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There was nothing but the wind in the night and the howling of the river to hide the soft unspoken whispering of the stars scattered across the horizon. “Isn’t it beautiful?” beamed Chris Cwej, “The whole universe laid out like a dream in the night.” “Mhm,” murmured Sang Mi, whose mind was bobbing up and down in her head. He stretched, and through the stretch fell the world, into the palm of the short hard grass that adorned the rocky ground. “I think we should get to bed,” Chris said. “I’m not a child,” said Sang Mi, tracing dreamy fingers about a patch of dust, and yawned, “’m used to staying up late.” “Well I’m tired,” said Christopher Cwej, firmly, and went off over to the battered old orange car to get the sleeping things set up. Sang Mi sat up, groaning, in the shadow of the mountain. She, stretch rolling through her body, wrapped her woollen scarf more tightly around her to fend off the bitter coldness of the night, and went over to the grassy ledge which sunk harshly down to the dancing limbs of the white white river below. Her heart ached, and she didn’t know why. She didn’t even notice it. She just stared into the gulf where the wind twisted about the pretty rocks and in it an owl cried, lonesome, for its mate. She looked to her right, to the forest that sloped its way up into the night. It curved up desperately, grasping for the sky, but it could never reach the stars that gazed so softly upon it. Her breath caught cold on her lips. At the base of a tree was a smiling girl, who twisted her fingers shyly about the lower branches of the ageing conifer. She bit her lip and looked at Sang Mi uncertainly. Sang Mi stared at the girl. The girl stared at her. “Chris…” began Sang Mi, turning slightly to him, but when she turned again the girl was gone. She ran to the tree. Not a trace of the girl remained. When she listened she heard nothing but the weeping of the river and the gentle murmuring of the stars. The quiet smell of pine gave no hint of any others. “Hello?” she said, in English, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to help.” But there was nothing but the wind. Her heart was doing funny things to itself and she wished that it wouldn’t, but she had to find the child, she had to. “Do you know where Momma is?” asked the girl, gnawing at her dark hair. The girl was right in front of her; she could feel her. She could see her. Sang Mi jumped. “Uh, sorry,” she said, crouching down, “I don’t. But I’ve got a friend, alright, and I – I’m sure he can find your Momma. What’s your name?” “Lina,” said Lina, because it was. Lina’s hand felt soft and cold in Sang Mi’s hand, and she could feel every tiny supple ridge that rolled along it. How beautiful it was, the little thing. She held it as if it were the most fragile thing in the world, and even then was scared of breaking it. She felt all at once as though she was holding Lina, keeping her from falling, and as though it were Lina holding her and keeping her from drifting away into the darkness. They did not travel fast, but it was not far, and anyway time was of no consequence in the cradle of the stars. Chris was sitting with his head entangled in a sleeping bag, and emerged a pile of disjointed limbs that flopped about good-naturedly before finally escaping the womb of the woven fabric. “Hello,” he smiled, panting, “You ready for bed yet?” “This is Lina,” said Sang Mi, looking rather anxious, but she was gone. Chris looked at her curiously. “Who?” he said, brow furrowed in confusion. “She – she’s there!” said Sang Mi, and she was. But Chris could not see her. “I don’t see anyone,” he said. Lina looked very small and shrinking under the conversation, and her dirt-ridden hair went further into her mouth. “Look!” cried Sang Mi. Chris looked, and he could not see. Through the frustration and utter bewilderment of his heart his soul was closed, and so still he could not see, though he tried. Again and again, he tried, and the present overwhelmed the reality so that he was blind in the ancient light of the stars. Sang Mi stared at his sorrow, and all at once knew it, though her own emotions veiled it. “Rest,” she breathed suddenly, and he did. “She’s looking for her mum,” said Sang Mi to Chris. Chris bit his lip, hard, and felt the pain of it even as he whirled through a hundred states, heart caught between waking and sleeping, the train and the platform, the knit and the purl, the soul and the nafs – even as it fell and rose with the tides and the moon; even as it beat twice, thrice, four times, five. His eyelids were wrestling together, pressed deep-dark like the woods. He opened his eyes. He opened them again, and saw Lina. “Hello,” he said. “Hello,” murmured Lina, shyly. He saw. “You’re dead,” he said to her. “Oh,” she said, quietly. Sang Mi looked at Chris. He looked at her. “Sit down,” he smiled, but it was a sad smile. The want for sleep seemed far more acute with the harsh softness of the shunted chair, and Sang Mi felt sleep seep into