here, Mahui?”

Mahui thought it a strange question to ask, but he responded anyway. “Yes. I came to see if you could change my body. I want to look like you.”

“You want to look like an old man?” Tlaloc chuckled, pausing with the cup in his hand.

Mahui shook his head. “No.”

Tlaloc laughed heartily and replied. “Then you must want to wear a shaman’s mantle?”

“No. I want my skin to look like yours, and my hair and eyes. I no longer wish to be a Sunchild.”

Tlaloc smiled and met Mahui’s eyes. “That isn’t why you came here, Mahui.”

“It isn’t?” Mahui’s eyes widened.

“No. You came here to learn the process of making cacao.”

“I don’t understand.”

Tlaloc sighed and gestured to the pods on the ground beside the bowl containing their seeds. He set the cup down and walked back to the pods, crouching next to one and hacking it open with the machete, revealing the flesh on the inside. “Do you see these pods? White flesh and white beans, at least at first.” He pointed at Mahui and continued. “Your flesh looks this white, which you hate about yourself, yes?” Mahui nodded, and Tlaloc tilted the bowl of fresh cacao beans toward Mahui. “It takes several days. The cacao must ferment, changing it inside and out. As it dries, the white coating falls away, leaving only the inner reddish-brown core of the bean.” Tlaloc stood and walked back to the table, tilting the other large wooden bowl toward Mahui, revealing the dried reddish-brown beans inside. “We roast the beans and grind them into powder, and with it I can make a variety of things, from treats to drinks.” Tlaloc set the bowl back in its original position and picked up the ceramic cup, gesturing with it to Mahui and smiling. “In a distant land where your ancestors lived, they mix it with sugar and milk. The cacao has many uses after it has been properly treated.”

Mahui shook his head emphatically, trying to take it all in. “Why tell me this?”

“You wish your skin to go from white to dark, just like the cacao, but your soul is what’s important.” Tlaloc sighed and gestured with his hand out toward the jungle. “You were found in the jungle as a child, your skin as white then as now, but the Nahu raised you as their own. Your spirit matches ours, you need not prove it through the color of your skin.”

“But why have I journeyed here if not to be changed?”

Tlaloc turned back to Mahui, a half smile on his face as he extended the ceramic cup to Mahui. The cup contained a mixture of cocoa and spice, and smelled much like the smoke from before. Mahui stared at the drink skeptically as Tlaloc explained, “This drink will change the color of your skin to match mine. I imbued it with the essence of the cacao, and you will notice the change over the next few days, if you decide to drink.”

Mahui grinned, pleased by the news as he lifted the cup to his lips, then he hesitated as Tlaloc’s words sunk in. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“By seeking me out, by seeking to become one with the Nahu, have you not already proven the color of your soul?” Tlaloc smiled sadly as he stared at the cup in Mahui’s hand. “The journey has already changed you. Beneath the outer flesh, we are all the same, Mahui. We are all Nahu, and we all have the potential to do many things with our lives. Isn’t that enough?”

“I don’t know,” Mahui replied, frowning.

“The choice is yours, Mahui. Drink or don’t, but you already have the answer, if you’re willing to find it within you.”

Mahui closed his eyes as he thought about the question, and by the time he opened them he found himself in the middle of a four-walled hut, the smell of roasting cacao filling his nostrils. In front of him sat a small shrine to Tlaloc, the Nahu god of change. In Mahui’s hand he held the cup of cacao. He raised it to his lips and paused, smelling the bitter cacao and considering the options before him.

A moment later, Mahui stepped back into the sun with a smile on his face, feeling the sun’s warmth spread over him. He walked away from the village with his head held high, and he did not stumble.