Ruina

RUINA






"I gave you a chance."


"It's not my fault she is so stubborn!"


"You could have forced her into it, yet you rather stay anonymous!"


"Trust me, we are better off without her knowing that we exist."


"Well sure! Soon enough she'll discover what we don't want her to know."


"I'll wait a bit longer before showing myself, besides, the longer we wait the more attached to them she gets."


"It's a long process, we have to get starting!"


"That's rich coming from you! You've been under a different identity for over half of your life! You do realise, this experiment might not even go well. It might start a rebellion, that would be no fun. Soon enough they will realise what everything really is."


"Well, we won't let them get to that, we are here to enjoy ourselves and this is the best way we will."


"And why her anyway?"


"The oracle said she was the one, we need to stop her."


"So the next era will just depend on what the oracle says? You do acknowledge that it has been wrong before?"


"Of course! But what's life without some trust."


"Yes, like you are to trust! The entire point of this is lying to her face!


"As long as we keep her tamed, this will be grand."


"Ok then... I guess we are in it together. I don't really have a choice anyway."


We're like a shadow, dancing, in the light we know as fear, if we step out of its gleam we perish, unnoticed and uncared for. Our future steps are rampant, uncontrolled and ecstatic. Our soul is detached from us but nevertheless it always floats nearby. Our imagination is compressed to match our existence. We worship the brave whom unlike the powerful one don't leave us in these drowning ashes. Hope is all that is left to hang on to, just a thought unspoken, a portrait of life, our morale held within a single word. But we have come to uncover the lies captured within its eyes, the fear of betrayal and yet the negligence of passing his disease around. The truth is contagious to the point where its purpose is stolen, it vanishes into a thin layer of smoke. As if expecting it, his grave is already dug out, deep below the surface of our skin. Timeless lives come and go, I don't remember a single one, although I know I was there. Palm to palm, fingers crossing over each other, intervening with themselves but willing to do so. Lifting my two index fingers and bouncing my clumsy thumbs against them.


"Syllipsi, syllipsi, syllipsi, syllipsi" I murmured heavenly.


I shift my head wearily, cautiously opening my eyes and descending from my abstract world. I feel blessed with the sense of belonging, a very uncommon thought, I don't remember the last time I felt this way. Regaining my thoughts, I briskly enter the kitchen, right across from my bedroom, walk in a circle, my gradient pearl eyes scan the scenery looking for a specific thing. We've got to have some left, it can't all have been used. I open our wrecked, graffitied oak cupboard that I got Arnou for his birthday, the monotonous smell of the burned wood reaches my nostrils unpleasantly. I look out for what I came to get, we have no more beef nor pork. Grabbing a dirty piece of alpaca meat (I'm glad no one's criatura is one) I head off, stomping through our unstable door. I walk outside and into the garden we own. Our tomatoes and cucumbers are wrecked again, I'm not surprised.
Once I am behind our small, inclosed house I shout carelessly, this is all so repetitive,


"Breakfast!" I scream with authority, not the first time and not the last.


I wait. No answer and I know why, he just loves the feeling of a wild surprise attack, he's like all the others, he doesn't like being tamed but he has no choice. An inquisitive-looking creature appears out of the blue. Swiftly making his way towards the meal, he carefully scatters around to have a dangerous approach to the meal, I guess he enjoys feeling wild. He does this three times a day, seven days a week, it makes each moment feel like déjà-vu. Suddenly the juvenile wolf jumps up ferociously and grabs the piece of meat out of my hands, with what to most would seem like an intimidating manoeuvre but not to me. Here we go again, human to wolf talk.


"Where did you get this from?" Arnou complained, "It's filthy and has no taste."


Criticism doesn't affect me. I plainly stare ahead and try to ignore this comment to no avail. As a reflex I decrescendo into an angry tone.


"We have a budget, next time you can get your own food." I harshly replied.


