"I misspoke by a century when I said the 700s. It was in the mid-800s. You know how numbers are for people who aren't math-minded.
The story of civilization - perhaps humanity itself - begins by water. And why not? It contains our calmness, our rage, capable of sustaining life and delivering death... all those opposites that are a part of us are also in water. Don't scientists tell us we're mostly water and stardust?"
Big Bird continues this preamble as she goes to a desk, pulling open drawers and rummaging around in them. When she turns back to face me, I notice she's wearing yellow dishwashing gloves and carrying a map, which she spreads out on the bed in front of her.
"Why the gloves?"
"You don't want to see what I look like, so I covered my hands, too. Your fault if you didn't pay attention when you had the chance."
I didn't. Usually I study a woman's hands for rings. But after I met the Mocha Girl (middle finger - an expression of power), I stopped looking. Only her hands mattered. But I'm not going to tell Big Bird about her. No need. Instead, I walk around the bed to peer at the map. She continues talking as I get up.
"So it is with my distant ancestor. He lived on the Horn of Africa, surrounded by relatives. It was a rather fecund family. Probably something in the water."
The joke is tired, so I don't laugh in the provided beat.
"Anyway, 'lise realized that family can both be a great support and that which destroys you. He quickly allied with his brothers in a multilateral defense pact, but his uncle, the Gerad of Fafan to the west, refused. Fearing an internecine set of wars designed to make Fafan the lord of the Horn, 'lise resolved to sail across the Arabian Sea and conquer slightly richer territory on the peninsula. Oh wait!"
I study the map silently while Big Bird hustles back to the desk and returns with a grainy portrait on blackened paper that bore the marks of some accidental fire.
"This is 'lise"
"Money-loving and honestly so, he also wasn't the greatest fan of the fun we have here. Yet, he also recognized the importance of continuing his direct line, so he married the woman the shamans said had the most fertile hips in all of the Horn." Big Bird shifts the portrait to another one, "This is their engagement portrait."
I have no reaction to the portrait. These are just dead faces to me.
"With friends and wife in hand, 'lise struck across the sea and easily conquered the better province of Mahra. One can hardly call it a war - it was more a swift overrun, the battle decided before the first swords crossed."
"My ancestor could have proclaimed himself Gerad back in the Horn. He had enough territory there to do so. But he determined to establish his presence on the peninsula and immediately moved the capital to Mahra. He just as swiftly conquered Dhurfar and named himself Gerad of Mahra." More portrait movement and this time, it's a clearly modern reproduction of an ancient document translated into English.
"Over the next several years, 'lise continued rampaging like a rhino through the peninsula. Now he was so powerful, he never needed his allies. The word Somalian became equivalent to demon in the Bedouin dialect in Arabic - perhaps no more than to Samir Mahrid, who not only lost Mahra to 'lise, but suffered a final ignoble defeat when he was captured on the battlefield for his last remaining territory." Carefully moving aside the first two maps, Big Bird showed me a third which had a notation on it unlike the unmarked priors.
"By the time he was 27, 'lise occupied much of what is today Yemen - so much so that he gave a Bedouin prisoner control of Dhurfar and one of his unlanded brothers another lesser conquered territory. Most of the region was Bedouin in culture. But the capital of Mahra was different - *that* was the lone Yemeni province in his domains. And it was a culture my ancestor found himself fascinated with. What exactly it was about it, I'm not sure... the only thing I do know is that given his new home, 'lise decided to apply himself to learning Arabic so that the restless people who resented this foreigner could at least communicate with him.
Because he devoted himself to linguistic studies and because he needed time to raise money and name himself Gerad of another region in Yemen, 'lise halted his expansion for the time being. Too, he had a daughter and two sons to tend to. They were merely toddlers at this point - well, his daughter was older than that - but nonetheless, it was domesticity and Mahra that now overtook his concerns. Of course, it would be generations upon generations before the Yemeni would even consider accepting the Waaqi nature faith, Islam rather being inhospitable at best to pre-monotheism.
I've never quite known what to call the shape of this first phase of conquest - the Snake? the Whale? Something devouring at any rate..." A fourth map arose from the stack.
Big Bird stops talking and I bend my head next to hers to peruse the image. I see what she means about Mahra's Arabian shape being... something... but just what I don't know myself.
"Maybe a skinny whale?" I offer.
There's a movement in the hood that suggests tongue over lips.
"Skinny whale? Sounds like a fancy coffee drink made with skim milk."
"Well, Ethiopia *is* the birthplace of coffee."
A low chuckle.
"True... which is rather fitting I suppose, given where my ancestor started. Although now I want to know what a Skinny Whale would taste like... what ingredients it would have."
We pass a few minutes in banter, suggesting silly - if not outright absurd - nautical ingredients for flavoring. Then my phone beeps with a text message from Kenny angrily asking DUDE WTF R U?!
"Looks like I have to go. I kinda ditched my friend to come here."
"Naughty Winchester. Come see me again if you want to hear more."
I just wave my hand and walk out, music entering my ears from a nearby room.
You can be mean when you look this clean, I'm a classic man
Calling on me like a young OG, I'm a classic man
Your needs get met by the street, elegant old fashioned man
Yeah baby I'm a classic man