The dirt path toward the rice field was flanked by patches of short white bunny tail grass. Kaus Zuag picked the bunny tails as she paced along. By the time she drew near her rice field, she had made a bouquet of the flowers in her hand. She smiled and breathed in its intoxicating fragrance. Afterward, she was about to proceed forward when she saw the farm shack shook violently. “What is that?” she whispered frighteningly. She gripped the hoe securely and moved forward like a mouse. As she got closer to the farm hut, it trembled like an earthquake had struck. Kaus Zuag swallowed hard, afraid that a tiger might be hidden inside. She gathered all her courage and strength, and raising the hoe—she screamed and stormed into the hut with her eyes shut. Kaus Zuag smashed the hoe into everything.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Koob Hmoov shouted.
Still, Kaus Zuag was terrified and dared not open her eyes. She continued to strike everything with the hoe.
“STOP!” Koob Hmoov yelled and grabbed onto Kaus Zuag.
Alarmed by Koob Hmoov’s touch, Kaus Zuag shrieked and opened her eyes. When she saw him, without a thought, she ran into his embrace and let go of the hoe and bunny tail bouquet. The hoe landed on the ground while the bunny tail bouquet flew into the air, and gravity pulled on the bunny tail panicles and awns—causing the tiny white florets to sprinkle onto Kaus Zuag and Koob Hmoov like stars falling from the sky.
“Oh, it’s you!” Kaus Zuag answered after a few seconds when she realized what she had just done. Feeling embarrassed, she quickly let go of Koob Hmoov. “Why are you here? Where’s the tiger?” She asked curiously, inspecting the corners of the shed.
“Tiger?” Koob Hmoov questioned and chuckled subsequently. “There’s no tiger in here.”
“Then why was the whole hut trembling?”
“Yesterday, you didn’t even share your lunch with me,” Koob Hmoov responded with a grimace. “In order to not starve today, I’ve cut myself a banana stalk. But this farm shack has no hangers and it’s also disintegrating. No matter where I tried to hang my banana stalk, the shack shook like it was going to fall apart. I had to run from side to side just to prevent it from crashing to the ground.”
“Are you humiliating my work?” Kaus Zuag asked angrily.
“What do you mean?”
“I built this farm hut with my own two hands. So are you saying that my skill is not good enough?”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Koob Hmoov replied immediately, putting on a regretful smile.
“What exactly do you mean then?”
Koob Hmoov tittered. “What I mean is that no matter what I say, I am going to be wrong and you will always be right,” he answered nervously. “Look, it’s getting warm already. Let’s start working.” Koob Hmoov left the banana stalk on the ground and stepped outside.
“Hey you!” Kaus Zuag shouted. “Didn’t I tell you to not come back?”
Koob Hmoov smirked and ignored Kaus Zuag by walking toward the lime-greened rice stalks.
“Hey, are you listening to me?”
“If I don’t come, who’s going to protect you if a tiger really appears?” Koob Hmoov remarked jokingly.
“You really think that I was that scare?”
“I don’t know what to think, but all I know is that you need me and the sun is pointing straight up into the sky already. If you keep on pestering me, we’re not going to get anything done today.”
Kaus Zuag heatedly followed Koob Hmoov, burning with tenacity to stop him from working but he was already in toil. Unable to stop him, Kaus Zuag decided to leave him alone. She stubbornly picked up her hoe and walked back to him again. “Hey you!” she called, drawing Koob Hmoov’s attention. “You can work here. I’m going to start on the other side!” She then stomped, rousing impatiently away.
Koob Hmoov smiled. “It’s fine,” he whispered, “as long as I get to be in your presence.”
With the passage of the sun through the sky, the silky white clouds and clear blue sky were replaced with dark charcoal clouds that mulishly slid toward one another. Wind gust heightened and light became dimmed. Near sunset, the sunless sky cried streams of tears that beat heavily onto the soft, absorbent brown soil.
The monsoon rain poured onto the mountains, and Koob Hmoov and Kaus Zuag could no longer work. They scurried for shelter, and bumped into each other at the hut’s entrance. Koob Hmoov smiled faintly, knowing that the rainstorm would trap them together until it abated and the sun shone again.
“What are you smiling at?” Kaus Zuag asked displeasingly.
“Nothing,” Koob Hmoov answered abruptly. “I didn’t smile.”
“But you did just now!”
“No, I didn’t. Maybe the rain diminished your vision,” Koob Hmoov replied, teasing her.