He doesn't mind the fact that he could possibly be eating our neighbour's criatura but he retains himself with great pride when visiting anyone, he is aware of the consequences. Not that I would make such a terrible mistake, Arnou isn't the only one to know what would happen. I shake my head to clear the gruesomeness of the mental image away. I am certainly not worried about myself, I am the predator and others the prey but I wouldn't be the slightest bit amused if something of this tenebrous intention would be conflicted towards my peers.
Arnou grumpily shook his soaked up fur, slightly splashing me with salted water. Salted Water. No, doesn't he know about these things? Does he enjoy achieving the possibilities, it isn't like it is in his own interest.


"Don't tell me you tried again---"I had nothing else to say, I had reminded him so many times,"It's been fine so far and you think it will stay like that forever but one day you will get caught and they'll be ruthless and have you killed and if they don't murder you they will either imprison you or force you to work for the rest of eternity!" I had to stop to catch my breath, I was so worried I hadn't realised I'd run out of oxygen. 


I breathed in and opened my mouth to continue but it turned out I had nothing to say, I had summed it up like I always did in two sentences. Arnou didn't have anything to say either, so we just stayed standing there in silence staring at our own feet or into the distance. This lasted a few minutes. It reminded me of when mother and I used to wake up early in the morning with total silence around us, we'd walk to a nearby park and listen to the birds, that was when there were birds. We'd do this each day except Sunday when we went to church, after that we'd go walking on the beach for an hour, sometime even a few hours. I don't like the beach anymore, no one does. To everyone it has a different meaning but to most of us it symbolises fear, it reminds us if our duties and the fact that we can't escape them, we can't escape anything. Even so, the days we don't work should be days of happiness but the truth is no one enjoys them, those are the days people get severe beatings, horrible punishments but most importantly the day people loose their lives. People have lost their sense of joy, it is a rumour not a feeling anymore. Something that happens once or twice a year, usually the fact that friends or family survived their fate but that is often ruined by the impact of their wounds. Whilst still half in my thoughts, I notice Arnou has left, how long have I been standing here alone? A few seconds? Minutes? Maybe even an hour? I walk of into the heavily guarded woods in search for Arnou who ran off without warning. Who knows where he went, probably trying to find proof again. It's not like I don't want this information, believe me, I'd do pretty much anything to get it but I can't bear in mind the consequences of what would happen if he got caught. He could disappear out of their sight but they would sense his presence, after all, they were trained to do so. Then he would be accounted as a criminal, therefore claiming me to be the same but that's not why I wouldn't want him to find proof, not for me, for the fact that we would never see each other again or anybody else, not my mother, not my father's grave but worst of all never my two little in-identical twin siblings. How innocent they are and how vulnerable they would become, like a star in a galaxy, if not a universe. Sapidah and Anouk, two little kids wondering streets filled with fake candy, how easily side-tracked they were likely to be. I reach an open part of the forest, where all the trees there had been razored off leaving only the trunks. The sun was its only predator, the empty space was allowing itself to be absorbed by the soothing beams, thus falling in its trap. I looked around, closer than I had before and distinguished a silhouette whom I knew very well, it was mother.


"Good morning," I whispered respectively, it always feels good to talk to someone who is as human as I am,"Are you alright? What are you doing?" Although I knew exactly what she was doing and why.


"I was just hoping they'd be back," she paused, I knew that wasn't the only thing she was looking for so I waited for her to continue, "...along with him..." she shamefully admitted.


It breaks our hearts to relate to that dreadful day, only a few years back. It happened so quickly, effortlessly. I was saved, to the wrong purpose.


"I know, me too," I paused, trying to change the subject of conversation, "How's Weddy?"


"She's going very well, yesterday I started teaching her sign language, it takes a while but I am sure she will get there," she smiled at Weddy whom was perched on mother's shoulder, her long orang-utan fur swaying freely. As if to agree Weddy started reciting the alphabet using her new way of communicating, she's a quick learner.


"I hate this."


"We all do," mother wisely replied


"I had a dream last night in which I built a raft and escaped along with everyone,"


"Did you enjoy your experience of freedom?"


"Of course, until we all drowned in the middle of the ocean, far from land, most of us devoured by sharks,"


"People say our dreams reflect reality, even our dreams remind us of the situation we're in."


