Happy Oho

From the Witch Doctor's Tales

Oho disobeyed orders a little bit as he looked around to take in the room about him. From floor to ceiling, on simple tables, altars, shelves and hooks rested relics of curious description and exotic origin, the purpose of each of which Oho could only guess. And though the room was full of these devices as decoration, it didn't feel cluttered as a whole. The forbidden nature of many of Zozaku's ornaments would have been sufficient to replace anyone's feeling of clutter with one of anxiety instead, but that, too, was not what puzzled Oho about the arrangement of things in the witch doctor's main room.

Everything, Oho gathered, had a purpose, though he couldn't imagine what.

There were shelves with old scrolls, bottles, and spreads of large colorful feathers from birds Oho had heard about from stories when he was a boy. The disembodied heads of men and goats in various stages of pickling floated tacitly in emulsions of a fluid with an unnatural and subtle glow, contained in jars whose spouts looked far too narrow to have suffered a whole head to enter. Other resting places throughout the room held bolts of cloth, hung silk screens, handle-up cupfuls of hand tools with fine carvings, polished stones bearing engravings, a heavy looking rough stone bowl that emitted thin smoke, a half-draped mirror, vine-bearing plants that grew despite the thin lighting, and across from Oho, right where Zozaku had ordered him to look, sat a single empty stool. The twin of the one Oho sat upon. The only empty space in a room designed to precisely hold every item in it.

Zozaku snorted, and Oho understood that even his cursory glace might be enough to upset the witch doctor. Oho let his small, round belly expand as he breathed more slowly and evenly to calm himself, as his mind played back images of nightmares he had that some of the forbidden objects in his sweep of the room had reminded him of. Oho's heart, despite his efforts, stayed nervous at the retelling.
The array of heads in jars in particular reminded him of a nightmare he had as a boy where he had to slaughter a goat that had the face of a man.

Zozaku spoke, "Think about your journey here."
Oho's memory of his nightmares faded to those of his own feet marching steadily across the paths from his home in the village out to the rolling hillside cabin of the witch doctor. He passed livestock at pasture in and near the village. He felt the gentle breezes of the coming harvest season breathe over his bronze skin, and tickle the ever changing space between his loose travel shirt and his body. He regarded the morning sun reflected in gold and gray by untouched fields and incidental trees across a long, deep panorama. He held his walking stick. He heard his family and his village wish him fair journey. Though each, friendly and supportive, looked back at Oho somberly after so wishing.
Oho remembered their faces, and for those first few steps between his own house and the edge of the village he remembered that he and they could have had the same mind and heart. He felt their anxiety as clearly as his own, for without a thin harvest, or blight, disease among the livestock, injury, or evil spirit, what could Zozaku the witch doctor have summoned him for? Among all the stories Oho had heard of the witch doctor, most involved the victim coming into a better fate than he began, but none had lacked a victim. They gave Oho somber looks on his journey, because the very fact of his summons heralded a pall falling over his entire life. Each object in the room reminded Oho of an image from his journey, the memory of which took him across the countryside for two days and two nights. He rested his eyes upon another flask, suspended sessile from the corner where the ceiling met the wall on the far side of the room from him. It looked as though a cloudy sky had been captured there, roiling uneasily behind the thin glass shell.

"That is a mazuku," Zozaku spoke from behind his silk screen mask, "I keep it high up because the mazuku likes to stay close to the ground. Let loose, it would find a home near some village and eat the spirits of dogs and chickens. For the mazuku, young children are also a treat. It loves to steal their breath."
"And the stool?" Oho asked measuredly.
"It is important," Zozaku ignored him, "to trap evil spirits where they are afraid to escape. What if I told you that the glass is too thin to keep it in? You would laugh at the idea of keeping a spirit at bay with metal bars, so how can you make a cage?"
Oho wondered if everything Zozaku said to people was as unfathomable. None of the stories he had heard involved the witch doctor speaking so much. Usually chanting, barking sounds, or issuing brusque orders to villagers, who listened without knowing why, or disobeyed and perished.
Zozaku kept talking, "So what if I told you that chickens, too, could very easily fly away and not be kept in cages? You have seen their cousins in the forest, majestic in color, delicious in taste, and free to wander about. So what would keep a chicken from doing the same?"

