The Pale Face of Reincarnation

I saw in the darkness, beyond the wall of trees and greenery, the hole to my home. Standing still as stone, my paws clawed into the chilly dirt beneath me. Shrubbery concealed me. Peering out beyond the leaves towards the open of the cold forest, I feared it could see my every twitch. Running was the only choice. My abode called me forth. Everyone I’d ever loved was deep in the dirt, waiting for me.

All four of my legs pushed me forth. Gasping as I ran, I felt my heartbeat rise. Leaves hit me in the face, but I kept racing.

Then it descended. Glowing like a low-toned ghost, it soared down from the darkness in silence. Whiteness spread out to its sides. Its eyes were like two black balls. And it had a beak.

So close I was to my home as it grabbed me. Four sharp talons wrapped around my furry body and took me from the earth. The world swirled by as I was taken to the sky. Every one of the four curved blades that carried me began to cut and crush me, and I felt blood rush out of my body.

Placed on a branch, I saw my captor. An owl, the ghost was. It took me into its mouth, and I was swallowed whole.

I woke up when I was barfed up onto an altar made of stone.

Though my body was cut up, I felt numb.

Two more white owls stood before me in the tree branches that held that flat stone platform. Four black balls watched me.

The third owl, the one who cut, swallowed and barfed me back up, flapped its wings and took its place in the middle of its kin.

All three glowing, ghostly faces watched me. All three opened their beaks to speak: “The white will bring new life.”

I was confused. Questions came into my mind. But just as I opened my mousey mouth to speak, I felt water pour all over me.

I awoke in my hide hammock, which was now drenched as well, and my three “friends” were laughing as one of them handled a water pot with the last drops falling off the rim.

They found my screaming funny.

I looked all around the long house and saw many others laughing from their hammocks, looking down at me. Even the woman I’d wanted since we were children, and who I’d imaged having as my wife, and I her protector. She was cuddling up with the man who she’d chosen, who laid with his hand behind his head, showing off the hair of his arm pit, which was far thicker than mine would ever grow. He smirked as well.

An old woman scolded my friends for wasting water on me.

One of the three told me me to hurry; hunting was our responsibly that day. Laughing, they left.

I wiped my light-brown skin with my hands as best I could while leaving the longhouse. My loin cloth wouldn’t be dry for some time. I grinded my teeth, seething. Wiping my face, I saw my paint wash onto my palms and thought, what did I do to deserve this?

Everyone around me was painted: elderly, parents, and children who came up and slapped my leg and give me emotional pain like any other day. I tried to scurry away from their slaps. They ran after me, and everybody thought it was funny.

Sometimes I just wanted them all gone, and to watch the settlement succumb to a horrible force. But no, I thought, and guilt washed all that I’d pondered.

Armed with my tomahawk, I joined my hunting party, who just had to mock me with some question about my wetness. I said nothing and swallowed it whole.

One of our settlement’s medicine men, who was wrinkly with face paint made of red and white lines, blessed us with incense and prayed for our safety out in the forest, which he also prayed would grant us bountiful catches.

So we entered into the green wall of forestry, tomahawks and clubs in our hands, eyes keen for catches.

We happened upon a plant that grew green berries we’d never seen before. My three friends convinced me to eat one of them, which I felt bitter about, but did it just to get them to shut up. One told me to report how I was feeling later in the day. We picked as much as we could off the branches, and they handed them all to me, which I put in my buffalo-skin satchel.

I thought about the owls that I saw in my dream, and recalled what they said to me: “White will bring new life.”

New life.

In my twenty winters of being alive, I’d pondered on this many a time. Being born into this shitty tribe was not my design. I wondered what curse had been placed upon me in my previous life.

Then I found that I’d fallen far back from my companions. Many trees and shrubberies stood before me and the three of them.

Not one bothered to look back.

Suddenly I decided to stand still, there in that forest, alone. I could feel the energy of the spirits reaching out to me, though I feared what they were about to speak.

