Читать книгу So Deep My Love - Bea Eschen - Страница 6

Huge waves swallow the land. I roll back and forth in my bed. Clear pictures pass directly by me. Skyscrapers are seized by the rapid tide below, torn from their foundations and crumble. The current flowing past me brings cars, human corpses, boards, whole houses and dead animals with it. Waves of sea water and dirty foam give the hustle and bustle even more power. It penetrates deeper and deeper into the country. The destruction is of biblical proportions. Nothing is left standing. Lightning shoots down from the sky. It ignites short fires that are immediately extinguished by the mass of destruction. A man stands on a roof and clings with his last strength to a chimney. A woman holds her child in the air with outstretched arms to grant it a fraction of its life before the next wave of garbage reaches mother and child and destroys both.

Then suddenly the image in front of me turns into a red desert. The piercing dazzling sun melts the land down. A group of black people stand out from the sand. They sit around a large fire burning in the middle of a large sand island. They stare out into the distance.

Someone whispers in my ear:

‘Help them, the last people of this earth. Protect them from their final demise.’

‘How can I help,’ I ask in my dream.

‘Protect them from the Erinyes, the goddesses of revenge. They take revenge for moral offences, for envy and jealousy. They punish!’

‘Whoever you are, you are an idiot. The Greek gods have no power over these people.’

‘Who are you to judge the gods?’ asks the voice, which now sounds devilishly shrill.

‘These people down there are Aborigines! They have lived on our planet for over sixty-thousand years. They have their own gods!’

The voice fades away in the fog. Silence spreads.

In my dream, the Aborigines are eager to listen to one of their elders. He is characterised by his age, experience, wisdom and his knowledge of the dream time. The old man sits cross-legged and supports himself with a stick to keep his balance. His wild grey hair reaches down to his shoulders and his uncombed beard touches the dust of the earth. The body painting, composed of circles, spirals and winding lines, points to symbols of indigenous significance. In a calm voice, he tells the legend of the miraculous frog.

'Long ago, in the days of our ancestors, in the dreamtime, there was a terrible drought. The trees had no leaves; the grass was yellow and withered. A hot wind blew and the dried reeds rustled along the riverbank. The burning sand of the desert shimmered like a silver lagoon. The water had left the earth. Rivers and waterholes had dried up. The sea had retreated to the deepest valleys of the earth. The sun stood in the cloudless sky like a fiery glowing ball. Over the land there were only shadows of death and night. Many creatures died of thirst.'

A slight air movement silences him for a while. In a barely perceptible movement, the Aborigines lift their faces towards the wind breeze. As if in a trance, some of them close their eyes. In others, I notice how their nostrils tremble in the pleasure of the cooling draught.

I want to know what they smell and feel and resist waking up. I need to hear the story to the end.

After a long stillness, the old man continues.

'To find a solution, all the animals gathered in the middle of Australia. They came from far away, from the mountains, the remaining sea valleys, the air and the bush. After everyone had arrived, they found out that a frog named Moloch had swallowed the water, which had caused the drought. Moloch held all the water of the earth in his bladder. He was bloated and couldn't move. The animals sat in a large circle around the frog. Kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, possums, crocodiles, snakes, emus, cranes and other birds. Together they conspired against Moloch to release the water in order to end the drought. An old wise owl coordinated the efforts of all animals. A bird called Kookaburra sat on a tree and laughed at his own jokes with an echo coming back, until he almost fell down. But Moloch didn't want to move and stared stupidly ahead — as stupid as only a frog can stare. The next animal was a frill-necked lizard. She inflated her neck ruff, but the frog didn't think it was funny. Then the crane tried to cheer up the frog with his dance, but without success. The kangaroos jumped and leapt over each other, but Moloch just sat there staring at everyone.