Oho didn't think that any of the chickens he kept could fly, but hearing it from Zozaku, there occurred a shred of doubt in his mind, as if by some cynical, shriveled old magic man's telling could the veil of the real be pulled back to let the chaos underneath show through, and easily.
Still. Chickens couldn't fly, and the green hens Zozaku was talking about were best left to the wild to be hunted or left alone. Oho hadn't been interested in a green hen hunt since his more sporting days as a youth. Zozaku stood up from his own seat, an odd cross between a basket and a throne, and walked a pace closer to Oho. Oho thought he may shortly take the other stool and have a good look at him; the stories often involved the witch doctor taking a good long look at the victim, but to Oho's surprise, Zozaku didn't take the other seat. The finely woven, basketlike mats flexed easily under Zozaku's steps. He sighed. Oho awaited another question, or explanation for why he, a healthy and happy man, should be summoned to the house where demons are exorcised. Oho waited.

Zozaku stood, breathed, and once again sighed.

Oho heard harsh, loud, whispered barks issue from Zozaku's direction, though he felt it wrong to say he spoke them exactly. A happy life. A wife. Some land and some livestock. A collection of trophies from his sporting youth. The other villagers had even nicknamed him "Happy Oho," who knew enough troubles to have met with evil spirits before, but who modernly knew of none around him. And now he sat surrounded by caged spirits and forbidden relics, forced to remember his nightmares and listen to the rough sounds of the spirit language as dictated by a madman.

"That's enough," Oho interrupted, "there's nothing wrong with me and no evil spirit in my land. I've suffered no supernatural harm either recently or ever."
"Oho..."
"My name is 'Happy Oho,' but I suspend my title while I'm in here."
"Calm down, Oho"
"Or what? I'll stir up the mazuku? Swallow a mosquito? For all the variety of knick-knacks you've decorated your house with, I can see only one idea there: jealousy. You've led the cursed life of demons and spirits, and lament your role as the wicked man that we keep around because he's useful. And you've picked me, me, because you want to bring your nastiness into the life I lead. Well forget it. I didn't come two days' march for this insult."
Oho stood and walked toward the door.

"Happy Oho," Zozaku stated.
Oho turned to face him from the doorway.
"About mosquitoes. You know they buzz in people's ears."
Oho stared, again befuddled as Zozaku went on with his parting speech.
"But I'll bet you don't know why. There was a beautiful woman once, so beautiful that she charmed the spirits themselves with her wiles. She grew bored of them and scorned them, as a princess would a common man. The spirits cursed her, robbing her of her grandeur and form, until the day she told her story to willing ears. Because she knew the language of the spirits, they cursed her tongue too, to only make annoying sounds, and ever after when she or her children plea their story to people, even the lowliest of them still swats them away." "I never crossed the spirits." Oho stated.
"I know this is hard for you, and I do not wish a curse upon your house. But there is one, Happy Oho. So please come back to me soon."

Oho hesitated. For all the vulgar ornaments and rude noises, for all the posturing and presumptions, the word 'please' had frozen him in place for a moment, and made him question whether he was correct about Zozaku's motives. Witch doctors never pleaded with anyone. Spirit or man, they left beings to their own fate and own poor decisions and unblinkingly watched curses play out on those who didn't listen to the warnings.
But they never said 'please.'

It would be another two days and two nights before Oho would be home again. He rested on a hill near the cursed cabin, and napped in the Sun. The warm air lapped his body. The journey home would be easier because it was mostly downhill, and the clouds in the sky promised temperate days. Happy Oho would be back to normal soon, and despite the length and pointlessness, he expected the way back would be a pleasant one. All the same lovely sights, just going in reverse, with the promise of his good life back home awaiting him.

Who needs a witch doctor?

