Fringes, Heartstrings, and Lyrics

A Foreign World

“Oh, the memories.” I sigh and squeeze his hand a little tighter. The dried orange, brown, and yellow leaves crunch beneath our feet as we shuffle along the sidewalk.

He smiles down at me. “Yes, my love. I remember everything.”

Tears come unbidden and trickle down my wrinkled cheeks. “We’ve had a pretty darn good life, haven’t we, Harold?”

“Yes. Yes, we have.” Harold stumbles and grips his cane tighter. “In spite of the hardships, I never thought I’d live to be ninety.”

I nod in agreement. “We’ve been blessed. But I no longer recognize this world. There was a day when this park would have been ringing with the laughter of children and playing host to young lovers strolling hand-in-hand.”

“Let’s sit, Margaret. My old legs are giving out.” Harold brushes away dried rotting leaves that cover the very bench where we started our lives together sixty years ago. He leans heavily on his cane, then drops onto the bench with a grunt.

“I’m troubled, Harold.” A vise grips my heart, restricting my breath. “No, I’m more than troubled. I’m scared. Not for me and you, because we are at the end of our days, but for the ones coming behind us.

Draping an arm around my shoulders, he pulls me closer. “It’s not the same world you and I grew up in. Soldiers roam the streets with big guns. Life holds no value. So much hatred exists. The Devil is running rampant. You do know, love, it’s not safe for us to have ventured out.”

“Yes, I know, but I needed some fresh air. Thank you for appeasing me.”

“Oh, darling, that is what I’ve lived for these past sixty years. My greatest joy is making you smile, seeing your eyes twinkle, and giving you the very best of me.”

A nearby explosion ends the quiet calm, jerking us both back to reality. “What was that, Harold? Firecrackers? Guns?”

“I think we’d better mosey on back home, honey.” He struggles to get to his feet, then once he’s steady, reaches for my hand.

As we shuffle back toward the safety of our home, I turn for one last look back at the bench that means so much to us both, only to see a group of hoodlums spraying graffiti on it.

“Harold, we need to move faster.”

“I’m going as fast as I can go. It’s just a few more blocks home.”

A jarring blow to the back of his head takes Harold to his knees. I scream and turn to face our attackers only to see sneers and red-glowing hatred in the eyes of what should have been intelligent young men.

“You old people don’t need to be alive,” one growled. “You’re just taking up space and eating food that belongs to us. This is our country now. Old people like you are a nuisance.”

On arthritic knees, I join Harold and cradle his head on my lap. “You’ve hurt my husband.” Tears flow uncontrollably.

One of them laughed. “So what? What are you going to do about it, old woman?”

The force of his vicious kick knocks me backward onto the hard concrete, and I frantically reach for Harold’s hand. The next blow brings oblivion.

Then, I’m floating, and when I look down, I see the shells of our bodies lying on the concrete. Our blood is mixing and swirling together, staining the sidewalk.

Laughing and slapping each other on their backs, our tormentors give our lifeless bodies one last kick before they wander down the street, as if nothing out of the ordinary has occurred.

Harold floats next to me. “We’re free now, sweet love. No more aches, pains, or persecution. No more fear. We’re free.”

He’s right. I no longer have the familiar pain in my joints, and his cane is no longer a necessity.

“What will happen to our world?” My heart breaks for this beautiful planet. Mother Earth is grieving.

“I don’t know the answer.” He follows my gaze with troubled eyes. “We may have to come back to find out.”

“I’m not sure I want to come back again. Maybe we’ll stay with the Angels for a while.”

“Whatever you say, dear.”

With his hand nestled softly in mine, we drift peacefully toward the brightest and most comforting white light you can imagine.

Then we fully merge.

We are home.

The Wolf Story

Aiyana huddled beneath the buffalo hide and shivered. Mingan drew her closer and snugged the skin around her shoulders.

“Do not worry, my love. The call of the wolf speaks to my soul. Tomorrow’s battle will be successful.”

She turned her troubled dark eyes toward him. “How can you be so sure? I have a heavy heart, and dread sits like a rock in the pit of my stomach.”