When the animals ran out of ideas and after some arguments, which were alleviated by the old wise owl, Nabunum, a big eel, came out of a deep dried out waterhole. None of the animals believed that Nabunum could make the frog laugh, but the eel snaked back and forth until it touched the end of its tail with its head, bouncing up and down like a top, and knotting itself. Moloch opened his sleepy eyes, his face relaxed and he burst into a laugh that resembled a thunder and all the water of the earth came out of his body. It filled the dried out riverbeds and waterholes and flooded the land. Only the highest mountain peaks stood out — like islands in the sea. The flood killed many people, animals and plants.'

Again, there is a long break. None of them speaks. Still in a circle, the Aborigines do not move and meditate in the dream time.

'We have to find Moloch,' says one of the Aboriginal children into the silence.

The elders of the group nod unanimously.

'We find him underground. He has been there since our dream time, waiting to come out to lay his eggs. He is now very thirsty and will free us from the flood.'

'Where is he?' asks one of the smallest.

'Mirabooka will show us,' replies one of the elders, pointing to the sky where the stars sparkle like diamonds.

'Who is Mirabooka?' asks another child.

'Mirabooka is our protector. He looks after us Aborigines and makes sure that we are well. Mirabooka's hands, feet and eyes are the stars of the Southern Cross. He is the eternal spirit of our well-being and looks down on us. He will show us where Moloch hides.'

In my dream the water around me evaporates. The giant waves withdraw into the open sea by an invisible force. The destruction remains, but the surviving people laugh with joy.

I turn restlessly back and forth. Now my dream leads me into the future. Hundreds of years have passed.

Bright light fills treeless streets framed by oversized skyscrapers with mirror facades. The noise of flying drones and traffic is deafening. The city stinks of exhaust fumes and garbage lying around everywhere. A gigantic frog stands petrified on a large square. People puzzle over where the frog comes from. An Aboriginal elder named Jika-Jika, who has settled at the foot of the petrified frog, tells of the legend of the frog Moloch and his petrification.

‘The frog turned into stone as a punishment for being too greedy and holding all the water on earth in his bladder. Moloch’s greedy actions caused a great drought’, he says.

His story is smilingly received by the adults. Children love him for his words, which take them into a world of fantasy. Jika-Jika is one of the last remaining Aborigines in Australia. He tells how his ancestors long ago, in the dream time, were sung into existence by the spirits of the earth and how the white man came and destroyed the soul of the earth.

'Moloch embodies the greed of the destroyers,' he says, looking very sad. His eyes look worriedly into the distance and he seems to have forgotten his listeners.

Still dreaming, I see the air becoming heavy and moving across the land in clouds of haze and fog. The wet comes. Buildings fade and become ghostly silhouettes that disappear into nowhere. It looks frightening. A light drizzle penetrates into every pore of the earth and saturates the ground until it turns into a stinking mass of mud. The dirt of the city gathers in it. Like a torrential rain, the thick raindrops mercilessly drum onto the surfaces of the buildings and streets. People flee into their houses. Animals seek shelter in house entrances, crevices and corners. It storms. The sea roars.

I am still tossing and turning in my bed, and my dreadful dream starts again from the beginning. Clear pictures pass directly by me. Skyscrapers are seized by the rapid tide below, torn from their foundations and crumble. The current flowing past me brings cars, human corpses, boards, whole houses and dead animals with it. Waves of sea water and dirty foam give the hustle and bustle even more power. It penetrates deeper and deeper into the country. The destruction is of biblical proportions. Nothing is left standing. Lightning shoots down from the sky. It ignites short fires that are immediately extinguished by the mass of destruction. A man stands on a roof and clings with his last strength to a chimney. A woman holds her child in the air with outstretched arms to grant it a fraction of its life before the next wave of garbage reaches mother and child and destroys both.

Before the image before me turns into a red desert, I wake up wet and sweaty. I am afraid when I realise that I have dreamed the same dream twice. Next to me my beloved wife Brolga breathes peacefully. She is pregnant with twins and her body bulges out strongly. Slowly she turns to her side and her regular breath relaxes me. I lean back and my thoughts lead me to my own past, to where it all began.