The Communicator (Part 3)
Metanoia - Chapter 2 - Life Path 3
Character Chart: A Map to the Nine Lives
The first day on the job, a lovely woman named Selma greeted me and sat me down with piles and piles of books that needed remaking. They stood in uneven stacks and uneven rows next to my desk on the right, while an organized collection of freshly made bindings left by Laborers stood on the other side. Selma kindly put all the tools I’d be using together, and organized them by their function. At first, I sat down and didn’t begin for several minutes, trying to acclimate to the environment. The work table was worn and made of a dark wood that I had never seen around the village. The air was heavy, but peaceful, swallowing all noise as I scanned the walls that were filled with greens, maroons, and dark grays from bindings of aged literature that I’ve yet to discover. A small hole of light entered the room from a window near the tall ceiling, illuminating a haze of dust particles that slowly drifted amidst the air. This part of the library was larger than I imagined with two entry ways on either side that circled around and met in the middle where the main stacks were situated.
On that first day, I felt excitement and dread. I wondered what I would come across throughout the painstaking process of carefully reproducing each work as it were, and in hopefully better penmanship and precision than the previous authors, whom I was not sure were Artisans. Would I get so tired that I could no longer pay attention to the messages conveyed? I figured that in the long run, it didn’t matter. There was a job to be done, an assignment meant to be brought to completion. With great care, I began opening up the delicate papers and marking up the crisp blankness of each new page. Without noticing, I was suddenly done with the first page. Then, by delicately using a long slender piece of metal, I inserted it into the binding. I found the outcome to be surprisingly fulfilling as I securely fastened each page into place where it belonged.
However, it didn’t take long for the work to become tedious. I quickly found out that all the books were not so different from what I could already get my hands on in the main library. They consisted of records, important tests with anything and everything concerning our way of life from agriculture, to wound treatment, cart repairs, livestock, and architecture. It wasn’t so bad as I took many breaks, having relaxed pleasantries with Selma and visitors of the library. Some days I was lazy with my work, never with the outcome, only with the process, taking my time and often daydreaming uncontrollably. It eventually no longer mattered to me that I completed the job at a certain time, quickly losing motivation to do so. The reality was that little, if not anything, was waiting for me after this, a prospect more daunting than the piles of books that at least gave me a purpose. The future was uncertain, but I could take my time, extend the task which no one seemed eager to take on other than myself. And of course, there was the beautiful garden that awaited my return. Evenings consisted of hosting for Fren and Denon with the bountiful harvest and astonishing variety from Denon’s brilliantly constructed labyrinth. I sent him home with his favorites as the most earnest appreciation I could provide, although it never felt enough. I did not know what I could, or should give him in return. His kindness and love was unmatched with my loyal, but lowly contribution to our relationship. Always generous, always protective, I was sometimes ashamed and thought I was not worth it.
We were meant to see horizons. The thought involuntarily passed through my mind after several hours of work without break. It came to me as a unmistakable utterance. We were meant to see horizons, not the inside of a building, not the maze of city streets, or the other side of a lake or field. With this assignment, I became aware of this for the first time, that there were not many opportunities for a horizon where I was. In all the time spent with things so close at hand, I became highly sensitive to it. With enough time there was a modest, yet unnatural strain for things close enough to be actualized.
“Xenia darling, I could use your help with something.”
It was Selma. I lifted my head up from the book I was working on, trying to keep the disintegrating pages in tact as best I could.
“You look like you could take a break from that anyway, come with me dear.”
Happily agreeing with this, I followed her to the main entrance.
Three large carts filled with books brought in by odyks awaited us there.
“What is this?” My inquiry was lost in the confusion of Laborers everywhere, books filling their strong arms and placed on rolling carts we used to sort and organize.
“It’s a donation.” Selma said as I passed her going back.
“From who?”
“Don’t know, someone who recently departed.”
I rolled the cart into the back room and went back out, trying to stay out of the way of the Laborers but still supplying them with carts to unload on. I never thought any Umarian in our village could have so many books. They must have been passed down throughout generations. Someone along the line surely was a collector.
Several minutes passed with this back and forth unloading and distributing, quickly ending and giving back to the quiet stillness that made me feel like my job was done. I turned to leave and continue my previous task. Selma stopped me.
“Hey Xenia” she said in an unsure voice. I looked at her, disheveled and a little overwhelmed. I realized she wasn’t sure how to approach the heap like I assumed.
“How about helping me out with this for the rest of today, if you feel up to it.” she pled discretely.
“I was hoping for a distraction” I replied with a warm smile. Some of these bindings were so old that they were in need of a remaking. I began helping her by picking them out and carting them to the piles in my room.
Once catching a glance of the inner binding, I immediately noticed that each cover had the name Thallon Reides written inside. This presumably was the owner at some point in their history, but there was no way of knowing if it was their last. Without closer inspection, I hastily placed them with the others for another days work, and ran back to Selma to offer her my assistance.
