5 Song Tanda

Jack's head bobbed down for a second before he snapped it back up. The Humvee shook from side to side due to the bumpy dirt road. The other soldiers in the vehicle didn't seem to mind as they left for the land of dreams ages ago. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn't do it.

*Boom!*

A loud explosion awoke Jack from his fitful dream. Everyone inside the Humvee grabbed their rifles and took cover as a row of bullets rained on the roof. The driver slammed on the breaks and slid under the wheel.

The Lieutenant's voice came over the comms "The front and the back of the column are getting slammed. Vehicles 1-6 set up a delaying action around vehicle 4, everyone else gather on vehicle 11. We're breaking through the back."

Jack cursed under his breath; his transport was fifth in the column.

He took a deep breath, exhaled it, and rolled out of the back of the Humvee where he crouched and peeked around the rear-end. The other soldiers arranged themselves behind him.

The first two Humvees burned brightly in the moonless night. In their illumination, Jack saw hundreds of shadows moving in the far-off darkness.

Jack cursed and pulled his head back just as a few bullets dinged off the Humvee near where his head used to be.

He informed his team about the situation and counted down from five with his fingers. Just as he prepared himself to run out into the rain of bullets between them and vehicle 4, the world shook and soon disintegrated.

Jack opened his eyes and closed them a moment later.

'Am I blind?' he thought for a second, then everything that happened before he passed out came back to him, but covered in a dense fog. Jack snapped his eyes open and tried to sit up.

He managed to wriggle his body, a little. He tried to look around, but his entire world consisted out of shades of grey with tinges of red, orange, yellow, and green, and seemed quite small.

Jack closed his eyes and tried to think. It wasn't easy, his thoughts moved like they took a bath in molasses. He felt like he got hit in the back of the head with a few bats.

'Need to think… What did the doctor say when Kevin was born?' he racked his malfunctioning brain for what felt like hours. 'Ah yes, developing eyesight up to half a year, slow development of motor and language skills. This is gonna suck.'

He tried to produce something resembling a word, but his tongue failed him and what came out was a mess of garbled noises.

After a few more fruitless tries he gave up and just lay there.

Another eternity passed and Jack began to wonder 'Where are the parents?' He hoped that they didn't abandon him, or this would turn into a short and miserable life.

He waited some more, took an involuntary nap, and was finally woken up when someone grabbed his small body roughly and hoisted him up into the air.

")%(#/"=$?%&/#)="?"($/%="/#=$/%?" said the person holding him in their arms.

Jack opened his eyes with some difficulty. All he could see was a silhouette of a person with long hair holding him and talking to him in what sounded like the same language that Bai Xiatuo spoke.

Another person came into his field of vision, and he was soon handed to them. In this way, they passed him around to six people, plus the original one that lifted him up first.

None of them smelled like roses, it was all Jack could do not to give into the instinct of crying. He might have let out a couple of manly growls though, that's all.

Soon enough he was handed to the first person that picked him up and she, Jack now felt certain that he had enough evidence to call it a she, stuffed something into his mouth.

'The first thing I have to figure out is what these people are saying. Then everything else will come from that. I have to make sure not to do anything that might make them suspicious of my origin. Who knows what these primitives would do." he thought as he suckled furiously.

In the next few days, all he only ate, slept, and filled his blanket. He didn't have any clothes, just a rough blanket in which they bundled him up. At first, everything itched and smelled, but soon he got used to it.

He couldn't think about complex things, every time he tried he'd get tired and doze off, so he focused his mind of simple things, like eat as much as he could, observe, and listen to everything that the people around him said.

Around 30-40 naps later, his new mother took him out of the hut for the first time. His trusty blanky tied him up like a bag on her back.

For the first time, he saw the outside world with his new pair of eyes. Mostly he saw his mother's back, but he caught a glimpse of things like the sky, the sun, grass, dirt, his relatives, and other wonderful and exciting new things like those.

From what Jack could figure out his mother mostly sat on a stump and fiddled with either food for them or food for animals. What made Jack interested in her work was that he couldn't recognize any of the species of the dead animals his mother took care of.

Some looked pretty normal, similar to chicken, only with scaly skin and teeth, while others looked like giant centipedes with snake heads, or rabbit-like creatures with ears longer than its body and a cat-like tail.

