Here's the prologue to my novel In the Shadow of Babylon. like most authors I'm always looking for an agent or publisher.... so ... if you know any of these rare and obscure individuals please feel free to forward them a link to this page. Thanks!
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The Beyond (11,000 BCE)
My name is Ayuba. I am the Shepherd of Hamood, Father of Bynethia, Master of the Ben, Avenger of the Twan, Hero of the Gleb, Protector of Bensheer, and Son of the Beyond. This is my story.
I stood in the middle of our devastated camp, my eyes stinging, suffocating in the smoke of death. Hyenas circled on the edge of night snarling and yelping, the scent of blood exciting their hunger.
I ran through the camp in a futile search for survivors.
My father lay half exposed under the torn tent flap, felled before he could flee. The smoke from his smoldering beard covered his face like a fog. The wild dogs arriving before me had chewed his shoulder. My two uncles and brother lay at the edge of the spring, jagged spear wounds in their bellies and chests. They lay back to back, having died in defense of each other.
Blue black flies, the scourge of the desert, swarmed over the bodies, lapping at the thickening blood. The snarling hyenas grew bolder, darting in and out of the swirling smoke. Swinging my staff wildly over my head, my grief turned to anger; I chased the cowardly beasts back into the night. Exhausted, I leaned on my staff, sucking in draughts of oily smoke. I wretched. My body wracked with uncontrollable spasms. I fell to my knees. The smoke-stained sky pressed down on my small shoulders… they sagged under the unbearable weight of aloneness.
“Mother,” I whispered to the charred form lying half in the fire pit. A small foot protruded from her punctured belly. Wiping the blood from the tiny leg, I took the toes in my hand and felt their softness. I wanted to trade places with the baby. To die in the warmth of my mother’s womb, our hearts stopping as one, was a better choice than being alone in the pitiless place called the Beyond.
In the middle of the chaos I sat throughout the night holding the small foot, afraid to let this last contact with my family slip away. Everyone was accounted for except my three sisters who, no doubt, had been the target of this destruction. The crackling of smoldering skin and the whining of the hyenas punctured the silence. The crisp night air was fouled by the stench of burning flesh.
The warm rays of the sun fell on my back before I realized the horrible night had fled. Smoke stained the otherwise clear sky. As I sat paralyzed with grief, the dogs crept back into camp to feed on the corpses. Gently releasing the baby’s foot, I grabbed my staff and once again vented my anger on the beasts.
“We should have moved,” I heard myself say over and over through my sobs, as I dragged the bodies of my family to the center of the smoldering ruins. Several days before, my uncles had argued strongly with my father that we had stayed too long at this oasis. There are few sources of water in the Beyond; eventually, they said, another tribe would seek out this place. Mistakes are punished harshly in the desert wilderness.
“We should have moved,” I screamed in anger while struggling to pull Father’s charred remains from beneath the tent. Sweat mixed with tears blurred my vision. Without ceremony, I stacked mounds of dried fronds and camelweed atop the carcasses. What stirred my soul to such effort I know not. ‘We should have left… we should have left,’ I thought like a death litany as I watched the flames consume all I had ever known.
As the smoke of my family billowed into the empty sky, I returned to the gorge where the afternoon before I had penned the goats. During the night the frightened animals trampled the hastily constructed barrier and fled in fear of the howling hyenas. Perhaps because they were my responsibility, I felt their loss even more deeply than the destruction of my family. I stood for a long time looking at the empty pen as though my presence would somehow make my panicked charges return.
For the first time in my life I was alone. Surrounded by the hostile desert, the silent cliffs, and the endless sand. An undeniable weariness consumed me. I lay on the harsh shale stone and slept.
I do not know how long I lay unconscious. When I awoke, shadows were long and the sun was disappearing in the west. A thin coat of sand, blown by the predictable afternoon breeze, covered me.
Gathering my few belongings I blindly stumbled throughout the night and following day. I did not try to hide from predators or clans. I would have welcomed their violence to vanquish the numbness in my heart. I did not think of my family, although the foulness of their deaths still stained my nose and soiled my tunic. I did not drink or eat. Grief dulled my senses. My eyes were dry but unfocused. I frequently tripped and fell, lying still, aware only of my heart beating against the sand as though pleading with it to admit me to the bliss of death.
An angry slash of light at the edge of a leaden sky announced the arrival of night. The fiery resistance of the sun awakened me from my stupor. Climbing among a wall of boulders, I took shelter beneath a stone shelf safely above the approaching parade of nocturnal predators.
As night suffocated the remainder of the day I squatted beneath the rough stone and cried. Hugging my knees to my chest, my sobs echoed across the vast empty plain. Tears tracked small rivulets down my dusty legs. Like a dying beast I hurled my pain into the night.
Thirst dragged me from the bliss of unconsciousness. My body cramped, my vision was blurred, and my head throbbed. I found my small goat bladder, which in the confusion of the last two days I had failed to fill. Carefully I drank what little remained of the tepid water.
My small shepherd’s kit contained a few nuts and a wedge of honeycomb. Chewing the sweet wax, I looked out over the barren plain. Nothing moved in the morning sun… not a bird nor a lizard, not a leaf or blade of grass. It was as though I alone was capable of movement or sound.
How suddenly my life had changed. Three days before the violence, I had left the oasis to find adequate grazing for our small herd of goats. After three days alone with my charges, in happy anticipation of fresh meat and cool water, I turned toward the comfort of our camp. Gradually I noticed the goats begin to act strangely—their velvety noses turned to the sky, eyes darting in fear, bleating incessantly.
I looked skyward to check the weather. It was then I saw a distant smudge of smoke. More than the smoke of a campfire… it was heavy and oily, like blood.
I could not travel any faster than the herd and I dared not leave them to the mercy of predators. As the sun set, I drove the animals into a small, steep-walled canyon. I quickly threw up a screen of camelweed and other deadfall to keep the frightened goats penned while I rushed to see what had become of my family.
I forced my mind away from the horrible memory. The vision was too raw. Like butchered meat, it bled with a sadness I could not bear.
The land of my birth was populated by small nomadic tribes speaking many different languages. On the rare occasion that tribes met, they approached with great care. The only commerce between these extended families was in goats and women—both traded to improve the breeding stock of the tribe. The cold realities of life on the edge of the earth formed our patterns of existence. Each dawn brought the specter of destruction and each evening the relief of survival. Almost from the moment they could conceive, girls became pregnant and remained so until barren, if indeed they lived beyond their own fertility.
By age 10 I joined the hard practicality of life as a clan male. I cannot recall ever playing a game. Singing and laughter were rare events. As strange as it sounds, when viewed from the perspective of life in a civilized society, the harshness of our lives forced us into a dependency of trust that defined our manhood. We knew each other’s capabilities and weaknesses. We needed each other. The clan could only exist by working together. It was this honest assessment of each other that led to respect, if not love. This closeness of brotherhood nurtured me from childhood to puberty, defining my life.
Now it was gone. I realized that to live, I had to move out into the Beyond. I was alone.
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