The Great Fire

Their bare feet thudded on the warm grass. They reached the edge of the forest and submerged into it. Now, if they continued to run, their feet would make loud cracks as they split the twigs so they crept slowly, arms outstretched, eyes flickering from tree to tree, scarcely breathing, knees bent. There were four of them; men; skin of glistening gold and long black hair. The one most deft at this necessary skill of silence wore a brown and gray bearskin, the others’ chests naked. He carried the sharpest spear, the product of hours of fierce uninterrupted devotion to his family and his nation. The others’ spears were dull in comparison, for they had not yet had much experience with the exhilarating, satisfying penetration of the weapon on the hunt.

They were about twenty meters inside when the breaking of a stick on the ground shattered the near-silence. All heads turned quickly to the direction where the sound had come from. The face of the hunter who was clad in the brown and gray bearskin drooped. His family was hungry and there wouldn’t be any food on the fire if he didn’t find some game by the time the Sun set. A mere rabbit would surely not be sufficient. The Sun was going to return to under the ground soon; perhaps in just a few hours. If he was to wear his hunting prize, he would have to act like it.

“Just a rabbit,” one of the others said under his breath. He kicked the muddy grass and tossed his black hair, frustrated. He sat down on a wide fallen tree, picking up a stick and breaking it in half. “Just a rabbit.” He dropped the sticks and stood. The other three hunters were moving on.

Pon, the hunter with the bearskin, whispered angrily, “It’s yours, Eril, if you want it. Midnight snack? Would you be even madder if another hunter of another nation had found that rabbit and killed it?” He stopped walking and leaned against the tree, waiting for him to catch up. Eril avoided Pon’s stare and grumbled something inaudible. Pon looked around him at the diversity of the forest.

The trees were spaced out and ancient, their leaves a myriad of unreplicable colors, strewn across the ground. The trees had withstood hundreds of bleak winters and their prize was a climb to the Sun reincarnate. Shrubbery was scarce and fruitful, some carrying red energy berries that had kept Pon awake for three sunsets once. Sometimes a hunter would see a fox or a bear, or perhaps a beaver down by the river, but that was only sometimes and a very narrow, uncomfortable sometimes. If you came upon one and if you knew what to do with it, you’d have a trophy to boast about and some strange, different food on the table, different from the ordinary tough deer, or salty fish from the river.

Some people, of Pon’s nation, said deliriously that there were stranger animals out there, in the forest, beyond the forest, beyond the waters and beyond the sky. These heretics, foolish enough to speak out against the elders and their God, were thrown off of the cliff at the gorge, their bodies and their minds fated to be forgotten and swept away by the water at its bottom. Others were persecuted and buried in the dirt for the maggots and worms and other ugly, malicious insects to feast on. The latter was most hated by Pon’s nation. How could you stand to know that you would be buried in the infected, tainted dirt, the ground we walk on, to know your lifeless eyes will forever stare at the calloused feet of your relatives? Pon shuddered at the thought.

He turned to Eril. Eril had sat back on the log and was staring at the ground. The other two, Calod and Mavelon, were leaning against trees, watching Pon intently. Pon had a faint aching urge to ask them why they were staring at him when he realized he would probably be characterized by them as a brutally, pride-filled balloon. “Well, let’s go,” he said finally, and he resumed the hike, eyes shooting left and right for any signs of his peers at his side. They followed obediently, quartering the leaves and sticks, he had halved but moments before.

He shot another glance at Eril. As unreliable, irritable and complaining as he was, he was not a bad person. Eril had already caught some fish in the river that day, so he had come with Pon even though his family already had food on their table. The others, Calod and Mavelon, were Eril’s younger brothers. They were respectable people.

Out of the corner of his eye Pon saw a quick but stable movement. Slowly turning, he saw that it was not a relieving deer or a crow taking off, not a miniscule rabbit and not another painted leaf falling to the painted and inverted ground. He saw men.