My assignment stretched out indifferently amongst the moon cycles that came and went. As we aged, no one took notice of the passage of time or the stable formation of ourselves as village constituents. It happened both in our professional positions and our physical features, which seemed to harden with reliance in ourselves rather than callousness.
Certain crossroads appear without warning when you’re no longer paying attention to the direction of your life. It’s the paradox in which life is empty enough to have substance. Thallon Reides’ collection was the first emanation of this substance.
The dawn of a new day welcomed the standard morning procedure. Pink skies breathed vitality into my elaborate garden as I prepared to leave for the library. In dazed content, I walked down the winding path that lead to the side entrance, already unlocked from Selma’s arrival just a moment before. The previous night, I had officially restored half of the old bindings that were laid out for me. It was a checkpoint leading to my eventual release, increasing the distance of my brief purpose behind me with each passing day.
I found my way over to the dusty, cluttered room, hung my bag, and replaced the wilted Opalias on my desk. I came to associate them with something much greater than I could understand. They were a symbol for something I couldn’t define. Despite this obscurity, I felt grounded with them at my side.
The next pile was already laid out next to my working station, ready for me to begin. Opening the first page, I pulled out a blank binding to my right, and wrote two words.
These two words were my first interaction with something not of my world. A foreign concept which somehow evaded my cognition as a possibility in this reality until this moment.
The realization of such things does not happen instantly. I looked back at the page, and then back at my writing, not understanding why the characters weren’t conveying a message to me.
Then, there it was, the second word, third letter, a character I have never seen before.
I sat for several minutes gazing at the stacked books, then back at the words that weren’t making any sense, and then back into the morning light with unnerving alarm. Some of the words were familiar, with many of the same characters and phrases, but slightly askew as if I were seeing them incorrectly. Despite the time I spent trying to validate my vision by peering around the room and checking to see if everything were as it was meant to be, it was not the language I was raised to understand.
Pacing around the room, I ran back to the desk to check the inside the cover, where the unmistakable name of Thallon Reides was etched in dark red ink.
I got up to collect the others, hastily throwing them on the desk, opening each one to find the same thing. At some point the question as to what would be done with them came to mind, and then confusion turned into panic. Selma could possibly dispose of them, as they were illegible. I put the one I was working on in my pack, and placed the rest in a cart. Sneaking out the door, hoping that she wouldn’t see me doing something I could never explain.
A few moments later, I was back at my desk, the books from the mysterious donation safely piled next to my bed for me to handle later, my brief absence unnoticed.
Perhaps there was something indelibly wrong with me. Did I break from looking at all those words, losing my sensibility after all the work I had done? The question was asked, but imbedded somewhere deep in the layers of my conditioned self, I was certain of a discovery not of my world.
This unexpected encounter developed into a comprehensive analysis that consumed all my leisure. It began with casually taking the first book off the pile I made under my cot. Strolling out into my garden, I snagged a fruit off one of my Lansing trees on the way and made myself comfortable. It was confirmed. My perception had not changed since that morning as I opened the dark beige binding to find the same strange characters, and was greeted with the same bizarre feelings as before. As I had previously thought, there were so many similarities, more so than differences. If they weren’t so similar, Selma and I would have noticed something wrong with them the moment we received the delivery. I would have stopped in my tracks the moment I opened it.
There were many times I wanted to ask for help. A second opinion would have been useful, but I didn’t know what I was dealing with, or what would happen if another laid eyes on it. My guess was that most would be as confused as I was, and report it to the Council. There was complete uncertainty for the outcome of that action. I didn’t want to lose the chance of understanding this, to have the nagging unknown all my life. Once the discovery was made, I didn’t want to let go.
There were eleven total bindings, all old, tattered, and falling apart. I decided to slowly take some fresh bindings from the library and bring them home to restore the print. As I read along, I mimicked it the best I could, taking notes next to the words and characters that made no sense and noticing how they were used in other sentences.
The second day was spent with the books after work without much accomplished. On day three, I thought ‘Was I doing something wrong here? ’, which was then accompanied by uncertainty. I carried on regardless. Day four, something revealed itself and began to make sense. Day five, doubt. The re-evaluation of what I so confidently assumed the day before. Day six, ‘What was I thinking? Language is what I know. There is no reason for the indecision.’ A continuation of the synthesis, and so on… Day in and day out, my quest continued.
It was a task that constantly ebbed and flowed between strain and exhilaration. Unrecognizable characters were always placed amongst two or three that I was familiar with, allowing there to be a reference point to start for each sentence. Once I came across one, I circled it and all the others I could see in the following text. I could guess what it meant, and if it made sense in the following sentences with the meaning that I chose, I stuck with it. Clips and phrases slowly emerged out of the weathered pages, and although it was difficult to differentiate, parallels between that of what I knew and this mystery were revealed over time.
Of course there were times I had to stop what I was doing and go back to my life as it were. Although the discovery placed distance between myself and everything I knew and had before then, the people and obligations of my life did not fade away. I struggled with the idea of having to assume life as the way it had been, as Xenia Gybe in her birth village. However, it was not hard, at least in the beginning. My chameleon self came forward and I was back to a state that felt as if nothing ever happened to begin with.
