Prophecy Seekers

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"We are cripples, we artists. Our art is nothing, because our tools are too dull to get at the essence and express it. Christ alone has that ability. He affects us directly without writing, without painting; at every moment he transforms his entire life into an artwork."

- Vincent van Gogh

"I myself do nothing. The Holy Spirit accomplishes all through me."

- William Blake

Part One

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Chapter 1

The Twin from the East Returns

June 1999 Canada

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When you’re young, you’ll do anything to discover truth. Reckless, driven, you wonder whether it was all destined to occur of if it was something inside of you that had to get out, find what needed to be found, as if the entire affair had been prewritten, predestined, or even preordained. But for identical twins it’s always a little more difficult to see if it was entirely you or your brother or both working in concert with some cosmic umbilical cord still attached pulling strings. Perhaps it’s its importance that reveals the answer? And if it is fulfilling a prophecy then most likely these things are out of your control. History will decide this one though because of what has happened.

What made Thomas think it might have all been a fluke was that he had absolutely no inclination of what was to befall him when he met his twin Joshua at the airport in Winnipeg. He didn’t really know what was going on with Josh other than he was busy at odd jobs and writing a book about something to do with Indians. His job in Hong Kong was taking so much of his time that he barely knew what was happening with any of his family. He knew his brother could take of himself so as long as he said he was all right he didn’t worry about him. It was also, in their unspoken twin language, a sign of respect not to pry or worry. To show concern or worry was bad form. It was just their way. They had always done their own thing, never not doing what they wanted for the sake of the other, maybe because it was less crowded that way. Even telephone calls were rare, usually occurring when one of them had a dream. Recently Josh had called him in Tokyo during a business trip and the first thing he said was ‘What happened last night?’ And it had been a bad evening.

Tokyo was crowded and on the weekends it was if everyone tried their hardest to pack as much living as they could in two days. Sprint drinking and Karaoke left what expatriates called platform pizzas wherever there was space at Shinjuku train station, some men passed out as if on a crucifix, arms outstretched yet completely untouched despite being the busiest train station in the world. That night Thomas had gone out with some of his Japanese friends from work for a birthday party and heated sake had been consumed with round after round of beer with sushi and noodles and lobster. He didn’t miss his train but he had fallen asleep and ended up at the end of the line. Harassed and dead tired and with no money he had been forced to sleep on the street near the station until the train started, maybe more humiliating than painful. Premonitions and dreams were a type of gateway to see each other, like a theater in the mind activated at night. Josh was particularly responsive to these kind of dreams though Thomas had had his share of hard times after five years in Asia.

He flew out of Hong Kong the day after a birthday party for a Scottish friend, staying up all night at his regular Irish bar dressed in his kilt, and hadn’t left enough time to change so he crossed the Pacific Ocean with air-conditioning blasting his bare legs and head-bobbing from a nasty hangover, the happy reek of Scotch everyone around him. Didn’t matter, he needed a break. Anything to get out of the claustrophobia of Hong Kong.

Since he had left Canada five years ago, Josh had become interested in Native American culture. He never asked for much so when he had asked Thomas to come to his final Sundance, he couldn’t say no. Manitoba countryside in late June was just the balm he needed to get Asia out of his head.

It was a few months before George W Bush finished his second term in office when he arrived in Winnipeg. While he waited for his baggage, a tall Indian with braided hair and moccasins approached him, looking as if he knew Thomas from somewhere.

Can I help you with something? The Indian bowed his head and then spoke softly. He could probably smell the booze.

I believe it is you who can help me, said the stranger. Respectful. Stopped his crankiness in its tracks, disarming.

How so?

What are you doing in Manitoba? Voice smoky.

My brother lives here. He took off his sunglasses and squinted at him against the sun glaring through the windows. Actually he studies with an Indian Elder. Taking a step back, he bowed his head low and put his hands together as if in prayer.

Is it Grandfather Cardinal he apprentices with?

Yes, that’s his name. You know of him?

He’s my father. The Indian shook his hand and smiled. "So it is true. Rainbow Thunderbird does have a twin brother. You are his twin yes?" Thomas nodded when he heard his brother’s Indian spirit name. Mr. Cardinal’s son took out a tobacco pouch, held a pinch of tobacco in front of him, uttered some words that could be Cree as a prayer, and then handed Thomas the tobacco.

Maybe the Hopi prophecies are being fulfilled, he said, looking into his eyes as if searching for a glimpse of something. Where have you come from?

I just flew in from Hong Kong.

"The East, he said. And you’re wearing a red kilt."

Family tartan.

You going to the Sundance in Selkirk?

I am, you?

Not this year. It’s tough to do you know. Took me six years to graduate. He put both his hands on his chest. It is an honor to meet you. He gave Thomas a small bow and walked away with an unhurried swagger.

