Mongoose Princess and Snae God

The monster has hunted my family members for a long time. Tonight, I face it for what may be the very last time. It prowled the deserts of Mother Africa long before the time of man. Even now, I'm not sure if it can die but all things must have a beginning somewhere. At least, that's what I tell myself. My name is Aamina Nazwari. My friends call me Mina. I was born and raised in the City of Arba Minch, in the Gamo Gofa region of Southern Ethiopia. Anyone looking at me would see a five-foot-eleven, curvy but solidly built young Black woman with medium brown skin, light brown eyes and long, curly Black hair. I attend York University near the City of Toronto, Province of Ontario. I am descended from the Malinzi, the legendary African warrior princes who dueled with the forces of evil in ages past. Although I've tried to run from it, I must confront my ultimate destiny. Whatever that may be. It's up to me to battle the hordes of the Mai-Ja-Chikki , the serpentine monsters who prowl the world in human form, feeding on the life force of human beings whom they encounter.

The first time I encountered one was during a trip to Boston, Massachusetts. My older sister Fatuma was marrying this African-American guy named Henry "Hank" Wellington. They met while studying Law at Suffolk University. The whole family went from Toronto, Ontario, to Boston, Massachusetts, the heart of New England, for the wedding. As befitting any wedding, the unification of the happy couple meant that two different families were all up in each other's faces for the first time. My family is Muslim. We're descended from Arabs and Ethiopians who've shared culture and religion in North Africa and East Africa since the days of Mohammed himself. My father wasn't thrilled that my older sister converted to Christianity to marry this Black American guy. A catholic, if you can believe that. Still, like any good parent, he wanted his daughter to be happy so he put aside his misgivings and set foot inside a Christian church for the very first time. To attend the wedding of his oldest daughter. My poor dad. He was having such a hard time in those days. My older brother Hassan recently came out as gay. Apparently, he and his roommate at Carleton University, an Irish guy named Sean Jenkins, are more than friends. My brother stunned all of us and moved into a condo in Brampton, Ontario, with his lover Sean Jenkins. They had a commitment ceremony and are in the process of adopting Siamese twin daughters from Asia. For my conservative Muslim family, it's a bit much.

As a young tomboy caught in the whirlwind of chaos, family drama and romance that always surrounds weddings, I was bored as hell. Not for me all the talk of dresses and the gossip about who's dating who, who's an unbeliever and who's Muslim, and all that crap. I love my sister Fatuma to death but her wedding preparation was pure torture for me. With the family members talking nonsense, I snuck away, and nobody seemed to notice that I was gone. I wandered into the Copley Mall in downtown Boston. As I took in the sights and sounds, I became aware of the fact that someone or something was watching me. Growing up in Africa, I learned to trust my instincts. If you sense danger somewhere, go with that feeling. Oftentimes, people don't listen to their instincts. They dismiss that little voice inside that warns them of danger as pure nonsense. That's how a lot of people end up dead. I scanned my surroundings. Everywhere I looked I saw men and women walking about. They were Black, white, Asian, Hispanic and every ethnicity you could think of. Boston was a really diverse town. Almost as diverse as Toronto, though not as big.

My eyes flitted from person to person, store to store. I looked at a tall young Black man flirting with a slim blonde at the T-Mobile cell phone store. Nah, not him. My eyes zeroed in on a plump Chinese chick gazing adoringly at a skinny white guy with a baseball cap. Hmmm. No, not them. I glared at a chubby white guy in a worn-looking black and gray Securitas uniform. Nope, the threat didn't come from him either. Finally my eyes settled on this woman. Tall, red-haired and green-eyed. Stylishly dressed in a silver business suit and dress pants. Pretty, if you like the type. Think CEO wannabe or at the very least affluent yuppie. Her eyes glared at me coldly. A chill went down my spine. I stared at the woman and she stared at me. Calmly, she walked up to me. Until she stood only six feet from me. I saw in her eyes what a mouse sees in the eyes of a snake when they meet in a burrow. Nothing but hunger, and an ancient hatred. For some reason, the mere presence of this woman unnerved me but I stood my ground. She looked me up and down, and I swear her eyes began to glow. Gently, she reached for me. Anyone looking at the two of us might mistake it for a friendly gesture. Instinctively I shrank back. The strange woman hissed, and I swear her tongue was forked. I'm dead serious. She had a forked tongue! Like a snake or something.

