Clear night in Africa, and Kibombomene is washed in the gentleness of the illumination of ten-thousand stars. Something surreal when I slide my foot through slippery mud to the side of the house; it is Orion, sure enough, but here he is not the sentinel of darkness and bitter winds. There seems to be a little asterism, like a row of medals, on his chest that I have never seen before, and then something in my stomach wretches when I see that he is upside-down.
In two heartbeats I see him as I always have, but with his legs in the air, doing an awkward hand-stand or cartwheel on the Zambian treeline, his dagger about to fall out of its sheath. I suck air through my nose and shut my eyes, searching for the nerve to look for the first time at what is beyond his feet, past that point where his toes point, the point where my own toes once pointed in the New World night.
But I don't decide to open my eyes; it is done for me by some power outside of myself, and I see the whole alien sky, new shapes and connect-the-dot rhythms playing out in some dance a million years long. Unlike Orion, they can be connected in any way that I choose. My mind is not drawn to any truth that my legends have told me that they convey. And I am left in sudden damp post-rain chill wondering if I should connect those dots, or if I should learn what the people here see when they look in their formless direction, or if I should just let them dance.
In two heartbeats I see him as I always have, but with his legs in the air, doing an awkward hand-stand or cartwheel on the Zambian treeline, his dagger about to fall out of its sheath. I suck air through my nose and shut my eyes, searching for the nerve to look for the first time at what is beyond his feet, past that point where his toes point, the point where my own toes once pointed in the New World night.
But I don't decide to open my eyes; it is done for me by some power outside of myself, and I see the whole alien sky, new shapes and connect-the-dot rhythms playing out in some dance a million years long. Unlike Orion, they can be connected in any way that I choose. My mind is not drawn to any truth that my legends have told me that they convey. And I am left in sudden damp post-rain chill wondering if I should connect those dots, or if I should learn what the people here see when they look in their formless direction, or if I should just let them dance.
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