Chapter 2

The Sundancer

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It felt good driving on the flat, traffic-less roads north to Selkirk, legs now warm in the summer air and Canadian music on the radio. Sky as big as he had ever seen, crosswinds perfumed, forests dotting the roadside the farther north he went. Murders of crows flew en masse among the treetops, swampy bogs pungent as he passed, not a soul in sight.

Thomas found the Sundance by the river just out of town past a small limestone church, old pick-up trucks parked along a line of trees beside an open field. So on that June summer day wearing his kilt, he saw Josh clad only in a golden skirt sundancing and waving eagle feathers in front of the great Tree of Life that was covered with different coloured prayer ties. Having missed the few two days, his skin was already burned into a vermillion red and his technique was smooth. It was the afternoon when Josh and three other sundancers walked to the huge poplar tree and had hooks of bone pushed through the skin on his chest. Each of the two hooks were attached to long sinew attached to the Tree of Life, each other the four sundancers representing each of the four directions. Josh had the West position around the tree.

There was a sacred clown called a Wendigokaan that danced around backwards trying the do everything against convention, embodying his contrary nature. The clown ran around at will wearing a leather mask and leggings entertaining the crowd until each of the four sundancers were given a command to walk backwards facing the poplar. The sinew stretched and ripped the skin from Joshua’s chest, blood dripping from below the other three scars he had from the previous three summers. But it was a few hours later when he witnessed Josh drag buffalo skulls around the Tree of Life that he realized how serious and gruelling this honoured ritual was. His twin was calm when they hooked bones with string through the skin just behind his shoulders attached to four buffalo skulls behind him. Stomach cringing, Thomas watched him pull the cluster of skulls that skidded along the grass, horns crashing all over the place in summersaults and flips, chucking up chunks of grass. The skin pulled but didn’t break – not until Josh had completed a full run around the Tree of Life. When the bones snapped free, ripping the skin from his shoulders, the Sundancers roared with hoots and shouts, celebrating that he had just purified the sins of his family through his own suffering. Blood streaked down his back gleaming sweat mixing with dripping blood.

Thomas sat transfixed; he couldn’t believe it was his identical twin brother.

۞

After the Sundance ended and Josh was changing and drinking water, not a drop of which he had been allowed for four days, some of Joshua’s Métis Indian friends invited Thomas to sit at their campfire near tents pitched near the Sundancing field. It took them a while to get over their initial shock that he was Joshua’s twin brother, and were in the phase of realizing that they are different people, a time when strangers said strange things as if to distinguish them from each other. Not a comment about his odd apparel.

Joshua stayed in that small cabin of his all winter without any heat, said Andre. Can you believe that? The managers of the RV Park kept coming out to make sure he was still alive. They even left soup for him at his door. Instead of paying rent for an apartment, Josh had purchased a small cabin for a thousand dollars beside the Brokenhead River in a town called Beausejour. He owned the cabin but paid a small monthly fee for the land and electricity. With only an electric heater he squeaked through the notoriously cold Manitoba winter with some nights getting as low as minus fifty. It was, as his friends told Thomas, dangerous. It was his indifference to extremism that they wanted to convey to Thomas, something he was aware of, and by inference that he was the ‘soft’ twin, the one who worked in an office and lived a ‘normal’ life.

Like many things, the Sundance was an event that had to be seen to be believed. Josh had spoken about it before but the images Thomas had were nothing like the real thing. Completing the four years of Sundances was one of the things that he had tasked himself with in an effort to become a fully accepted Métis Indian in the Red Man’s world because it was considered one of the highest honours to graduate as a Sundancer.

Thomas then noticed a movement that he recognized intuitively, a sauntering with grace and a slight posture issue that had always belonged both of them. To their friends, it was their most distinct trait. With the sun setting and the horizontal rays highlighting his long hair, the only thing Thomas saw was his over-sized teeth. Without a word they both started laughing, and at the same time pointed at each other, laughter the same cadence increasing in decibels.

Brother! A bear hug locked them together for a moment.

When Thomas stood back to look at him a tingling sensation crept up his spine that reached his temples. After years apart it stunned him to see another person as unique as himself, especially the sight of his beard, which was identical to his own.

I’ve missed you Tommy, he said.

It’s been too long Josh.

Man, what’s with the dressing technique?

Birthday party for Jamieson last night-

You flew in that kit across international borders just to come here to watch me graduate? Nodded. That’s says something, doesn’t it? He put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder. It’s been a long two years. He felt a familiar pang of guilt at the sight of the bags under his eyes and the wrinkles on his face. It hammered home how long he’d been out of his life.

Chapter 3

Waxing Gibbous

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Due to Joshua’s thirst, they drive to a bar called The Wounded Knee for buffalo burgers and beer.

