The Journey of a People

I hold the fragile bundle of pressed bark and animal hide carefully. It’s delicate, with fine spiderwebs of curly writing on the front cover proclaiming The Journey of a People. Carefully engraved plants and animals decorate the border of the leather, crisp in the middle and worn at the corners.

I hug the book to my chest, embracing years of difficult work hunched over a rickety stone-chiseled table with a dripping stylus in hand, straining my eyes to see in the gloom of the cave. Often my only companion was the drip… drip… drip… of a single burning pinecone soaked in animal fat as a torch. Otherwise it was a mouse I kept for a year, having tamed it as a baby with seeds and care. I called him T’che-Chi’cuk, for my word which means small grey one. I found that appropriate as he was always rolling in the ashes of my pine cone lantern. But my small rodent friend is gone now, and I am alone again.

Sometimes when I wonder why I have traveled so far, gone to so much effort, I stroke the wooden boards of the inner cover and marvel in its perfectly sanded grain, which took me a moon to perfect. 

The exterior of the book belies what lies inside. Instead of a grandiose tale of heroic deeds like many before me have traveled to write, all I give to the world is my thoughts. The story of my people, as I know them.

Of course, I doubt that the book will reach many. It will most likely be hoarded in some rich collector’s castle, an illiterate man boasting of his riches by displaying the jeweled tomes of others by the hundreds.

That is, if I have, indeed, created a masterpiece worthy of the eyes of others. My simplistic style of writing, adorned with none of the embellishments many masters include, will not captivate audiences and my story itself will never become a tale told over again. The cover, while intricately carved with an increasingly steady hand and painted in jewel-like colours, is not a work of art to be marveled. No, it is a story listened to once- the pages turned once each, hungry eyes devouring my words once only, and then the spine gently left to mould over as it is never touched again. The colours shall fade, the leather shall tear, and the pages shall rot. And thus is the fate of my life, too. But alas! It is merely a simple tale of how I came to be. 

It’s not a sad story, nor a particularly happy one. It is not awe-inspiring, witty, nor heart-wrenching. It simply is.

This is the gift I give to the world. Bloody ink that ran on the pages; my endless toil, striving for the right words to express complex emotions; a story of a people who no longer are.

Except me.

I traveled for ten moons, through scorching deserts and freezing plains, over lush mountains and bare valleys, to come to this place. And I knew as I stepped into the caves that this would be my final resting place. My back became narrow and my spine ridged like the hunched wild dog in winter; my feet as rough as the pine trees I sought shade and shelter in on many a cold night; my voice when I speak as haggard as that of the wolf who has cried for many moons. My days are numbered now, and my sight is dimming like the pine torch not soaked in enough fat. And I have not a soul to speak to, save my echo.

I run my fingers over the smoothed binding of my only artifact and remember the crisp way the pages bent the very first time I touched them. How I impatiently waited for the leather to cure, and then the long hours of backbreaking work to whiten and perfect it. Extinguishing my pine-cone torch each night gave me such satisfaction- another day gone, pushing myself to excel. I had no room for error, but now I miss the strenuous striving for perfection of words and phrases. My hands, tough as new leather and spiderwebbed with the veins that tell my age, feel empty without a stylus in them. I am almost tempted to turn to the empty pages I left in the back of the book, to write more, but I know that if I do, I will likely never stop. I have, after all, spent twelve seasons on this delicate artifact in front of me.

My body is burned out now- I can no longer see out of the corners of my dimming eyes, and my hand trembles instead of doing as I beg it to. However, my mind has only now been set alight with ideas, brimming with pent-up words that scream for release. I could begin again; the idea entices me. Like the smell of a roasting deer wafting through the air, almost substantial, I can nearly reach out and grab it with my leathery bark-like hands. But I resist. The time for fresh starts has passed for me. 

Who will touch this extension of my mind, my spirit, my body? Which tender hands will rub the cover carefully, swallow the words voraciously, and treasure the tale told within the bound covers of my sole remnant? For as the moon has phases, so does the human life; and my full moon is at long last fading out. I will never see another person read my story- of this I am entirely sure.

This winter has been harsh. I am not sure I will ever see the new buds on trees and blooms of flowers again; neither the pups of the silver wolf nor the hatching eggs of robins and jays; never again may I see a young red squirrel or a fist-sized rabbit or such a glorious sunset as occur in this region. I am content with all this; the only bothersome aspect of growing old is the dreaded burden of all that is incomplete, and the deadening of once-sharp senses, of course.

But I am finished. The rambling words of an old man who thinks himself wise because of his years and his knowledge are now for the world. They are bound for a journey I will never know; most likely I will remain in this cave for eternity and that suits me. I slaved away for too long in the suffocating darkness and spent not enough time out of doors, admiring the beauty in every fallen leaf and mossy stone, and here I shall be, waiting for someone to come find me.

I will wait patiently for that day.