"Which is why I hate this, we can't even control our own minds anymore, I feel like a daffodil in a field of daffodils, if not a hundred fields of daffodils and what's worse is the fact that I have never seen a daffodil in my life!" without noticing I had slowly started to raise my tone.


"Daffodils can't work," mother commented in an observant yet rather obvious manner.


"Which is why I shouldn't be a daffodil but I don't get to choose, they make fields of daffodils and extract the impossible out of them, whilst they could just make a field of roses which would simplify everything but they wouldn't have power over us if they did so!" I caught my breath.


Power. The word was such an exuberant one, without it we wouldn't be stuck like this. The philosophical reason probably is that everyone is a victim of power, they would kill someone under the law's authority in the fear of disrespecting the rules therefore ending just like the criminal. Power was everything, which makes me regret that I'd mentioned it.


"Daffodils," mother thoughtfully whispered.


"Mother what does a daffodil look like?" 


"I can barely even remember," she sighted,"It had a canary yellow tinge, or was it orange?," she pat her head in a motion that showed she worked on remembering,"I don't remember much except they were beautiful flowers, my favourites, they smelled like angels in heaven but that was when I was Christian," our entire family used to be Christian but we didn't believe in everything mentioned and now that life is at its toughest everything we believe in is purer than gold. That's why we turned to Syllipsi. How could we not reminisce upon the past, without a feeling of over-joy, or is it guilt? I know that's not the way I should think but I can't help blaming it all on me, or at least partly on me. Life is a tenebrous and yet strangely compelling ride, the bad part, once you get on it never ends. Well that is unless you fall off. Things never work out for me, as a matter of fact, they don't work out for anyone else. A wise man once said 'Roads can lead to many places but you decide where to go'. Well I can't decide and there aren't any options anyway.


"Echo?" mother gently whispered.


"Yes mother?"


I was intrigued by her timing of a question. She seemed doubtful, like a young child choosing a cake on a special occasion. Only it seemed like more than a cake mother was expecting and never does she hope for things out of interest. The one thing she probably wishes for is him. Smoothly carried out upon the riverbed, floating ceremoniously above the crystal blue mirror. Ornaments of benevolence and courage are laid exquisitely amongst his transparent grave. It is a mystery to revel upon how the morning brook managed to carry such a heavy soul, filled with generosity. That is how it sunk to its death. Its kindness as its source of greatest mistake. He had sacrificed his last piece awareness to save someone who didn't deserve to be saved, me. Once consumed, once it had perished drowning below the cascade of trouble it came back up to the surface, forever buoyant. 


"Would you consider walking along the beach with me...now?"


"I rather not, give yourself time, I don't want to have to carry you home."


"I thought I could give it a go?"


"But I have to go to work soon."


"Please..."


I couldn't refuse.


"Alright." I smiled slightly, just enough so that mother could notice it.


Weddy joyfully clapped her hands willingly together as loud as she could, even she realised how rarely mother went to the beach. Weddy used to be able to speak, just like all criaturas but she got caught in the Priest's palace once, we don't know how but they tortured her in the fear that she would recount what she saw to someone, not that she could. Even though mother has taught her sign language she is too afraid to tell her anything, when I mentioned it to her for the first time, she ran away as fast as lightning to go hide in a coconut tree. Poor Weddy. Now she will stay like this for eternity, with no ability to talk except making hand gestures. Mother only thought about this method of communication quite recently and we're all glad she did. 


The azure ocean's pelage resembles the envied dusk sky, smooth and worthy of its title. It seems even more majestic with its golden and bleached sand being used as a carpet, rolling neatly upon the surface. The ceremoniously monumental palm trees encircling us, the sky-scrapers of our time, singing a long-lost tune:

"The argent waves swimming below,

The wind's arrogance somewhat mellow.

In the company of the ocean,

The dazzling sun's heating motion.

The morning's pendant, rise and shine,

The deviously clear horizon line.

I am thy sun."

