Thirty-Five Years Ago
Adua
Simka was the Aduan leader. He had inherited this honor from his father, who had been named likewise. But Simka's time was much different from that of his forefathers. While they had presided over a declining civilization, it wasn't until Simka was handed the reins that the situation of scarcity reached a freefall and people literally began to starve.
On Adua, there were some sizable mountains that once supported a heavily forested ecosystem. But no one knew what it had been like. The mountain where the last trees stood was now protected; cutting down any more trees was forbidden. Yet, somehow, the trees continued to dwindle as desperation forced the Aduans to sneak in at night and poach them mainly for fuel.
Trees had once supplied materials for cabins and boats. The boats plied the seas and brought back treasures of the deep to nourish the population of Adua. Some elders could still recall witnessing the disappearance of the last tree.
But now, there was no one who even knew how to build a decent boat, let alone sail or fish from one. But from such scarcity, other capabilities had evolved out of necessity. To get to sources of seafood, the Aduans had to swim out and then free-dive. They speared a few fish, but they mainly relied on abalone, lobsters, crabs, and other bottom fare, such as urchins and sea cucumbers.
Over the generations and the years, the distances they had to swim and the depths to which they had to dive increased. Eventually, they were outmatched by the sea, and the number of gifted athletes who could support the Aduans started to decline.
Simka's grandfather was the one who was contacted directly by the gods, who told him that the community was obligated to pay its respects to the dead by consuming their bodies.
Thus, did the practice of cannibalism signal the approach of Adua's final chapter. Simka himself declared that he would lead a search for new lands where they could find more resources to enable them to survive. The initial expedition was a harrowing affair that involved a forty-mile swim through chilly waters. There was a single raft, which they had repaired as best they could from the materials available, which included human bones.
Pairs of men took turns pulling the raft, using long, thin harnesses that had been woven from human hair. They kept some fresh water on the raft, along with some coveted dried abalone and sea cucumber, of which there was precious little, but the men needed to have some form of energy to make the journey, conduct a survey, and have sufficient energy to return home. The raft was also used to haul back anything of value that they found.
Despite their constant state of near starvation, natural selection had preserved and honed the ability to swim great distances in cold water and survive without succumbing to hypothermia.
The tribe had literally no fuel remaining for heating, unless they started disassembling their rotting wooden shelters, which provided their last respite from the biting winds blowing in from the north. So, they existed in a constant state of mild hypothermia and malnourishment.
Life spans were short and getting shorter as malnutrition and susceptibility to certain unexplained maladies were on the rise. Simka was young Mani's uncle. Simka's older brother, who was Mani's father, had perished at sea while deep diving one day. No one knew what happened to him, but his fate was among the leading causes of death.
The people of the island could not help but mourn the loss of his body more than that of the man himself. Such was the current state of Adua and the current psyche of its inhabitants.
Simka and five others, all determined souls, stroked methodically as they headed toward the mainland. From the island's perspective, it was easier to sight the mainland because the clouds hung there along the shore and enveloped the mountaintops.
As a result of their efforts to stay together and rotate the pulling of the raft, the journey from Adua to the coast took them more than a full day. Given the temperature of the water and their poor level of nourishment, their exhaustion was beyond one's ability to understand. The second half of the journey was completed with a level of detachment and delirium that was the only way that the mind could continue without seizing to a halt.
They were uncertain how long the journey was. No one had actually done it for generations, and any oral history of it was spotty at best. As they crawled up through the pounding surf and onto the soft sandy beach, they prayed to their god. And even before regaining feeling in any parts of their bodies, they believed that the journey had been faster than they had imagined.
They managed to get some water down and found a sheltered area, where they essentially went into a temporary state of hibernation for a full twenty-four hours before the first of them stirred and brought the rest back to consciousness.
The Aduans consumed every atom of the food that remained, and then they rested for another half day, moaning, but then laughing on occasion, which signaled that they were mentally and physically ready to take the next step.
Simka was not only their leader but also the most driven and physically capable of the group. He led them along the coast for a while but realized that there wasn't much there for them, so they followed a freshwater runoff canyon inland and climbed higher and higher up the steep mountains to see what was above and beyond.
As they benefited from the full moon, it took them only about a full day to reach the nearest peak, where the sight before them was one they would never forget. The great lake stretched out in the distance, and they could see Eden below them, sprawled along the shores of the lake. The men hugged one another in joy and excitement. But Simka warned them that they could not be seen.
They carefully moved closer, taking the well-worn trails down to the city but narrowly avoiding close calls with the runners who were going up and down. Luckily, they had found places to conceal themselves, and eventually, they were at the edge of the large settlement.
Not knowing exactly what to do, Simka suggested that they look inside some of the nearby houses to see what might be inside. It was just their luck that no one was home at the two nearest houses. The men snuck into each of them, making off with knives and more food than they had ever dreamed of. The food was so delicious and unfamiliar to them that it was like a dream.
They had filled their bellies and then carried all that they could. Now, they got rested behind some large rocks that were located upward and away from the houses. There, they waited for the sun to set. At this point, they hastily headed back to find their raft so that they could take the treasures back to their loved ones and then figure out what to do next.
