I sleep, survive, and everything else…alone. Don’t wonder why I’m beginning to have a distaste for your visits. It feels like I’ve said enough, feels like you should know enough to comprehend me as much as I’d like you to…but that’s a lie…isn’t it? You wonder why I am not a spirit now, why I am not in the world of the Um.
Just so you know, my sighs are not of happiness.
~-~-~-~-~I~-~-~-~-~II~-~-~-~-~
The spirit herd made up of Um souls never aged and never grew. It was always the same amount, the same motions, the same movements. It confused me. How could the spirits of Um be within deer? Didn’t Um eat deer? Why was nothing changing? Things had to change…didn’t they? I did not ask, I was a young being—no longer so—but a young spirit. I followed the others, wrapped up tightly in my skin while they effortlessly became solid, breathing, living beings.
I watched Um hunters come after them. Kill them. I watched them flee the dying bodies, Um spirits once more. I followed them as they wandered the great territories of the world, at one and at ease with everything. I could have stayed with them forever. I could have wandered the world of the beasts with them; a foolish child’s spirit doomed by bravery to never grow up. Doomed to be lost and to never find a place… I spent seasons and seasons, sun-ups and sun-gones, moon-breaths and I spent moon-gones—the blackest nights—this way.
But then I ran away from the Spirit Herd. I left the great stag who had become sort of a father to me, the does who had become family, I left the spirits in search of my old place…my true home. I missed my mother and my tribe.
Do you know what I found?
I found silence where the children used to play. I found darkness where the fires used to glow. I found bones where the infants would be born.
As for my mother?
I found her old, blind, deaf, toothless…and broken. They had gone and left her to die. I had no idea that time had passed so quickly…I had no idea as to whether she remembered me or not.
Perhaps I did not want to know.
I ran; though spirits seem to vanish…they can indeed run. Mortal eyes cannot see. Sighted eyes simply cannot see. My mother saw me, though. I am sure of it. She called out my old Um name, a hand raised, grasping at the air. I should have helped her. I should have gone back and showed her the way to the Fair-sky…to the place where the old and accomplished spend eternity.
Perhaps that is my greatest vice and fear…cowardice. It’s certainly what forces me to make such a fool of myself in this forest. I’m also sure. The fear of it drives me to run from tree to tree, over logs, barely escaping a few broken legs and the breaking of my neck. You’ve seen it, havent you? I leap, I twist, I dance, and I fall. Speaking of dancing, wouldn’t you like to? You’ve long legs and a nice trot, would you?
Oh, yes, my story. My, you still want to hear more…
Spelling and grammar issues? Speak up, please &hearts