Slowly I backed away, until I bumped against the ramp. The strange woman approached me menacingly, a chilly smile on her beautiful face. Again she reached for me. This time, I was cornered with nowhere to go. So I did the only thing I could do. I told the bitch to back off and when she didn't, I punched her. Amazingly, a punch from my fist sent her flying. She slammed into a couple that was walking nearby, and I took off like a missile in the sky. I ran and ran until I got to the Green Line Train stop conveniently located near the Boston Public Library, five minutes from Copley Mall. I paid my fare, bought a Charlie Ticket and sat on the train, trying to catch my breath. Amazingly, when the doors opened at the next stop, the same woman from the mall came in. I stared at her with panicked eyes. Miss Forked Tongue stared at me coldly and wagged her pale finger with cold amusement. I balled my fists. I wouldn't go down easy. The freak came after me, and this time I knew there was nothing I could do. The subway car was empty. I had nowhere to run.

I

shrank from her malevolent touch as she inexorably came for me. Like a mouse trapped in a burrow with an advancing snake, I shrank from the freakish lady with the forked tongue. As she came for me, she grew more monstrous. I swear her skin took on a scaly, greenish hue. Her eyes turned yellow with a snake-like slightly triangular iris glaring at me. Just when I thought I was a goner, something amazing happened. My skin sprouted fur, and my fingernails turned into claws. Without realizing what I was doing, I slashed the freak lady's face. The mutated woman howled and shrank back from me. She recoiled before smashing the train car window with her superhumanly strong fist and leaping outside. She escaped into the extensive tunnel system underneath metropolitan Boston. I've never seen her before or since. I got off at the next stop. I didn't want to explain to any train operators or police officers what had happened. When I looked at my hands, they had amazingly returned to normal. No fur, no claws. Thank Allah for small favors, eh?

When I returned home, shell-shocked, I told my parents what had taken place. I spared no details. My father, Mohammed Nazwari, gently stroked his bearded chin. He looked at my mother Soraya. Then the two of them looked at my grandmother Atifah, who grimly said it was high time I was told about the family business. That night, my life changed forever. I learned that I wasn't human. My family and I are descended from a mongoose-like hominid species. The mongoose is a sacred animal in our people's viewpoint. It represents the link between our remote ancestors and the ancestors of humanity. Many cultures revere the mongooses for their prowess against snakes. And just like real mongooses, my family and I have our supernatural enemies. The Mai-Ja-Chikki, an ancient species descended from snakes. These creatures are a blend of ophidian and hominid, and more lethal than both. They hate all mammalian life forms, especially human beings. According to my family members, there are millions of them alive today. They want to destroy humankind and take over this planet. They've been plotting it for thousands of years.

The only thing which stands in their way are my species. We who are a blend of the mongoose and the human. Sworn enemies of the two-legged snakes that walk the planet Earth. The Mai-Ja-Chikki are everywhere. They are the powers behind the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, the World Health Organization and the Arab League. They are in every corporation, every major business, every big university. They rule the world in secret. After thousands of years of waiting in the shadows, they are tired of hiding it. We're the only thing standing in their way that's why they're hunting us down like rats. We're not going down without a fight. We are outnumbered a hundred to one, but that's okay. They have their weapons and we have ours.

My grandmother, Granny Atifah, told me the history of our people. According to legend, in ancient times gigantic snakes ruled the planet Earth. And they preyed upon mankind's ancestors. The Gods took the essence of the mongoose and fused it within the body of a pregnant woman in the African motherland. She gave birth to twins, and they inherited the power of the mongoose. That's why, when members of my species get riled up...we can transform. Our eyes turn bright red. Our teeth turn into fangs. Our fingernails turn into claws. Tawny fur grows all over our bodies. We morph into a mongoose-like humanoid creature endowed with superhuman strength and speed. Our sworn enemies, the Mai-Ja-Chikki possess a paralytic agent which their bodies secrete. They use it against humans to freeze them while feeding on them. The Mai-Ja-Chikki absorb the life force of human beings. That's how they stay young. Their paralytic agent doesn't work on us. Just like most mongooses have some resistance to snake venom, we are immune to our enemies deadliest weapon. In single combat, no Mai-Ja-Chikki can stand against a full-grown member of our species. We are collectively known as the Malinzi, a word meaning guard or sentinel in a variety of African languages, especially Swahili. My grandmother, as the matriarch of my clan, took over my training. For she also trained all the warriors of the clan. She's kind of like our Yoda, only meaner and kinder at the same time.

