Episode 24
Travelling Light E024S01 Transcript
H.R. Owen
Hello friends, Hero here. It's time again for Matt and I to take a wee break from podcasting and focus on our other passions, namely sleeping. We'll be off for two weeks so there'll be no episode on either June 14th or June 21st. We're actually moving house at the end of month so while we're aiming to be back with you on June 28th, do keep an eye on our social media accounts for possible changes to the schedule. In the meantime, look after yourselves and enjoy the episode.
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H.R. Owen
Travelling Light: Episode Twenty Four.
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The Traveller
Entry NI85015-8: An account of a Hokori wedding and the customs therein.
Key words: community; ethnography; Hokori; identity; Koom; marriage customs; Okku.
Notes:
After visiting the Resinni Cultural Centre in the morning, I decided to spend the afternoon exploring Okku, the city wherein we had docked. I had been walking for about an hour when I turned a corner into what I first mistook for a bustling marketplace.
Bright canopies hung overhead, stretching from either side of the broad, white-stoned street. A great many people were gathered there, dressed in their finest clothes, eating and drinking and dancing, and having what looked to be a very good time.
I wandered further into the crowds to try and find an explanation of what was going on. It took a little while to get anybody's attention, but eventually I made the acquaintance of an older Hokori person called Nama.
They seemed very happy to talk, but insisted on pulling me further into the fray, dragging me by the wrist to a long row of trestle tables piled high with the most astonishing assortment and quantity of food.
Nama set about filling a plate for me, explaining as they did that I had, in fact, stumbled upon a wedding party. When I tried to apologise for arriving uninvited, Nama burst out laughing.
“Invited! Who is 'invited'? It is a wedding! It is for everyone!”
Nama pointed above us, into the dark underhang of the canopy. Barely visible in the shifting light, I could just make out some wispy, clustering clumps. If they had not been shown to me, I should have taken them for nought but steam and shadow.
“So many guests, all to celebrate!”
Hokori, Nama explained, spend much of their life in a state of smoke-like formlessness.
“It is one-thing, diffused,” they said, making emphatic gestures as they spoke. “Not no-thing, not all-thing, but one-thing. All one-ness, but wide one-ness. You see?”
I did not. “But are you not Hokori then?”
My companion bristled with obvious pride. “We,” they declared, “are married. One-ness diffused, gathered up, bundled together. Diffuse to distinct, one to many, many to one!”
This explanation was not, perhaps, as illuminating as they might have hoped. However, after a deal more conversation (and a good deal more food), I think I came to understand.
Marriage at its heart is all about people joining together. This joining is sometimes understood metaphorically, sometimes metaphysically – two or more souls literally entwined in that realm of existence known only to the gods.
For the Hokori, that joining is more literal still. The Hokori undergo a dramatic transformation, melding their previously incorporeal selves to become a wholly new, wholly corporeal person.
At first, the use of the word “marriage” to describe the process seemed to me a very inadequate translation. But as Nama went on, I began to think differently.
“Love, joined together,” they said. “Singular devotion, commitment. We will live as one, act as one. Bodies entwined, so. And we...” Here they gestured at the people around us. “We celebrate – not only today, but every day from here. Celebrate, uphold, we nurture and nourish.”
There was a shrine set up at the centre of the gathering where offerings had been made to the gods on behalf of the marriage partners. Alongside the offerings were the wedding gifts – wine, clothes, cushions, more food, blankets, perfumes, pots of fragrant herbs, lotions and bath oils, a feast for every sense.
“It's hard,” Nama explained, “to have a body. We'll help. We'll teach. Show how to be well, how to feel good. How to… delight.”
The party, the food, the music – it was all a way of welcoming the marriage partners into their new body. The whole community coming together to demonstrate their willingness to support the newly-weds and help them navigate both their relationship and their new, embodied reality.
“Ought I leave something too?” I asked Nama.
“Would be polite,” they said, smiling.
I had very little on my person, and I hardly felt a Resinni Cultural Centre souvenir magnet would do the trick. But it had been cold that morning when I left the Tola, and I had in my pocket the hat that Gwellim knitted for me several winters ago. It is a little worn, but I can think of no better symbol of a community's love.
I placed it among the other gifts, sending up a prayer for the wedding partners and for all those who love them. As I did, my eyes were drawn to a pile of gifts that seemed to follow a similar theme.
Several bottles of medicine had been donated, from home-made herbal remedies in recycled bottles to crisp, new pharmaceutical packages. And they were all intended to treat various types of gastric distress.
“Hard work,” said Nama, “first time having stomach. First few days always difficult.”
“Right. [beat] You do not think that perhaps welcoming every marriage with an enormous feast might have something to do with it?”
Nama tutted. [scoff] “Foolish. Come along – dessert just served!”
[The sound of the data stick whirring fades in, cutting out when the data stick is removed with a click.]
The Traveller
16th Nisa 850
To the community at Emerraine, who carry the Light.
I met Aman and Hesje at the Tola's hatch, not quite sure what to expect from the evening. My first surprise was that the exchange would take place in the docks themselves and not some other, more secluded location.
“It's actually safer this way,” Aman explained as we left the ship. “Port security concentrates most of its efforts on the transport of goods in and out of the city. But our contacts aren't local. They've flown in, same as us.
