You Are What You're Going to Be

You Are What You're Going to Be

       by Rugless Diemore

                        pray and pray and pray some more

                        then sashay out the front door

Davis lifted the flap of the tent and stepped inside. His fears subsided once the flap ties had been secured. He turned to the icon on the shelf beside his cot and contemplated what to say. He sat on his bed, thought for a minute, and then asked it to pay close attention for the request that he was about to make was both unusual and important.

       "If I have ever asked you for anything," he began, reverent, deferential, careful of his words, attempting not to hyperbolize, "this is the most important request of them all!" He did emphasize, but only because he believed what he had said. Sincerity justified emphasis. Rogo would recognize feigning. Davis himself despised it and rooted it out in his thoughts with diligence.

       "Please, father, grant me what I ask. I do not deserve your care and attention. I know that you frown on selfish attenuations. But sometimes on must go to his divine power to require what the world has denied him despite his every effort." Here Davis hesitated for he recognized in his words a flippancy, a pretense.

       "I don't mean that, exactly," he qualified. "I know that I have not tried everything in order to get this thing I ask for, but I do not see how I could otherwise achieve my goal unless you send it me as a gift." Wishing not to jeopardize his tentative balance of honest prayer he chose to end it immediately. Long-windedness would only dissuade an impatient Rogo.

       "Please, sir, if you have it in your heart to grant this wish, let me know when the Jabwairikakapogo  will attack Groinjaga's village next. Please! I beg on my knees. Grant this one wish." He paused, backed away from the shelf, untied the tent flap, and stood outside in the dark breathing deeply of the night air. He felt great relief with the dreaded request accomplished. The moon hung over the tops of the trees beyond the camp, heavy with light. A dugout canoe, topheavy with coconuts, rested near the shore. In the Panjan thickets across the river a lioness declared once. She was hunting. Davis walked toward the outhouse and paused. He returned for his rifle and then went toward the commode. After that he waited outside by the tent in a folding chair. He felt that something was about to happen. It was in the air. Waiting, he knew of a sudden that Rogo had heard him.

(to be continued)