After a few more weeks of this, Jack finally figured out what the other people in his new household looked like. An older man that looked like he just stepped into his fifties, presumably his dad, a younger man and woman in their twenties, a boy in his teens, a girl of around ten or eleven, and an old bent hag that looked worse than he used to.

He wasn't sure how the other people were related to him yet, but at least he knew how they looked like now.

A few months passed like this. By this point, Jack's mother didn't carry him around like a backpack anymore but sat him down between her legs. Most of the time he would just lean on her stump and watch her work.

She sang nursery rhymes while she worked and Jack listened and observed. By now he could understand most of the words, but still had problems with pronouncing anything. He wasn't rushing to do so either, otherwise who knew what these people would do.

A couple of weeks ago he saw his grandmother beat a chicken-like creature to death with her cane because she suspected it of knowing the future. She explained that it would always wait for her when she went to feed the animals.

Another reason why he didn't want to learn how to speak the local langue too quickly was that he didn't want to forget how to speak English. Even now some words would escape him, and he would have to think long and hard to remember them. Most nights while everyone slept he held conversations with himself in his head just to have a practice partner.

More months passed and one day Jack's family dragged him out of bed while the moons still hung high up in the night sky. They marched him into a small shed that his father had previously forbidden Jack from entering.

Jack went with the flow and knelt when his mother prompted him in front of a row of wooden stakes arranged around the shed.

His father set a few sticks on fire and started mumbling something while he prostrated himself in front of the stakes for around 10 minutes.

When he finished his prostrations he turned towards Jack with a huge grin on his face and said "Congratulations on your birthday, my son. In the presence of our ancestors, I hereby name you Song Tanda."

"Bithday?" asked Jack in his stunted speech as he cocked his little head.

"Yes." said his mother with a beaming smile "On this day last year, with the help of your sisters, I brought you to this world."

His father gave him a serious look "Names are sacred, and only children that live through their first year of life deserve to have one." he continued in a more relaxed tone "And you, my son, earned your name."

'Song Tanda, huh? ' Jack thought. 'And I wondered why no one ever called me by my name.' he chuckled to himself 'Still, Song, a bit weird but it'll do I guess.'

His father picked him up and brought him back into the house where he sat him down at the head of the rickety table.

His mother took out a small clay bowl with cooked noodles in it and brought a strand over to his mouth with chopsticks. "Do not chew, swallow." she said sternly as she fed him more and more of the noodles.

Jack furrowed his brows, but complied and kept swallowing the thick noodle. After a couple of minutes of him trying not to gag and his family watching him expectantly, he finished the whole bowl.

When he did everyone broke out in cheers and started congratulating him while he looked at them with confusion in his eyes.

"If the noodle doesn't break you will have a long life, Tanda." Jack's mother said with a smile. She turned to his grandmother and said with a slight bow "Thank you, mother, for making such strong noodles."

She turned to Jack and said while pushing his back a little "Come on, Tanda, thank your grandmother."

Jack sighed inwardly, but still bent his waist and said "Tank ju gramoter." with as much sincerity as he could muster.

"Hmph. At least someone in this family knows how to respect their elders." said the grandmother in a huff, but with a glimmer of pleasure in the corner of her eye.

Jack saw his father roll his eyes as he turned towards him "Now that you have a proper name, it's time to know ours."

Jack's father got up from his seat and formally clasped right fist in his left palm as he faced Jack "My name is Song Fengtian."

His mother did the same and said "My name is Su Meimu."

His eldest brother followed "I am Song Aolie."

His second sister quickly did her salute "Song Fenlan."

His third brother yawned through it but still did the greeting "I'm Song Yasin."

And his fourth sister looked as serious as their father as she greeted him with "My name is Song Yuening."

When everyone finished they all turned their burning stares at their grandmother. She sighed, grasped her cane, propped herself up. and gave a halfhearted gesture while saying "Kong Ganrong."

Jack's parents seemed to relax visibly.

His mother picked him up from his chair and placed him down on the floor. She straightened back up as she looked at him "You're a true part of the family now, Tanda." She smiled and continued "Now, let's get to work." as everyone set out to do their daily tasks.

Jack toddled after them while thinking 'Wait, Tanda? Wasn't it Song? Strange people.'