Take what light I can give you.
Take what light you need to survive.
Take what light can guide you to a holy place.
Take what light you want, the light that is me, the light that you need, the light
that holds you together when your world crumbled apart.
Take this light that I hold in my hands, hold out to you, give freely of myself to
you.
Take it, possess it, own it, bring it to your breast, to your heart, to the very
bottom of your soul, your essence, and keep it there forever.
For my light is yours now, for we have taken it away.
***
Faces are unknown to my eyes. Faces of those who hurt, those who weep, those
who cannot feel and those who still can. Faces of those who never saw it coming,
and the faces of those who fought with every ounce of strength they had in them.
Faces of the young and the old, meshed together in a conglomeration of pain and
despair. Faces that I cannot erase from my memory, and those are the faces that I
do not want to know.
Yet, I do not know who is who, no history, no past, no present, and certainly no
future. D’Oma’ saw to that. Nobody is ever to die, nobody is ever to leave, nobody
is ever to bring a smile to their face. It’s all about the pain and triumph of war, the
pain and sacrifice that we make of the race known as humans. Their tears feed our
hate, our anger, our non-compassion. Tears of the fallen, the dead, the nothing that
humans have become.
I do not feel like my brothers and sisters. I feel. I feel like the humans feel,
with a heart pumping, beating in my chest with such force that if any were to hear
it, it would burst, leaving me dead. Dead like all of those who reside in the pit.
Destined to live out a life like that of eternal damnation, for doing nothing wrong
but living. Living, was their sin. And living will be their torment.
Watch the eyes as they go dark.
Watch the eyes as they leak saltwater.
Watch the eyes as they turn from you in fear, in hatred, in the epitome of
uncaring.
Watch the eyes as they struggle to hold onto that last shimmer of hope before
there is nothing left.
There is nothing left.
Forty years since the day we came here. So long ago this world was Earth, new
and fresh, a little polluted, but otherwise a nice place to live. Humans have their
faults, and we could have helped instead of destroyed. Demolished their land and
made them slaves to us. Those who are not above ground now weep bitterly below.
And we cherish their cries because we have none of our own. I pity my race and
wish vainly for the access to papers to leave this cursed land, to go back to where I
belong, my homeland, to where I will be welcomed with love instead of with this
abomination.
But my people do not believe in love. That is something that many do not
understand. It takes a special brain to comprehend the meaning of such an
emotion. The emotion that binds us all together is the one thing that I can never
have. I have wept poorly like a human for this love. I want it so badly that I can
taste it. It should be unknown to me, and yet I feel it fluttering my heart and
invading my stomach. I want to know what it feels like to give birth to a little one
conceived from love.
In a younger time, I found that I could touch another and feel what they were
feeling. I do that now, in the pit, as I roam from cell to cell in search of one who
seems full of feelings. So many of them do not speak anymore, so many of them
have been broken by the harsh sting of the whip. So many of them have been killed
by their denied access to those they love. I have touched many who simply yearn
for their wife, or husband, or child, or friend. Nobody gets what they want
anymore.
Take my hand and I will ease your pain.
Let me comfort you, and help you grieve.
Let me listen to the words that are in your head, to give you solace, to let you
smile.
Give it to me, and I will give you a piece of whatever life I have left in me.
For I am slowly going as well.
The most beautiful woman I had seen since the fall of the human race had red
hair. Her body was too thin and her muscles refused to allow her to stand. Even
with my help she could not move very well. I asked her if I could touch her and
read her thoughts, and she couldn’t answer me. Just sat there as the tears rolled
down her pale, sunken cheeks.
Give me your thoughts and I will give you life.
So sad was this woman. She used to be strong but now she was nothing. Her
heart had once been filled with a great love, but now he was gone as well. After
seeing him, and listening to him tell her that he loved her, she knew it was her time
to die. But there would be no death, not here, not ever, not in this life. And she
wept for that. Death would be a welcomed change to her painful life, and she
prayed over and over to her Jesus that he would take her away. Away from the
pain and the heartache and the world that once was. Towards the light. Always to
the light.
I gave her my light to help her move, to ease some of her pain, but she did not
accept. Her light was gone and she simply wanted no more. I told her not to give
up. She told me without words that if anyone was strong enough to have held onto
hope for this long, then she feels sorry for them, and they are a better person than
she is. I cried onto her shoulder, which she allowed, and asked her if she would like
me to present a message to the man she loved. A nod from the head was all I
received, so I left in search of the love that filled her mind.
He was in better shape than she was, no matter how bloody his back. His limbs
continued to move and he was able to speak to me.
“Who are you?”
“I have a message for you.”
