Sunday 2 October 2011

30) Coyote's Lightning

    Once upon a time, closer to creation than we are now, in the desert a wasp, fresh from her first flight and mated, alighted on a dead fish near a stream for a nibble before heading out to find a nice place to build her nest. She was digging into the delicious flesh when the sun and sky were covered with dark clouds. Rain to a tiny wasp can mean drowning, so she took a moment to carve out a chunk of flesh to eat later. She realized she should have taken off earlier when the tiny hairs on her body began to vibrate.
    Without warning a single bolt of lighting, enough to knock out a horse or several men, crackled through the air and landed on our poor defenseless wasp.

    Nearby, the son of the first Shaman was in trance communing with the spirits when he felt the darkness gather around his small tent. He said goodbye to his ancestors and returned to his body. He creakily unfolded from his sitting position and walked out of his tent.
    The sky was black with thunderheads all the way to the horizon. He took off his loincloth and headed out to the stream to wash in the coming fresh rain. As he was walking a huge bolt of lighting struck dead ahead of him. He was blinded for a moment, the jagged light the only thing he could see, even with his eyes closed.

    What neither the Shaman’s Son or the Wasp knew is that is was not the thunder god that threw the lightning, but Coyote. He had snuck into the thunder god’s house and stolen a single bolt from the larder of the great thunder god. Coyote had gulped down the lightning into his stomach.
    It rumbled and stung and Coyote ran as fast as he could to Mamma Baba’s hut on the edge of the country of the Gods.
    He scraped at the door with his paws, urgently until Mamma Baba came out. By then the lightning had cut up his insides and the poor Coyote was bleeding from his mouth.
    Mamma Baba said, “Oh you poor coyote. What stupid thing have you done now?”
    Coyote rushed in, looked around and spied Baba’s large metal cauldron. He ran up to it and barfed up the lightning. It crackled and hissed as it spun around franticly in the pot.

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