Ekyimo Shitiire
Hornbill. It has given up its physical form to the hunter and slipped into the ghostly realm to play the Grinch since the last twenty one years. Bitter and resentful at having been driven to extinction, the ghost of the hornbill retreated to the backwoods far in the south and comes back down on the city with a vengeance every winter. And what sweeter revenge can be conceived than steal the season to be jolly disguised as Santa, clothed in a festival named after it! Let’s call it Santa Bill (We’re very careful with the pronoun here, Santa Bill could be transsexual, but “it” shouldn’t offend). The green apparition grins as it manipulates the hand of the rulers of Whodoland without them knowing. Through clenched teeth it manages a “He he he” for a “Ho ho ho” as it descends on the gullible city. S. Bill is early this year, too, so the starry eyed people of Whodoland may cease work and get into the spirit of Christma ... er... Hornbill.
The spectral being caused the hill city into hustle for the great steal. From the very word go City officials hit the ground running against datelines and constraints of space. A blitz on the main street would make the city more city-smart. Now it’s no longer cringe worthy even if Santa Bill takes a tour. Good job, seriously. Ghosts don’t care about material development, though. They wouldn’t even care if the buildings hemming in on both sides of the street would budge and push themselves back to give space. Meanwhile, in the halls of the government, it’s all hands on deck. Hands. Every hand in the material world has parallel hand beyond the great interface, manipulated by the grinning green puppeteer with the object of stealing Christmas.
Carnival time. The city is awash with green and ... where is red? Blame it on young people, but you’ve been promised any Whodo in high spirits would paint the town red. Smells like teen spirit but also tastes like middle-aged full-bodied brew. Everyone is a connoisseur in their own right, picking their choice, from the opulent, silky-textured item from far-off land to the viscous and tangy ferment from the Whodo kitchen. Has a little of the delicate stuff ever done anybody any harm? C’mon, it’s Hornbill time. The spirit lifts your soul high as you revel in the moment nursing your mug while yodelling your way deep into memory of the distant past. Till your mug lasts. It’s an extended happy hour but, somehow feels a lot less like Christmas. He he he. The Grinch has done it again.
When the Creator created the hornbill it was nice and gentle. It wouldn’t say boo to a goose. It was also very loving to its mate (they mated for life). Until the hunter-poacher from Whodoland came. Every man in Whodoland was a hunter, if not in letter with a firearm then in spirit with a slingshot and a tale to tell, lest a man be called a woman. The hunter loved all animals big and small and saw them as dinner. He loved especially the hornbill, which had some connect with his history and culture. He loved the bird all the more for its plume and wanted to immortalise it in his head gear. So he let loose his itching finger on the trigger. The lifeless feathers lived to adorn his ceremonial gears while the living flesh died to Whodoland forever. And one could hear a pin drop in the silent forest.
The silence of the bird in Whodoland alarmed its rulers. How were they going to relate their culture to a living hornbill? The think-tank was set to task and every man who mattered was drawn into the drawing room. They brainstormed and mulled over and over. Finally, they were rewarded with a killer idea: create a hornbill. Imagine their elation in their eureka moment. And they created Hornbill. Only that it didn’t look like a hornbill; it didn’t even remotely look like a bird. Now look, what they’ve created. Granted, it’s no Frankenstein, but it’s still something, an accident of psychic science, nasty and bent on revenge for the speciesism of the Whodos.
The road to the land of Hornbill is paved with good intentions, not with asphalt. Salt down culture for posterity with the blessings of the bird; put it on display for the world to see and admire; turn it into industry, the Hornbill Industry. If these aren’t good intention, what are? So, just do it, just build it, “if you build it they will come.” The world is beating a path to Whodoland’s door; they don’t need beaten paths to come. Moreover, what’s Santa Bill got to do with surface transport?
S. Bill’s superficial antics have deeper designs. Like, make a seller sell their wares, a perfectly innocuous commerce. The lesser human mind cannot perceive what’s in there. Because it’s a charm. Bill charms the sellers with a twisted business sense. It makes them sell their goods at thrice the sensible price as if they are the last life-saving items in the inventory. And then make them think they are doing a great business and service to humanity and the bird. Worse, it can even make festivity-drunk buyers think it’s Christmas and make them splash. Before sunup they will come round and find they’ve been cleaned out, and won’t even know who did this. “So this is Christmas”, they’ll mutter a curse. He he he,... connect the dots yourself.
Halfway through Advent, when the dust from the carnival has settled, when the stale air from too much eating and drinking has wafted off, when the most instagrammable greasy pole climbing has been shot, when the last haunting strain of Whodo song has trailed off, when the last reveller staggers home, ... the faithful will emerge and pick up the pieces. Festivity continues, a mellow, gentler and subdued affair that’s big on your heart to last through Christmas and onto New Year.
So, the ghostly bird hasn’t stolen Christmas? The cheery air about the faithful says it all: Christmas is here. See the hideous winged apparition in southward flight trailing red and green? The revellers have been robbed of their red and green. Christmas is over for them. Until early next winter.
