Birdsong

The birds woke it. The cavern had been wet and chilly the night before, so it had slept near the cave's mouth, where the warm night air would rustle in. It was still early enough in the spring that it didn’t have to worry much about anyone hiking up the mountain yet. So sleeping close to the world was still safe.

The birds were starlings. There were twenty-seven of them, each a tiny explosion of color. Their yellow-orange bellies beckoned its touch, like the warmth of a hearth fire. Stroke us, those bellies said, feel our soft swell. Listen to our tiny heartbeats.

Its fingers twitched. How wonderful it would be to stroke them. But that was impossible.

They seemed to be everywhere: speckling the budding tree limbs, the grassy slopes, hopping and singing and thrusting their bills into the soil.

It tried to get closer, despite the odds. The air always shimmered around it – reality was not thrilled with its presence. That, plus its bulk, made moving quietly nearly impossible.

When it actually managed to not to disturb them, it issued a prayer of thanks, even though it no longer believed. Maybe the prayer would allow this glittering shard of morning grace to last a few extra moments.

Their eyes darted, their heads twitched, but the cave's darkness masked its silhouette. It crept on its stomach until its nose was a breath away from the sunlight. It watched.

It drank in their motion, thinking thank you, oh thank you. Even though it no longer believed.

Finally, inevitably, a starling looked up from the centipede it had been chasing and saw it. It scream-chirped and bolted skyward, activating the rest of them. As they spurted away, it watched their energies intertwine into a web of shared space, time and motion. They rode the currents into the meadow beyond, alighting on safer ground.

It was surprised to feel its throat tighten. 312 seconds -- that’s a long time -- be grateful! Its eyes burned. Impossible! It hadn’t cried in decades.

It grabbed a touchstone near the rim of the cave, gripping hard with its corded muscles, skin as shiny and pale and blue-veined as marble. So dangerous to feel this way.

Acceptance, acceptance. This is alright, this is okay, this is what is.

But calm eluded it. Banished thoughts hacked their way forward in a way that felt almost physical. Each slash posed the most pointless of questions: why? Why was it not allowed another's talk, another's touch? A shared laugh, shared labor…even shared grief? It deserved that, didn’t it? After all, it was not responsible for what had --

Stop!

It touched the locket half-embedded in its chest.

But it was too late. The stone had fissured. Its field was corrupted, its energy twisted. A year's worth of polishing and nurturing, ruined! It tossed the rock out of the cave and watched it tumble down the slope until a thicket of heather swallowed it.

"Deserve" was created by humans. There is only motion and what is.

It spent the rest of the day at work in its cave. Its traps had yielded several plump rats. It skinned and diced them and added them to a pot with moss and grubs. It harvested water from the gourds that caught it as it trickled down the rocks.

Then it worked on its art, grinding colored minerals into paste, applying them to the walls. The Maker had said every sentient creature should make art. It kept its work in a hollow deep in the cavern, and blocked it with rocks every day, lest a potential spelunker stumble across it. The subject of every piece, although rendered in many styles, was the same: a heart-shaped locket of gold. If they saw, they would instantly know. And everything would end.

Still, it couldn’t help but wonder how the colors would look out in the sun. Would they be different? Hidden, they were beautiful. Would they be ugly in the world?

Hikers had once blundered into the cave. It had scared them off by roaring like a bear. But one man, trying to look brave for his girlfriend, had fired his rifle into the darkness. The bullet wound had healed rapidly – that was how it was made -- but that had made 16 bullets in it now.

Another time, a hermit had built a lean-to only feet from the mouth. For 1,090 days, it had been forced to live in the deepest, most subterranean parts of the cavern. Never seeing light, so deep that not even the loudest echoes of its movement could be heard. It had considered killing him, but this was forbidden. So it waited. Waited until even a wisp of light made it wince and it perfect skin grew clammy and dry. Eventually, the man, having senses so dull he couldn’t distinguish between good and poison berries, died. It had watched his throat swell up, and when the man's consciousness was no more, it buried the empty flesh beneath some brambles.

Its art now finished, it exercised, meditated, and then did its mind training, running through the entire course of its experience since Creation.

But images kept plaguing it. This was troubling, since its mental discipline had scrubbed all memories clean of interpretation, judgment, or emotional attachment. But now they rose up like smoke, wisps of longing and regret. Particularly the memories of the Before, when it had been clean and young and normal-looking; learning in school and laughing on the playground with the other children.