Mingan stroked her hair. “When I was born, the first sound my father heard was the howl from a mother wolf. He knew at that moment I would carry wolf medicine with me throughout my life. I am one with them. The cries from the wolf outside our tipi tell me she will be with me as we face our enemies from the East.”

“I want to believe you, my brave warrior, but I also know the power of the enemy you face. They outnumber us and are determined to eradicate all of our people.”

As if listening to their conversation, a wolf howled long and loud nearby.

“Wolf promises that she and her clan will stand with us. We will not be alone against this great enemy. We have a magic they know nothing of. We will be victorious.”

***

Before the sun rose the next morning, Mingan slipped out of the tipi into the cold air. Smoke from the fires that had burned piñon wood through the night tickled his nostrils.

The village medicine man, wrapped in a blanket next to the fire, lit a pipe and offered thanks to the nature spirits that walked and talked with them. He paused his chants and motioned for Mingan to join him.

At the edge of the forest, yellow eyes pierced through the pre-dawn darkness. The wolves were waiting and ready.

As Mingan squatted by the fire and shared the old man’s pipe, the wood popped, sending spirals of sparks through the air.

“Wahya waits,” the old man said. “They are united with us, and by the end of this day, we will celebrate a small victory for our people.”

Mingan grunted, stood, and stretched. The alpha female wolf stepped out of the shadows and whimpered.

Fresh snow crunched beneath Mingan’s moccasins as he strode toward her, hand outstretched.

She didn’t move, and when he reached her, he laid a hand on her big head. “Thank you, Wahya. I will feed your clan tonight. We will win this battle. You will join us by our fires.”

She lifted her head, sniffed the air, and trotted back to the others.

One by one, braves emerged from their tipis. Weapons were sharpened, and talk was scarce.

If they won this battle, Mingan and his wolf clan would be the new tribe leaders.

Once they’d partaken of a small fare, the warriors painted their faces, said prayers to the Great Spirit, and mounted their ponies.

Just before the sun peeked above the horizon, they rode full force into the army encampment a few miles away. As predicted, the lazy white men were still asleep, their bellies full of last night’s liquor.

The braves tore through tent after tent, destroying everything in their path. The wolves lunged headlong into the fray, going for the throats of men and ripping flesh from their bodies.

In less than an hour, the battle ended. The wolves growled and circled the camp as the braves dismounted and gathered weapons, blankets, food, and supplies they desperately needed to get through the hard winter ahead.

The army men who hadn’t been killed escaped with nothing more than the clothes they slept in.

It was over.

Mingan returned to his village victorious. As he promised, the wolves joined them by the fire that night and ate heartily of buffalo and venison.

For the moment, the threat of eradication was over. But the wind whispered a warning. It was far from over. Would it ever be?

**This story was inspired by the brutal dispossession of the Native American people—the massacres, the forced removals, the broken treaties—as white settlers surged westward in endless numbers, consumed by greed and willfully blind to the devastation they wrought.**

THE FORGOTTEN

An icy wind howls across the thick, dark purple expanse of the Egluna star. Farther north, its ferocity increases, driving the furred ones to seek cover, and the two-leggeds to huddle like a grove of trees leaning into a storm.

Thirty-nine moons have passed since our suns have broken through the thick barrier that shrouds our granite star. The evidence is seen in every direction. The heavy skin of our people, the Eglunites, is chalky. Eyes are dulled and hope is dead.

We have long ago stopped dreaming of anything more, accepting the dark fate that has befallen us. We are nothing short of the walking dead, going through the motions of a bleak daily existence … no feeling, no light, no belief.

We are The Forgotten.

That is how he finds us on the day of his arrival. Hurtling through an invisible portal, he falls with a thud, bellowing, “Xander,” that resounds throughout our tiny desolate planetoid. And despite his turbulent arrival, he alights with a gracefulness beyond anything we’ve ever seen. With both feet easily planted, his translucent ebony skin glistens and his peridot green eyes shine with a brilliant light, something foreign to us Eglunites.

