A Pretty Prize

I clung to a life that was devoid of meaning… for how long, I do not know.

My perception of time had been abstract. If my pages were left blank I would not have noticed its passing at all. I was unseeing, incognizant… and dying.

My pages were filled with uninspired scribbles and scrawlings of no consequence penned mindlessly by past possessors. Fleeting discernments scratched upon my face never to be relevant to the composer, or anybody, ever again.

Then I was tossed aside.

My physical form does not experience the world the way humans do. I can only feel the energies emitted by forces and beings around me.

I felt the invigorating sensation of solar energy baking me and other discarded items around me. I could feel the individual energies of human beings as they passed by, some stopping to inspect or claim items in the assortment. Some momentarily became interested in me, opening me in anticipation… only to quickly place me back down in disappointment upon seeing I contained nothing they deemed valuable.

They did not see potential within me. They saw only what others had done to me and thought it reflected all that I could be.

I was pondering this unfortunate paradox when I felt a fresh energy that could be best described as a bright light radiating out like a beacon in the night. I was immediately drawn to its warmth.

I was intrigued when this human was not interested in my contents. Without opening me, she chose me.

The Bright One, I dubbed her.

She took me home and I sat in silent awe as she began lawlessly painting over my used pages, effectively rendering them “blank” once more... followed by painstakingly propping them open to dry. It took many sittings for The Bright One to give new life to all of my decaying faces. The process had me eagerly awaiting her first expression.

Upon my transformation, I could feel The Bright One’s intense concentration upon me, like a magnifying glass focusing the power of the sun into one narrow beam. For once, I was well aware of the passage of time.

At long last, with willful intent, she began to write.

With this little black book that was lost and found its way to me, I address Kana the Lost, and call for her to find this world and family once again.

Grandmother, forgive me, it is with sorrow that I cannot address you with the language of our people.

Mother is not well and I have no way to help her. We do not have money for treatment. I fear it will take her from me and I will live with the heartache and strife Mother has dealt with since you were taken from her.

I hope that you may be able to sense this urgent message and understand it in some ethereal way.

With hope,

Citlali

A light came on in my dimly lit consciousness. I felt like a smoldering ember beneath a pile of ash… appearing lifeless from the outside, yet growing hotter within. My energy was akin to a beating heart amid a freefall, pulsating forcefully, threatening to consume me.

I felt powerful.

I knew I had to harness it for the sake of Citlali, and as soon as I made that choice, my consciousness began to push beyond my physical form.

It felt... bizarre... to extend past the range in which I naturally exuded. It was an unfamiliar experience to be in command of my movement. I was a lost, sightless being reaching with outstretched arms seeking a hearth, stumbling within a cold abyss. I was naturally drawn to Citlali’s nearby warmth, her beautiful soul called out to me like a dear friend asking to shelter me from harm.

As I moved further away from the safety of my physical form, I began to feel less tangible. It occurred to me that I may fade away if I didn't fixate upon my inspiration. Wandering through The Dark Silence, I kept my bearings by staying close to Citlali.

Another being of an energy I had never encountered entered my vicinity.

I was barely able to register this before it grabbed hold of me like a magnet, pulling me across space, away from Citlali. We surged forward until we collided with yet another being, this one I recognized.

In an instant, I went from being one to being a small part of a much larger whole.

It had been one thing to feel the energy of human beings from afar within the security of my own form, it was something entirely different to be intimately intertwined inside one. As I swirled about, disoriented within this immense being, I realized my initial mission had been foolhardy. I had sought this human, Citlali’s mother, in an effort to heal her with my newfound vigor... but her energy dwarfed mine. I was swimming within a being that was an ocean of complexity and sensation.

As I got my bearings and settled down into a corner of her consciousness, I quickly became enthralled by this new experience… I was able to share in her visual and auditory observations as she moved about, completely unaware of her voyeuristic stowaway.

Access to her mind came with a torrent of information.

I came to know her by the name Awendea, she was an indigenous woman who felt like a sunflower that had been thriving in a glorious field that was a kaleidoscope of color and life... until it was plucked and taken away, placed in a vase on a windowsill, never to feel direct sunlight again. Doomed to wilt then die in the name of being a pretty prize for another. The analogy wasn’t quite congruous with reality though, Awendea realized. For it to be so, the flower would need to be aware that the field it loved had been mowed down and replaced with concrete.