* * *

Oho set his walking stick down in the tall grass, and used his travel bag to mat out a soft patch in the meadow to rest upon. Though it was only early afternoon, he felt tired, and he had made plans to do most of his walking for the next two days during the night hours. For now, his eyes were heavy and he let them fall as he regarded the fading light, magnificent across the easily waving grasses and sparse trees.
Slowly they sank.
Oho could hear the wind playing near him in the grass, and the dull clanging sounds of the charge of a wandering goatherd, maybe a hill over, maybe less. The wind died down, and as the goatherd drew nearer, Oho slowly lifted his eyelids again to have a look at the passerby.
One of the goats turned to face him.

It looked at him with the face of a man. With his face.
Oho felt the sudden dread of the image whirring in his mind. The wind fell silent and the light faded all around him. He felt sore all over his body and tried to shout, but no sound would come out. The terror took a new, but more familiar form as Oho struggled to breathe and finally cry out.

Oho awoke.
The air smelled stale. Oho rubbed his neck slowly to ease the ache and tension there. He used his left arm for the task, as the right arm was still asleep, and wasn't responding at the moment. Oho often awoke sore like this, and wished he wasn't so familiar with the loss of feeling in his arms, sometimes a foot or leg, too, upon his waking. It had been the same dream, but much more gripping and real. Oho dreamed of a happy life, but only ever of the emotions, the details left vague, lots of sights and sounds of a harvest hillside.

Oho coughed through the humid air, and put his hat on. His long white cloak with dark hems would serve a thousand of his purposes today, but for now changed from bedspread to disguise as he stood up, and resolved to change his stars. This dream was different. Zozaku had been the same in it as he remembered from his travels, and Oho took it as a sign that he had really been summoned. He felt he made the journey once already, so what's a second time?
Oho leaned against the wall on the outskirts of town. His emaciated frame rebelled at the idea of taking the first few steps, let alone a long journey. He forced his bones to march, and after a few paces became able to ignore the pain. If he was to travel, he would need some provisions, and "Poor Oho" as he was known in the village didn't have a storehouse to use for the task.
At least, not his own.

After years of being homeless, Oho had learned to survive mostly by being discrete. He knew which storehouses wouldn't miss a few pounds of rice, or a tool or two. Though he was never seen, he suspected that the others knew, and turned a blind eye to his theft as an act of charity, for though some of them had aided his ruin, he was sure they were good people deep down.
Oho secured a small sack of rice, and held the tool he had used to scoop it up to the light. It was a thin trowel, somewhere between a spade and a dagger, only very slightly bowed to form a scoop, and sharpened on one edge. The handle was carved to resemble a rope coiled around it. Oho would need such a tool for awhile. There were plenty here, and he vowed to himself to return it.

A mosquito buzzed in Oho's ear, and he swatted at it reflexively, smashing the side of his head with the handle of the trowel. He put the tool away and held the side of his head while he clenched his teeth and sucked in air loudly. He withdrew his hand to look at it.
Blood.
Oho felt dizzy at the sight of blood, and quickly put his hand back and tried to stop thinking about his fresh wound. Maybe this was the wrong tool to take after all. He took it back out of his travel bag, set it down, and took a different one that was nearby. Quite similar, but with a simpler handle.
Oho's head throbbed from the mild injury, and Oho did his best to ignore it while he reconnoitered the landscape and planned a discreet exit.

Oho put on his wide brimmed hat and tipped it down as he briskly ducked through the hedges beyond his neighbor's storehouse, and towards the village exit. On a different day, he may have stolen some firewater, too, and retired to a private corner of the village to try and forget everything.
Today he marched, and remembered.

Step after step, the events of his life played out before him as he walked. The Sun overhead pounded against the ground, glaring off of the bone-white sandy stalks of the tall grasses on the hills. Oho was glad to have his hat at least, and his cloak, his travel bag, his stolen food. His own two feet.
These were Poor Oho's happy things.
Oho marched, and remembered.

A hill passed by. He had buried his wife on a similar hill. She had been possessed by an evil spirit and hanged herself until dead. No one would buy Oho's grains for a year after it.
The wild fruit trees ahead were cousins of the kind Oho had in his own orchard until a blight took them.
Oho marched.
The shattered lantern that burned his winter stores. The chickens who had to be buried alive after attacking another villager. The pox he had on his own skin. Oho walked past them all on his way to Zozaku. The memories a hazy but potent reminder of why he had resolved to make this journey. The dream was a dream, but the summons was real. Oho knew that a spirit had seized control of his life, and surely a witch doctor would be the only man who could know what to do. Surely Zozaku would know what to do.