the edges of her eyes with the tears that she refused to notice. She lifted Lina up onto her lap, and the girl flickered on the edge of existence, cuddling into her chest. She was so warm and beautiful, even in her sadness. Sang Mi hugged her to her chest. “Lina,” said Chris, his legs dangling aimlessly over the side of the vehicle, “Is a memory. She died many years ago – probably hundreds by the look of her clothes – but the land remembers her.” “Why?” asked Sang Mi. “The soldiers came,” murmured Lina into Sang Mi’s arm. Chris and Sang Mi looked at each other. “The soldiers came and Momma went to find work and she took me with her because she had to and they were fighting and then there was blood on me and it hurt like – like everything and… and…” Lina’s voice died out. Sang Mi was holding her very very tightly. “The land remembers strong emotions,” said Chris quietly, “It remembers her death.” He shuffled himself off of the car and lay on the ground, propping himself up on his elbows. He shifted some browning pine needles from the ground, and felt the bare soil in his hands, patting it and turning it. He whispered to it, not with his mouth, but with his soul, and the heart of it opened up. It could not be seen, exactly, or felt, or perceived in any of the typical manners in which one perceives things, but the memory was known, then. Sang Mi knew the unknowable: the subtle shape of a kind calloused hand wrapped around her own; the whispered assurances in an accent long lost to time; the fear of the noise that rang like the world in her ears; the reassurance of the smile of a soldier, with pretty brown hair that hung softly about his head; the look of the soldier as he knew that he was about to die, the blood that came so harshly and yet so soft; the turning of the stomach like a thousand wildebeest; lostness; pain; nothing. Lina occasionally flickered out of existence, and what scared Sang Mi was that she didn’t notice when she did so. She always came back though, slightly less real every time, and slightly more tired-looking and feeling every time, curled up into a ball in her lap. She looked at Chris. He was crying. “Can’t we do something?” she asked, quietly. “Memory fades,” said Chris, “Existence is impermanent.” What he didn’t say was that she could be saved, but the only way that it could be done would have brought his Superiors down on them like a black hole. And there were complications, always complications. Nothing was ever simple. The only – it couldn’t be the only way, thought Chris. There must have been some other way, there must! If I were clever, he thought, I could see it. If I were somebody else, I could see it. But I’m not. I’m just me. Plain old Chris Cwej. Sang Mi was looking at him, and he fell into her deep black eyes that held the stars in their rim, and nothing was right. The world was wrong, except that it wasn’t. This was how things were supposed to be. This was right. “Crap,” muttered Cwej, but under his breath, so that Sang Mi wouldn’t hear. Time sat sinking further into the night, taunting him as it danced about the treetops. He saw its mellow dance, and he laughed in his heart with all the warmth of a soldier going over the top. Ribbons of blue and red and gold, laughing in the softness of the night, even as he sat with a world of earth in his palms. The universe laughed at him, because it always did, and he sat and listened, because that’s what he was for. He jumped up like a flower in the spring. “I can save her!” he yelled, tears sparkling in the edges of his eyes, “I can save her.” But he couldn’t. “She’s been dead for hundreds of years,” said Sang Mi dully. He knew he couldn’t. On his right shoulder sat an angel of death, and on his left sat an angel of destruction, and both would taunt him until Judgement Day, because that’s what he was. And he wished he wasn’t. He wished he were a little fish, swimming in a river. He wished he were a heron. Herons didn’t have to worry about anything, he thought. He wished he were a deer. Sang Mi looked at him, and he looked at Sang Mi, and she was his world and he was hers, and he remembered, and knew that he was one after all, and his self was set at peace, and a strange calmness sat over him. He sat upon the carpet of needles and began to cry. One last time Lina appeared, soft and warm in Sang Mi’s arms. She smiled, and put her arms as far round Sang Mi as they would go, and the world fell into the hug, which was warm and painful and comforting. “She’s gone,” said Sang Mi, and her voice was very very quiet. She ran over to Chris and hugged him, and they cried softly and briefly into each other’s shoulders. Chris pulled away from the warmth first. “Bed, I think,” he said, smiling sadly, as the light of the stars danced across their bodies. Sang Mi, bleary-eyed, assented. Into the sleeping bags went their warm, aching bodies, into the comfort of the night. And the last moment before sleep was a beautiful, terrible eternity. Next Stop: |
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