Keke Keke

In the forest of the endless beginning, there is the precise foundation of knowledge from which to build a mortal life in remembrance of the Gods.

There is the smooth brown plain of learning and the fibre of the flax weaving the taniko of every interconnected life, there are the vines creeping and yearning and the whisper denoting increase. There are the long standing trees and the creak, creak, creak of branches in the forest. Except the forest is now a rafter, around which is slung a rope.

Swinging there is the body of every woman who ever had her fathers’ hand, her uncles’ lips, and her brothers’ penis in places on her body where they shouldn’t even have laid their eyes. She is swollen with the bitterness of self-loathing and long hours of neglect.

She has run through the forest of the night to escape him and found him everywhere. As often as she denies his existence, he multiplies and increases. He is like fingers of mangrove, his hands on her body, creeping over wet mud poking up everywhere. Or vines creeping and strangling he is sucking her life away and begging her to forgive him.

She despises herself for being frozen to the earth, he creeps all over her.
She reaches into the night long past and wraps her fingers around a tuft of hair from the topknot of Hine Nui te Po.
It opens her to another level.
There she is no body, no body at all.
She can look down on this pitiful scene and wait like she is waiting for a bus.
Hine Nui te Po holds her there like a kite.
She is floating over time and space.

She remembers when she was the light that shimmered in the first breath of day, when she was the innocence of a new born baby and the utter miracle of birth.
She remembers when she was fragile and precious and imbued with the energy of the goddess, she remembered her life from the yearning through to the desire to the conception and increase.

She was the daughter of the dawn and as beautiful as the delight of discovery. She was the shine in her fathers’ eye. She was the only female who loved him unconditionally, and for this he made her a woman.
Shh, be still. Shh.
Hine Nui te Po tells her secrets, she listens while she is waiting.

"It was the fierce thrusting of Tane that rent heaven apart from earth."

She goes there in her waiting dream.

"Women are the waaka that carry men across the ocean of existence."

He is thrusting and fumbling, breathing in her ear.

Her eyes are squeezed shut.

His sweat is stale and it stinks.

Her head is hitting the headboard; he turns like a rat and pulls the body further down the bed.

There is the sound of creak, creak, and creak.

In the classroom, she is the child with her head drooping on the desk. She has already left her tired childs body.

" See Jane run. Jane runs to Dad."

Tane gave life to woman and pulled children from his daughters’ womb. She is not paying attention in class. She is sly and she lies and she cries. She is altogether disruptive.

Tane knows a karakia to allow him entry to his daughters womb.

She doesn’t go to school any more. She still is shy and sly and still lies. Never cries. She is the girl with a plastic bag on her face, a fifteen year old in an empty playground. Swinging on a swing.

Creak, creak, creak.

" See Hine run. She runs from Dad."

The karakia took him down through the centre, he didn’t touch the sides. When she is older and putting up a bit of a fight her will spread eagle her to the four corners of the bed and tie her there.

Hine Nui te Po covers her body like a blanket.

She tells her secrets again. She comes from the centre, she gives her advice.

"Hine Titama froze the karakia in Tanes throat to save all her daughters. It is his weak spot."

She is the repository for all his anger and insecurity; she is the vessel of his loathing. He stinks of booze and stale cigarettes. He spits seed into her.

Hine Nui te Po takes her hand and turns it into a patu.

She moves in the unoccupied body of the girl, springing a surprise attack. One sharp blow to the tenga and his windpipe is crushed, he is gasping the way he usually does only this time will be his last.

He is in the shadow of every man she will ever meet and greet and have to talk to for the rest of her mortal life. This puts her at a disadvantage.

He is in the shadow of the judge who will hang her. He is the man who will employ her so he can rub his hand on her backside. He is the taxi driver who wants a blowjob for his fare and the punter in the parlour.

She goes for the rope by which she will descend to the realm of Hine nui te po. Climbing onto a chair, she swings from the rope and leaps free. From long practise, she is able to shed her mortal body quickly like a coat.

She moves quickly towards Reinga, diving like an arrow into the waters below. Flying over the sea towards the magical homeland of Hawaiiki, she passes the last post of her fathers house where sits the taniwha Parata.

He is opening and closing his mouth on the tide of man at the place known as Te Waiora a Tane and there is Tane the originator of all life, endlessly washing away the sins of man.

She absorbs him and carries on.

PUBLISHED in Huia Short Stories 4, Contemporary Maori Literature, Huia Publishers, 2001