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In the beginning, I did not fear death as you do. When a member of our tribe went out of his body, we said he had crossed over. We bid him farewell, and threw garlands over his face, and returned his body to the forest, in the hallowed place.

We never knew if we would see him again after we crossed over -- for we knew there could be many crossings-over, and when we got to the next station, he might already be on his way to the one after it. But though our eventual reunion with him seemed ever further, we knew that he kept traveling on before us. So, in his footsteps, we strove to walk too.

Where we were all going, in any physical sense, we could hardly understand. But it was said by the wise ones, who received whispers from the wind, that our journey would have an end.

Our world and its time are like a great ocean," they said, "in which all creatures swam, are swimming, and will swim. A great wind blows over it, and into it, turning and changing it, churning and making it into a living thing. And that wind even now is blowing through us, filling our lungs and carrying our voices. When we go out of our bodies we may join Her for a little while, flowing with Her here and there, until we reach the next station. There we may linger awhile, for perhaps there is work for us to do. But She will come again for us in the proper time, and carry us away again to some other place. And so we will continue, carried by the wind here and there, until we reach the ocean's edge, and are carried up onto the shore. And on that day, out of the water and through the great gate, we will step into a new world even more wondrous than this one, and meet the One whom the wind loves, who is Her source.

At the time, I believed that the nature of the world was wholly good, and that all creatures in it were like us - living in perfect submission to the wind, and looking forward to the joy of the new world.

As I learned much later, from those who destroyed my people, there was something they knew that we did not. They called us 'innocent'.

I was once innocent, but now I am like them.



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Two childhood memories flow back to me time and again.

In one, there is a field of fluffy seeds on a high place that overlooks a deep valley. The other children and I are running through the field, being chased. We're playing some arbitrary game with some arbitrary rules. I fall in the field, and the one chasing catches me. He tickles me, and I scream and laugh. The others turn back and rush at him, pushing him over and giving him a taste of his own medicine. We fall into a heap laughing. Then someone's calling us back to the tribe, because the sun is setting, and the darkness will soon be over the field. As we walk back into the forest, I turn around and look at everything. The entire field is bathed in golden light, and the white feathery seeds are shining and swaying in the wind. Disturbed by our play, some of them are floating upwards, flickering like embers.

In another, I'm speaking with something in a tree, and it's speaking back to me. It's not a flying thing or a crawling thing. It's more of a flame, like the sun or the shining seeds, but it has more colors in it. They keep changing, like a jewel with many facets. The tree, or the thing in the tree, is warning me about something, but I keep asking questions, because I don't understand. After awhile it seems to become resigned, but it doesn't leave. It just sits there with me for awhile. We seem to have known each other for ages. I grow tired, and rest my head against the tree. The trunk is warm. When I awake, the sun is rising over the forest, and light is filtering through the trees. In the fog of morning I call out once for my friend, but the tree is silent. I walk back to the others, take my place in the morning rituals, and never tell a soul.

Memory is a funny thing, isn't it? It seems concrete, like pages from a book, but in reality, our minds overwrite and elaborate on those pages each time we look back on them. Memories are fragile, fleeting, like snowflakes on wet ground. How much of that memory was real? I can scarcely begin to know. I can only say that I've never seen a light like that again.
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We did not know that there existed other tribes and other lands where things were very different. To us, our way was the only way that there had even been for any sentient society. Because of that, we did not even have a sense of moral superiority or a codified ideology that clearly outlined what was, and was not, forbidden. We didn't know enough to know that we needed one. The humans were more advanced. They said as much to me after they had thrown me into a cage.

On full moons, we used to have festivals. I know this only because it was written in a research file that I found. My actual memories are much hazier. I know there were chants... music... sweet smells and flickering lights... friends surrounding me, laughing with me... but who were they, and what were we laughing about? I can't remember anymore. It was so long ago, I was so young then, and I've seen so much since that time, that I can no longer find my way back.

Their voices, their names, everything individual about them is gone. It's almost like they never really existed as individual beings, and were simply projections of my imagination. But sometimes, I see stranger's faces in my dreams, and feel that I should know them. They come to me in bursts, pushing at my mind, seeming to be saying things, expecting me to understand. But I hear nothing. There's nothing but silence, and then I wake up to the sound of my own blood rushing in my ears.

It's not real", the scientists told me. "Just a quirk of the brain." And just like that, in so many words, they redefined my past out of existence. "We will make you rational," they said. "We are your teachers.

Rational! I was already rational. My kind was rational before the first human was ever conceived. What they made me was evil.

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