Heritage 10/15/2003

I set in the darkness of my room with only the light of my writing machine to guide my hands. Its mid October and nearly the time in Latter Year we of the Valley would find the Burning in its waning stages and the approach of the Day of Redemption. This night is warm and the lights of the city resonate with the same majesty of the heavens.

I am reminded of a particularly remarkable event surrounding that day…

It was windy the night we traveled through the foothills to my aunts house which lay between our Village and the Village to the east. Most of the elders of the village and a handful of the other races thought the ground my aunt lived on to be hunted.

The reason for this is because when the Valley was first settled, the original race that lived in the Valley was obliterated by the other races. No one knows why they were pushed out of existence and it didn’t really seem to bother anyone. However, when the winds of Latter Year chilled and the leaves are orange and purple, the elders and priests of the Village would turn a worried eye to the east.

My father would do all he could to get the best speeds he could out of our old four piston steamer just to be inside my aunts home before the sun would dip below the rim of the Peaks. I remember how he would puff on his pipe harder than usual during those trips.

On this occasion we had gotten off to a late start and the sun was already well below the Peaks. The road was dark and it seemed that the tree’s were coming closer to the edge of the road, Their spiny fingers dipping toward the steamer as if they were grasping for us all, trying to pull us off the road and into the deepening darkness of the oncoming night.

My aunt lived in a swamp, it was said to be the last home of the original people of the Valley. It was the last stand for them as the races of the Valley pushed in on their homelands. In a final battle the original peoples were forced into the darkest heart of the swamp where they were put to death and their bodies claimed by the black waters.

It was said that the spirits of those people would rise in the darkness and lay claim to anyone or anything that was unfortunate enough to be out in the night. My aunt would tell me stories of the pets and livestock lost to her. How they would find the carcasses of the animals in their front yard, mangled and skinned, covered in a black tar from the heart of the swamp waters. It was enough to chill my blood.

She told me of the year they were nearly forced out of her home, how practically all of the animals had gotten out of her barn and in the morning they found a ghastly parade of mutilated bodies, heads severed and placed on the wrong bodies. The carcasses placed in positions that mimicked mans, impaled on spikes, dancing in strange circles.

The night rose above the Peaks as we pulled into her drive. My uncle was setting on the front porch with a long gun waiting for our approach. As we piled out of the steamer, he beckoned for us to hurry inside, where he promptly shut and bolted the thing solid.

The terror seemed to end there as the clamber of greetings hugs, kisses, cheek pinching began. Stories were then shared by the adults, as children played and tended the fire.

I saw that the nights supply was running low and headed for the door to fetch more, my hand was nearly on the bolt when my uncles hand fell solid on mine.

“No one goes near the door tonight.” He spoke softly.

“Their going to be out tonight, we must stay safe.”

I was frightened by that and he could see my fear. To coddle me, he told me of the night he first learned to play the guitar and took me to his music room, where he regaled me with a song and tried to show me how to play, it was a futile effort, but it worked to conciliate my fear.
Soon it was time for bed and all were ready for it. My aunt had a small home so there were few bedrooms, and most of my family sleep on the floor in the gathering room. It had been an eventful day and I was weary and ready for sleep.

My aunt was setting at her dining table puffing on a pipe of her own, which was quite a scandal at the time, and she bid me to set with her for a moment. I was always infatuated with her. She was a great beauty and her soul seemed so pure. Her voice was light and lilted and her eyes sparkled with the fire of life.

“You know that the women of the family have the gift of sight, right?” she asked.

“Yes.” I answered.

“You know that the sight lets us see the dead, and sometime, like your grand mamma, even speak to them.”

“Yes.” I replied, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

“I just want you to know, that sometimes the power, just a little, gets given to very special men. Men like your daddy and you. Whatever happens, don’t be afraid, the dead can’t do anything you don’t want them to.”

She patted me on the head and kissed my cheek, and sent me to bed. My bed was nothing more than a pillow and a blanket on the floor of the gathering room and as I lay on the floor mulling over her words, I fell into a rather reluctant sleep.

The pounding of thunder rumbled camphorating in the distance. The steady thumping rhythm eased the corners of my consciousness as I slumbered softly under my blanket.

I lay in sudden awareness that I was not asleep. There was no thunder in the air that night, what I was hearing was the sound of something pounding on something else, the steady beating of some instrument upon metal.

I opened my eyes to see that my father and my uncle were setting by a window, both armed with long guns. They didn’t look out the window, they sat there listening, waiting.

I pulled the blanket down and my uncle flashed a hand to me. He wanted me to lay still, there was something out there. I lay perfectly still, listening as the pounding continued.

I heard the wind blowing in gusts, the sounds of the leaves rustling as they do in the wind and that pounding. I heard, what sounded to be footfalls in the leaves closest to the house, as though someone were out walking around the house. This could not be! No one would be foolish enough to walk bout on this night! Who could it have been? If the spirits of the original people were out, they would not survive the night.

In the very distant edges of my ability to hear, I heard the sound of a barking dog, it was angry and protective. Then with a wail I had never heard before, it was silent.

The glow of my fathers pipe flared for an unusual length of time, then settled. I knew I was not alone in this, he had heard it also and it frightened him.

The sound of footsteps surrounding the house grew louder, the pounding grew in volume and the others began to wake. My cousins led my sisters into the gathering room, and my aunt and mother came, leading my brothers. They sat near the fireplace as my aunt stared at me.