He vaguely remembered one of the elders saying to stay away from anybody not of their own nation. These men (were they only men?) had ghastly, pale skin and one of them had yellow hair: certainly not of Pon’s nation. Yellow hair! There were three of them, two having mustaches, the yellow haired one lacking facial hair. They wore bright red and blue furs and Pon wondered with his limited imagination what animal that skin could have came from. Thick brown leather covered their feet and they carried strange, hollow-looking spears. He turned to see how Eril and the others were coping with this rendezvous but they were gone; probably halfway home already. One of the strange looking men said something but it was complete gibberish and the man raised his spear, tucking it under his arm. Now the man said something fiercely, perhaps with feelings of anger, delight, disgust, maybe? That tone was a stained glass window. Pon guessed that this man wanted him not to move and stay put. He wondered what would have happened if he had stayed put—definitely not dying a moving, honored death.

He turned around and ran out of the forest, hearing loud, otherworldly cracks and frustrated shrieks and yells from behind him. Gasping, he reached the edge of the forest and ran with his draining energy back home. The men were not following him, he hoped, because what could happen if they found our houses, our elders, our nation? Their magic (the loud blasts) was different than Pon had ever seen before. Different and scarier.

As he began to reach his nation’s city, he wondered what had actually happened. Could this sweat he wore have been a direct descendant of a restricted imagination whose squeezed bubbles popped every now and then? He realized that the strange men had not made any Calod on him, no sign for him at night to calm his nerves when nightmares (could they be good dreams?) approached him. There was no evidence that they had ever entered Pon’s ears and eyes. No evidence. But then a dawning realization crept into his mind, scolding himself for not discovering the obvious possibility: the others, Eril, Calod and Mavelon! He would go to them tonight and ask them what their eyes and ears had captured.

But he remembered that he could not talk to them tonight. The ceremony was tonight, the one for his cousin Iorale, who had passed on only a few sunsets ago. Iorale had been ill for a while, but he still wore his nation’s colors every day in bed and while out hunting. Their nation’s colors, red and yellow, were painted on the forehead every day after they had bathed in the creek and displayed in combat, commerce or hunting. Iorale had worn his colors even while the obliterated hand of death clawed its way to his weak throat. Looking down at his nation’s city from a high hill, it looked as if he was way above and looking down on it, a bird. It was like a drawing the Artists might have completed, or the subject of one of their songs. He touched his face paint and smeared it on the hard part of his ear. He squinted, the Sun almost touching the ground, reflecting off of the grass and the city and the sky to invert the heavens and hail hot light upon his eyes.

The city was arranged in a makeshift circle. In the vertex was a glowing fire, logs serving as benches situated around it. This was the place where ceremonies took place, and where the elders met with their people to tell them of a new convenient law their God had bestowed upon them.

Around this were the houses, perhaps five of them, each housing two or three families, and around them were a barracks, a tall watch tower and an open area where the children played, food was cooked and the families ate, gazing up at the disappearing Sun.

Pon ran down the hill and calmly walked through the open area to his house. Nobody was inside; the ceremony had probably just begun to be set up, which, of course, called for the necessity for the whole community’s hands, and in the Artists’ case, eyes and ears.

He heard and smelled the ceremony before he saw it. Two loud drum beats thundered across the city, echoing and mixing with the cool air. They shoved the singer’s mysteriously sweet and sorrowful voice to the bottom of his ears. There were voices, some loud and frantic; others excited; others sad and painful. He heard the light pitter-patter of children’s feet. A strange mixture of scents, some strong and pungent, some weak, neat and exotic touched his nose. He smelled spicy incense and strong body odor. He smelled smoke and fire, meats juicing and simmering. He smelled sorrow and relief, pain and rejoicing, sadness and soft tension.