After three days and three nights, Oho crested the final hill, and beheld the house of Zozaku the witch doctor through the early morning fog. With a deep breath and mild vigor from determination to carry on, Oho approached the house, and entered.

Zozaku turned to face him quickly, and stared a moment. His face was old and wrinkly bearing equal parts painted lines and natural scars in patterns across it. Oho didn't think a witch doctor was ever seen without a mask on.
Then he, too, hesitated a moment. Oho stopped to take in the room. For all that had been vague in his dreams, the facts of his happy life, his imagined journey across a beautiful countryside, these manifold things were real. Their vivid detail matching up exactly as he had dreamed. Even the flask holding the mazuku seemed to stir itself up inside, as if to greet him with recognition.

"Sit down." Zozaku said with a sharp tone and a hint of disbelief.
Oho obliged, choosing the only stool before him, the one he had been looking at in his dream.
Zozaku spoke again, the disbelief replaced with trepidation, "You got the summons, then did..."
"So you did summon me!" Oho interrupted.
Zozaku snapped at him, gritting his teeth and rattling his tongue as he hissed at Oho. "Don't interrupt. I will have another visitor coming in a moment, and before he arrives, you will shut up while I tell you what to do."
Oho obeyed.
Zozaku explained to him that his mind had been attacked by a spirit called an akuku. The akuku starts life in an invisible egg that floats on lover's whispers. If it comes to reside in a host who is happy enough, the happiness triggers the egg, and it gestates into a young akuku. The akuku takes up residence in the body, feeding on happy feelings and giving off recurring nightmares. When it is mature enough, the akuku throws the host into a fever while it grows into a tangible form. The host shrivels while the akuku grows a body that looks exactly like the host. The akuku then asserts itself as a miraculously recovered host, and uses its newfound human form to hide the disfigured host body, sometimes simply burying it alive. The akuku then lives out a human life, and on its deathbed as an old person, whispers fondly to its stolen grandchildren.

"Of course, the akuku doesn't usually mature and replace the host until after the host already has children. Even a fully formed akuku cannot breed with people."
Oho trembled with fatigue, rage, anger, hatred, denial. Everything blended together inside him to the pit of his empty stomach. His heart blackened as he imagined a copy of himself walking into the room, having stolen his happy life from him. He planned out what he'd do.
"Listen to me, Oho. Your akuku is going to walk in this room. Because of my magic here, he will not be able to see or hear you. You will sit in this stool and watch as I set the trap. It won't be long now."

Like hell, Oho thought to himself. He'd use the tool he took and kill the thing as soon as it stepped in the door.
The moment came, as Zozaku had said, after not long.

Oho took a good long look at himself, the life he should have had, standing tall before him with a traveling shirt and walking stick. There was a tool in his pocket, it bore carvings on the handle and, Oho stopped to look more closely at it. There was some blood on the handle. Oho had stolen his own rice that had been stolen from him. He cried out and charged at the akuku, swinging wildly with his fist and his impromptu murder weapon.
He could barely see what he was doing. How many of these false memories had been the akuku's waste? How many happy memories should have been his to live out? Oho didn't notice at first, but soon ran out of his initial shot of rage. There was a force of sorts keeping him from getting too close. Oho tried one last punch, only to watch his fist slow to a stop before hitting his clean, smiling face.
Feeling frustrated, bitter, and lost, Oho took to yelling, forgetting what Zozaku had said, or perhaps not caring. He raged.
"You stole my life! How could they not know, how could anyone mistake you for me? Shallow thief! Rotten beggar! All those things I had to do all because of you. You, you, you! I'll kill you!"

Zozaku had ignored Oho up to this point, but finally snorted and rose from his seat, a cross between a basket and a throne. He said some things Oho couldn't understand, and then let loose with a commanding tone.
"That is enough out of you. I told you he can't hear you, but I still can and I'm fed up. You clearly aren't ready for me to help you so you can take your hatred and rage and get out. Out!"

