Oh Father, Oh Sun, Oh Mother, Oh Moon

Wherein the children never grow old. Second story from a writing class in 2017.

Oh, Father, Oh, Sun! Oh, Mother, Oh, Moon! 

 

“Oh, Father and Mother! Oh, Sun and Moon!” I irritate my throat with such words every day. In the morning, when light slides its way through steel slats in the wall, but like a carpenter sawing his wood on his table, so does this light pass to me. It is solid light, there is no diffusion in it. So I wonder daily, in the morning, what is this light?  

I wish I knew its color, too. My eyes see nothing but gray and black in this room of mine. Not entirely my room though, my sister’s too. We’re both one hundred years old. At least, our minds are that old; our bodies are far younger, damnably stuck in adolescence. Every day we conspire against our captors, the parents that are our room. Our weapon is intellect, given by words in the interplay between light and dark. 

“What are you reading today?” I ask Lyra, my sister. “The Musical Fragments of Absecus. It’s ancient, even by our standard, aural theory on microtones. So far, he’s asking us what the smallest microtone can be heard by a healthy human is. Lot’s to consider here, sustained microtones over time, competing and shifting microtones --“ 

“Mhh,” resonating an interruption, I return to different words. She’s turning her head away with acceptance, I don’t even have to look. I always ask her what she reads in the morning, while she keeps her curiosity away from me. My legs do not ache from sitting cross-legged every day to read whatever is before me. Physical youth is beneficial that way. 

I don’t know how Lyra and I are still sane. One-hundred years of enclosure should have turned us into lunatics long ago. Though our bodies are clearly different from the ones described in the books given to us, my mind has always felt…experienced. There’s something unhuman about it, a willpower that transcends anything I’ve read about, be it Spartan or Nietzschean. If there was any sign of mental disease, it’s stamped out deep within me, where the unconscious doesn’t even dare tread. My body then? Is there something about my youth that prevents a sickness of mind? 

“I think you uttered the smallest sound, sister.” I say. 

“What? Why do you think that?” She replies. 

“Because I lost track of what you said, like I do every day.” Grinning, I turn toward her, “Do you remember what you said before I turned my head away?” 

“No. Not the precise word, if that’s what you’re asking for.” 

“Well, damn it all then.” I state matter-of-factly. “It would have been the key to understanding everything, I’m sure.” 

“Everything is here already, brother.” 

“Maybe every scrap of information. But where are the new sights and sounds in this cage. All that we’ve read, all these ideas, they attach to nothing in here, besides metal, light and darkness. And our bodies? Full of energy, needing no sleep, directed only towards the abstract.” My heart is speeding up, “You know what else is in the abstract? Our parents! They are our curse, our eternal youth spinning in light and darkness.” 

Strange, my body is shaking. It’s never happened like this before. This must be anger. My sister is fascinated by my physical reaction, and when she stands before me she grabs my hand and places it on her own, palm down, while mine is up. My hand trembles on her own, resting beneath, and it jitters between lines seen and unseen. Its movement reminded me of something I’d read once about the helplessness of a newborn human infant, a new world bearing down on it, and now this hand. I wish I could imagine that newborn in my own trembling hand. 

I drop down suddenly, startling my sister. 

The book that I was just thinking about appears before me. It’s strange how this room knows what I want to read. Even if I’m having a faint idea, a text always shows up that includes my unformed idea in some manner. My parents must really love me. 

“Hey, are you alright?” my sister asks. 

“No. Something feels broken inside, as if that something wasn’t supposed to have happened.” I stand quickly, and get dizzy. 

“Clearly. You were so intent on that book for hours that all I could do was watch you. I thought you were going to snatch the words away and devour them.” 

“Hah, like John in Revelations? Nothing that physical here to consume, no bittersweet book of revelation. But what has been revealed to me is something better. I feel like I’ve left the cradle, left this room. There is something beyond because…I hope. Which I’ve never experienced before. Yes, sister, I’ve had a new experience beyond the intellect, into this realm! Show your faces to me, parents! I’m ready to look!” 

She can’t stop me, because my whole body has been reborn. I have the feet of Hermes, there is no distance far enough for me.  

The wall recedes before me, how long can it retreat? Though I am still enclosed, my mind is swifter than ever before, it will surely see beyond this prison! 

I had to stop. My feet, serrated from running across the slats on the floor, have drained too much blood from my body. Hah, a book on treating wounds. I could ask for help, from Mother and Father, they would heal my feet. Like the days when Lyra and I had both young minds and bodies, and we would play in floating tunnels made of light and darkness. There was a moment then, when my thought wandered in a thousand directions, that they could not track. One direction allowed me to escape a tunnel and I fell from a great height, like Lucifer from Heaven. This misleading thought spiraled further, misleading and outpacing all attempts by my parents, my Sun and Moon, to cradle me in my fall. Lucifer’s pride was injured enough to become an enemy of God, but only my body was harmed. A splintered femur jutted through my skin, my spiraling thought stopped when I saw that. My mind had returned to comfort, it could form no enmity against my parents, especially as I could see them putting my bone back in place with their two color-opposed hands. Such unity in their work, I remember! 

“This is my blood, my body! Leave me be!” I cry out while their presence slowly heals my wounds. My feet and legs I pull to my body, towards my own darkness and light. “You can’t have them.” 

“Brother, why are you holding yourself like so?” My sister has finally found me. 

“I will remain like this, secure in myself, until I know they have left me in my injury.” 

“What’s wrong? Is your mind really so troubled?” 

“No, my mind is natural again, but I’m worried my body isn’t. I cut my feet, and they attempted to heal it, as they healed my leg many years ago. But I can’t bear the thought of looking at them.” 

“You’re…afraid? I wouldn’t know, but the description sounds fitting.” 

“To what you’ve read!” I yell. “You have no reason to doubt when you’re in that content mindset.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean, you’ve never questioned them. You’ve never felt your mind fluctuate. If you did feel that, certainly you would done something similar to what I did. Right?”  

“You’re wrong there, brother. I have felt these fluctuations, I have felt human, just like the stories we’ve read. I’ve felt the courage of Beowulf, the friendship of Sam Gamgee and Frodo Baggins, the ineffable Zen, and the silence of Arvo Pärt. I have felt these emotions and even acted on them.” 

“Maybe I acted too strongly. But isn’t great strength required to break from any hindrance, and chain?” 

“Why do you think this room is a chain, brother. I keep myself in here, where everything is seen, while you tried to put yourself out there, where nothing is seen. Perhaps you should think of this room, though dull as it is, as an opportunity and not a hindrance. This is my purpose here: with such a limited number of objects to experience, I must devote myself to the abstract. I’ve often felt, that without my emotions, I would never dream of this goal being achieved. My goal is to make the abstract real, to work with our parents’ great ability of light and dark. I feel as if I’m very close to this artistic goal, soon brother I will be painting wonders in this endless space!” 

“If you understand the abstract, you understand reality?” 

“Yes, that’s exactly right!”  

“I guess I had no goal previously. Was that my error?” 

“I think your error was not trusting in the existence of the Sun and Moon. 

*** 

My whole body is relaxed, sleep is coming. My sister and I are sitting cross-legged, a few feet between us as we face each other. Our heads are jolting up. Awake! But then they are falling down again, Rest. The difference is a lack of trust, we’ve never known sleep before. So, trust both. 

I see words swirling and dancing in the air around me. I see words traveling like ants on the floor though I’ve never seen an ant before. I see words moving as snails out of Lyra’s eyes, then down her body. Some words are biting other words, they are large venomous spiders making a meal out of flitting words that get near them. Life, finally!