But a loud smell overpowered the others, penetrating quietly, coloring everything like black charcoal against a warm, safe white rock. This smell was the black decay of his cousin Iorale which some had tried to drowned out by the incense and the fiery meats, but the odor of death hung around the city, stopping just at the city’s limits, tying Pon’s mind to the fact that Iorale was dead and decaying. This deadness, this grand loveliness that was once just his cousin, would be devoured by Pon and all of the other close relatives of Iorale’s in a magnificent, loving, feast.

Pon sat down on a log next to the fire, gazing around at the marvels that occurred to bring together the strangest aspect and create a pure feeling that you scarcely witness. Over the fire, two men and one woman had taken out Iorale’s organs, chopped them into smaller, ingestible pieces, and were roasting them on long, sizzling sticks. He looked away, and to his left beyond the other sitting logs were dancers, all woman, wearing clothing and singing with sorrow and pain in their voices. One of them was Iorale’s sister Kristen, who danced with the most emotion. To his right were the five elders, huddled in a small circle, eyes closed, lips moving. There were many people sitting on the logs, all either watching the fire with tired awe or gazing at the beautiful dancers. Two men sitting not too far away were pounding their animal skin and wood drums, eyes also closed.

His stomach murmured with hasty neglect, and he realized that his cousin was all that he and his family would eat that night. He shivered at the thought and tightened his bearskin as his mother sat down beside him with weary black bags flanking wide eyes.

In the same exact instant, the Sun completely retreated to an otherworldly slumber, the drums stopped beating and voices stopped their quick murmur. He felt somebody sit down on his other side, probably Kristen. The death smell grew more pungent as he no longer had anything else to focus his senses on. The great fire crackled and sputtered as it grabbed up, up to the sky for precious air, casting dim light on all in its wake; weakly kissing his ears.

The deep voice of the eldest and wisest elder cut through the air and pushed the other sounds to the back of his head. “Iorale.” This short word, as meaningless and uninteresting as it might seem to an outsider, signaled the starting of the ceremony. His mother to his right began to weep softly. Pon closed his eyes. A vivid memory clouded his thoughts of how he and Iorale had gone hunting together, and that was just a few sunsets ago. Just enough sunsets, though.

After waiting a few minutes for the name and its baggage memories to sink in, another elder spoke. Her voice was much shriller. “A loyal member to his nation. He passed on not only in pain and regret, but peacefully and smiling. His nation’s colors were stained on his deathbed.” His mother let out another choked sob.

Pon opened his eyes as the elders from behind him quieted and the drummers started to beat again. Kristen got up from beside him and started dancing around the fire, tears forming rivers on her cheeks. Pon wiped his own eyes, putting an arm around his mother, who cried even louder.

The music went on with its hot tranquility and its veneer of ceremonial circumstance. Pon’s mind filled with heartfelt oxymorons: disturbed peace, sad happiness, quiet pandemonium. This intermission gave Pon and his mother a break from their moving separate remembrances of their dead relative.

Pon looked around at the faces of the other onlookers. He saw the same mixture of feelings on Iorale’s other relatives: the drooping faces, wide eyes and raised eyebrows. The others watched intently, perhaps not with as much emotion but with a pang in their hearts as they watched Kristen dance. The ones closest to Pon fiddled, some tapping their feet or patting their fingers in sync with the drums, others crossing and uncrossing their legs and hands, playing with their hair, or scratching. Everyone not given permission by an elder could do nothing else; no talking, no getting up, no changing seats.

By the time the drums had stopped beating and Kristen had stopped dancing, night had completely overcome day. The air was no longer cool air, it was cool night air, and there is a very tangible difference. The fire consumed this night air and subtly contrasted with the darkness and the sky, like the Sun or lost souls reaching for the heavens. Its flickering echoes lit up the people’s faces, contorting them into strange, pleasant daydreams.

Kristen sat back down next to him again, her eyes wide. For a moment everyone’s heart felt a mad need of transition to a new thing; it was as if they were on the edge of a cliff and were about to fall off, if something else didn’t pull them back in time.

