The Other Side of the Sky - Part 1

Brown dots. Brown dots.
                             Bounce bounce. 

         Up, up,                    all around.
                   down, down,
                             
                   Sky stolen shine.
                             Falling in.
                             Falling out.
                                       Brown from the sky.
                                       Clouds from the eyes.
                             Falling in.
                             Falling out.

                             up, up,
         Down, down,                    all around.

Poured out. Like...cobwebs. Not thick, that’s later. Now night was gone. Almost gone.
Running away, in purple clothes. Hiding away, in milky smoke.

Between each blink it all moved. The cartoons were like that too. Sometimes it was fun to blink, blink, blink between every second in front of the telly. That’s what they called it on it, in their funny voices, ‘the telly, love’.

But this was business. The blinks came on their own. It was like mountains that sneak in front with each slice of darkness, blocking the view.
When did that one move?
Now that one’s in the middle??
Then, it disappeared. The lights were in a pattern just now but...now it’s all light.
Where were they? Where did they go?

Suddenly, a shadow. Right over the view, right over their view. Eclipsing the sky, as dots look back.
“...and what are you doing?” A light voice called, stuffed with self-amusement.
The blinks did not make it disappear, no matter how hard. The hand raised and took over, waving away the eyes, maybe hoping the clouds would just disappear too.
“Not now! I’m trying to see where the stars go to!”
The shadow turned back, up, out, at the sky.
So bright.

She looked back, widest smile and whitest teeth, “Tino, you’re soooo funny, you know that?”
He sat up quickly, “Huh, what do you mean?!”
A snicker as response, “I mean...you’re funny! You are the funniest person that I know!”
“I’m not being funny!”
“Ah, but you are, though. You say you don’t know? You really don’t know? Really?”
“Yes, really!”
Even more laughter, “Ahhhh but Tino, this you should know already, eh! Where the night goes every day!” She leaned in closer, taking the whole sky from his view again, “The stars go to the other side of the sky, of course!”
His mouth tilted like one corner fell off. He shook his head, “The other side of the sky?!” He closed one eye, pointing at her, “Hehhhh, so you think you’re funny now eh, Kudzi?”
One last snicker as she straightened up, “Ahhhh, so you don’t know. But that’s fine, come, I’ll show you!”

A hand reached out, hovering over his face.
Brown eyes scrutinised before one hand met the other, going up as a result.

“Fine, but if you’re making fun...”
“Ahhh, you see? You are being funny, Tino! This is called ‘learning’! It’s what you should have been doing all this time instead of just staring at the sky like a frog!”
“Huh? Frogs don’t stare at the sky! They...they stare at the water!”
“And what do you think the water reflects? You know that word right? Reflect?”
“Of course I do! I’ve always known it!”
She shakes her head, “Ahhh, now I’m like your mother, eh? Teaching you, for free!”

They walked down the clearing in the grass, stomped into a path through the dirt.
Down the hill, up the river, all around the field.

                                                 Walk, walk, walk.

Tino looked up, the sky was even brighter now!
“Eh, what is this? Kudzi, we’re even more further from the stars!”
She pulled a dead twig, slashing through the grass, waving through the air.
“Don’t worry, Tino. We’re almost there.”
“Almost where?!”
“There. You know what ‘there’ means, right?”
“Ah, of course I do! I’ve always known!”
“That’s good, but it’s too late/ We’re no longer going ‘there’, there is ‘here’!”
“...where?”
“Ahhh, Tino...to your right, Shamwari!”

The edge of the forest laid on the hillside.
Boulders big enough for the two of them to sleep on, sat here and there, higher and higher up the hill. Untouched, standing out from the trees like scuffed marbles dropped on green carpet.
Riding over the boulders, over the hill, wavy like a snake with loosened stone scales sat a wall. Copper coloured on it’s belly and grey higher up, it looked as though it grew out of the mud.
“The Ruins? Kudzi, you were making fun!”
“Making fun what, heh? Don’t you know about the Ruins?”
“I know that we’re not supposed to go inside!”

From here, it was a straight wall. One had to stand back, far back, for flat walls to turn into a wide circle. But it couldn’t show what was higher: the towers or the trees. Even far back, the trees were big, their leaves swallowed the towers.

Kudzi moved ahead, echoing slightly.
“Do you know why?”
“...no.”
“Okay! Let’s go! Handeyi!”
The entrance curved in, like a mouth mid-word, sucking air into a sunless room.
Smaller rocks drizzled the ground, pouring down the hill, half-covered in orange clay.
Kudzi hopped off each stone, making it to the door without touching the dirt. She giggled, looking up at the opening and jiggling a stone in place.
“It’s not as proper as the walls at the enclosure. At least, that’s what Gogo said.”
Tino slowly crept up to where the sunlight turned to shadow, and just stared in, hazy black not revealing anything to him.
Suddenly a hand popped out, “Ah!!”
The hand grabbed him, “Nhai...Tino, get in here! We can’t get to the sky just by standing here!”
He stumbled in on something, cold air hit his face. He looked down, then up. Down was a step right by his foot. And up...was more steps, wrapping around a tightly bricked core. 
He sighed and took a step, following behind her in silence.