to change back.”
“To man.”
“To Leopard.”
“What happens when you forget?”
He turned around and looked at me, then pressed his lips and sighed.
“There’s no future in your form. Smaller. Slower, weaker.”
I didn’t know what to say other than “You look faster, stronger, and wiser to me.”
“Compared to whom? You know what a real Leopard would have done? Eaten you by now. Eaten everyone.”
He didn’t frighten me, nor did he intend to. Everything he stirred was below my waist.
“The witch tells better jokes,” I said.
“She told you she was a witch?”
“No.”
“Do you know the ways of witches?”
“No.”
“So you either speak through your ass or fart through your mouth. Be safe, boy. You would have made a terrible meal. My father changed and forgot how to change back. Spending the rest of his life in the misery of this shape.”
“Where is he now?”
“They locked him in a cell for madmen, when a hunter came upon him as a man fucking a cheetah. He escaped, boarded a ship, and sailed east. Or so I heard.”
“You heard?”
“Leopards are too cunning, boy. We can only live alone; leave it up to us we’d steal each other’s kill. I have not seen my mother since I could kill an antelope myself.”
“And you don’t kill the children. That is a surprise.”
“That would make me one of you. I know where my mother keeps. I have seen my brothers, but where they run is their business and where I run is mine.”
“I had no brothers. Then I came to the village to hear I had one but the Gangatom killed him.”
“And your father became your grandfather, Asani told me. And your mother?”
“My mother cooked sorghum and kept her legs open.”
“You could have a family of one and still drive them apart.”
“I don’t hate her. I have nothing for her. When she dies I will not mourn, but I will not laugh.”
“My mother suckled me for three moons and then fed me meat. That was enough. Then again I’m a beast.”
“My grandfather was a coward.”
“Your grandfather is the reason you’re alive.”
“Better to give me something to be proud of instead.”
“For you have no pride already. What would the gods say?”
He came up to me, close enough for me to feel his breath on my face.
“Your face has gone sour,” he said.
He stared deep into me as if trying to find the lost face.
“You left because your grandfather is a coward.”
“I left for other reasons,” I said.
He turned away and spread his arms wide as he walked, as if talking to the trees, not me.
“Of course. You left to find purpose. Because waking, eating, shitting, and fucking are all good things, but none of them is a purpose. So you searched for it, and purpose took you to the Ku. But your Ku purpose was to kill people you don’t even know. My word stands. There is no future in your form. And here we are. Here you are, and Gangatom women wash their children right across that river. You could go kill a few. Right a wrong. Even please the gods and their vile sense of balance,” the Leopard said.
“You blaspheming the gods?”
“Blaspheming means you believe.”
“You don’t believe in gods?”
“I don’t believe in belief. No, that is false. I do believe there will be antelope in the woods and fish in the river and men will always want to fuck, which is the only one of their purposes that pleases me. But we talk of yours. Your purpose is to kill Gangatom. Instead you run to a Gangatom woman’s house and play with mingi children. Asani I could read in one day, but you? You are a mystery to me.”
“What did you read about Asani?”
“You can walk away from it.”
“I have walked away from it.”
“But it’s still in your heart. Men killed your father and brother and yet it’s your own family that makes you angry.”
“I so tire of people trying to read me.”
“Stop spreading open like a scroll.”
“I am alone.”
“Thank the gods, or your brother would be your uncle.”
“That is not what I mean.”
“I know what you mean. You are alone. But it makes your heart sick to be alone. We do not have this in common. Learn not to need people.”
I could smell the huts above us.
“Do you like fucking better as man or beast?” I said. He smiled.
“There is salt in that question!”
I nodded.
“I like his chest on my chest, his lips on my neck, looking at him as he enjoys me. He likes when my tail whips