moment to moment, apprehensively.
A pause.
Jahdoo, the black man from Heron Swamp, tossed his ivory eyeballs like a dusky juggler in his head. His dark knuckles knotted and flexed — grasshoppers alive.
'You know what thet is? You know, you know? I tells you. That am the centre of Life, sure ‘nuff! Lord believe me, it am so!'
Swaying in a tree-like rhythm, Jahdoo was blown by some swamp wind nobody could see, hear or feel, save himself. His eyeballs went around again, as if loosened from all mooring. His voice needled a dark thread pattern picking up each person by the lobes of their ears and sewing them into one unbreathing design:
'From that, lyin' back in the Middibamboo Sump, all sort o' thing crawl. It put out hand, it put out feet, it put out tongue an' horn an' it grow. Little bitty amoeba, perhap. Then a frog with a bulge-throat fit ta bust! Yah!' He cracked knuckles. 'It slobber on up to its gummy joints and it — it AM A MAN! That am the centre of creation! That am Middibamboo Mama, from which we all come ten thousand year ago. Believe it!'
'Ten thousand year ago!' reiterated Granny Carnation.
'It am old! Looky it! It donn worra no more. It know betta. It hang like pork chop in fryin' fat. It got eye to see with, but it donn blink ‘em, they donn look fretted, does they? No, man! It know betta. It know thet we done come from it, and we is goin' back to it!'
'What colour eyes has it got?'
'Grey.'
'Naw, green! '
'What colour hair? Brown?'
'Black!'
'Red!'
'No, grey! '
Then, Charlie would give his drawling opinion. Some nights he'd say the same thing, some nights not. It didn't matter. When you said the same thing night after night in the deep summer, it always sounded different. The crickets changed it. The frogs changed it. The thing in the jar changed it. Charlie said:
'What if an old man went back into the swamp, or maybe a young kid, and wandered aroun' for years and years lost in the drippin' trails and gullies, the wet ravines in the nights, skin a turnin' pale, and makin' cold and shrivellin' up. Bein' away from the sun he'd keep witherin' away up and up and finally sink into a muck-hole and lay in a kind of — solution — like the maggot ‘skeeters sleepin' in liquid. Why, why — for all we know, this might be someone we know. Someone we passed words with once on a time. For all we know. . .'
A hissing from among the womenfolk back in the shadow. One woman standing, eyes shining black, fumbling for words. Her name was Mrs. Tridden. She said:
'Lots of little kids run stark naked into the swamp ever' year. They runs around and they never comes back. I almost got lost maself. I — I lost my little boy, Foley, that way. You — you DON'T SUPPOSE!!'
Breaths were taken in, snatched through nostrils, constricted, tightened. Mouths turned down at corners, bent by grim facial muscles. Heads turned on celery-stalk necks, and eyes read her horror and hope. It was in Mrs. Tridden's body, wire-taut, holding on to the wall back of her with straight fingers stiff.
'My baby,' she whispered. She breathed it out. 'My baby. My Foley. Foley! Foley, is that you? Foley! Foley, tell me, baby, is that YOU!'
Everybody held their breath, turning to see the jar.
The thing in the jar said nothing. It just stared blind-white out upon the multitude. And deep in raw-boned bodies a secret fear juice ran like spring thaw, and the resolute ice of calm life and belief and easy humbleness was cracked down the middle by that juice and melted away in a gigantic torrent! Someone screamed.
'It moved!'
'No, no, it didn' move. Just your eyes playin' tricks!'
'Hones' ta God,' cried Juke. 'I saw it shift slow like a dead kitten!'
'Hush up, now! It's been dead a long, long time. Maybe since before you was born!'
'He made a sign!' screamed Mrs. Tridden,
A pause.
Jahdoo, the black man from Heron Swamp, tossed his ivory eyeballs like a dusky juggler in his head. His dark knuckles knotted and flexed — grasshoppers alive.
'You know what thet is? You know, you know? I tells you. That am the centre of Life, sure ‘nuff! Lord believe me, it am so!'
Swaying in a tree-like rhythm, Jahdoo was blown by some swamp wind nobody could see, hear or feel, save himself. His eyeballs went around again, as if loosened from all mooring. His voice needled a dark thread pattern picking up each person by the lobes of their ears and sewing them into one unbreathing design:
'From that, lyin' back in the Middibamboo Sump, all sort o' thing crawl. It put out hand, it put out feet, it put out tongue an' horn an' it grow. Little bitty amoeba, perhap. Then a frog with a bulge-throat fit ta bust! Yah!' He cracked knuckles. 'It slobber on up to its gummy joints and it — it AM A MAN! That am the centre of creation! That am Middibamboo Mama, from which we all come ten thousand year ago. Believe it!'
'Ten thousand year ago!' reiterated Granny Carnation.
'It am old! Looky it! It donn worra no more. It know betta. It hang like pork chop in fryin' fat. It got eye to see with, but it donn blink ‘em, they donn look fretted, does they? No, man! It know betta. It know thet we done come from it, and we is goin' back to it!'
'What colour eyes has it got?'
'Grey.'
'Naw, green! '
'What colour hair? Brown?'
'Black!'
'Red!'
'No, grey! '
Then, Charlie would give his drawling opinion. Some nights he'd say the same thing, some nights not. It didn't matter. When you said the same thing night after night in the deep summer, it always sounded different. The crickets changed it. The frogs changed it. The thing in the jar changed it. Charlie said:
'What if an old man went back into the swamp, or maybe a young kid, and wandered aroun' for years and years lost in the drippin' trails and gullies, the wet ravines in the nights, skin a turnin' pale, and makin' cold and shrivellin' up. Bein' away from the sun he'd keep witherin' away up and up and finally sink into a muck-hole and lay in a kind of — solution — like the maggot ‘skeeters sleepin' in liquid. Why, why — for all we know, this might be someone we know. Someone we passed words with once on a time. For all we know. . .'
A hissing from among the womenfolk back in the shadow. One woman standing, eyes shining black, fumbling for words. Her name was Mrs. Tridden. She said:
'Lots of little kids run stark naked into the swamp ever' year. They runs around and they never comes back. I almost got lost maself. I — I lost my little boy, Foley, that way. You — you DON'T SUPPOSE!!'
Breaths were taken in, snatched through nostrils, constricted, tightened. Mouths turned down at corners, bent by grim facial muscles. Heads turned on celery-stalk necks, and eyes read her horror and hope. It was in Mrs. Tridden's body, wire-taut, holding on to the wall back of her with straight fingers stiff.
'My baby,' she whispered. She breathed it out. 'My baby. My Foley. Foley! Foley, is that you? Foley! Foley, tell me, baby, is that YOU!'
Everybody held their breath, turning to see the jar.
The thing in the jar said nothing. It just stared blind-white out upon the multitude. And deep in raw-boned bodies a secret fear juice ran like spring thaw, and the resolute ice of calm life and belief and easy humbleness was cracked down the middle by that juice and melted away in a gigantic torrent! Someone screamed.
'It moved!'
'No, no, it didn' move. Just your eyes playin' tricks!'
'Hones' ta God,' cried Juke. 'I saw it shift slow like a dead kitten!'
'Hush up, now! It's been dead a long, long time. Maybe since before you was born!'
'He made a sign!' screamed Mrs. Tridden,
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