An elder spoke again, finally. “By dawn, Iorale’s soul will retreat back into the sky, or perhaps to the underground where the Sun hibernates. By dawn his body will enter the bodies that he loves, to forever live on in them and their ancestors. Think not of this as brutality,” she said, her old voice ringing loud in Pon’s mind. “But think of this as letting this dear young man live forever within you. He will become a part of you, a very special part. By dawn, a part of you will become him.”

While the elder spoke, three people picked up trays of steaming Iorale and walked to each of Iorale’s close relatives, who picked up a piece of meat, closed their eyes and gingerly placed it inside their mouths. Pon looked at his piece and saw the dry veins and the dead muscle and a tear slipped down his cheek. He closed his eyes and put the small chunk into his mouth and chewed. It was tough and dry and flavorless.

The city was silent except for the amplified chewing in his mouth. Even his mother had stopped crying. He finally swallowed and opened his eyes. The many people there stared at the fire with wide eyes, some probably remembering when one of their relatives had died.

Pon looked down at the palm of his hand, wondering if some of its wrinkles had appeared only with the consummation of his cousin. Maybe the flesh of his hand or his leg or his hair or his stomach had once been the flesh of Iorale. But then Iorale’s flesh would be made up of other’s, generations and generations ago, each contributing a small piece of alien tissue to their offspring; a purified blend of many, many different people. That hand, lying so small on his bare leg, was actually an amalgam of millions of genetic, ceremonial generations. Some flesh of that hand would someday be a part of his sons and his grandsons and their sons and grandsons. This, Pon thought, is what these ceremonies are about. They are about relatives and friends and their relatives and friends living on in you and your relatives and friends. You will live forever. Forever. Imagine.

He smiled at the fire as the drums began to drum again. He felt a divine ecstasy rise in his stomach and it escaped his lips in a low moan. He watched as Iorale shot up from his body and his fire and into the clean air. Pon inhaled. He was full.

* * *

A mile away, across the river, a smaller fire glowed. It was held captive inside a small lantern hanging from a dirty metal hook jutting out from the rough, new wall. James stared at it, reclining in his wooden chair at his wooden desk, his left hand holding a dried pen in his lap. His right hand propped his head up as a ghastly moth flapped against the lantern like a tortured soul just outside heaven. Three blank pieces of parchment sat untouched next to a small bowl of black ink on the desk. Next to the bottle of ink was a halfway drank bottle of brown liquid, which had stained his lips but moment before. When a chilly breeze drifted through the window and awakened short hairs on the back of his neck, James pulled his blue and white coat closer to his body and closed his eyes. He let his pen clatter to the floor as he waited for sleep to soothe his brain.

The wind caressed his hair, coaxing and relaxing him. A knock on the door interrupted this and he hastily got up, picked up the pen, and went to the door. Howard West stood there, a stone in the way of a sudden stream of cold air flooding his cabin. Howard wore a thick white shirt with a ruffled collar and long trousers. Even he shivered as he spoke, his clashing teeth producing a chopped speech that was not totally incoherent. “James? I have been sent by the Governor to share some information he claims valuable.” He reached into a pocket in his trousers and produced a square piece of parchment that had thickly been folded twice.

“Does the Governor wish that I send an answer immediately?” James asked, unfolding the message, his eyes flickering back and forth between the paper and Howard West.

“It is as he pleases. The Governor himself concluded that the matter enclosed in the envelope is relatively urgent.’

James sighed, refolded the parchment, and invited Howard inside. Near his desk was a crudely made table surrounded by three chairs, on of which James sat down in. “Rather brisk, today, no doubt?” James said, leaning back and unfolding the parchment again. He looked into Howard’s eyes, wondering if they had peeked into what had not been addressed to him.

“Alas, sir, I must admit that I am not in the position for casual conversation. ‘Tis the—”

“Governer’s wishes,” James finished, and dropped his eyes. Gesturing to a bucket on the opposite side of the room, he said, “Would you like some water? I could imagine that your journey in this weather might have stolen moisture from your tongue.”