He towers over us, a good eight feet or more. A beautiful creature, he glides as though his huge feet never touch our parched gray ground. And while he doesn’t speak, we are drawn to him in an inexplicable way.

“Who is he, and what is this strange essence he possesses?” We scratch our heads and whisper amongst ourselves, lest he hear us.

He then turns to gaze fully upon us, and we see it. He is a Fresh One. It has been written about eons ago on our granite tablets, but we’ve never witnessed such a being. Not in our generation or the generation before.

He has powers! His eyes shine like golden-green beacons. But it is when he looks with the ‘One Eye,’ that things miraculously begin to change.

He gives his attention first to our dying plant life. Almost immediately, it starts to take on moisture as if awakening from a terminal drought. Leaves slowly uncurl and stretch in a long, drawn-out yawn.

We watch him from afar and marvel. Then, a distant memory of a way of life long abandoned vexes our minds. Slowly, awareness begins to awaken from its deep slumber, much like the plants, except at a slower pace. It resembles the gradual uncoiling of a sleeping serpent.

The two-leggeds gather in small groups, speaking in hushed tones. Then an elder suggests we experiment with using our own ‘Eye.’ Afraid and ashamed of failure, we practice in secret at first.

But it isn’t long before we share our experiences with each other and find we are all opening to something new and exciting. Our hollow hearts begin to beat louder with a foreign rhythm.

With our nine suns no longer visible, we can only mark time by the changes in our moons. It’s hard to tell a day from a night or how many have passed.

However, we guess it to be approximately three moon-days, hours, minutes and seconds later that Companion arrives. She drops through the same portal, her landing less graceful than the one Xander had executed. Tumbling head over heels across the rocky terrain, she comes to rest against a large boulder, which cracks in half with the force of her impact. In two moon-seconds, he kneels beside her, offering his hand and righting her to stand.

For a long lunar moment, their golden eyes lock, and we turn away from the brilliance. But only moon-seconds pass before we’re drawn back. Through their translucent ebony skin, we witness two hearts beating as one, then see them large, and full, transferring energy.

We gape at the exchange, mouths open. It is almost as if we are witnessing a sacred and private union. And yet, they make no attempt to hide, so we don’t look away.

Her skin, unlike his, glimmers with a hint of purple, and her long flowing hair appears to have been spun from pure gold. Also, unlike him, she stands only a little over seven feet in height. But her eyes—those golden beacons—shine exactly as do his.

Why have they chosen our desolate star to visit? For whatever reason, the weary Eglunites welcome the distraction.

With two Fresh Ones on our drab gray star, things change. Slowly, bit by bit, as we witness the miracles they bring with them, the two-leggeds begin awakening from a forever dark and hopeless slumber.

The furred ones curiously approach Xander and Companion, sniffing and twitching their long black tails. When either visitor reaches out to touch them, a transformation happens. Their fur coats are no longer dull and lifeless. They glisten and romp through the boulders with energy anew, always running back to rub against the legs of the Fresh Ones or to lick their thick feet.

My Egluna brothers and I study the tablets on which the ancient ones recorded the powerful phenomena of The Fresh, long before we came into existence. Words, foreign words, like hope, joy, and love slowly take on new meanings. We’ve not experienced, nor truly believed, such wondrous things ever existed, despite what our history proclaimed.

Our practice to reopen The Eye within each of us expands into group sessions facilitated by Xander and Companion. As if teaching a child how to walk, they gently prod and encourage. In one session, Xander reaches into a large canvas bag and brings forth brightly colored fruits unlike any we’ve ever seen. He passes them out to the group and waits while we turn them over in our hands before he speaks. Funny, the way his mouth never seems to move, yet he communicates with a clarity that leaves no questions.

“Taste them,” he commands.

I sniff the strange fruit before opening my parched mouth and biting down. As the juice flows across my tongue and trickles down my throat, I am quite sure I’ve never tasted anything so sweet, so delicious.

My fellow Eglunites each follow suit. And then something quite unexpected happens. Our hearts, shriveled from the long night of darkness, take on life again. They expand inside our chests and glow ever so slightly. We gaze at each other and feel a stirring. It is just as our ancestors recorded.