Kaus Zuag pouted and went to sit on one side of the shed, leaving Koob Hmoov to himself. He picked up his banana stalk and sat down near the door. He then plucked a banana off and offered it to Kaus Zuag. She glowered at him and looked away. He shrugged his shoulder and ate the banana. After finishing the first banana, he pulled another banana off and offered it to Kaus Zuag again. But she sulked in her corner, so he gorged the banana joyously.
Now and then, Kaus Zuag glanced at Koob Hmoov enjoying his bananas and she could hear her stomach grumbling. She pulled her back-basket over and opened her lunch. She held the herb-boiled whole chicken in her hands and took a big bite off the thigh.
“Hey…hey…aren’t you going to share that?” Koob Hmoov asked hastily, pointing a finger at the chicken.
“Says who?” Kaus Zuag answered pleasingly.
“You are so cruel. You’re really going to finish the whole chicken by yourself?”
Kaus Zuag nodded impudently.
“Fine, then I’ll finish all of these bananas by myself too!” Koob Hmoov commented audaciously.
“Go ahead,” Kaus Zuag replied and took another bite off the chicken.
The two carried on their teasing as they tried to make their food looked the most delicious. Their stomachs grew plump and the two fell asleep from food coma and work exhaustion.
It was not until the rain tapped heavily and noisily onto the farm hut’s thatched roof and thunder roared in the sky that the two were startled and woke up. Kaus Zuag got up and stepped toward the door to peer outside. The world had gotten a lot darker and the rain poured hysterically, generating wind that raged through the rice field every few minutes.
“What are we going to do? It’s night and we can’t go home,” Kaus Zuag asked Koob Hmoov worriedly.
“What else can we do? We have to sleep here tonight,” he responded.
“What do you mean sleep here tonight? We can’t share this place together!” Kaus Zuag objected.
“Of course we can! Or else, one of us would have to sleep outside,” Koob Hmoov remarked. “You wouldn’t be so malicious as to force me to do that, right?” He asked nervously.
“Do I look that evil to you?”
“All the times,” he alleged softly.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing!” Koob Hmoov answered with a smile.
“It’s just that…I…don’t trust you!” she answered firmly.
“Then what are we going to do?”
Kaus Zuag thought for a few seconds. “Why don’t we build a fire between us? In that way, you’ll be burnt first if you try to come near me.”
Koob Hmoov laughed. “And you said that you’re not evil,” he mumbled to himself. “So how do we get firewood in this rainy and cold weather?” He asked with arms crossed.
“You can go outside and gather some.”
“But it’s rainy and dark outside!” he protested.
“What are you afraid of? Or, did you prefer to sleep outside?”
Koob Hmoov opened his mouth and was about to say something but decided to stop. He knew that he would never win. Unable to smile, he stepped outside with petty annoyance and was gone.
In Koob Hmoov’s absence, Kaus Zuag’s heart became weak. When the sound of thunder dominated the heaven and lighting blazed in the distance spawning photographic flashes—she jumped and huddled to a corner. Then, she heard wolves howling discordantly and her heart dropped. Soon, the wolves’ howls vanished but she began to hear footsteps trudging near the shack. The noise increased with each second and when lightning and thunder tore through the sky once more—a giant shadow appeared at the doorstep, triggering goose bumps throughout the surface of Kaus Zuag’s skin. Then, the door popped opened and a dripping silhouette figure stood at the door with a chest as wide a giant log. Kaus Zuag leaped up and screamed. The eerie conditions petrified Kaus Zuag’s thoughts, so when the figure stepped into the light and she saw him clearly—she ran into his arm.
“What’s wrong? Why are you squeezing me so tight? I can’t breathe,” Koob Hmoov griped, struggling to breath.
Koob Hmoov’s complaint alerted Kaus Zuag that she was strangling his throat, so she quickly released him. “Sorry. I thought I heard something scary.” She commented, and her face blushed.
“You know, this is the second time today that you’ve done this to me,” Koob Hmoov said smilingly as he stepped inside and laid a pile of wet firewood on the ground. He sighed. “What are you going to do without me?”
Rather than answering Koob Hmoov, Kaus Zuag changed the subject and asked, “What took you so long? Don’t you know that I’m cold and need fire for warmth?”
“Do you think it’s easy to find firewood in this weather?” he questioned frustratingly as he assembled the firewood in the center of the hut. “I had to hunt for a couple of miles just to get these. Do you have a match?”
Kaus Zuag quickly searched through some plastic bags and handed Koob Hmoov a matchbox. He pulled out a match and rubbed it on the striking surface of the box, but nothing more than a spark was generated. The match was no longer good so he threw it on the floor. He then pulled out another match, applied friction, and finally made the match catch fire. He smiled and threw the match onto the wood pile, but the match flickered and died out after a few seconds. Unwilling to call defeat, Koob Hmoov tried match after match but remained unsuccessful.
