No Strings Attached: Stage Show

time, the gods had thrown them back. It was impossible to leave. This was Yaoul's world, and he was expected to stay. The gods wanted him to stay. That was why they raised the walls and planted the thorns.

But in Yaoul's heart a thought had come. At first he had suppressed the thought, willing it to fly away. He hid his face from the sunlight, lest the gods would see him thinking, and know that he was thinking such a thought. He stayed inside his house, and worked on his carvings, in the darkness of his room.

But the thought became a song, and the song pushed its way higher until Yaoul could no longer contain it.

He went to the ancients. Surely, he thought, they will understand.

"I need your advice," said Yaoul, to Inigwa, the oldest of the women. He stood at the door of her house and waited as she shuffled slowly towards him, her long clothes dragging on the dusty floor, and pulled a ragged, beaded curtain aside.

"Who is it?"

"Yaoul, son of the chief." said the boy. He wanted to run away and forget his foolishness. What right did he have to ask this ancient for advice?

"Come in, come in," said Inigwa smiling with a face full of age and wrinkles, "I am honoured to have the son of the chief come to me. What advice would you like from me?" she laughed quietly in the shadows, "I have plenty, seeing I am as old as the tramkin tree."

"I need to know if what I am thinking is wrong," said Yaoul.

"And what might you be thinking?"

"I have been thinking," said Yaoul, hesitating, "Whether it is right to want to know things?"

"Ahh," said Inigwa, sighing, "I have heard this question before. Lamdo came to me when he was fourteen and spoke the very same words. No, it is never wrong to want to know . . . but what kind of knowledge are you seeking?"

"I need to know what lies beyond?"

There, he had said it. The gods might have heard, but the ancient was with him. She would protect him. He watched Inigwa's reaction. She looked at him hard for a moment, as if she was reading his thoughts, and when she had finished gazing beyond him, she sat down and put both her wrinkled hands on the knob of her walking stick