The Silkworm Bride

On the day of Tuma's 8th birthday, his father opens his small hands and in them places a little silkworm with a hearty smile as he says "This will be your bride." 

"This will be my bride?"

"Yes Tuma, so treat her well for she will be your bride." 

He looked down as his heart dropped and splashed into his gut. This niggling, wriggling thing so small was meant to be his lover? This thing that crept within his palm deep green like unripe mangos? This furry thing in many years would be his children's mother? 

He felt his tummy bubble as bile crept up his throat. His eyes stung with the salt of tears that threatened to gush free. But even so, he nodded knowing he couldn't refuse. 

The choice was never his to make.  

And so he kept it on his shoulder as they wandered through the years as reluctant companions and Tuma waited fearful of the day his union would be bound in blood and consecrated within the starry tapestry of night. His seven brothers had their brides chosen for them too. Each walking out of the hut, a married man with a deep-skinned, dark-eyed, coarse-haired woman. Each smiled delighted at their pick and patted his slumped back chuckling, "One day your silkworm bride will be the fairest in your eyes and you will come to love her more than anything in life."  

And he nodded with a smile. A smile so trained it leapt on cue displaying itself for all to see but felt his gut bristle with heat as he gazed at his bride. His furry silkworm thing wriggled under his earlobe. The color of a pus-filled pore and soft as fat from meat and he grimaced in his mind.

 Of all the women in the village, a silkworm is my bride. 

The days dashed forward indiscriminately and faded into months. And those months into years as Tuma broadened into a man. The young wisps of hair sprung above his upper lip. His chest grew more defined and his bones grew denser. His voice grew deeper than the tunnels meerkats burrow in. And with him, his faithful silkworm bride matured too. Her pus-like skin grew jagged with thorns, her head hardened turning sallow, she lengthened like a blooming stem with black and beady eyes. And with this metamorphosis poor Tuma sat disturbed as village folk surrounded and spoke of what's to come. 

"A marriage is on the horizon! Our youngest son will be a man! Our youngest daughter will be a woman and they shall have a fruitful life with many silky kids!" The thought was enough to make him sick as agony and hatred festered like a red and yellow wound. Yet his little silkworm sat dormant on his shoulder as big pupils crawled towards her black with rage. They spat every profanity and mutter every curse that one would think that she'd be fried under his gaze. But he nodded quietly and held his feelings in his gut.

A few more days soared by and it was the night before the wedding. All the jars were filled with beer, tender bush meat stewed in pots, corn was ground to make the pap and all the village folk danced vividly proclaiming to the stars. 

"Our youngest son will be a man, our youngest daughter will be a woman, and they shall have their silky kids and live their silky lives!" 

And in the shadows, Tuma watched and felt his heart broil and broth as all the bile he'd swallowed bubbled up into his throat. He could no longer take it. He couldn't stay silent for one more second. He walked into the blackened hut where his father sat and asked the question that he held inside him for so long. 

"Of all the women in the village, why is a silkworm my bride?" 

And he answered: 

"The world is wise in many ways and bound you at your birth. The neighbours had seven daughters and I had seven sons and on the night that you were born their 8th daughter crawled out the womb as green and unripe as mango she was promised to you."

The answer fell upon the ground and rotted at Tuma's feet and he stared at it disgusted. He shook his a violent way and said what he had always felt the moment she was placed with his hands and called his bride:

"But father, I cannot marry a silkworm." 

His father's eyes grew dim and dark as his old head crinkled and his nostrils blew a heavy smoke as he raised his fisted hand and said: 

"Do not question the world's wisdom, boy! Things are as they are!"

And with that, the conversation died and Tuma left the Hut retiring to his lover's bed; their wedding waiting on the horizon.

As he lay beside his bride he silently questioned the world's supposed wisdom.

What love could they make? What children could they have? What life could he build with such a fragile niggling thing? He raised her from the bed and held her in his hand. She's lay there still and sleeping, small as a quail egg. Soft as boiled fat. 

It wouldn't take much to break her.

To roll her to his two large fingers and crush her sallow head with his thumb. To burst her skin open as guts roll free pouring like sour milk and then he'd run fast to the river and rid his hands of sin. No one would know. His fingers start to curl around her like the jaws of a hyena thirsty for blood. They cackle at the taste of freedom wishing to lap it from the dying carcass of the silkworm. All he needs to do is lock his hand into a fist and wring the worm of her life. 

But...he can't.  

The thoughts of bloodshed leap out of the open window and scurry into the brambles as he stares down at this feeble thing. All the grief and resentment he'd held inside knots within his throat, the tears break past the dam of his eyelids rolling down his cheeks and he sniffles as the grief tries to escape through his nose too. 

He was trapped. Destined to marry a silkworm. Destined to be her groom and destined to have many silky kids until the day they both die. And so he fell back on the bed and closed his eyes to sleep. But as he did he felt a wriggling thing tread lightly up his arm. It travelled up his neck until it hung upon his earlobe. And then he heard a whisper as quiet as morning dew. 

"Human thing, I don't think I could ever marry you. I want a handsome silkworm with a brambly coat of thorns, whose skin is white like wispy webs and shimmers in the sun. A yellow-headed silkworm with a set of honest eyes to spin a nest for me and him and live our silky lives."

And with these words he jolted up, his pupils drawn towards his bride. 

"You don't want to marry me?"

She shook her yellow head and for the first time, he saw the silkworm as she was. Her thorny skin remained thorny, her sallow head remained sallow and her beady eyes remained beady. But she was just as beautiful as his brothers said she'd be. Just not to him. He found humor in the fact that as she fell upon his hand she might have thought:

"This giant fumbling thing is meant to be my groom?" But nodded silently as well. Then wondered if her tiny body held the anger and disgust in whatever she had for gut and realised:

She was trapped too. 

And now he knew what had to be done. 

"Then let's elope."

The silkworm cocked her little head, "Isn't that something lovers do?"

"Then we shall elope as friends, not lovers." 

And so they did.

 Tuma took his few belongings and wrapped them in a shawl and as the cold air tickled their skin they travelled past the sleeping folk, past the jars of beer and stewing beef and past his father's hut until the trees grew tall and wild. They travelled down a dusty path that wound for many days and disappeared beyond a hill beyond and they haven't been seen since.  

I cannot say if the silkworm found her groom or if Tuma found his lover. I cannot say if any harm befell them on their journeys. I cannot say if they lived happily ever after. But under the dotted tapestry of night, despite the world's old wisdom, they made the choice to.