Olmahitkho
First Week of January
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Kai carried a strange clicking laughter as we walked home from our first class; but just when I think it's over, he takes one look at me to burst out cackling again. I kneeled to hang his thin arm around my neck, then helped his seizing body into our new home. “Here—I gotcha.”
“Man!" he shouted with a gasp of air. "Your face when Seamus said you were going into a weightlifting competition with him. I thought you lost one of your manly marbles!”
“Ah – you saw me huh?” A grin spread across my face. “I don’t know what the old man was thinking when he said that, but his mad eyes fit him.”
Kai’s chest grew and shrank for many breaths against my side as I guided him indoors, then I left him on his two feet once inside. After ridding my hands of dirt in the washroom, I walked to the kitchen for a prepared meal. The old man promised that a doctor’s assistant would be cooking for us while we stayed, and food would be on the kitchen’s top at noon.
I carried a tray with a large pot to the low coffee table and set up the plates for both of us. “Yo Kai! You ready for your training? The old man said you will be going with him to see the close family of ETs!”
“Of course! I would ask you to come too, but I actually want to see your training first,” he shouted back from the washroom. “But he is crazy, and I like it!”
When Kai arrived at the table, I lifted the lid of the pot, letting the steam rise from the large serving of beans and tomato sauce. Chopped carrots hid in its color along with other greens that topped the dish with expression. Using the ladle given to us, I portioned it to both our plates.
“Give me a sec,” I told Kai and got up from the floor to the fridge. I returned with a pack of food I brought from yesterday and put it on the table.
Kai choked on the hot food he was blowing on and burned his tongue. “W-wait, you eat meat?!”
I sat in crossed legs and put my palms together for a prayer, then closed my eyes.
After a moment of silence I opened the bag of cold, dried jerky and dabbed it into my hot portion and chewed. “Part of my family’s culture. We have eaten other animals since our ancestors, so we have a small ritual or prayer to thank their lives for the sacrifice.”
Kai nodded with hesitancy. “So do you, you know, kill them?”
“Back in my village, yes. When I grew up, I learned about techniques honed throughout our lineage to end them with minimal pain. I mostly eat fish and vegetables now, but my family gave me this jerky as a parting gift. Do you want some?” I took one out of the package and offered it.
Kai shook his head. “I’ll stick with my veggies, thank you very much.”
I roared with laughter. “We don’t aimlessly find things to kill. The animal sacrifices themselves for us by walking into our presence, laying themselves in the middle of our village with great compassion. They do not run, struggle, or flinch when they have offered themselves. They will starve right there if you wait to kill them, so from them, we also learned compassion. They are like our family.”
“You are just weird, man.”
I shrugged and continued to eat until loud knocks sounded at the front door. I went to check it and welcomed the old white-haired man inside. He walked to the table and paused. “Where’s my portion Olma?”
I looked at Kai who also seemed confused, then picked up the package of jerky and offered it to old man Seamus.
“Not that,” the old man said and pointed to the almost empty pot of tomatoes and beans. “Wait—you’re showing me meat?”
I nodded and he scowled at me with his mad eyes thinking I was mad!
“You know, that explains why you are big. Forgot the Integrator liked strange fellas like you and everyone else in the Explorers Project,” he shook his head in disbelief. “Anyways, I have to speak to you both about your training. After we are done eating we are going to the gym inside the classroom building.”
We nodded and finished our afternoon meal, while the old man stared at me eating flesh with wide eyes. I explained to him my family’s culture and he slowly displayed less wrinkles on his forehead, but he did not hide the air of doubt that remained.
…
“Alright Olma, ready to lift your set of weights?” the old man asked.
I stood on a mat in the corner of a large gymnasium with a barbell totaling 50 kg. The old man told me these were the heaviest weights this place held in stock.
“This must be a joke, old man,” I told him and Kai smiled and wiggled in contained laughter on one of the chairs nearby.
“Just try it.”
“If you insist…”
I bent down and held the barbell tightly, making sure the feelings in my legs and feet were balanced. With a relaxed and stable posture of my torso, I lifted the bar right above my knees and held it for a few seconds, then dropped it onto the cushioned floor. There was no pressure in my arms compared to the times I had lifted in the past.
“Now bend down and touch your toes,” the old man commanded.
“How does this get me excited?” I asked.
“Just do it.” With trust in my teacher, I bent down to touch my toes, then stood back upright. “No. All the way.” I bent further. “When I said touch your toes, I literally mean touch your toes!” With all my effort, I stretched down to touch my toes, then fell over the barbell in front of my feet. I planted my arms on the mat and lifted to my knees.
“Balance – check. Flexibility – check.”
“I thought I was competing against you, old man,” I told him, and he eyed me over his computer tablet in hand.
