And so it was ...

12/25/08

And so it was ..


that the elders, still dripping acrid sweat, made their way out of the Amber Canyon. Dry eyes and bleary minds, the taste in their mouths made them nauseous which many stopped to purge - a belated conscious eviction. Their nails tore from their beds and arms strained from their own weight as they clambered to the walls of the canyon. Time in the canyon was like a superficial conversation, like a day in front of the television, like morphine, like that moment of sleep when the body is heavy and the mind is soft. Slowly, their tiny frames, bloated from toxicity, groaned and screamed from the movement as if they might break.


But when their faces emerged and touched true sunlight, the air was light and sweet.


And so it was ...


that they made their way to the village border. Slowly at first, but with each step the toxins drained from their blood, their skin, their lungs. The numbess of Amber dripped away and evaporated like sweat, their muscles nourished by the solar energy and prana in the dry air.


They made their way to where they had heard she lay and they didnt find her there. She found them.


She looked somewhat like them - but there was difference, wrong-ness, damage. Her frame was wirey and skin dry, hair, long dark and knotted. She wore a a gun holster around her shoulders and a knife on her thigh. Her boots were warn and dusty - seen a few k's, kick a few arses. And, most perculiarly, something gleamed in her eye foreign to them. Distrust. Rage.


She saw them first, from behind a boulder. Such a rounded mass had once had been considered a powerful gateway, a conduate to the energies of the universe... but she had forgotten the old time and she felt that she had only ever seen it, and others like it, as a boulder.


She watched them for a moment. They seemed strangely familiar. They must have done, otherwise she would have shot them dead in an instant. Unfamiliar things were dangerous, left the borders vulnerable to disorder, disease.


Standing directly in their path, she stood in plain sight by the full light of day. The small band of newcomers spent some time examining her, and likewise. Both were familiar to the other and by dusk they were sharing a silent campfire. Sherrif (as this is what she considered herself) told the women-girls of the state of the village since the death of the Druid and the discent of the village's women into the Amber Canyon.


"The boundaries had began to crumble and fall, while in other parts it had thickened and stretched itself almost to the sky. Dark beings were welcomed into the village grounds and set up camp, sometimes for weeks, and made fire, tore out new saplings and brought their empty stories of hope from the outside - but they never came to anything. They came, took what they wanted and left mess before leaving the boundaries.

Sometimes I would sit and watch them, scattering bread around them at night so they would be covered by bugs by morning and consider this, our home, too hostile a place to live or to love. 'Uninhabitable, and hostile to life - rehabilitation impossible'. I have believed this myself more than once."

The elder started "We have heard the cries of the spirit-girl, we have heard of her pain and confused by her actions, but I see that these are actions of spiritual self defense, however ugly."

In the light of the fire the elder could see the face of the Sherrif girl, tired, worn and aged far beyond her years with a spiteful look of disgust across her brow, a tear on her cheek and her finger on the trigger of the pistol now by her side.

They shared a moment of shame for all that had happened and in the sharing remembered that they were one being.

"You weren't here. No one was...

You weren't here after the fall, after the Magpie left and the towns-women were, all but a few, washed into the Canyon. When the darkness covered the village and the trees, keepers of life and guardians of soul, they began to die. Once the trees began to die, the animals, the smaller plants, the tiny-folk and the birds and insects all left too. It was remarkable how quickly it happened. Now, without the rain and the trees, we have a lot of dust, boulders and some of the old buildings from The Before Time."


With these words, memory of The Before Time carried the Sherrif-girl to the boundary wall, transported instantaneously. She found herself before a being who called himself Idealism, her companion Opitmism and their dog Innocence...

and, without a flinch she shot a silver bullett into the chests of all three. Not out of anything more than habit, for she had become trigger happy these past few years. But she knew better by now; that slander comes of Innocence, Naievity is beneath the cloak of Idealism and Innocence was a mirage having beem killed by the news of the passing of the Druid.

Back to face the elders, those from the time when the three departed supposed strangers goverened the village, to explain, to beg forgiveness. IN desperation she yelled: "You would have done the same. I couldnt stop them. It got so lonely, sometimes I wanted them to come, I actually invited them in." She was standing by this time with a wild look of desperation - a plea for forgiveness.

Another elder stood. She sensed the confusion, she felt her pain. This woman had spent so long alone, so afraid, so angry she had forgotten for whom she was fighting - the survival of the Spirit-girl. "The boundaries of the village have been maintained, for this we are eternally grateful, but now you can sleep. Sleep for as long as you need to regain your Self and then join us again. We need you to remember, but the Long Sleep will help us to forgive."

As they sat, the lights of the fire flickered off the buckles on her life-worn boots, the handle of the pistol still in the holster and lit up the creases around her eyes and mouth. The women could see they would come to know her over time but the air of Distrust was continuous and habitual. So they sat a while longer, just watching each other and the women wondered if they would ever know their new sister as they knew themselves.

Hope was resurrected that night and the sleeping Sherrif-girl allowed them to pass as she was finally drifting to sleep and knew that, finally, someone was watching her back.

And so it was...