For the next few years, I learned to harness the special powers that were my birthright. It's not enough to have superhuman strength and speed. You must be coordinated, and also understand something of tactics and strategy if you're going to survive any encounters with the Mai-Ja-Chikki. While my classmates at Augustine High School in Toronto were learning about the facts of life, and worrying about playing sports, dating and all the usual crap, I had other worries on top of the normal stuff. My family, and indeed all others like us were at war with a seemingly invincible enemy that outnumbered us one hundred to one. After graduating from A.H.S. I enrolled in the Criminology program at York University. I thought I could finally lead a normal life. Unfortunately, that's when everything started to go wrong. As it happens, York University is infested with the Mai-Ja-Chikki. Seriously, they run the campus. The school president is one. Yeah, I've got my work cut out for me. Also, there is one other complication. A complication known as Aisha Ahmed.

My whole life (since that fateful encounter in Boston during my big sister's wedding ) has been an endless preparation for the inescapable bonds of sworn duty. I don't have time for the normal stuff like dating. I dated a very nice Jamaican guy named Gordon during my first semester at York University. He was an international student from the region of Montego Bay in Jamaica. Gordon was tall, handsome and very nice. He treated me right and our sex life was awesome. Unfortunately, my need to focus on battling the Mai-Ja-Chikki eventually drove a wedge between us. We split. The last time I ran into Gordon, he was dating a blonde-haired white chick named Kelly. Or was it Nelly? Seeing him with her kind of bothered me but I got over it. We weren't together anymore. What he does with his life is none of my business.

I decided to focus on my schoolwork and my sworn duty to fight evil. Every night I went out and battled the Mai-Ja-Chikki . I seek them and I hunt them. So far I've been lucky. They're overconfident predators. Fairly easy to kill. Focusing on my school stuff and my killing avocation helped me forget the fact that I had no social or romantic life. The universe had other plans for me, but I wasn't ready to listen. I met this tall, conservatively dressed and hijab-wearing Somalian gal in downtown Toronto one night. She was attacked by a pack of Mai-Ja-Chikki , disguised as a trio of humans. Masquerading as a burly Black guy, a skinny white guy and a chubby Asian chick, the Mai-Ja-Chikki attacked the Somali gal and prepared to feed on her life force. That's when I emerged from the shadows and quickly dispatched them. I have a Katana sword made in Japan. It's really sharp and I love slicing off monsters heads with it. After I slew them, the Mai-Ja-Chikki bodies turned to dust. As they always do.

I turned to walk away, but someone gripped my arm. It was the woman I rescued. She looked at me, and recognition flashed across her beautiful features. She told me she knew me from somewhere. I kind of panicked. The gal thanked me for saving her life, and introduced herself as Aisha Ahmed. A Somali gal from Ottawa, Ontario, studying business administration at York University. I looked at her and she looked at me. Something passed between us. Now that I thought about it, I did know her from somewhere. My Criminal Law class or something. I was still in panic mode. Aisha had seen me slay three inhuman monsters. She knew my secret. As if reading my mind, she told me that she would never tell a soul about what she saw. I nodded, wished her goodnight and walked away. That night, I lay on my bed, thinking about the day's events. Beautiful women attract monsters in the real world just like they do in the movies. Of course, in my world, a lot of beautiful women are actually inhuman monsters in disguise. Aisha seemed nice and sweet. Still, what did I get myself into?

The next day I went to class, and Aisha approached me. I was kind of uneasy around her, to tell you the truth. Amazingly, she didn't want to talk about the previous night. She told me that she knew there was more to the world than what most people acknowledge. Apparently, one of her family members had dealings with spirits and demons. Some witch doctor crap. Aisha surprised me by telling me that she was an Agnostic even though she was Somali and wore a hijab. She told me that she wore the hijab as a sign of solidarity with her Somali sisters rather than a gesture of Islamic submission. I found that puzzling. And I was in for more surprises. Aisha promptly handed me a flyer with the words GLBT Club written on it. My heart skipped a beat. What the fuck? Why was she handing me this thing? Aisha told me that she sensed I was lonely and needed friends. I handed her back the flyer but she wouldn't take it. Instead, she pleaded with me to attend just one meeting. I tried to say no then I looked into her eyes. She did some weirdly sweet thing with her eyes and I heard myself say yes. That afternoon, I went to the GLBT meeting. There were eleven guys and nineteen girls there. Most of them were minority students, a mixture of Blacks, Indonesians and Arabs. To my immense surprise, most of them were Muslim. Aisha presided over the meeting, and she officially welcomed me. As everybody stared at me, I waved weakly at them. Oh, man. What in hell did I get myself into?

