Shepherd of Briar

For as long as I could remember, I lived in a world that had, apart from the mundane, some larger things, such as the Giants, beings so large and slow that hundreds of us could fit inside one, the Monumentals, who tower even over the Giants, and never move from their posts, Sky Demons, who descend upon us from far above, to tear us to shreds, and a cruel, jealous God to protect us from the demons.

Until a while ago, even those things were mundane to me, but now, nothing is.

I am a carpenter by trade. I built houses for our people, and I built one for myself as well. I have been a carpenter for a long time, but not so long that I would feel justified in calling myself a master of carpentry.

Unlike most of the people, who live as low as possible, our community found a protected plateau a bit higher up. The natural formations protect us from the skies, and so, we have not seen the demons for as long as I can remember.

There is many of us, and we have peace, and so, some argue that perhaps these demons may not even exist, and may be a figment of imagination of our more primitive ancestors. The very same they proclaim about our God, that we merely invented him to fill the gaps in our understanding, and that his existence is much more dubious than we previously believe.

They have some ground to stand on - after all - we cannot even agree on how he looks.

Others yet proclaim this a heresy, and maintain that we must continue our rituals, and that we must continue bringing sacrifices to God, since his protection is all that separates us from total annihilation. They argue that the fact that we do not come into direct contact with the demons in these parts is evidence enough that God is keeping his end of the covenant, and we owe our peace to him.

For me, these were questions that never came to my mind before. In this daily life, all that would concern me were questions of carpentry, and the more superficial, like what will I have to eat, or to drink, who will I talk and spend my free time with.

In the latter aspect, I have become a sort of a nomad. I oscillate between groups of people, and I am on good terms with all, and so if I want to go spend some quality time in good company, there is not a moment that I would have trouble finding it. Of course, the downside is that I do not directly belong to any of these cliques, and my socially nomadic nature is currently as much my prison as it is my freedom.

But I digress.

For years, I lived my life in content and blissful convenience. In a way, I slept even when I was wide a wake. The hands with which I cut the wood were my dreaming, and every house, a complete dream. Unconscious, not something to think about, not something to mind. All that there is is the satisfaction with the work done, a good word, a warm meal, a funny story.

Today, I went to the edge of our little elevated plateau, as I enjoy the sight of all the depths that lead to the ground level, and the terrain that stretches in front of it. A gentle breeze is blowing, the sun is shining from the sides, but never into my eyes, as lovely as a place can be.

When I got there, it was not peace and joy, as one would expect. Instead, Prascal, and older fellow was crying and standing at the edge, with a small crowd gathered around him. Curious, I went closer to investigate what was going on.

And Prascal spoke:

“What did we do to deserve this?”

“Did we sin, did we commit sin so heinous, a crime so vile, that we must answer to cruelty only?”

“What of generosity? What did we do to be denied it?”

“There is no wager for me, for us, there is no hope.”

“We are damned, damned I tell you. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.”

“Why cannot we get a generous God? Is love to much to ask for?”

And people would try to console him, and get him off the edge and back behind the railing. But their words fell on deaf ears, just as his did. They would say: “Stop with that nonsense, and come back in.”

They did not understand, and neither do I, and yet, unlike all my deaf peers, I heard him.

After wailing for a moment, Prascal plunged into the depths, ending his life with a splat. And Prascal was no more.

I sat back in my chair, but everything seemed so strange. The chair was the same as before, but it was not the same to me. I looked at my hands, and my tools, but they were not the same. They felt odd, as if they were not mine.

I looked over at all the houses I built, but somehow, they seemed foreign and alien, and I did not recognize them as mine. I looked at my reflection in the cup I was drinking from, but the man I saw was a different man from the man I would always see as my reflection. And yet, I knew that he is me and that I am him, and that all of the material I am made up from is still me, and that I look the same and that there is no obvious physical difference between me now and me a while ago.

The air smelled different, and the wind that blew was ominous. I knew that I am not as I was, and that from that moment on, I can never be the same that I was, and things will never seem as they seemed and I will never see them I saw them before.

Imagine for a while, that there is a machine. The machine is an intricate clockwork, finely tuned to work as expected. However, there is a flaw, an extra piece of metal is lodged in the gears, and so the gears do not turn properly. With usage, the machine was, by its unknowing users, tuned to work properly with this flaw.

The words that Prascal spoke dislodged this piece of metal that was blocking my gears, and my clockwork is now in disarray.

I am sitting now in my house, alone as I would usually only be at the end of each day, before it was time to sleep. But I feel like this house was built and decorated by a different person from me, one who has very different tastes. It is not bad, but it is not my home anymore.

I cannot stay here.

My legs itch and I feel compelled to walk. Where to? I do not know.

But I must leave, and I must learn, and meet, and see, as it is clear to me now, that my knowledge is quite limited. I am once again as a child, at the cusp of education, and my only two options are to learn or to rot.

Even though it is physically impossible, I can faintly smell the stench of Prascal’s corpse. I can almost see the worms burrowing into the decaying flesh, and this sight is scary for me, and terrifying. To know that what was once a man I knew is now food for mindless creatures. That a long life can be punctuated by such a short and vicious end.

It is sad, really.

…

I woke up early in the morning. It is the time of the year that there is a little frost on the ground in the early morning, as opposed to morning dew making everything wet. The air has a stingy feel to it, and feels much colder than it really is. There is vapor if you breathe out, and if you wear glasses, they will fog up.

