What Comes of Sleep

They left me here and there were times when I wished I'd left too. The long years I wandered across the ice, watching the trees wither and the animals migrating in herds thousands strong until hunger and predators took them, taught me the lessons my father never could. I watched as the ice receded and left in its wake the disgorged remains of beings swallowed whole by this harsh place and I realized how unsuited we were for this planet. This was a place where life was a gift, swift and shallow, and not meant to bear witness to its own fragility. My own kind, frightened and tormented by the vulgar severity of death, fled to find a home more suited to their temperament but I found I couldn't leave Rupilee behind.

When the water rose to cover the world I trod undersea and when the moon moved off and calmed the deluge I walked the deserts and when the ice came again I hunched my shoulders against the cold and climbed to the top of the world and there I slept away my grief.

When I awoke I could hear their laughter on the wind and they ran from me, these things, not unlike me but small and weak. Then they began to chase me everywhere and I had to hide from them simply because they were an irritant and they stank like death. They persisted, however, and multiplied beyond my imagination and I began to appreciate their stamina. Because they were so fragile and because I couldn't bear their pleas anymore I acquiesced and taught them how to till the soil and plant seeds. Now they're everywhere and its getting crowded. I like them, though. Rupilee would have come up with a theory about where they came from but he's gone and I guess it doesn't matter anyway.

Sometimes I climb up to high place and I try to imagine what the world was like when I first saw it, but so much has changed. And I've changed, too. That I can is a powerful lesson, another thing my father never taught me and something that might have made a difference. That was a long time ago, however.