Aisha talked about the issues facing GLBT students who were both ethnic minorities and Muslims in Canada. Another student took the podium after her. A big and tall young Black man who looked like a college football player. He introduced himself as Abdullah, and shared his story with us. Abdullah was bisexual, played rugby for York University and recently came out to his conservative Somali parents. Somali Muslims aren't exactly big fans of alternative lifestyles so he got disowned by his folks. The Somali girl he'd been dating dumped him. Abdullah was currently living on campus with a heterosexual white female friend and learning to adjust to his new circumstances. Wow. I looked at him. The guy had some courage to stand up there and pour his heart out like that. That took major guts. I deal with monsters every night but public speaking and heart to heart talks scare me shitless. As if sensing my anxiety, Aisha told me the floor was mine. Translation? It was my turn to get to the podium. I sighed, but walked up to the podium anyway. I introduced myself as Mina. I told them that I really hadn't prepared a speech. I scanned the room as I talked. Everybody was looking at me but this was a sympathetic-looking crowd. My eyes met Aisha's. She smiled at me gently. I squared my shoulders and continued.

What could I tell them? That I was sexually confused? I wasn't. I've felt attracted to both men and women ever since I could remember. I grew up in a conservative Muslim household and I knew that being gay or bisexual wasn't compatible with Islam. I did make out with some girls in the past but mainly I dated men. Did I enjoy sex with men? Yes. Oh, yes. My ex-boyfriend Gordon had a big dick and knew how to make my toes curl. The guy was good in bed! My biggest problem wasn't my sexual orientation or family issues. Privately, I identified as bisexual. No, I didn't write it on my Facebook profile. No, I didn't tell people. Of course, I didn't tell anyone that I was more than human and chosen by Fate to battle inhuman monsters for the rest of my life either. I looked around the room, took a deep breath and told them that I was B.I.S.E.X.U. A.L and that nobody knew this about me. I looked around when I finished my little speech. Everybody stood up and clapped for me. Abdullah looked at me gravely and nodded. Aisha beamed at me.

I sighed, grinned shyly, and went back to my seat. Everybody was smiling at me and I was getting accolades from people I didn't even know. Young men and women from the African, Arab and Indonesian communities of Toronto, Ontario, who were gay or bisexual. Just like me. At long last, I had found my true peers. Aisha looked at me and smiled. I smiled at her, and when she put her arms around me and hugged me, I didn't protest. Something amazing happened. The tears that I didn't realize I'd been holding back came flooding out. This was really odd. All my life I'd been taught that tears were the ultimate sign of weakness. The women of my family are warriors. We fight alongside our men and slay monsters. We're not like the weak women of the human world. We're something better. And yet here I was, weeping in the arms of a human girl. Aisha tenderly held me, and told me everything would be alright. She gently stroked my cheek, and told me I was among friends. I smiled and nodded. And from that moment on, my world would never be the same.

I continued battling the Mai-Ja-Chikki, the ancient enemies of mankind. I aced my Criminology classes at York University. The best thing of all is that Aisha and I grew closer together. At first, she was my guide on my journey as a bisexual woman of Ethiopian descent living in the City of Toronto, Ontario. As I gained my footing in this new world, our relationship changed. I soon realized that I was powerfully attracted to her. One night, I kissed her while we were studying inside the York University library. Aisha kissed me back tenderly. Breathlessly, I told her that I loved her. Aisha smiled, and told me the feeling was mutual. That night, we went back to her dorm and made love. My first time with a woman. Hmmm. An unforgettable experience. I love my Aisha. She changed my life. I came out to my family. Amazingly, my coming out didn't surprise anyone. My parents told me that they definitely sensed that their boxer-wearing, sports-loving, martial arts-obsessed daughter might not be totally heterosexual. And they were totally accepting. They welcomed me with open arms. When I introduced them to Aisha, they were totally cool. Aisha and I held hands and I looked into my darling's eyes adoringly. With her at my side and with the love and acceptance of my Ethiopian Muslim family, I felt like I could do anything.