But something about the feasts that they enjoyed before embarking on their return swim was not a dream come true. Two of the men suffered severe cramps and had to hang on to the raft, doubling up the load on Simka and three of the others. This imbalance took its toll, and one of the men began slowing down. Suddenly, he lapsed into a coma and was lost.
This ordeal added another half a day to the trip and nearly killed all of them. When they were spotted, some Aduans rushed out and hauled them in. By the time all were safely up on shore, their rescuers, out of desperation, had commandeered all the items they had brought back, and Simka, his men, and their families had nothing to show for their mission.
Simka was so disappointed. Disenchanted by the dishonesty, which disturbed him rather more than the actual ordeal and tragedies, he became reclusive. But following some weeks of recovery and reflection, he arrived at the same nagging reality: they were all doomed.
Without the new society and its riches, they would surely perish. It was a gift from god, but it had to be earned by each person or at least each family. Simka organized the next expedition, which a member of each family was to join.
In the end, it was agreed that forty men and boys adequately covered all the families and would enable equal sharing of the spoils. The first order of business was to construct more rafts. The materials were requisitioned by forcing some extended families to consolidate into fewer shacks, especially when there were dilapidated structures at the end of their useful lives.
The wooden materials and lashings were salvaged, and in the end, the men were able to build an armada of six rafts, each larger and more seaworthy than the original. The elder women unwove hair blankets and rewove the materials into long ropes that would be used to tow the rafts.
This period of preparation and solidarity among these destitute people raised their hopes and spirits. Hardly a month after the five survivors of the scouting mission returned, a team of forty men and boys, representing most of the able-bodied citizens of Adua, were ready for an all-or-nothing attempt to save themselves and their kind. There was pure optimism among the team and the entire citizenry of Adua, and they engaged in a meager but heartfelt celebration the night before their departure.
The two youngest members of the team were Mani and Bala, who were ten and eleven years old, respectively. They were the most excited of all. They were young, but they had already proven their worth by swimming the farthest and diving the deepest. They were best friends who pushed each other and always tried to show the grown men that they were men too.
The following morning, they all plunged into the icy water and started their journey. When they were about halfway across, the soaring spirits and aspirations were now distant memories, having been replaced by fatigue and pain. Then, bad got much, much worse when terror struck in the form of sharks, which were a menace that they had always known to be a possibility. The unfortunate but practical strategy that was always used by the Aduans was to immediately spread out as much as possible so that if attacked, only a single man would be the cause and victim of the feeding frenzy. They spread themselves wider and wider, playing the odds.
Seven men died that night. The horror and sadness weighed on the survivors, but there was no respite from the task at hand. Thirty hours after their departure, thirty-one men and two boys finally felt the sandy bottom and proceeded to pull themselves up onto the beach. After they recovered for a day and a half, during which they remembered their fallen brothers, Simka led the mountain trek, following the same path as before. He warned the others not to eat the food, no matter how tempting, or they would run the risk of never seeing home again. They were to eat only their own food, saving the new food for those in the village back home.
Despite the size of the group, Simka trained them well on how to remain undetected, and they evaded numerous passersby, including some who looked like military men. When they reached the edge of the settlement, Simka started to panic. They would need to raid many houses to get enough provisions. It was very risky. If they were spotted by even one person, they would be recognized and could be captured. Simka made the decision that if they were spotted by anyone, that person needed to be killed so as not alert others. All agreed.
They chose the row of houses that was closest to the mountains, and they split up into eight teams. Each team had four men, with the exception of Simka's, which had a fifth member—Mani. The enterprise, while seemingly organized, was doomed to fail as a result of their broad assault on so many homes at once. They were too eager, too greedy, and too desperate, which led to poor judgement.
Two of the teams killed elderly ladies, and one team killed a mother, leaving an abandoned baby in the house after looting its contents. Finally, they were spotted by some young boys who were playing out in one of the neighborhood streets. Three of the men tried to catch the boys, but they sped off at incredible speed and never slowed down. The Aduans had no chance of catching them.
That was it. They all rushed away toward the mountain pass, arms loaded with all they could carry, but dozens of armed soldiers ran them down at high speed. One of the Aduans tried to fight with a large knife that he had taken from one of the houses, but before he could charge more than a few steps, he was cut down by two knives that were thrown with deadly accuracy.
More soldiers appeared on a continual basis, and the Aduans' prospects faded into nonexistence. Their foolishness and the fact that they were captured condemned to death all those who had remained behind, none of whom could yield any catch from the sea.
The prisoners of Adua pondered this grim realization as they faced hearings and interrogations in a language they did not understand. But they understood the beatings. Thirty of Adua's best were sentenced to death, all cast to the bottom of the Great Lake together.
Only Mani and Bala were spared and were sent to live with families that wanted them. When Mani arrived at his new house, he was greeted warmly by the light-skinned family that lived there. He immediately focused on the boy who looked to be his size and age. The boy approached Mani and said, "Hello! My name is Moey. What is your name?" Mani didn't understand a word of it, but he could see that the boy was friendly. He smiled for the very first time since he'd left Adua, and then, he suddenly began to cry.