Everything used to be like the song says, not anymore. Things change so fast except here once they change they stay for good. Just like all this chaos. Mother and I wet our feet with the damp, nourishing water, the ocean washed away all our troubles in an instant, helping us to clear our minds. We wept out our hearts and cried with our soul, we were aware of each other's anguish but we didn't hug each other, speak to each other and we didn't help each other. It would have made it worst. Instead we just stared into the distance, even Weddy did. Then mother couldn't help it but speak,


"I like it," she whispered the melancholy in her voice showed she was crying,"I really like it."


"Me too."


"I don't know why it took me so long to decide to come back here, it's so beautiful."


"And sad." I reminded her.


"And sad." She agreed,"But doesn't sadness contribute to the beauty within," she paused, "On the other hand, this beach is so different, not even half as beautiful as I remember, there used to be birds, Echo where did the birds go?"


"Didn't anyone tell you?"


"No," she replied, "I haven't been outside the house for 6 years."


"They were all killed." I tried to sound casual but I sounded nothing but hostile.


The intense anguish was captured through the beams of sun, however not completely absorbed. Mother was sad. To her those birds signified something so much greater than just feathery flying animals. They reminded her of father, of the bright, hued days we would all spend together. She was still talking about when we were in Ruina but before everything drastically changed. From one day to the next. Birds signified her past freedom. The lack of hardship. The bewilderment of before. Our past shapes our future which is the after-taste of our present. Mother misses her past, hates her present and fears her future. 
Isn't life complicated. Statement, not question.


"I thought they were still some, just not near our house as I never heard any sing. But how?"


"The guards were ordered to shoot them all, that was the time you slept all day, you must not have heard the bullets."


"I was sleeping all day?"


I nodded, "You didn't want us to wake you up, you told me to go to work and you told Sapidah and Anouk to go to Prisona."
"Do they still go there, has the age limit changed?"


"It has, they will start going to work at different times. Male and female have been separated, Sapidah will go next year and Anouk the year after."


"Monsters," Mother cursed under her breath,"What do they do at Prisona?" mother hadn't taken part in that rule.


"They learn about Priest Nómos and how a democratic government works," I paused, "although they really shouldn't be learning about how a democracy works, the way things happen they should be learning about dictatorship!"


"What about you Echo?"


"Me?" mother rarely questioned things about me.


"What do you do at work, what will they have to do, what should I be doing?" 


Mother was accounted dead from the incident with Weddy, no one thought she would survive, after all if your criatura dies, you die. Except Weddy didn't die, she was only very violently injured, now she has fully recovered (apart from her speaking problem). Mother really should be going to work but nobody knows that she is even still alive, that's why she isn't punished and that's also why she hasn't been out of the house for so long. Of course, guards came in to check if there was any trace of her or Weddy in our house but I told her to hide underneath our trap door that father built a long time before we actually would have needed it. That's why she shouldn't be out right now, Ruina acknowledges she is dead. 
Ruina is the country we live in, the only country anyone lives in. Or at least that's what they tell us. I believe somewhere out there, there is still civilisation, somewhere there is a town of people who get to speak for themselves, where people don't get beatings and don't die. There has to be a place, as far as it might be, where survivors have doubled in numbers and will keep on doing so. I decide not to tell mother the truth about our work.


"It's not that bad," I lie, "we just get given a task and have to do it by the end of the day. In my case we cook meals of a variety, not very complex," I lie again, "Very simple, on the contrary, just cooking all day, it's sometimes even enjoyable!" I sound overly cheerful, mother won't buy it. The last thing I want is for mother to be worried about me.


"What happens if you don't finish it?" mother wanders.


"We... I... It's just..."


I have never been good at lying and I always hate it. I wish I could just tell her the truth. We are only useful for one more thing, death.
"You?" mother asks again.


I decide to tell her the truth instinctively. I come to regret it half-way through the sentence, there's no hiding it from her now.
"Well, the ones that can't finish their tasks aren't good for anything else. The tasks get harder and harder as we age and eventually..." 
I couldn't get myself to say it.


"The devils," mother cursed again, she never cursed,"what do they want out of you?! Pride? Certainly not! That's more like a coward's move! It..." She fell down in tears, not knowing what to say, helpless and yet having the need to be rescued. I helped her up.
"Why do these stupid planks of wood keep us from the rest of the view!" She harshly continued, "I hate it!"