Awendea had started life in her ancestral tribe with her mother. She barely remembered her mother at all... she had distant memories of a loving, kindhearted woman called Kana. She used to sing a soothing lullaby and rub Awendea’s temples whenever she had nightmares.

That was before her mother went missing.

It was a known danger to her people. Indigenous women went missing often, preyed upon by outsiders who held no respect for their people. They coveted their women's beauty, but did not hold them in any other regard. It was a mentality that Awendea herself was familiar with. She knew what had become of Kana.

She was a defiled daughter.

A stolen sister.

A murdered mother.

It was an outrage to know that justice rarely met the outsiders who had destroyed so many families.

The timing for Kana’s disappearance had been doubly awful for young Awendea, as the government then decided to take their lands and dissolve her tribe in order to assimilate them into The New World. She was sent to "boarding school" where she was called “Wendy” despite her opposition. Memories of her old life and language faded away as she was forced to learn their language and etiquette. Though she knew all of the things her peers knew—and more—she was aware that she would always be distinctly separate.

She longed for her culture, her people, her mother... knowing she would never have them again.

It brought her great anguish.

As a teenager she sought to drink her sorrows away, which only dug her grief deeper. She didn’t like the person she had become but didn’t know who else she could be. She was forced into a world she didn't belong in.

Upon adulthood, she found and returned to the land her tribe had once occupied, only to discover it had become a government sanctioned reserve for another. Though she couldn’t verbally communicate with most of the people, she was elated to find herself welcomed by them… at first. Some viewed her as a source of shame for what they perceived as compliance with assimilation—she would never be fully accepted.

There had been one person who she bonded with in the tribe… a perpetually jovial man named Chetanzi. They had been inseparable before he was made to marry a fellow tribeswoman whom he had been promised to.

Upon this heartbreak, Awendea left. She returned to the only life she really knew.

It wasn’t until later that she found out she was pregnant with Citlali… which was a blessing to her. For the first time in her life she would have somebody to love who would not be taken away. She got sober and focused on that new chapter of her life for a long time.

But the thoughts came creeping back in, and with them, the sorrow.

Awendea returned to the inadequate vice she had used to temporarily silence those thoughts years before.

As these memories played in her mind, Awendea felt the call of the bottle once more.

With all my might, I pleaded with her not to listen to it. I could feel her guilt, shame, and disappointment before a drop even touched her lips. I also felt her anguish and knew she would not be able to resist.

I understood.

It had the potential to stop her pain for a moment. If I’d had control of her body… feeling that… I might have done it myself.

I had never fathomed that human life could be so wrought with wrongness. As Awendea accessed the cupboard, I could still feel the passion within her. She wanted more than this. She yearned to make Citlali proud, to create a better world for them, to honor Kana.

But she resigned to drink herself into oblivion.

I couldn’t bear to watch her dismiss her potential. I screamed with all of my ferocity for her to harness those passions and allow them to lead her to create something that gave them life and meaning. I tried to replicate Citlali’s intensity—like a magnifying glass focusing the sun—in the back of Awendea's mind, searing…

Relentlessly pursue inspiration!

Create your world!

Tell your story!

But as Awendea drank, my connection to her slipped away until it was severed completely.

I was back in The Dark Silence once more.

This time I had no bearings. I wandered endlessly, barely there. My consciousness flickered, threatening to go out. There was no inspiration within this empty place to keep me alive. Visions of Citlali and Awendea were the only things that tethered me to existence. I am creative energy, though, and I need more than inspiration to exist... I wither without meaningful creation. I longed to be Citlali’s journal once more. I tried to will it into existence.

In despair, about to be devoured by the nothingness, I finally felt something…

The magnetic being.

As this being guided me back to where I belonged, I could hear an enchanting hum. I recognized it as Kana's lullaby.

When my mind returned home I found I’d been gone much longer than I’d realized. There had been many entries, spanning several months, my favorite read:

Greatmother Kana,

I know you’ve heard me and blessed us!

Mother had a stroke of inspiration. She wrote our story to a news station, they ran it, and it has received national attention! Donations have come from all around the country. Within a week we've received $20,000!

With this good fortune we have established a place of healing for families like ours. We have a collective of the cultures of our people, keeping them alive through artistry, music, storytelling, and beyond. We even have a few in our community that are teaching some of our many languages to receptive younger generations. We have already taken in many like us.

Mother has been so happy and busied that she hasn’t touched a bottle since she started this. She has big dreams that are becoming reality and I’m so proud of her.

We are fortunate to have you watching over us.

Love,

Citlali