“If you continue to do that, you’ll really have to sleep outside tonight,” Kaus Zuag said. Annoyed by his vain efforts, she grabbed the matchbox from him. She pulled a match out, slid it through the friction side, and threw the lit match onto the wood pile. In just a few seconds, the fire raged through the wood pile and flames stirred up lividly red.
Kaus Zuag sneered at Koob Hmoov, who silently and embarrassingly lowered his head and body down on one side of the fire. “You got lucky because I did all the hard work,” he whined softly. “If my matches didn’t dry up the firewood, I doubt you’ll be able to light it that quick.”
Seeing that Koob Hmoov had closed his eyes and slept, Kaus Zuag turned her back to him and lay on the other side of the fire floor. The fire’s warmth burned against her back, making the atmosphere cozy so she became drowsy. Before falling into unconsciousness, she heard Koob Hmoov coughed a few times.
***
The sun rays already peeped glimmeringly and brightly through the splits of the farm shack when Kaus Zuag became alert the following morning. The fire had died out, leaving no trace of burnt wood smoke but only the soft and smooth ashes of the firewood. Kaus Zuag got up and opened the door. Her hair floated in the cool and gentle breeze that swept through the hut. Although the outside was still chilly, the sun had risen beautifully in the clear blue sky.
Leaving the shack’s door opened, Kaus Zuag walked toward the rice stalks that were reflecting a brighter lime green color than before to check if anything got damaged during the thunderstorm. After a quick inspection, she found that the rice stalks in the field were holding up firmly. The only setback was the dirt ground, which became overwhelmingly muddy and mushy—making it impossible to stand up to work without being pulled down by the slippery sand-water mixture. Kaus Zuag decided that it was best to be patient and let the water in the soil vaporized before resuming work on the rice field.
Kaus Zuag returned to the shack and shook her head when she saw that Koob Hmoov was still deep in sleep. She grabbed her back-basket and was about to set off without informing him, but her conscious pricked her mind like a thorn so she could not force her feet to swing past the doorstep. She walked back toward Koob Hmoov and was about to wake him up when she noticed that he was shivering and coughing despite the now warmer shack. At that moment, the girl recalled that Koob Hmoov had gone to sleep in cold, drenched clothes the night before. Distressed by the thought, she touched his forehead with her right hand and confirmed her worries.
“You are so silly. Who told you to fall asleep without drying your clothes?” she moaned in a murmur. “Koob Hmoov, Koob Hmoov!” She called as she tapped him on the shoulder to try to wake him up.
Koob Hmoov, nonetheless, did not hear Kaus Zuag and did not even twitch a muscle.
Concerned about his health, Kaus Zuag ran out of the rice field to the nearby wood. There, she searched for an herbal medicine and gathered a handful of hairy, light green leaves from a tree that blossomed tiny white flowers. Returning to the shack—she rebuilt a fire from wood she gathered and boiled the medicine in a pot of water. Once the medicine was cooked, she poured the liquid into a bowl. She blew on each spoon of medicine to cool it down and fed it to Koob Hmoov. After forcing Koob Hmoov to swallow the entire bowl of medicine, Kaus Zuag ate her leftover food and struggled to perform farm work while she waited for the young man to wake up.
The sun had travelled a quarter past the middle of the sky by the time Koob Hmoov finally opened his eyes. He coughed and steadily pulled himself to an upright, standing position. He leaned on the side of the door and coughed a few times. He then gazed to the distance and saw Kaus Zuag’s figure hovering over the rice stalks, pulling out weeds. His throat suddenly felt irritated and coarse, so he coughed a few times at full volume.
Koob Hmoov’s coughs attracted Kaus Zuag’s attention and she stood up to look in his direction. Seeing him resting against the shack’s door, Kaus Zuag abandoned her laborious work and walked back to him. She quickly gathered her belongings into her back-basket and sliding it on her back, she approached Koob Hmoov. She locked her right arm around his left arm and said, “Let’s go home.”
He stared at her and remarked, “It’s alright. I can walk by myself.” He freed himself from her and began to take a few steps. However, his vision abruptly turned blurry and he lost his balance. Kaus Zuag rushed forward and caught Koob Hmoov before he landed on the ground.
“Don’t be so stubborn,” she stated. “It is my fault that you got sick and you are still unwell, so let me help you back to the village.”
Koob Hmoov smiled faintly and agreed. Kaus Zuag gripped Koob Hmoov’s left arm firmly and the two left the bathed rice field.
Author: TT Vang
No comments:
Post a Comment