Please no stealing
�Ajith! Ajith, where are you? You are supposed to be hunting with your father. This child�no respect for others. Daydreams daydreams daydreams when will she ever learn?�
I heard Mother yelling for me, but it was so soothing watching the water ripple in the clay jars that I didn�t want to leave my place under the rocky hill.
�AJITH!!!�
�Yes, Mother I am ready when Father is,� I replied, dusting the dirt from my skirt.
Father was not a big man, only a head taller than my mother and not quite so wide. He was a gentle man and the shaman of our roaming town. He taught me how to read the smoke of the fires and why animals migrate beyond biological reasoning. I will be the one to lead our people when Father is gone, and by that time I will have a new story to tell�my own.
�Remember Ajith, the hopping rodents are good meat but the crawling rodents are poison. Don�t touch them Daughter.�
�Father I know this I have been hunting with you for years now. I know it all.�
�That is a dangerous stance, Daughter. Far too many have died because a fool thought he knew it all.�
All there was in every direction was sand. It shimmered in the afternoon sun as I rested with my father under the large skeleton of a tree that has now almost completely surrendered to the slow creep of particles that make up the desert floor. The sun slowly crept up the horizon and made pictures of the air before my eyes�a ship, a child, a forest.
In the ancient past, before the big drought, all the land for miles was an immense forest filled with trees and flowers-- a utopia where all the animals and people lived in harmony. The most beautiful and giving of all the inhabitants was the white, long-tailed monkey, Gwenaelle. She was looked upon as the mother of the land and the protector of its people. It was said that her laughter caused the gentle rain to fall and her smile the plants to grow. Gwenaelle was in love with Sorin, and their love was true and pure. Together they brought great prosperity to their forest. But all was not well; Etain was jealous of their love and sought to bring it to an end.
Etain came up with a plan. He would bring in the famed Amaya the legendary nymph to woo Sorin away from his love. Amaya was quick with her art and within the day Sorin was hers and Etain made certain that the beloved Gwenaelle knew of this betrayal. Etain brought Gwenaelle to the vale where the seductress and her prey lay and revealed them to Gwenaelle. The floor of the forest shook with Gwenaelle�s anger and broke with her heart. It is said that she is still despairing and that is why the rain refuses to fall or the plants to grow--for they, too, are in mourning for the lost love and innocence of the lovely and benevolent Gwenaelle.
We continued our hunt in the coolness of the evening with a salty breeze coming in from the East--the ocean. The song of the night filled my head: calming, soothing, freeing my soul. I got lost in the sounds of the animals and hum of the insects. Before I knew it I was far from the places I knew, drawn by the siren call of the lost.
Rising out of the sand was a black trail leading into the mist of the heat. Flanking the path there rose termite mounds bathing in the extra heat and stability of the black path. As I walked the gauntlet of the termites a sense of inevitability of my actions and my resulting fate flooded over me.
The buildings started to rise around me. High mounds of stone and glass shining above me reached miles into the sky. It was amazing to see such a place�I had heard the stories of the old ones, but did not truly believe. It could not be--yet it was.
Down the path I followed the trail to the first building, a large, dark structure with lions lounging on the stone steps. They looked at me with dark puddles for eyes and teeth like razors showing as they yawned at me. Their lack of interest in me was to say the least odd. Their kind loved to eat my kind when ever possible and here I had just walked into their presence, alone, with just my wooden spear for protection, I was a delectable treat. What was wrong with them? Frankly I was a little perturbed at the situation�did I smell rotten or something?
It was the high heat of the day. I could not stay out so decided to risk walking past the lions into the coolness of the shade through the entrance behind them. As I inched forward the beasts lifted their shaggy heads and looked at me, finally, with interest. Their smell as I passed them was nothing like the musk of the hides hanging in our village, but of strength and sunlight and heat.
�The lions of the deserts are nothing to trifle with Ajith. You are not to play with them like that, not even the cubs. One day it will grow up and may remember you and come to visit and either it may hurt you or the village may fear it and kill it. The cubs are cute now, yes, but they grow.�
�But, Father, it is an orphan, nearly starved. If we leave it, it will surely perish. I cannot do that Father.�
�Daughter, someday you will learn the give and take of life. If this cub was abandoned by its mother and clan, who are you to decide its fate?�
�But, Father��
�Ajith��
The interior of the building was cold like a tomb, a resort of sorts frozen in time and space. Clean. Eerie. Books lined the walls of the vast structures and spirals of stairs lead into the heights. It was like the evil mage�s tower in the old one�s nightmare tales. Dead and pristine.
My footsteps sounded in the high halls like the bombing ring of the alarm gong of our village. Boom Boom Boom. I picked up a book at random. Leather cover with gilt print on the binding. The pages smelled of fresh ink and trees.
