PodCastle 875: Last Ritual of the Smoke Eaters
* Author : Osahon Ize-Iyamu * Narrator : Takudzwa Sharon Kirimi * Host : Matt Dovey * Audio Producer : Devin Martin * Discuss on Forums Previously published by Lightspeed Magazine Content warnings for grief and the death of a spouse Rated PG-13 Last Ritual of the Smoke Eaters By Osahon Ize-Iyamu I didn’t want to eat Joshua, but he turned into dust, and the way things go in Carucchi village is that if someone turns into ashes you inhale them till there’s nothing but smoke in your lungs and redness in your eyes. Sometimes we have to eat people to make us less lonely. I didn’t want to do it, but Joshua named me as his eater, so my entire village forced me down on the floor and told me it was necessary. Great-aunty Chinny held my hands and made me inhale his smoke till his entire presence was roiling through my body like the last movements of a dragon. When Joshua had finally settled in my body, he felt like a weight in my throat. Joshua and I used to play by the riverside all day and night. This was before his death and before he left and before the inhalation. This was before him telling me he loved me (he always loved me). The riverside was considered to be one of the safest places in our village, the place were youth could go to avoid the dreaded dragon’s breath and the insecurity of the nation and the fear of living life in worry. The river was thought to be some anti-dragon zone, and it was believed that if we stayed there long enough, we would prevent our own deaths. We could hold space for our futures, laugh and sing and love once again, and we could hold on another day longer. Joshua was always an adventurer. He would wade through the water like he was fighting the biggest smokebeast dragon, splashing through the river like he was slicing through its depths like a sword. He couldn’t swim properly, but when he waded all the way to the deeper parts of the river he would drag me in, as if I were his life craft. We would laugh and he would tease me for being silly and I would chase him around the water, screaming at him for getting me wet. As if no one ever went to the riverside without knowing they’d be soaked. As if wetness wasn’t everyone’s private rebellion against the heat of the dragon. On the river shore, after we had finished playing and we were waiting for our clothes to finish drying on rocks nearby, Joshua told me he was going to join the soldiers leaving for war. He didn’t even let me speak with the way he blurted it out — he was so adamant about it, because he knew I always interrupted him. I was going to tell him that he didn’t have to go because his family were always fighters, that he didn’t have to be a hero by being a warrior, that sometimes being a hero means staying home, but you could tell he’d been thinking about it forever and he’d made up his mind. Come a fortnight from that day, the Carucchi soldiers would be raging war against the ferocious dragon territory of the East, and no one would be able to stop them. I could see the pride in his eyes when he told me. I didn’t want him to leave, but everybody has their own personal ways of fighting, of dealing with a life under despair, and I didn’t want to stop his. I sat with him in silence, waiting for our clothes to dry on the rocks. I held his hands the whole time, my own private prayer that he would return after his departure,