“No, sir.”

“Then let’s get started, shall we? Well, to start, tell him I send his wife my best wishes. Ah, Howard, has the Governor shared any information on that matter with you?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, then, let us move on to more pressing matters,” James said. He gestured now to the desk and chair. “Why don’t you sit? You are literate, are you?” He squinted questioningly.

Howard West moved across the room to the chair, picking up the dried pen and wetting it again. A look of disgust spread across his face, eyebrows knitting and eyes wide. “Yes, sir. I attended a Writing College in Leeds.”

“How splendid. Well, then, to start—” James paused as he listened to Howard’s hissing words as they bled onto the paper. “—I suppose you have written ‘Dear Governor.’ That, in fact, is quite superior.” James raised his lower lip and his eyebrows, impressed. A long silence ensued in which James leaned on the table, his right hand holding his head in a palm full of blonde hair, his eyes staring at the nothingness beyond the floor. Howard West slowly turned his gaze from the parchment to James.

“Sir?”

“Right. Ah, right, Howard, has the Governor confided with you any information concerning the situation?”

“I do hope won’t get the wrong impression—I was not eavesdropping!” Howard fervently started, now avoiding James’s gaze. “But I have overheard the Governor’s and his wife’s conversation quite clearly; you see he had called for me today and apparently I came too quickly.”

“I’m sure you did!” James said, smiling. “Of course—this is the first time this has occurred.”

“Yes, of course,” Howard said, seeming to suppress a chuckle. “So the Governor hadn’t expected me so fast, and he was still sitting in his parlor with his wife. They were speaking of—they were speaking of the matter enclosed in the message.” After this reply, Howard slumped his shoulders and frowned, recognizing his folly. James brought his left hand to his mouth, smiling. “Terribly sorry, sir,” Howard said in a scarce whisper.

“That’s quite all right. Continue, will you?”

“Yes, well,” Howard sniffed, looking at the two words on the parchment. “He said that the King had given the Governor permission to invade them, or I believe the term he used was ‘barbarians.’ ” He wiped his nose. “The Governor said that the militia from Massachusetts would give aid.

“I see. Is that all?”

Howard nodded.

“Back to the matter of my message to him—write that I, James Nicket, will fight against the barbarians, as he so intelligently put it.” James, suddenly disgusted, folded his hands in his lap as he watched Howard write. “As a matter of opinion—don’t write this—I do believe they should be decimated. If I may ask, I wonder what your opinion on it is, Mr. West.”

“Oh, sir—”

“Never mind.” James shook his head, closing his eyes once more. He paused, and then opened them again.

“What shall I write, sir?’

James took out the parchment Howard had delivered and reread. “I suggest that the invasion should commence early April. There are no doubts at all that these barbarians and their barbaric ways will not be extinguished.”

“Is that all?” Howard asked, looking up, his face still a bit flushed. “The Governor thinks quite highly of you, I’m afraid.”

“Yes,” James said quietly, staring at the floor. Suddenly he stood and said, “Well then, I thank you for your services. You are dismissed.”

“The pleasure is entirely mine,” Howard said, also standing. “Good bye.” He let himself out, another burst of cold air making the room uncomfortable again.

James tried to relax again, to let sleep infect him again once more, but immediately he realized that attempting to sleep in a crudely made wooden chair would be a sorrowful act. He stood, gave a glance to the brown bottle on the desk and drowsily clambered to his bed in the corner of the room. He slumped onto it, not caring to lift the sheets or to change into his nightclothes.

Finally, he slept and dreamt of the savage barbarians he had met earlier that day. He dreamt that they all went up in flames, a great fire that grilled the skies and licked the moon. He woke once, in the middle of the night; he thought he had heard distant drumming and music somewhere far off. But quickly he sank back to sleep.