The Ghosts of Words

I remember you.

Well, at least I think I do.

You've been here before. You brought.. yes, that thing. The black club-thing, you asked me to talk, to sing, to tell you about my people.

I am the last now. It all dies with me. Is dying. I am dying. I can feel it, coming for me. My ancestors must be so ashamed.

Why should they not? Choices were made, and they must have been bad ones, for me to be the end of our people. You do not understand, because your family still lives and thrives. Even if you have no children, you do not understand the fear that I face, to answer to my ancestors for our great shame.

I had children. They are all gone. And my grandchild, poor little thing, breathed its last in my arms. Before we could name it, bring it to our family. And I cried, for all that was lost.

Recordings, that is the word. Recordings do not have the power of living memory, that grows and thrums with the songs of a people going back to the dawn of time.

And my memory is fading, just like our people.

I know, you visited often, you took everything I could give before it was lost. And I gave you everything I could, each time. I wish you could take the growing despair that I feel with each passing day.

When a tree falls, does it make a sound? It does, even though you may not hear it. Others do, and even if not, they hear the silence of one that will never be again. What is lost? A home, a refuge, a way of perceiving a world that will never be looked at from the same view ever again.

Gone. All gone.

I will be punished. I am not the only one, I know, but I will be punished all the same.

I tried to teach the younglings about our ancestors. I told the stories, but that does not mean the children will listen and remember. They chose other things to think about, that were more important to them. Some refused to teach our words, thinking they would be punished by your people for using them. And they were right; you beat us in your schools for the remembering. I still have scars on my knuckles from the beatings. My sister was slapped so hard a tooth fell out, and one that was not supposed to be loose.

Ah, it is the words I miss most.

Do you know the word for that time, the hush that comes over a forest, when the rain is about to start? Or the pleasure-pain you feel for an animal you successfully hunted, grieving that it must die, but so pleased that you can feed your children so they do not know the pain of starvation? Or that breathless pause between lightning and thunder, counting, so that you know how far away the danger is? Or the joy that brightens the eyes, of hearing your child cry for the first time, and the mother as well, knowing both lived? Or that moment, when your mate lays the strip of fox pelt on your lap, for you to bless so she may wear it, for she is pregnant? Or the satisfaction of gathering the ingredients for a special meal, and preparing it, and sharing it?

I don't remember them anymore. They are gone. Things that are unspoken are a silence that is always hungry, and takes the life from other words, till the silence smothers all.

The hungry ghosts of words walk about, and take from the living.

I am tired. I am old. And I don't remember. And I have nothing left.

Our people, our home. My family. The world we lived in, now in the care of others, covered with roads and houses built to fight nature. Illness, cold rooms that we were not meant to live in, the wrong foods. Scratchy clothing. Shoes that hurt, and kept us from hearing the heartbeat of the land. The murmur of voices by firelight gone silent, one by one.

The songs no longer push back the dark.

Without the songs, you cannot find your way home.

The grayness swallows all.

And I am alone. And lost.

Who are you?