"I understand." I was at loss of words.


I turned to look at the tall, wooden walls and saw Arnou walking by,


"Arnou!" I screamed, either he didn't hear me or he ignored me, "Get back here!" 


Mother collapses on the floor, screaming in an agony of tears. I shout for Arnou to help. I don't know why I get so angry at him, maybe because he is me and I hate myself. I barely managed to get mother on her feet, I needed to get her home before someone saw her.


"Arnou come and help me!" Silence.


"Arnou!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, then realised it would probably attract attention, I couldn't risk screaming again. 


Fortunately he twitched, turned his head around to look and noticed mother, Weddy and I. In an instant he vanished from his last spot just to appear again right next to me. Criaturas can do that.


"Don't just stand there!"


"What am I meant to do?"


"Help her up, we're going home!"


I helplessly try to carry mother but fall flat, I can't let anyone notice her.


"Aren't you meant to be at work?"


"Soon. Not yet. Give me a carriage!"


I sound extremely demanding but that is due to the fact that Arnou can give me anything, he can make the most wonderful things out of thin air, he's a criatura. The only things he can't make are the things we need the most: food, water, money, clothing, shelter and there's many more, they've got it all figured out. Dust spawns from plain oxygen and turns into a large vehicle. The smooth wood is shaped into an ancient looking wheeled plank. It is about as wide as mother. Weddy and I carefully pick her up and place her on the truck-like pieces of wood. I attach the rope around Arnou's neck in a collar-like fashion, linking him to the carriage. He pulls whilst Weddy and I push the conveying vehicle. As we sweat in exhaust, I stare at my surroundings. There is a vague odour surrounding us from the eerie breakfast of nearby villagers, no one has a shilling left. The food smells like a vintage recipe from the times when contagious diseases were around, not that there aren't any diseases left. If you don't die from beatings, you die from intoxication, cancer, severe sicknesses or you commit suicide. I don't know a single person who has died from a natural death caused by age. Anyway, now no one can die of old age. Now that everyone has a criatura, their responsibilities are drawn to ours, eternal life until your body system is corrupted. It is usually murder, over-abuse or self-slaughter that causes one's death. Sometimes people even die from drowning, they build a boat, set out to find a new land and fall flat. Some desperate ones don't build boats, they just swim until they can't take it anymore. Life is unbearable. No one knows what's right and what's wrong any more and the ones who think they know perish. We don't have a choice we're stuck here. The aroma of death and ashes blow past along with the wind and make themselves at home amongst civilisation.


"Ughhh..." I make a trudging sound.


It has no effect whatsoever on Arnou. I decide to break the ice.


"Why did you leave me midway of our conversation."


Silence creeps in.


"Won't you answer me?!" Still nothing.


"You know the only reason I'm tough on you is because if I wasn't you would have ran away by now and been killed! I would have died too, you know!"


All I can hear is a slight grudging sound. Doesn't he understand? After all he is me.


"You know what? The consequences would have been more than just us two dead! No doubt mother would have gotten a heart attack, along with Weddy! And then Sapi and Anouk, did you ever think about them? They would be alone with no one to show them the way, the wouldn't last a week and they'd take their criaturas with them!"


"Listen!" Arnou violently replied, startling me, I had never heard him raise his tone that loud.


"What is there to listen to?" I don't know why I'm keeping the conversation going but I can't help it. Like oil on a fire.


"So much!" He paused, "so much that you don't understand!"


"But I'm you! And everyone understands themselves!"


"Who says?"


I realise where his remark is heading, 


"I... do." I say this in such an obvious hesitant way that Arnou comprehends that the message has sunk in.


"Exactly... You do. What if you were wrong?"


This is a compelling paradoxical situation that I try to relish upon.


"Well okay then... Maybe I'm not right but maybe I don't need to be."


"Maybe you don't but it wouldn't hurt to give things a go."


"Not in this world."


"If not this world what world?"