“You look as lively as those Opalias” Sonia said as she passed by me in a surprised tone. I was tending to the seedlings that the Opalias in my mother’s garden had produced.
“You know these are my favorite” I replied. Perhaps I was a little more than merely getting by with the knowledge I had acquired. I did feel slightly invigorated. I new there was something else, and I had it all to myself to decode and inspect, to come to my own conclusions. I never had something that was mine before, or at least I thought I had until there was a change in the plan. At times, it made me feel as though everything I had going on previously was just borrowed.
“Have you figured out what to apply your skillset onto next? Isn’t the resolution date for your current assignment approaching soon?” Sonia asked.
“Not quite, and yes it is.”
“Well, who knows. Maybe the village will need a garden design, or something related to that. I know it’ll come together like it always has. I just know.”
“That’s what I’m hoping” I lied, partially. There was little hope for my career left. Just a lot of questions and uncertainty.
On the last stretch of assignment that I had to complete, with just a single moon cycle at my disposal, I had but one binding from Thallon Reides left. Based on my shoddy translation, I could make out that the first seven were nothing spectacular. Much like all the other books in the library, they were instruction manuals on how to build certain architecture or how to maintain various livestock. It must have been useful to someone. The following three piqued my curiosity a bit further. They seemed to be tales of adventure, struggle, gains, losses, and exploration. They had me captivated. I began to see landscapes that were described in these tales in my dreams. There were peaks and valleys tucked beneath colorful forestry. A sun shone on the horizon, making colors I’m not sure I had ever seen before. Instead of waking up feeling refreshed and entertained by these nightly escapades, I was depressed. It was a tease, a temptation of something I didn’t have and never would. It was not real, just a cruel fantasy, where the cruelty lied in having to wake up as myself in the place that I was in. There was one night I had dreamt of a world full of water and purple canopy. It was very much like the life I had, but it had something else that made it whole. I had no clue as to what it was, but it made all the difference. Was it a home? Was it a life, or purpose? Did I not already have these things?
Denon and Fren no longer came to my house as often, but instead took me out to their residence, or on short trips to village limits. One of the places we liked to go was a short hike up the west hill, where there was a great view of the village, as well as the path that lead to the Descended Springs. When we got there, I liked to take notice of the gradient in vegetation and geomorphology, where there was a meeting of two different ecological worlds. Up on the hill we went, where I was able to see how they blended into one another, rather than immediately dropping off into a different domain. There were no stark contrasts in nature. It was like painting, which worked the same way. There were transitions within the canvas, not just a cluster of random colors and objects placed on top of one another. Nothing looked real if you did this. One had to coalesce the colors into one another so they looked like they belonged there together.
Few words were ever exchanged between us at that juncture of our friendship. We didn’t need to. Everything that ever needed to be said had already been. All we needed then was each other’s company, so it seemed. The truth was that there was something that could have been discussed, but wasn’t. I couldn’t. I quickly discovered the tension that came out of having knowledge that no one even talked about as a possibility, let alone have in their mind’s eye. It was a strange ache that I knew too well, not of sadness or desire, but of being alone. This time I was alone in awareness, now subliminally torn away from the people who were meant to be pillars.
Eventually, I was driven to say something.
“Have you ever wondered what was beyond the Descended Springs?” I began. They looked slightly taken aback from the break in silence.
“Or in any direction away from here at all really?” I said further.
“I once got slightly lost when I was younger and went to the Springs by myself.” Fren responded.
“I was able to return to the right place though. I could tell where I needed to go by the way the vegetation changed. It wasn’t all that different from the path.” she added.
Was that even an answer to my question?
“Sometimes my construction team goes beyond the city limits, in other directions away from the established paths cut out from the woods.”
This response from Denon sounded promising for a moment, I eagerly listened to what he had to say…
“Where do you go?” I asked.
“About two planks out”
Again, I was crushed. Denon thought beyond our home meant within fifteen minute walking distance from city limits, while Fren likened it to moving her line of trajectory a few steps over from the line she has walked her whole life. I was quickly lead to the conclusion that there was nothing more to talk about. Neither of them would be able to comprehend what I wanted to express.
“Have you ever walked around the unknown parts?” Fren asked me next.
“No.” Is all I said, and all I would for a long time.
I understood my friends and loved ones, and why it wouldn’t have been possible to ask them this question. I understood because I was exactly where they were in life only a short time ago. Why even entertain the possibility? There was no reason to, and frankly no entertainment in doing so either. Everything that we needed, and were going to need for the rest of our lives was in the city village we dwelled in. There was no need to look elsewhere, and so curiosity was superfluous. If our Gods wanted us to be somewhere else, it would show through the lack of resources, and so we would wonder, and perhaps even voyage.
That night, I went home, lit some candles on the table by my wood stove, and opened the last binding left by Thallon Reides.