Then I saw, pissing on the barky trunk of a tree, a man wearing apparel I’d never seen before. All over his body he wore something like hide, or material to which I wasn’t privy. Dark green, it was. And something like feathers were fashioned around his neck, though it appeared to be made of material. On his head was something similar, and it had one clear feather pointed up in the front. Still pissing, he turned his head to look over his shoulder, deep down the forestry. I could see that his skin was white, almost like the snow of winter. Sickness didn’t seem like it was within him, nor that he was moments before dying. He hollered out into the forest in words that were foreign to me, but it was clear he wanted to get the attention of someone who’d left him.

He wiggled off the last bits of drip, and slipped his dick back into his garment.

Turning towards the direction in which he was hollering, his eyes caught mine, wide and watching. We both stared, fully aware of the other.

Then he reached for something on his waist, which I first thought to be a thick stick of some sort, but then became a blade, and a ray of sunshine shined between the leaves of the trees and gleamed along it. A long tomahawk, I thought at first. My heart beat surged.

Then I felt someone push me aside from behind. It was my friends, who ran up and surrounded the white man with tomahawks and clubs drawn.

The man seemed to threaten something in his strange tongue, teeth exposed like a savage animal. He swung his weapon, but it hit the tree and got stuck. A club was swung to the back of his head and the impact made him go limp.

His white eyelids blinked open as he awoke while we carried him back to our home. We’d roped up both his arms and legs, and his mouth closed. I carried his feet. He tried to kick at me and scream. Then he got another club lump to the head.

The four of us discussed who he was, where he might’ve come from, or what omen this could hold. I thought about my dream, but kept my mouth closed.

Everyone in our settlement gathered for the spectacle. Who was this white man? What was he wearing? Who found him? My friend took credit, and then my other friend claimed he clobbered him first. They got into an argument about that, but no one paid it any matter; this man of white skin was too interesting.

He was roped with both hands behind a tree on the outskirts of our settlement, next to where we kept wrong-doers.

The eldest men and women tried to talk and gather information on his origins, but he only spat and growled with words that felt attacking. So, once more, they roped his mouth closed, between his teeth.

His lips dripped with drool while kids came to look at him. Dumb questions bombarded their parents as if they had the answers. Most parents told them, “Don’t get too close,” though some mocked him along with their children.

Elders mentioned to everyone — repeatedly — that if anybody had received messages from the spirits, to please come forth and inform them.

The more people prayed for omens, the more I thought on the trio of owls, and thought for sure that their words referred to his white face. The white will bring new life.

A medicine man began to fast and prep himself to enter the forest and sit in the circle of stones until omens showed him to which direction destiny was flowing. I thought of going over before he embarked and asking him about owls. Everyone believed that owls were foreboding of impending death. Long and hard I thought about bringing this up out of my mouth, but something stopped me.

People prayed to the spirits into the night and all the next morning. Some came forth, telling of omens held in key moments in their dreams. Some saw acts of freedom, like flight; others, of hunting. Vivid images of apparitions visited one woman’s dreams, though she didn’t know them to be friends or foes.

My three friends came by and told the story of how I was so scared I couldn’t bare to engage him when his blade came out. They said my face was even more pale than his. Everyone had a laugh at my expense. Including my lover who was never to be, who’d chosen another. And he, with his arm around her, smirked and shook his head and looked in another direction to rid his vision of me.

I stood nearby all day, watching and pondering that white man. His eyes met with mine many times. I saw the strength in his eyes wane; what was once rage subsided, and his spirit wasted away as the daylight waned. A captive of all these people with red-brown skin. I came to the conclusion that this man, this white-faced man, had come to grant me a new path. But I knew no one would listen, those sons of bitches. Everyone would tell me to shut up, or mock me for even talking. But clearly the spirits had chosen me to receive the message of impending new life that was to come.

When the night fell upon our settlement and the forest land that surrounded, I had a plan. When snores and wheezing noises sounded from all over the hammocks of the longhouse, I took my tomahawk, and snuck off.

Though all was dark, I thought I saw some night watcher on guard duty spot me, though I hoped he didn’t.

Still, into the darkness beyond the settlement I ventured.

All the way around I came up to the tree to which he’d been roped by both hands around the trunk.