I lay on the floor, under my blanket watching her. She looked at me as if she were instructing me, than closed her eyes. I did the same. The sounds of the happenings outside began to subside and I could hear whispering growing in my head.

The voices were tiny little things in a language I could not understand and I felt the hair on the back of my neck begin to stand. I was in a whirlpool of sensation. I did not fall down into it, but it rose up to me.

A swirling pool of emotion and perception that washed away the pounding and cavorting that was the focus of my entire family. There was something in this tide that wanted to be known. The focal point of the maelstrom, the single guiding fulcrum that clawed its way out of the eye of the storm pulled itself towards my mind and I was locked into it.

Slowly I saw face. Bits of amber and electric blue congealed in the swirling orange and brown tornado of confusion in my psyche. It was an older man, his face was chiseled and sharp. His eyes were hidden under a heavy low brow and where there should have been a nose, was flat and featureless. His lipless mouth was framed by deep lines of age but his strong chin lent an ominous feature about him.

His hair was feathers, layered in plumes of shimmering cobalt and turquoise which stood up like wings against the sides of his face. This face grew and grew and as he grew I could begin to make out words. Scattered at first, then phrases, and as it began to overcome my senses, I understood what it was trying to do and I gave my will to it

I was standing in a small clearing in the swamp, by a pool of dark, still water. The light was brilliant, almost as though I was watching the world through a lens, everything was grey and blue and small snow flakes fell.

It was the snows of Latter Year in the swamp and there were a handful of these strange creatures walking about tents, tending to chores, cooking cleaning, and various concerns of the day.

I looked up to see the strange man standing beside me looking out on his people as I did. Then I felt something behind me. I turned to find a giant standing in the tree’s flanked by Elvin archers and a handful of men behind them.

I turned to my left to see that the trees were filled with black birds laden with leprechauns and the other smaller races of the Valley. Gollum’s and Wortnot’s on dire wolves poised for something. An attack! I tried to say something, tried to warn them, but the man put his hand on my shoulder and I was silent, forced to watch the events unfold.

The races of the Valley fell upon these strange creatures. Arrows and rocks rained down on the encampment. Dire wolves threw themselves at the children of the swamp, tearing them apart.

Five of the creatures stood silent on a circle, the wind took up and an amber glow filled the world. Wortnot’s and leprechauns turned to ash as giants became stone.

The elves reeled from the energy as the Gollum’s turned away. It was man who seemed unaffected by this and man who exacted a terrible retaliation n the swamp men.

As dire wolves tore into the remnants of the settlement, man fell on them like a plague. What the wolves didn’t finish, man did. Fire blazed as people ran about. Humans chasing the fleeing swamp dwellers cutting them down.

A child of the swamp, looking no more than my age ran towards me, only to be dropped by a hatchet hurled by a man. The wolves claimed the body that lay tattered and broken by my feet.

I clung to the man at my side, closing my eyes to the apocalypse that unfolded before me. His hands were cold and motionless. I looked up to see that he had taken an arrow to the head which pinned him to a tree and his head had been severed by a large knife

I woke from my dream screaming the language of the swamp people. My aunt was at my side holding me tight. As the world slowly stopped its flailing about and my head and vision cleared, I saw my father and elder sister were setting with her. They all had the same look of desperation and joy in their eyes.

They knew what I knew, they saw what I had seen. I was a part of something bigger than the world I had known. And it was more than I could handle. My eyes closed again and would not open until the sun was warming the day.

I walked outside to see that the steamer had been beaten brutally by something unnatural. There were gouges and holes in the thing, dents and tears that could only have been made by primitive weapons. And yet there were no footprints anywhere near the steamer.

I walked back inside and saw my aunt setting at her dining table staring at me. She smiled as I looked at her, we never spoke of what had happened only hours before.

I wandered into the back of the house and saw my uncle rummaging through a box filled with old trinkets. He saw me and motioned me in. I marveled at the old toys and cards of his youth when he held out a small bundle of lambskin to me.

“Do with this what you will, you earned it.”

I opened the bundle and found wrapped inside, a large knife. It was the knife in my dream, the one that had severed the head of my swamp man!

“How?” I asked.

“It belonged to my grandfather’s father. He was there that day, he helped in killing them off.”

I ran from the house and into the swamp. I ran as fast as I could as far as I could. My revulsion fueled my rage which in turn fueled my need to run. And I kept on running.

When I came to a stop, I was amazed to see that I had stopped in the same place I had dreamed. The same still pool of water lay before me, black and motionless. There was no sound, no bird, no wind, nothing save a gaunt quiet that lay over everything.

I looked up over my shoulder and saw a gouge in a tree, the tree that had once been the sight of my swamp mans demise. My anger rose at the memory of the slaughter that had been committed here. I howled in rage and frustration, the words of the elders pounded in my ears “Freedom and equality for all”.

Before I knew it, before I could stop myself, I flung the knife into the pool which took it without so much as a ripple. I fell to my knees and vomited. This was the first of many secrets of the Valley I could not live with.

The hypocrisy of the races boiled in me and soured them to me. I could not stand knowing that the world which cradled me was built on the genocide of others. As age set in, I have come to realize that genocide is the way of the world. One must push aside those who do not fit in, to make way for the one race that must fit in. and yet on dark nights, when the wind chills the air, the hair on the back of my neck stands and I am reminded of my heritage.

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June 15, 2018

Captivating.

June 15, 2018

very kind thank you.