|
Subscribe online and receive the complete Issue #4 within one business day.
One Last Wish
Linda J. Dunn
Escaping the past is never easy. Linda J. Dunn depicts one society’s attempt in a story where a person’s sex is not necessarily known at birth.
When I was a little girl, I used to lie outside at night in the sweet smelling grass to escape the stuffy heat of the summer huts. While the other girls chatted foolishly around me about whether it was better to grow
up into a Mama or an Auntie, I looked for stars to wish upon and then wished that I would grow up to become a Man. I believed then that wishing made it true and even though I am older and wiser than I ever dreamed
possible when I was that foolish little girl, I still sometimes lie outside on hot summer nights and look for stars to wish upon.
The first time I wished upon a star, I was five years old and bored with life. Every day was the same as the day before and I longed to become a Man and go on my own walk-about in search of adventures. I couldn’t
bear the thought of waiting years for excitement and so I searched the skies for a special star to make a wish upon. Above, a star like none I’d ever seen before moved slowly across the sky. Red. Pulsing bright to
dim and bright again. It stopped above my head and I stretched out my hand, forgetting that stars were too far away for humans to touch, and wished with all my strength. Give me adventure and excitement. The
star shifted up, and then down, seemingly nodding in approval, before falling upwards into the night and disappearing.
Others saw the star fall up and they thought it was a bad omen. I told them it was just my wishing star, but no one listened to me. Auntie Rabbitcatcher—the village leader—sent us girls running to the Men’s
area on the other side of the village to ask them about the star’s meaning.
Eldest Man spit upon the ground when he walked back to confront Auntie Rabbitcatcher and said, “It is a warning of change and some will find it good while others will find it ill.”
“You talk in riddles!” Mama Shortlegs didn’t look up from nursing her baby. “All Men talk in riddles. It means nothing. A star begins to fall and catches itself. People do that sometimes.”
Eldest Man shook his head. “Stars are not people. When they fall, they fall. That was no star.”
“Then what was it?”
He looked back at the other Men before speaking again. They all nodded or turned away to stare at the ground. “It is a thing—like a cart—that people can ride upon through the heavens. We have heard tales of
this from some of the Men on their walk-abouts through our village.
The Aunties and the Mamas giggled at the thought of people flying through the sky and we girls laughed because the grown-ups were laughing and we didn’t want anyone to know that we didn’t understand the joke.
Mama Shortlegs muttered so softly that I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I knew she had to be cursing Eldest Man for making jokes to ridicule her.
“Are such things truly possible?” Auntie Rabbitcatcher’s voice sounded breathless—like she’d been out hunting and had just returned.
“He’s pulling your leg, Rabbitcatcher,” Mama Shortlegs said.
“No.” Auntie Fisher stepped forward. “His voice sounds true and the other Men—look at them—they all believe.”
“Then they are all fools.”
Maybe others fell asleep that night, but I lay awake, staring up at the star-filled sky, looking for another flicker of red light, and wondering what it would be like to ride a cart through
the sky.
The next morning, two Men and one Auntie stumbled into our village while the sun was still rising above the flowering gum trees. The Auntie was wearing some kind of ceremonial costume that was identical to the
Men’s and that frightened us, for we had never seen Aunties and Men dressed alike before. The Men looked all wrong, too. Their hair was chopped short like an Auntie’s instead of being braided like a Man’s.
They had no beards.
I guess everyone else looked as frightened as I felt because one of the odd-looking Men glanced around at us and started pulling off his clothes. They spoke to one another in words that weren’t words and then they
all undressed.
Auntie Firewatcher turned to Eldest Man and asked, “What are these? Have you seen them before in your days of travel? Heard of them from other Men?”
Eldest Man stared at them for a long time before saying, “People like us and not like us. They are…the Men who spoke of them said they called themselves, sophontists.”
Auntie Rabbitcatcher stepped forward to take command. She was the hunter leader and the one who usually greeted visitors and introduced them to the village.
“Sophontists, what do you want from us?”
The man moved his mouth and muttered incomprehensible non-words. A moment later, words came from him without his lips moving. “We are travelers; strangers who wish to visit so we might learn from you. Just as your
Men travel from village to village to learn before returning to their home, so do we travel from place to place to learn. We are not sophontists, however, but anthropologists, for we came once from the same village
but have grown apart. You are not alien sentient life forms, but brothers to us.”
Auntie Rabbitcatcher looked toward Eldest Man.
“A translator,” he said. “I’ve read of those.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “There is an Auntie with them. Why is she here?”
“Our ways are not like your ways. In our village, the…” here the translator stopped and the word that it spoke for the Auntie had no meaning “…women…” Women. A man with “wo” before it. I moved
closer to the Mamas and Aunties, no longer feeling so fearless and eager for adventure. “Our women travel, too.”
“But if Aunties travel, who hunts and plants and provides for the Mamas and the Men?” Rabbitcatcher’s voice was full of the same fear that I felt.
“We have no Aunties. I am a woman, which is a different thing than an Auntie.”
“A Mama?” Auntie Rabbitcatcher stepped back, looked around, and stepped forward again. She dared not show fear before the village. There were many waiting to take her place if she faltered.
The…woman…shook her head. “No. I think our ways are so different that we lack the words to explain one another. But you can see we look like you. We are brothers and sisters who have lost one another and now we
have found you again. Please let us visit and learn from you so we can understand.”
Auntie Rabbitcatcher turned to Eldest Man and he looked from one to the other before saying, “Kill them.”
-End of Excerpt-
Subscribe online and you can finish reading this story within one business day.
Click here to order a one-year (6 issues) subscription for only US$7.95.
|