Oho felt bitter. He stood and left, pausing in the doorway to look at Zozaku and at himself, seated calmly in the stool across from the one he had been sitting in a moment ago. In fact he looked less calm and more annoyed, sitting there, as if he didn't even know why he had to be there. Why he had come.

Why had he come?

"Why did I come here?" Oho asked quietly.

Zozaku didn't answer, but seemed to betray a small and brief smile at the question. Zozaku kept his eyes serious, and Oho took his cue to leave.

Oho found a hill nearby, the one he remembered from his dream, and sat. "Come back to me soon," he remembered Zozaku telling him, or his akuku rather.
"I'll be back soon alright."
And to his amazement, the akuku came walking up, and settled down on a spot in the tall grass near him. It still didn't notice Oho's presence. Oho stood and looked at it with bitterness but also awe. Everything around him felt soft and muted compared to that spirit-made-creature. Oho looked back at the house where demons are exorcised. He noticed the akuku was doing the same.

They each walked back toward the house. Each compelled by a strange feeling to carry on, step after step. One oblivious of the other, but still synchronous. Oho, or perhaps the akuku, knocked on the door to the front room.
Zozaku opened it, once again wearing a silk mask.
"Please come in, Oho."

The pair entered, and each took a seat across from the other.

"Why did I come here?"
"I summoned you," Zozaku replied, "I knew I would be needed, but as usual, only as a medium. There's only one thing you need to do, Oho, and it will be hard but you will do it."

"You must stand and face the akuku, set aside your hatred for a moment. Then embrace it, and let that moment of suspended anguish linger on. Set it aside forever. Embrace and kiss yourself."

Terrifying and weird as it sounded, Oho obeyed. He and the akuku stood, and hugged each other. Oho felt his own arms wrap around him, hugging himself with another body. It felt good to the touch. They fit together well. Oho looked into his own eyes, and drew together for a soft, sincere kiss.

And then he was whole.

Oho looked around in astonishment. The akuku was gone. His body was no longer emaciated and he was wearing clean clothes. He looked at Zozaku questioningly, and Zozaku betrayed another small smile while he explained.
"What I told you before about the akuku: there's no such thing. I made it up."
"But I...it..."
"It," Zozaku continued, "was only a possible you. Plagued with doubt as you were, you couldn't tell your memories from your nightmares. I may have had a hand in making the experience more vivid, but on your own, you would have done the same thing after years or even decades of time. During that time you would lose sight of yourself, and possibly hurt yourself and maybe others in the village."
"There was no one else here?"
"Neither spirit nor man, except of course for the spectators." Zozaku pointed an open hand across the room.
"I still don't get it."
Zozaku sighed. "You have learned to embrace yourself, your successes and your failures. You don't need to be 'Happy Oho' to be a happy person, and you don't need to be homeless and emaciated to be in need. That is hard for a person to do, Oho, and it was a shame that the experience had to be so gripping for you."
"You're sure there's no such thing as an akuku?"
"Don't you think I'd know when I'm making something up? Now get out of here, you, before I decide it would be funny to give you back your nightmares!"

Oho smiled and left the house to look at the wide landscape. The morning fog had lifted and the Sun reflected gold and grey on the hills into the space below Oho's wide brim. The wind tickled him as he put one foot in front of the other, making new happy memories about the quirky witch doctor and his house of knick-knacks. It would be two days and two nights before he got back home, where his life, his very own life, waited for him.

Back in the house where demons are exorcised, Zozaku watched Oho walk away and chuckled to himself. He turned and went inside, where, still chuckling, he walked towards the wall and bent down to look at one of the heads pickling inside a glass. Next to it was a glass without a head inside, or too murky to see otherwise, to whom the witch doctor spoke.
"Yes, no such thing. You and I know that, don't we my ducky darling?"
Zozaku gently kissed the glass shell and walked away still chuckling to himself.

A mosquito buzzed in his ear, and Zozaku swatted it away.