If we were to meet somewhere else, we'd have to get the cargo past security twice over, coming and going. Better to minimise the risk and simply meet here. Besides,” she added, with a conspiratorial glint in her eye, “Port Authority never expects it.”
For a moment, I understood the appeal of this way of living. It must be something, to always have the feeling of getting away with something – to sail into the black with the law snapping at your heels, close but never close enough.
Then I looked at Hesje, and saw the cost of this giddy romance. They were ringing their hands as they walked, their whiskers fluttering frantically.
“Do not fret,” I said, trying to sound as comforting as possible. “All will be well.”
They flashed me something trying very hard to be a smile. [nervous laugh] “Will it? I suppose it has to be, really. Otherwise… O-Otherwise- Oh. Oh, dear. Aman…!”
“There will be no 'otherwise',” said Aman firmly, her grip tight on the cargo case she was carrying. “We can't afford an 'otherwise'.”
“I did not think this deal was as important as all that,” I said, trying to keep my tone light.
“It is,” Aman intoned.
“We've hit a bit of a dry spot lately,” Hesje explained. “We have enough in the kitty to keep the lights on but not much more. So, yes. I'm afraid it is as important as all that. Sorry,” they added. “I suppose I could have mentioned that sooner.”
“Yes,” I said, my confidence in ribbons at my feet. “You probably could.”
Night had long since fallen, and the dock was lit by bright artificial lights, though they were scattered far enough apart from each other to cast deep, sudden shadows in all directions.
It was within those shadows that we met our contacts, in an out of the way corner, surrounded on all sides by enormous shipping crates waiting to be loaded. There were three of them – a Saqiuq, a Llamian, and a person whose species I did not recognise but who put me in mind a little of a Markhor.
The Llamian was the first to speak. “Operator Aman, of the Tola?” she asked, shooting a doubtful look towards me and Hesje.
“Captain Iyrwen of the Didacus,” Aman replied. “Shall we get this over with?”
Captain Iyrwen smirked. “That all depends on you, don't it. Let's see what you've got.”
Aman set down her cargo case and flicked open the latches holding it shut. Inside, nestled in a bed of protective foam, lay an ornately decorated, dome-shaped thing that I think might have been some kind of helmet.
Whatever it was, Iyrwen did not look impressed. She sucked her teeth, considering.
[wincing] “Market's not what it was,” she said thoughtfully. “Might be hard to shift.”
“That's not my problem,” said Aman, quite unflustered. “We have a deal. 250.”
Iyrwen sniffed. Behind her, the Saqiuq shifted their weight, a remarkably threatening gesture for something which in other circumstances would have been entirely innocuous. Hesje tensed beside me, stepping a little closer.
“We'll give you 125,” said the Saqiuq.
There was a long, horrible silence. I looked at Aman, who was looking at Iyrwen, while Hesje was looking at me. Half the agreed price could not be enough, not from the picture Hesje had painted. I could see it in Aman's face, too – the indignity, the outrage. The pain.
And I could see something else, too. She was going to accept. Her mouth opened, and I found myself upon a precipice. Either I let Aman speak, let her close the sale and accept this insult – or intervene on her behalf.
“You will give us what you owe.”
Iyrwen stared at me. Everyone stared at me.
“You want to get your crew in order, Aman,” Iyrwen said, not taking her eyes off me. “This one's getting gobby.”
“We had a deal,” I said, sounding more steady than I felt. “We have kept to our part. Now it is your turn. You will give us 250.”
The Saqiuq scoffed. [scoffing] “Or what?”
“Or the deal is off.”
“No,” said Aman quickly. “No, they don't mean that. Captain Iyrwen, I assure you, this person is not a representative of-”
“Too late,” said Iyrwen with a terrible grin. “I guess the deal's off.”
And she turned and stalked away without a second look. The other two followed, swallowed by the shadows before I even knew they were gone.
It was Hesje who broke the silence. They let out a small sigh, and patted me companionably on the arm.
“Ah well. So much for that, then.”
“Hesje,” I managed, my voice barely a whisper. “Hesje, I am so, so sorry. I- I did not intend-”
They gave me a brave little smile that broke my heart to pieces. “Oh, come now. You meant well, I'm sure. Just a little hiccup. A sort of rather disastrous hiccup but, uh. [laughs] Well. These things happen. Apparently.”
“We will fix this,” said Aman, the words dropping like stones. “Hesje. We will find a way to fix this.”
“I will help,” I said quickly. “I want to help. Please!”
“Of course you'll help,” Aman spat. “That is the very least you can do.”
She did not look at me while she spoke. I am glad. I do not think I want to know what she had in her eyes for me at that moment.
Needless to say, there was not much conversation on the walk back to the ship. I have been sitting in my cabin for some hours now, reeling from the night's events.
[sighing] I feel… [laughs] Well, mostly I feel nauseous. Shame has twisted my stomach into a clammy knot. I am by turns hot and cold, as if all the emotions of the evening have hit me at once and keep on hitting me, each taking their turn to get the boot in.
[sighs] Oh, my friends. What have I done?
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H.R. Owen
Travelling Light was created by H.R. Owen and Matt McDyre, and is a Monstrous Productions podcast. This episode was written and performed by H.R. Owen.
This week’s entry to the archives was based on an idea by Resfeber, with accompanying artwork available on our social media accounts.
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