“Go away, please.” Hurt eyes turned from mine, and I felt the overwhelming
need to comfort him. Once he would have been strong, as strong as she, but now he
was becoming a nothing.
Without another word, I went to him, my fingers quickly finding purchase
against his skull. At first, he tried to shake me off, but he was weak, and I let her
words and her voice fill his mind.
We fell to the ground together from the emotion. His eyes closed and I watched
the tears. He said nothing, but chewed on his already torn lower lip. I felt his pain,
his need, his yearning to be with her again. This exchange of thoughts was the only
way I knew of where they could be together. He fell, exhausted, into my arms, as I
soothed him, circling his back with my hand and patting down his soaked hair.
“She wants to die,” he told me.
“I know.”
“She used to be so strong.”
“I know that too.”
Words did not find his lips again, but I listened to his thoughts. He blamed
himself for what happened to her, and no matter how many times I tried to tell him
otherwise, he wouldn’t listen to me. His pain was like a fury of flames that ran
wherever it would under his skin. I wished vainly to be granted a love like that.
The pain would be welcomed if only somebody could love me in such a way as they
loved one another.
I wept with him, which he was surprised about. He didn’t believe we had any
feelings of our own, any human feelings anyway. I assured him that we are just as
human as he was, we just don’t understand it all. In that sense, we are
underdeveloped. It seemed he understood my thoughts, so he quieted down his own
and just wept for his red-haired love.
Do not weep for the love that you have.
Hold it strong in both hands.
Keep it as long as you can.
Because love is everlasting.
Then, his thoughts changed abruptly. A new face entered his mind, a man’s
face. I knew this face, this man, for I had seen him in the lab ten years back. The
face became clearer and clearer as his thoughts turned from his female love, to
what seemed to be his male love.
In his head, he asked me to tell this man that he loved him. Please. It hurt to
listen to him beg me. She knew of his love, but the man did not. I understood, and
told him that I would do as asked. Which made him cry even harder.
I left him to his thoughts and made my way past the rows upon rows of cells
until I came to the right one. The man inside I knew intimately; when he was in
the lab, I had collected his thoughts. I knew of his regrets and his apologies, and of
his love for the man I had just been with. There were no names in my memory, not
of the woman, nor her love, nor this one-armed human who I had to speak with
now. But in this new society, names were not important.
He looked up at me when I entered, green eyes blazing, face swollen and red
from endless weeping. A slight smile came to his trembling lips. He recognized me
as well.
“I come with a message.”
He closed his eyes and nodded, understanding. I placed my hands upon his
head and let him listen to the other voice.
His body stiffened in my touch, and all I wanted to do was hold him close to
soothe. Crying became fresh in his eyes, and when the message was transmitted, I
crushed him to my breast, stroking his hair and stealing his pain.
“He loves me. And he loves her too.”
Does this please you?
“Yes.”
Then it pleases me as well.
Hush, now, and let your tears become my own.
Let your pain melt away into me.
I could not take theirs because they held on too tightly.
Let me give you comfort, and let you sleep a night without the hurt.
He wouldn’t allow me to steal it all away, because I had told him that both the
other man and woman would not give me theirs. But he was weakened by the
words I gave him, so he let me feel some of the horrors of his life. His guard was
down enough so I could take away all of the times my people took him to the lab, to
regrow then chop off his arm again. With that done, he was able to close his eyes
and drift away from me.
I left that day knowing I had made a difference, knowing I had done good. No
matter how many tears I will shed for the three of them, I know that their faces will
be familiar to me as I go about my daily routine. Faces that have cleared in my
head.
Faces that have a history, a background, a story.
Faces that have burned my soul so deep that I can never purge myself of them.
Faces that I will soon need to know names for, because names make you a
person, and that is who they are.
Faces that I have grown to love, no matter how short the time I spent with them
was.
Faces that I feel saddened to remember, because they are filled with such pain
and misery.
Her face filled with death.
Her love’s face filled with guilt and anguish.
And his love’s face filled with the despair of the weight on his shoulders.
I will give them my light, and let them grow strong from me.
Take this gift of light that I give you and make it your own.
You are loved
deeply and you love deeply, so with that, you can grow to overcome this.
D’Oma’, please, in your good name, take these people from their misery and
place them with the happy ones. They do not deserve to suffer as they are. Nor do
any of the humans we have kept under tight control. I say my prayer for you to
listen, not just hear my words and dismiss. I can feel them, beating in my heart,
their breath is my breath, their lives are within me. Please take them from this
pain, misery and sadness, to your light. Let them feel the light again. Let the light
shine on their brow and make them cry tears of delight. Give them the light that
swims through me, so that they can once again be whole and complete. Take them
away from the nothingness of existence, to the light of your breath. D’Oma’, I
thank you.
FIN
1/25/99