"This is where we want to go," said Josh, rubbing his hands together, face flushed and red like a tomato. Thomas pushed his hands deep into his coat pockets, straightened his Robertson hunting tartan and took a deep breath, intestinal fortitude waning. He wasn’t crazy about going into an Indian bar wearing a kilt, but an occasion deserves an extra effort.

Listen, I didn’t ask before but if you’re tired and want to go to mine to mellow-out, then that’s groovy. He can see the gravity of exhaustion creeping into his joints but Thomas shook his head.

"It’s not every day my brother becomes a real Sundancer. Seriously, that was fantastic what I saw today. Those buffalo skulls!"

Thanks Tommy. You know that means a lot to me. He patted him on the shoulder and saw a crossbow in his truck.

Is that-

It is. Great piece.

Why-

For when the grid goes down in 2012.

You really think-

When did Noah build the Ark?

"Before the flood."

They took a table in the corner of the patio and relaxed. The unusual brightness of the stars caught his eye.

It’s so clear here. In Tokyo the sky is always polluted. I don’t think I’ve seen the stars like this since I was last in Canada.

"It’s a waxing gibbous moon in the prairie big-sky tonight so it should be all right." He lit two cigarettes, handed one to Thomas as the waitress arrived. Indian, long scar along her temple.

Charlotte, here he is. My twin brother Thomas.

The one you keep talking about? Her hand to her mouth, Charlotte put her tray down and looked closer at the mythical brother. Let me have a look. I never-. She stared wide-eyed and smiled, revealing a stadium of perfect teeth. Her bashful look made him feel at ease.

"Happy to have you here Thomas. Rainbow Thunderbird’s brother – twin brother." Cheeks flushed, teeth like pillars of the Parthenon.

C’mon Charlotte. Poor guy’s thirsty from all that flying. Straight from Hong Kong you know. Any specials on tonight?

"There’s never a special, but I could extend happy hour just for the two of you – as a way of welcoming you home. Missed the way Josh was friendly and good-hearted with everyone. He speaks of you all the time. Half the people here don’t believe he even has a twin." He saw surprise in Josh’s eyes.

Ah, I’ll have a Hoegaarten if you have it.

You drink the same beer too?

Hoegaarten. Nice one. Make that two. She snuck a look back at them as she walked through the threshold.

Josh leaned back, flung his long hair off his forehead and stretched his legs out. Two blood stains were on his shirt, scar across his eye pink, eyeglass lens twice as thick as the other. Thomas rubs his eye, his stitches recently removed, the opposite eye to Joshua’s.

I should have worn a red shirt like yours, said Josh.

So did it hurt?

No, not really. It’s intense but they hurt now.

So you have four lines of scars down your chest, in two…columns.

Those are no big deal but the new ones on the back of my shoulders are hurting.

Um, why-

Dragging the buffalo skulls is optional. Not every Sundancer is required to do it.

So why-

Because what you’re doing is purifying the sins of your family through your own suffering. A bolt of guilt jolted Thomas in the solar plexus. But you have to make it around the Tree of Life. Otherwise you aren’t worthy to purge the sins.

So-

Exactly. All your sins are gone.

But-

"Because I love you, man. You’re my twin brother." His eyes clouded with water; fatigue was affecting his heart. Usually stoic to the point of having a wooden heart.

Thanks Josh. You know, you’re so…so un-

I know Tommy. I am.

And I’m such a selfish bugger.

I wouldn’t say that. You’re on your own life path, that’s all. For a moment the thought of his life in Japan made him sick. Do you-

No, I don’t. Not anymore. I guess the novelty has worn off.

You can always come back. He looked away, his arm working hard on his legs.

That’s one thing we don’t have over there.

Welcome to Manitoba. The mosquito is our national bird.

We should-

Yeah, why don’t we?

Crooked tables and chairs missing arms, the beer posters on the walls were stained from smoke, but the smell of stale beer brought Thomas back to his university days with Josh.

What is that? he asked, pointing above the bar. He ignored people gawking at his kilt.

"That’s Kokopelli – the Indian God of Mischief."

Quite a hairpiece.

Yes, a unique hat. They kept drinking Hoegaarten that Charlotte placed in front of them as if it was against the law to be sitting in front of an empty pint glass.

So why wouldn’t people believe you have a twin brother? It was Thomas’s turn to stretch out his legs and open his jacket.

Because twins are highly respected in Indian culture. Almost every creation story among the Indian tribes has something about twins. Remy placed his cigarette pack on the table. Twins are always depicted as heroes who overcome great odds to protect people from disaster, and illustrate the duality in life. Twins are used to show that everything exists in balance – good and evil, light and dark, Father Sky and Mother Earth.

Can I ask you-

"Of course,