Almost everybody else is still asleep, or if awake, staying in the comfort of their warm homes. There is only one fellow who shares the outside with me at this odd hour, the priest in the chapel, who spends every early morning cleaning, so that during the day, he can respond to the needs of the people.

I am going to see him first, and then I am leaving.

…

The church doors are understandably ancient, much like the whole building itself. The wood the door is made of is, however, far more exposed to the elements than what is in the walls, and so it shows the signs of aging far more than its more protected counterpart.

The sign at the church doors, the one we use to represent God, are two triangles next to each other, pointing up. It is said that these triangles are the body of God. Sometimes eye is drawn into each triangle to represent God’s vigilance.

In ancient days, it is said that God visited us far more often, and it was his eyes that left the greatest impression on my ancestors.

The priest saw me first.

“Briar, what are you doing here this early in the morning?”

“I could not sleep, Father. I came to visit you.”

“God protect you, son. What do you need?”

“I want to leave the town and journey onwards. You see, I need to learn more about our world and God.”

“Where will you go? And what is it about God that you want to know? Don’t we know all that we need to know?”

“That may be so, but I started to feel like I need to know more. I do not know where will I go.”

“Very well. You can go North, but I would advise against it. There is a large nation there, and t is said that they are closer to God there, and since there is many of them, they may just know more than we do. But the journey will be anything but simple. You must descend to the bottom of the world, and cross the exposed jungle. Across the great wall, and over the desert. And when you arrive, the nation may not even be there. After all, no one was in contact with them in years. We get all we need here, and the way is, as I said, dangerous.”

“I will try going there, and I will see what I learn.”

“There is still time to reconsider, Briar.”

With that, I say my goodbyes to the priest and take my leave. I picked up some water, some food that doesn’t spoil, a rope, and my favorite wooden stick to serve as a staff.

…

I head away from the town, towards the dark tunnel. The tunnel is said to start being very steep, letting you descend fast onto the ground. However, if it rains, it floods, and many have drowned going down the tunnel in bad weather.

I descend into the tunnel.

Soon, the light of day is merely a distant memory. I don’t see anything, and all that I feel is the loud echoes of my footsteps, as I go further down. If this wasn’t a straight tunnel, I would have surely gotten lost very quickly.

I find it strange that it is so perfectly straight and even, and that it feels metallic to the touch. I wonder if it is indeed a natural formation, or if it was built by someone. It is too large to be built by us, maybe if there were many many more of us, we could have built in in many decades, but from what I heard, our population has only increased in recent decades, and there have never been more of us living here than there is now.

Maybe there was a different nation before us, much larger and stronger than us, and perhaps they left centuries before we came and this tunnel is the only testament to their existence here.

I do not entertain the theory that it was built by the Sky Demons, since I have never heard they would build anything. After all, they are the destroyers of worlds, or so we say. Such evil cannot have consciousness, and the necessary wit and dedication to build something like that. Why would they, if they live in the skies?

As for the Giants, they could have well built it, but I cannot say for certain either. Their sightings are few and far between, and it is believed that there is very few of them. Legends say that they move slower than we do, and when they do something, it takes a very long time. On the other hand, if they are as big as the legends say, they must be able to do much more with that kind of power.

Some say that they may serve the God, and that is my final candidate. By nature of godhood, he must be able to perform feats like this no problem at all. Maybe this tunnel was made to provide safer passage from the Sky Demons. Of course, the drowning then would be a sacrifice to appease our God’s continued protection.

…

After a while, I began to see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, and I knew that in a couple minutes, I would find myself on firm ground, the lowest place our people ever lived.

In a short moment, I am in fact standing at the edge of the tunnel. In front of me, straight in front of my face and a bit up, is the sun. Its unobscured light is almost blinding, and gives a great impression of power. A thought quickly flashes in my head: “Even if we combined all of our flames, they could not outshine the sun, such is its power.”

The sight in front of me is mesmerizing, and I cannot help but linger for a while. This is new, unexplored territory, we haven’t been here for so long, and yet my ancestors stood at this very place, so long ago, that we do not remember their faces, or even their names. We do not even know if they spoke the same language, ate the same food, built the same houses and sang the same songs. Did they feel the same way as we did? Perhaps to them, things like love, friendship, and brotherhood meant something completely different.

To me, there is only one piece of concrete evidence. That they stood here, aeons ago, as I stand here now, and that is my link to them.

…

I must return to more pressing issues, however, and leave the realm of awe-inspiring contemplation. You see, the tunnel doesn’t reach all the way down. It is suspended at least a few feet in the air. It is certainly more than my height.

My rope, I hope, I will help me back up, and so I must preserve it, and jump this time. After all, everything falls to the ground, but things do not tend to magically float up into the skies, and I do not plan to get abducted by the Sky Demons, should they exist.

And so I jump.

…

I did not quite stick the landing, and I can feel now that I will develop a handful of nasty bruises, but I don’t think I have broken anything. My legs work, and so do my hands. My head survived the fall unscathed and so I can press further on.

In front of me stretches a large clearing, beset from all sides by a dense forest. Above my head, there is the clear blue sky with not a single cloud to be seen, just it, and the sun.

Behind me, stretches the massive mountain, that we live on top of. My former home is so far up that it is impossible to locate it with my eyes.

In front of me is the jungle. I expected it to be darker, but the strange plants that grow here are composed of thin vertical bodies that hardly shield from the sun at all.