Amoral Village Head

I had twisted and turned the notion multiple times in my head. But my mind was not able to make sense of it.I shelved it with the other inconcevable things i have shelved to a corner in my mind since i transmigrated.

I continued my daily visits to zhambul and ochi eager to hear and learn more about the villagers. The villagers were mostly a practical bunch as people living in a hash environment would be. Even then they had their share of stupid and silly stories to tell each other. Among them there was a story about a astrologer that left deep impression on me.

Long ago Long Long ago. There was a man in the village who had convinced the villagers he had gift to see the future. He had led them to believe that his gift worked by divining the arrangement of the flowers on the gound when they dropped from the Ilphyr tree during yosdu.

He predicted the fortune for people who came to him in exchange for Lhasa. Though people who came to him quickly found out his predictions were more able to fail than pass.

They still came to him sometimes for fun and sometimes in dire straits looking for a way out. His initial misdeeds only amounted to harmless pranks. He told a women in the village that if she holds a Ilphyr tree without falling down the entire night her gift will improve when the Ilphyr she hugged bloomed next time.

He asked another women to shout in the early morning near village heads hut continuously for 10 days without stopping. If she does that in the next bloom she will became the next village head.She managed to do for 4 more days before the village heads face went red in anger and he screamed and threatened all the villagers one by one to find the culprit.

He thundered when he heard the full story and chased the astrologer through the village with his stick.

But, one day the harmless fun caused a big harm. There was a person with the most powerfull gift for eradicating the Zukr's in the village. In a particular bad yosdu even with his powerful gift the village lost a lot of Ilphyr trees. He became disheartened and went and asked the astrologer the way to eradicate all the zukr's in the orchard.

The astrologer wanted to do another mischief and told him if he crossed the village and walked north on the red plains he will one day find a place where the sun rests on the land before rising. If he stole a piece of the sun while resting and brought it to the light crystal then all the zukr in the village will be eradicated.

The person had a stong determination to end the zukr Menace and free the village, so he determinedly took as much water and fruits as he can and went outisde the village. The astrologer thought the person will walk for some time and return once his food and water is emptied. But, the guy who went searching for the sun never returned even after Arvan's end.

The village head who found out the person didn't come to the orchard for a long time became livid and asked around all the people in the village about his whereabouts.But, he was only able to find out that he was last seen meeting the astrologer befor he vanished.

When the village head doubtfuly interrograted the astrologer and got the entire story out of him he became furious. He angrily banished the astrologer with some fruits and water to go and find the person who left and to never return back without him.

Both were never seen again. The story left me in melancholy and ochi later told me the story is always repeated by old people in the village as a precaution of getting cheated because of gifts and to remind children never to travel outside in the red plains.

I asked ochi when we walked back to the hut did the story tell the real power of the astrologer. He told " Yeah, he had a gift to understand people with their expressions and body language without them speaking."