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Once upon a time, in the far away village of Gomi, Georgia, lived the one and only Shishveli Kali. Some recounts describe Shishveli Kali as a violent monster, others as a reclusive hermit, and yet others claim that she is simply an adamant nudist crying out for a friend in an oppressive society. Only one thing is certain: Shishveli Kali absolutely never wears clothes.
The story begins like this. Long ago, a teenage girl by the name of Nino proudly walked the streets of Gomi. She lived in a large house with her single mother and three older brothers. Her mother’s health was failing and she relied heavily on a cane to shuffle her hunched body from one room to another, so Nino’s brothers assumed responsibility for her.
Her sleek blonde hair and shining blue eyes would turn every head that she passed. An entourage of local men followed her from a distance, mouths agape as they competed for a chance to see this gorgeous goddess’s face glowing in the sunlight. Even men from nearby villages would make the trek on foot or horseback to catch a glimpse of her legendary beauty. This all happened at a time in history when bridenapping was still rampant, and every man who set eyes on her yearned to kidnap Nino and make her their wife. Nobody dared step too close, though, for they knew one of her brothers was always watching.
Nino lived an innocent and sheltered life and spent a large portion of her time reading in the confines of her bedroom. She was very clever and had great ambitions to study and travel the world when she was older. Finally, the time came for her to leave for university. She had all of her bags packed and was excitedly reading about the theoretical physics program that she was about to begin when her brothers stormed into her room. They slammed the door shut and looked at her grimly. “You’re staying,” one stated aggressively. “It’s for your own good,” a second brother added, and they turned around and disappeared just as fast as they had come. Nino heard the click of the door locking behind them. She was trapped.
At that moment, a metamorphosis began. In a whirlwind of helplessness, confusion, frustration, and rage, Shishveli Kali was evolving. The next ten years passed without word or sight of Nino. Rumors flooded the village, but they were all based on speculation. Some believed she died. Some believed she had been sent to Moscow to study in the USSR’s most highly acclaimed university. Others believed she had been bridenapped by Jesus Christ himself. Her brothers continued their daily lives around the village, greeting their neighbors regularly, but at the slightest hint of Nino, the looks on their faces ensured that nobody enquired further.
Forced to spend her days doing domestic chores, the creature that is Shishveli Kali was breeding. Filled with resentment towards her brothers and overcome with a burning curiosity about the world, Nino was becoming rebellious. Over time, she devised a way to silently climb down from her third story window in the dead of night. Having spent the last ten years collecting bits of plastic and styrofoam that the wind blew into her window, she had finally filled the walls around her bedroom with an almost perfectly soundproof insulation. Her village had recently gained access to very cheap plastic products but the people didn’t yet have the mentality or waste management system to properly dispose of it, which turned out to her advantage. She even went as far as to break off one of the downstairs window panes and blame it on neighborhood kids, so that her brothers would buy a new window. When nobody was home, she switched the new hinges with the old ones from her bedroom so that her window wouldn’t creak when opening.
One night, she made a long rope with all of the clothes she owned, tossed it out the window, and climbed down. Freedom! She relished the sensation of cold wind on her naked body for the first time in ten years. Quickly, she scrambled back up the clothing rope in fear that her brothers would awaken. Soon, this became a nightly ritual, and Nino was become more and more brave with her microadventures. After a particularly aggravating day of polishing her brothers’ shoe collection, she mustered up the courage to venture further away from home. Soon, she found herself going further and further every day; first down to the river, then to the neighbors yard to pick their hazelnuts, and eventually all the way to the neighbors’ back patio. She was pushing her luck.
Aching to remember what “normal” people did and what they talked about, Nino would sit outside of her neighbors’ bedroom at night and listen in on their conversations. She became curious about what they ate, and found a way into the kitchen. The giant pot of soup on the stove was too intriguing to ignore. Worried about the cupboard making noise if she reached for a bowl, she soon found herself excitedly lapping up the soup directly out of the nearly overflowing pot. All of the sudden the floorboards above her creaked. Shit! Somebody was coming! She quickly scanned the room for a hiding place, but in a panic knocked over the entire pot of soup as she scurried towards the fireplace. BANG! It crashed to the ground, contents gushing across the floor like a hot sticky river. She threw the front door open and disappeared into the darkness, a large figure holding a hatchet following close behind. The man’s wife watched in terror as her husband chased a naked woman across the back yard, her unrecognizable now-gray semi-dreaded hair flopping behind her as she ran. When the man still hadn’t returned by daybreak, the wife began to worry, and called on the local villagers to help search for him.
Three kilometers upstream, the search party encountered a pack of stray dogs making a ruckus. The leader of the party shot his rifle into the air to scare the dogs off, and, to their disbelief, there lay the man’s body, so mangled that nobody could tell what was a hatchet wound and what was a dog bite. The legend of Shishveli Kali was born.
Ever since, Shishveli Kali has remained as evasive as bigfoot. Sightings are reported from time to time, but none have been confirmed. Occasionally, a bare footprint or naked butt-print appears outside of one of Nino’s neighbor’s homes at night, but even in video footage they seem to appear out of nowhere. To this day, the villagers of Gomi always make sure to leave their kitchen doors open at night with a full pot of soup on the stove, but don’t dare to get out of bed when they hear a noise. Legend has it that those who feed the Shishveli Kali and let her eat in peace will be rewarded with her eternal protection, but those who disturb her will face a fate worse than death.