“He’s right, Seamus—you said he was going into a weightlifting competition with you, I thought it was going to be something fun to watch,” Kai said behind him.
“Oh, did I? I probably didn’t mean it the way you guys are thinking.”
“You can’t forget things like this,” I said with disappointment. “I know you are old, but even though I’m not the brightest, I can remember something that happened about half an hour ago!”
The old man laughed with such vigor—his head bobbed with his shoulders and his mouth so wide, his white skin made his teeth look yellow in comparison.
“There’s your lesson. I remember now!” The old man shouted.
“Me not being the brightest?”
“No – flexibility and balance. You’re all brawn and there’s nothing else that stands out. On one hand it is beneficial since you are simple minded, which allows you to act in ways complex people cannot. On the other hand, you don’t have any trait that you can utilize that is unique. We’re going to change that.”
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“How?” I asked, and Kai looked in anticipation on the side.
“We will chip away at your rockiness. To do so…” the old man looked behind him and Kai smiled. Then Kai slapped his knees, laughing so wildly that he flipped his chair back and landed on his head. I hope his big glasses are okay. Whatever Kai was laughing at, I knew it had to be fun.
Old man Seamus cleared his throat and continued. “To do so, you will be training outside by standing in the winter waters.”
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We stepped through bushes, twigs, and other undergrowth on our way to find some natural body of water. Twigs snapped and fallen leaves crunched with the dirt and gravel - until Kai rushed forward and turned to us, pointing out in the distance. Stopping in the quiet of the woods, gently running water reached my ears. Once me, Kai, and the old man walked out of the way of the trees, I saw a wide creek span far in both directions with sharp-leaved trees bunched in its background on the opposite side.
“Looks like the temperature is not cold enough to freeze it over, considering the winter solstice began a little over a week ago,” the old man said. “Here—I brought a blanket for you to place your clothes on. Or you can put it on the rock over there.”
He unrolled the blanket he carried on his back and covered the rich, dark-brown soil underneath his feet. There was moss on both the soil and stones, along with twigs that poked into the blanket. The old man put his backpack down and sat next to it, waving at me and Kai to come closer. I hoped his backpack contained medicine to cure us of any ailment that this may cause.
I used to catch fish with other village children by a similar body of water, but that was about it. I never went by our creek during the winter since we needed more hands in getting firewood and to help anyone in need of service.
My father and mother agreed to send me off into the city since they already had enough hands and wanted me to see a bigger world. I rebelled at first, but they insisted that everyone in the village could handle everything, even during the harsh months. So they led me to a city and introduced a foster family that provided all the food, shelter, and education I could ask for. I even learned about a gym where I could keep up my physique and learn about the strange ways people exercised.
Returning back to nature as a grown man, the creek reminded me of all the sustenance my home's body of water contained—enough to be a second mother that gave life to my family in the village. Now, I am here for a reason incomprehensible to me—to fight the cold. This was the wrong time to be here. Something I didn’t know I needed to fight, yet my mad teacher says it would help me!
“Alright Olma, take off your shirt and pants, you’re going in,” the old man said without a hint of worry.
“Do you want me to get sick?”
“You’ll get sicker if you return home wearing your clothes wet! Let’s go – chop chop.”
I stared at him without any words and shook my head as I turned away to take off my family’s scarlet poncho, then my boots and brown baggy pants. The slow, cool winds didn’t prick my skin since I was familiar with it, but thinking I had to enter the almost icy water triggered a lot of goosebumps that didn’t help with the cold.
Stepping off the blanket and onto the soil, its rich softness leaned into me as I walked along its bumpy surface. Its wetness continued to remind me of what I will be walking into, and I felt the small patches of soil slowly stick to me with each weighted foot that met the earth. It is going to leave a mark, I thought it told me.
Once I reached the border of the creek, I looked down to see my pained reflection with the same red-brown hair I was born with, supported by the sad gray-blue sky.
I tightly shut my eyes and lifted one leg up, with arms raised for balance. In the darkness of my eyes, I wished for the cold to not be as dark and unfriendly. Slowly lowering my toes, I felt the wind blow harder as if this creek were my mother, preparing me for the sharpness I would feel. I heard the slight sounds of splashing that warned me of how close I was to touching almost ice, but I did my best to distract myself with the smell of the earth and sharp-leaved trees.
When my big toe touched the surface, my nerves shivered through my leg and up my spine to my head. Even with this small shock, I jerked my lifted leg away and planted it behind me to maintain balance. Everything above my shoulders trembled uncontrollably, so I looked back and saw Kai laying his stomach on the blanket and looking, while the old man clicked his tongue with an upset face. “Why don’t you try it if what I’m doing is not to your liking?” I said over the wind and rustling.