I am stung by surprise. Like a nest of ideas and possibilities opening up during a single phrase. Of course it wouldn't mean that much if I hadn't gone through the whole conversation. I hate the feeling of being wrong. Being the fool. No one can prove me wrong except for my criatura and he doesn't do it often, he has established the fact that I highly dislike it, I guess that's why I hate it, I'm not used to being contradicted.


"I'm so sick of this." I say.


"And what does 'this' signify?'' He calms down slightly.


"Everything. From head to toe. It's all so pointless, why would he want to keep us under such strict rules."


"So you're mad against Priest Nómos."


"Yes."


"So does Priest Nómos mean everything. You said you were mad at everything."


"Partly."


"Everything includes the outside world."


"The outside world is history, no one mentions it anymore. As well as we know it, it's probably destroyed."


"That's no reason to lose hope."


"Hope is past, agony is present, fear is future."


"Have you ever wondered what's after the future?"


"The future doesn't have an after."


"Who knows?"


"Who cares?"


"You obviously do."


My interference was more of a rhetorical remark, I pick up an angry tone,


"Stop repeating yourself! Stop trying to prove me wrong! Stop hoping for what can't be hoped for."


I pause. Whilst on the verge of tears I try to maintain my irascible figure. I lower my voice,


"Start taking responsibility for your actions. Start taking things seriously. Start facing the truth for what it is." My voice cracks and bounces through my damaged throat. He has to understand.


"I'm sorry Echo." 


He's going to start noticing I'm right and he is wrong for the first time, he has to. My excitement is like a roller coaster, up and then down. I am left stunned by his interpretation of my short and inefficient speech.


"But if that's what you want from me... from you, then I can't satisfy your needs. I can't sit here and watch murder for the rest of immortality."


I don't say a word.


...



I open the rusty front door of our house and escort mother to her thin, non-luxurious bed. Our awkwardly laid out stairs encompass the ground, giving it an antique look, although to us it's simply uneven architecture. The intricate tiles built strangely banish the thought of a comfortable home. We don't have anything appealing or charming to decorate our clumsy house with, it's more like a dump. Their is no sense of benevolence to hide our misfortune, there is barely one house in Ruina that manages to be heart warming and welcoming. All the effort that must have been put into making this home full of hospitality whilst every other ruin in our country lacks in sympathy. Four hundred years ago, before the war, houses were built with a sentiment of joy, delight. Every household would be created as a village, as a group, a team. They would be willingly painted with bright, childlike colours: turquoise, canary yellow, flamboyant red, some even had patterns such as stripes or polka dots. Creating a homelike feel was a ravishment, to the point where people were hoping for others' houses to plummet, thus building a new one. Lanterns of wonder and satisfaction were hung up every night, as a sign of felicity. The warmth of the home made fires. The ecstatic flames, screaming for an adventure however tenebrous it may be, the sound of ghosts escaping its radiant and attracting heat. I can still hear them whispering my name ironically.
"Echo, Echo, Echo." The name would spring out of their dry mouths with a touch of humour and repeat itself, descending in volume.
In our entire house we only have one single frame hanging, it's of father. He was crouching beside a pond when the picture was taken. He was tall, well built and held a tanned complexion. The festive giants of the forest stood proud behind him, thrusting their spirit with great soul. The dim water reproduced his image but made it quite blurry to see. The water lilies carefully arranged upon the neat lillipads rested there like it was their home. They laid there moderately content of their beholders. Father was staring straight at the camera, more specifically the photographer whom was mother. His eyes casted back her figure in deep apprehension. That was when they first met, father was taking part in a grave expedition and decided to have his picture taken as a memory to keep for life. In the end it was mother and I who kept it for life. I place mother in her resting ground and wait there a little, thinking. She looks so relaxed and harmonious, it soothes me down a bit. After a small amount of time I decide to get ready for work which starts at 7:00 am sharp. I get my equipment ready for a tough day, after all I really should be getting used to it by now. As I prepare myself I cannot help but reflect upon what Arnou had earlier said to me. He has made me realise that at the moment only one thought should be going through my mind;


'Where am I?'