A couple of guards were watching, though dozing off. Two teen boys, arms crossed and laying back back against two trees. One was already wheezing in his sleep. And the other wasn’t waking him up.

“Shhh,” I whispered from behind the tree to the man the owl had brought me. Little cuts from my tomahawk sawed the rope off. I saw both his white hands pull back around to the front of the tree, and I could hear the tug of him unroping both his feet.

Moments later, he came flying by me as he ran into the darkness.

Going close to the trunk of the tree, I tried to conceal myself as best I could.

Both the guard boys ran after the white man as they swore, and I saw them all disappear in the wall of darkness.

Light foot, I snuck back into the longhouse and into my hammock. A new happiness hummed within me, and I smiled under the concealment of night, wondering what tomorrow would bring.

When daylight came I felt like a defiant child.

All day, all eyes were wide with worried inquiry. What had become of the white-faced man?

Watching as I stood by, I waited for what changes would soon come my way.

But as the day waned conspiracy theories came. First, blame was placed on the boy guards who were supposed to stand watch and dozed off. But then, upon further examination, it became obvious that the rope that had bound the white man’s hands had been severed by some unknown helper. Was it one of his own? There had to be more of him around. And with that notion panic came. Aggravation escalated blame.

Worry began to creep within me. Some eyes watched me as I began to pace around the settlement with dread.

Then, when questions came about where everyone was the night before, I froze in fear. If any had seen me, or even suspected me, then I could be seen as a traitor to my people. I second-questioned my own actions, but it was too late; it had already happened.

And so, in the middle of the settlement, amongst all the buildings and people, I saw my three friends approach with dark eyes and low chins. A sick feeling flooded my stomach. I felt the grip of men grab at me. Elders came to say that a witness had come forth: a boy, who saw me sneak into the longhouse in the middle of the night.

I was ostracized as all the fiery eyes of my people watched me, wanting to see me gone.

Beholding the deep green of the forestry call me, where I’d forever be alone, I scolded all who cast me off, saying that an omen showed me what had to be done.

Everyone shouted for me to shut up and keep going. Including both my father and his second wife.

I almost told them of my owl omen. But I was just glad to go, to see them no more. I was set to start my new life.

At first, a part of me felt empowered. But the forest was so vast, and its sounds of animals passing behind the concealment of leaves began to creep into my being. Plant branches hacked at my skin as I passed one after another.

Hunger and thirst came and made my stomach feel like an abyss.

I blamed the people for making me listen to that stupid owl.

Where was I going to go? No home was my own. I was alone.

The forest grew cold as nighttime took hold. Nothing could I see but what the moon spared me.

I ran back. I had to get back into my settlement. My only home. I’d known no other people in my entire life. All my friends, my father, every elder who’d ever cared to teach me anything. Plants hacked at me, but I pushed passed every last one.

Screams came into my ears. Many of them. In the dark distance. Slowing down, I listened closer. So many shrieks, some of agony. They were coming from the direction of my settlement.

My sweaty hand was wrapped around the handle of my club, though I felt like I didn’t know what to do with it.

I thought of running back into the blackness, but my home attracted me. And as I approached, the sounds of screams subsided into low groans. Sickness took hold of my guts as I wondered what had happened. Silence took the night as I found the outskirts of my settlement.

Laying low under the concealment of leaves, my eyes tried to find proof if the screams were indeed real, or a joke of my mind. Darkness subsided as my eyes adjusted to the night-drenched area. Bodies — I saw so many bodies lay before me, all over my home.

No, I thought with horror. No, no.

One groaned. It was the woman I loved. Blood was coming out of her stomach. She saw me, and reached out.

I ran to grab her hand. To lead and protect her, as her hero. We’d be free in the forest forever, together. Just us.

Then I felt something sting through my stomach. Someone had come out of the shrubs and stabbed me. It was the white man I’d found and released. I slid off his blade and laid on the earth. Blood blurt out from my mouth. He, and three of his friends who looked just like him, white-faced, eyes filled with grinning rage, came and stood in a circle over me. Four blades came out, just as I’d deserved, and that’s when I accepted that I’d soon start my new life.

The End.