“No can do, this is your training,” the old man replied.
I looked back down at the creek and breathed deeply several times as a preparation. Then I returned to my original position with closed eyes and a lifted leg. Slowly, it went down again. Then I tipped over.
I looked back and saw a young figure with a green and white striped shirt with blue pants, who pulled back both palms to his sides. It was Kai!
My face fell last, barely touching the freezing water.
“YEEEOOOW!”
I quickly pushed myself back up even when the freshwater was pushing me to remain underwater. I covered my chest with crossed arms and palms on both my shoulders; protecting myself from the cold air as much as possible.
“W-what are you d-doing?!” I shouted. Kai and the old man laughed on their butts and paid no attention to my pain!
“Come on, you can do it for at least one minute!” Old man Seamus cheered.
“N-n-no! H-how is this training? T-this is p-pain!” I shivered.
I quickly noticed that I was much colder above the water and plunged my torso back down—crouching because the water only reached my knees. My teeth chattered as I continued to speak. “Why don’t you come in here and try this yourself? You can’t teach when you don’t know how to do the same things you tell me to do!”
The old man used one arm to strip out his black robe over his head and revealed his manly parts. Kai dropped his mouth wide open at the sight, and the skeleton of a man primed a sprint, and ran towards my direction.
“W-wait, I didn’t mean—”
Jumping right on the edge where the water met soil, he landed in a splash. I recoiled at the stings of the sharp, piercing water that shot its way to my exposed upper half of my torso, and felt waves and ripples of pressure push me as the creek water was displaced.
I could only stare in disbelief at his madness when he smiled without shivering. How could he remain in this freezing cold water without the same exercise that I go through?
“A-are you not cold?” I chattered.
“This is what I mean when mind and body are one!” The mad man told me, standing straight as a grown tree. Mad. So mad.
I can’t believe he was still trying to teach when my life was on the line! Does he not care about his student’s life? His mind I already knew was mad, but even his skinny body was mad! Mad mind and body. Hold on.
A mad mind can have a mad body!
I smiled at my genius, and asked a more important question than the cold. “H-how do I become as mad as you?”
“You finally broke your mind, eh?” The old man said, splashing more freezing water towards me with his hands. “Now, why would you want to be mad? I’m not even mad!”
“Stop!” I pushed myself up to stay above the water and used my bigger hands to push greater water at him. But my speed was not as fast as his since he wasn’t affected!
“Please, I can beat you in my village games!” I shouted.
The old man smiled. “Oh yeah? I can stay in this water without being affected by the cold.”
“You think you are so good in the mind, you can’t even say my first name!”
“Olmahitkho, it’s a beautiful name, but we need to talk about your training and how you can use your mind to enhance your body.”
“I bet you don’t even know how to pronounce my last name!” I told him.
“…T-that’s not the point, ‘lil fella.”
And Kai cackled and heaved like the sound of a high-pitched girl.
…
When we returned home late afternoon and I showered and changed my clothes, I finally rested by laying on the couch beside the coffee table. That was a rough day—more rough compared to the times I have been active throughout my life.
The old man said I stayed in the water for a few minutes, while Kai measured it with a clock and confirmed it. I didn’t care how long I stayed because all I wanted to do was get out of the pain. With great fortune, the old man had a bath towel with him in his backpack and we were both dried before we headed back home. It was an introductory training, and I thanked the gods and nature’s mother for keeping me alive another day.
But to think the old man had nothing under his black robe even in the freezing cold, I continued to be surprised at his madness. Just when I couldn’t think of anything madder, he pulls out tricks from underneath him!
I will not let this be normal. This is not normal. This will never be normal.
I overheard a conversation between the old man and Kai while they stood outside my view as I lay on the couch. “Kailus, you will not be doing any training this week, so you can go around to your other colleagues and watch them train. I have a lot of planning and preparation to do for you and for the primary classes,” The old man said with a low voice.
“Aww man! I thought we were going to see some spooky stuff soon.”
“Oh, you will. You may not even be ready for any of that yet.”
“Will the others allow me in to watch? Especially the teachers?” Kai asked.
“Of course. You heard their training topic, right? Choose the one that seems interesting to you and go knock on their doors early in the morning. Is any one of them swimming in your mind?” The old man asked.
“I’ll just go to all of them. If not, I can stay behind and follow the big guy here. I had a really fun time watching him today.” Yeah! Because you pushed me!
I heard some thumps approach me from behind my head. It was the old man, and he looked down at my tired face. “Same time tomorrow, Olma. We will wait until the sun rises high enough so that you don’t freeze.”
He took my silence as an affirmative response and walked away, and I heard the front door shut with a click. If I had to see his mad white hair on his skeleton face every day, at least let his eyes show some care!