Now we’ve met Ake briefly before when
interviewing Omo, but never had the opportunity to sit down and talk to her one
on one, particularly as in the previous session we were more concerned with containing
her husband and stopping our employees from exploding out of every available
exit like exasperated pellets from a malfunctioning shotgun.
We were grateful then
that she didn’t bring Omo along to this meeting, seeing as we are already
short-staffed and the sight of terrified workers fleeing the studio is proving
rather detrimental to our recruitment campaign.
Not nearly as threatening in looks as
her partner, Ake Odomko is still a rare sight to behold. Standing 5ft 11in tall
and at 27 years old, she is a slim but shapely woman with excellent posture, a graceful poise and wisdom
beyond her years.
Knowing her to be
a snake anthropomorph (related to the Pope’s pit viper) and the fact she is partner to the overly-aggressive Omo,
we had expected she would be a hard and brash woman, possibly with a short
temper. Instead Ake proves to be very placid, relaxed and genuinely in simpatico with her
surroundings. Her warm and gentle personality came
as a welcome change to the many fire and brimstone, moody teenage, psychopathic,
serial killing non-sequitur individuals we
interviewed in 2012 (Cursed Luk!).
Ake certainly has an aura of
tranquillity and speaks in a surprisingly deep and rounded voice. She is beyond
patient, a good listener and a calm mediator, truly the yin to Omo’s yang. A
guru to her beliefs, she practices and teaches meditation and healing.
Ake
likes to speak at length of the benefits of inner harmony and balance; she
preaches that the attainment of a sound body, mind and soul should be the
pinnacle goal of all living things. She tells us that the triad of body, mind
and soul should function as equal parts of the whole self, and in turn the
whole self should function as an equal part to nature and the surrounding world,
or as she serenely clangs, ‘all is one and one is all, many pieces and none at
all.’
Her species are primarily nocturnal
but in lieu of her love for Omo and teaching she often switches her waking
hours to suit the situation; or as she likes to put it, ‘as nature asks Ake
will answer.’ We guess her statement is meant to be prolific but can’t help childishly
tittering at the fact it sounds more like she has an incontinence problem.
Thankfully she smiles and brushes off our amusement.
Infuriatingly Ake always speak in third
person. Whether this is an ophidian trait or something to do with being a
priestess is unclear. Either way it’s rather grating to be presented with a convoluted
string of speech that forces us to sit and untangle it before we have a clue
what she is on about.
For example when asked why she never references herself
in first person her response is, ‘Ake only
uses the name she was given. It is not Ake’s place to take personal possession,
even in identity it is improper for Ake to stake claim in selfish words such as
I or mine because Ake is but one part of a greater whole in which there
is no singular me, only us, as all living
things are one and the same, as we are one and the same.’
We’ll give you a minute to read that
back three of four times before you presumably conclude that Ake sounds like a
stark-raving hippy that ingested too many fairy rings in an attempt to reach enlightenment.
This likely doesn’t sit well with fellow
followers of Evyn as Ake is a devout believer of his teachings second only to
her own religion. Although she is less the peace and love kind of free-spirit
you might imagine and more of a centred warrior-priestess. She can certainly handle
herself in combat and appears to have no problem in keeping bestial Omo in
check.
We suppose if he gets too out of hand she can always pump him full of neurotoxic
venom, however it is more Ake’s style to induce calm in her enemies and provide
healing should they need it. She considers physical violence as rarely
necessary but carries a 6ft maple staff which is bound in vines and crowned by a
large shard of pink Danburite for just such occasions. (We like to think she secretly
also carries it because it gives off that bohemian-chic meets mysterious-priestess-of-the-wild
kind of vibe - you know the one.)
In conclusion, we admit we can imagine
sitting and meditating around Ake’s leafy shrine with a nice cup of jasmine
tea, the kind of reclusive holiday one goes on to feel better about the fact that
they actually couldn’t care less about nature. Yet, in all honesty, as pleasant
as Ake is, our employees concur that it wouldn’t take long for her halcyon
attitude to get on their nerves and that’s only if she refrained from speaking
as we are already sick of hearing her name every time she opens her mouth.