In the After, when it first found the cave, it had prayed. During those early years, before its discipline, it had thought some cascade of air whispering through the labyrinth had been a voice. A goddess, maybe, singing sweet love and wisdom. It prayed to hear and understand for many months, until its mind finally shed itself of the delusion.

All gods leave their children eventually. So what's is the point?

Next in the daily routine was cleansing. Although its aura kept lice, gnats and other creatures away, it still needed to wash. As it shook the water from its face and the locks of its hair undulated in the air like serpents, it had a sudden flash --

-- an image. A woman. Not memory. Something else. Drawing a comb of fine bone through its hair, smiling. Humming some simple tune. Then she rubbed fragrant oil into its scalp, not at all afraid of its too-perfectly proportioned features and radiant skin.

There, the phantom said, her smile tender and soothing. Better, no?

Its throat tightened again.

It rushed into the contemplation circle a full 53.7 minutes early. It placed the mind stones around it, sixteen, one for each part of its psyche. Breathed deeply, allowing its concentration to deepen.

The locket in its chest began to glow.

Need, other than for food, warmth and safety, is an illusion of the ego structure. It’s a fiction that one is separate. Unique. There is no "I." There is only what is.

The uncomfortable feelings dissipated. Its memories grew clean again, simply engrams of the past, nothing more.

Chirp.

What?

Chirp.

The starlings had returned. They flashed past the mouth of the cave.

Out of nowhere, rage gripped it. It leapt up and stomped straight out into the sunlight, bellowing. The birds scattered again, beyond panic. Its screams shook the high grass and made the flowers tremble, for they could not flee.

It sank to its knees.

Such a stupid display.

But, oh...

Feel that.

The sun.

Warmth, on its skin.

It knew it was simply molecules interacting. Particles, after their very long journey through space, resonating with its own.

But that was special, wasn't it? Particles forged in the sun, here now, interacting with it? Wasn't that, in a strange way, like being chosen?

Like a… caress?

It was shocked to discover that –

-- in a moment so brief that even its great mind could not count it –

-- everything changed.

863 years, 17 days, 13 hours, 50 seconds, in this cave. But not one day longer.

It knew what leaving would mean. But it didn’t matter. Not the meditation, not the discipline, not the work, not the distractions, not the protection of the energy stones.

Descent was upon it, descent into the light.

It would try to delay the inevitable outcome of this. Squeeze out every possible moment. Every second was precious, said the Maker. Back when it still earned His smiles, His encouragement, His love. Before he’d realized what the process was doing to the world. Before His smile was crushed beneath the horrible irony of perfection that could destroy. Before He fled to stars too distant to be warming.

Oh god, that crushed smile…

It willed itself smaller and managed to squeeze into the hermit’s shirt and pants without bursting them. It draped a hooded cloak across its endless shoulders. It would have to do. If it could keep the sun behind it, maybe its halo would be less noticeable.

It went to its art place and mixed the paints into a flesh-tone consistency. It rubbed it across its face and hands, checking its progress in one of the reflecting stones.

Not great, but not as bad as before. If it kept the hood up and its face down, so as not to show its eyes… Those impossible eyes.

It left the entrance to its art room unblocked. Maybe someone would see it someday, and wonder what – who -- had made it.

It went into the light, without even saying good-bye.

####

Form is an illusion, it told itself, as the blades bit deep. The screaming grew louder. It was like the whole town was screaming. The children’s shrieks were the worst.

Bullet holes... now seventeen, eighteen, nineteen...

It had gone unnoticed for 23.6 minutes. Walking through town, rejoicing in everything it saw. The survivors were rebuilding!

Finally, a young mother in the street—very much like the ghost woman that had combed its hair—looked up from her child and smiled.

Smiled at it, at him, under a sky of perfume and bird song. They were beautiful, that mother and child, despite their deformities.

He had smiled back, which of course shattered his disguise instantly. He blazed, a nova. As the makeup boiled away, he’d expanded to full size and his clothing had dropped away like chaff.

Another blow to his head drove him to the ground.

As the crowd surrounded him, they saw the heart-shaped locket his Maker had embedded in his chest. Like a golem, he’d joked. Or the Tin Man of Oz!

Its cover had been knocked off, and they stared at what was inside.

The element, Element 120, what the Maker had created, looked so harmless. Like an emerald. It had made him possible. It also had turned out to be lethal to the rest of the world.

It was harmless now, of course, but they didn't know that.

The weight of an entire world’s revenge rained down on him.

So much pain, shattering his nerves, breaking down his thoughts.

Making him real.

They can’t see. It wasn’t my doing. But that is alright, that is okay, that is what is.

Thank you, oh, thank you.