blind
(The latest thing that I'm working on. Still in early stages, so any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.)
The moon’s face was covered with blood and the shadows were long.
I tried to tell them but they could only hear me with their white men’s ears and they could only see with their white man’s eyes.
The word that they use is Civilized.
Civilized means that you can only see in one way and you can only see one world.
Civilized is another word for the white man’s kind of blindness.
They could not see the darkness that lurked in the long shadows and they could not feel the rage of the bloody moon.
We were in the land of the Wyandot. The long shadows were filled with the dreams and fears and pain of the Wyandot. The long shadows were filled with Wyandot spirits and the white men could not see or hear or feel the things that belonged to the Wyandot.
My people, the Kanien'keha:ka live close to the Wyandot and, while they have been our enemies for as long as even the oldest stories tell, we have taught ourselves to see with Wyandot eyes and hear with Wyandot ears just as the Wyandot have taught themselves to see with Kanien'keha:ka eyes and hear with Kanien'keha:ka ears.
My people are part of the Haudenosaunee confederacy, the League of Five, perhaps soon to be Six, Nations. We have had government and laws and a way of life but the white men do not consider us Civilized because we do not see the one thing their eyes see and believe in the one thing that they believe in.
We are not Civilized because we are not blind.
I tried to warn them.
They wouldn’t listen.
White men rarely listen. They are often too busy talking to listen.
When I spoke of the spirits in the long shadows, the spirits in the trees, they laughed and said that was just Indian superstition. They believe a man who was the son of a god came back to life but our beliefs are superstitions. They pray to a dead man on a wooden cross but those who do not are superstitious and Uncivilized.
I have never wanted to be their kind of Civilized.
I never want to be that single minded and that blind.
I will not fall on my knees and and pray to a dead man hanging from a cross who failed in his mission. Two of their books say that he cried out “My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?” Among my people being tortured is a test of your strength and their son of god failed that test. “My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?”. He wailed. Our children are stronger than their greatest man. Our women would scorn and laugh at their saviour. I would not worship such a man. Such a son of a god. He broke and he cried out. He let the enemy see him break. That is an unforgivable sin among my people. Even among the Wyandot. Most of them have fallen to their knees for the black robes who cannot not see the spirits in the shadows and in the trees.
But the Wyandot are still not blind and Civilized. Not yet.
They are worthy of respect and honour.
Many Wyandot have fallen to their knees for the blind white man way of seeing the world, but any still had not.
I have not and I could still see the darkness in the darkness and the blood on the moon. And I could hear the spirits and I could feel the spirits.
They are foolish people.
And I tried to warn these white men, who at least do not wear the black robes.
They wouldn’t listen.
None of them would listen.
They think that their thunder sticks make them invulnerable to what they could see and even what they could not see. But their sticks will not make thunder in the rain. That is funny to me. A stick that can only make thunder when it’s not raining. And it was raining. It had been raining for more than a day. It is still raining.
Even if they were working their thunder sticks would probably be no more use against the things that come out of the darkness than our knives and clubs and arrows. The spirits of the darkness are not subject to the ways and weapons of our world and they cannot be killed or wounded like those who lived in this world, the only world that the white men can see.
The white men dismissed the spirits because they hadn’t thought of them. They dismissed the Windigo because they hadn’t thought of it. They dismissed the Skinwalker because they had not thought of it.
That’s what it is to call yourself Civilized.
I dropped to one side of the trail and let some of them pass. They looked at me with laughter in their eyes and they would not listen. I was not going to be the first that the spirits of the darkness took.
I have proved my courage in battle. I have proved my courage against men.
You cannot fight spirits when you are surrounded by those who cannot see them and so I let the Civilized white men pass from the darkness to the deeper darkness.
It is a simple thing to die.
It is no simple thing to have your spirit taken from you.
I hung back and let the white men walk into the darkness that was darker than the shadows.
I have fought in many battles. I have faced death at other men’s hands again and again. I am no coward. But spirits do not care if you are brave or strong or if you are a coward. Or if you are Civilized. They will take you just the same.
I do not know if a white soul is the same. Perhaps it is different and the spirits do not hunger for it. Perhaps a white soul is undercooked. The colour of their skin, like the underbelly of a frog, does seem soft and undercooked.
I do not know about such things.
I know what it is to measure and the respect a man even as you are killing him or torturing him. I know this because I have lived it and because my ancestors have lived it and it is in my blood. I do not think respect is in these white men’s blood. I do not think that it is their bones. They show no respect for their enemies and they show no respect for the spirit world. They do not even show respect for each other.
No man can really know a spirit. Not even his own.
We are all blind in that way, but these white men, these Civilized men seem so much more blind than others.
The darkness within the darkness and the deep silence are the only sign that spirits linger and it is a thing to chill the blood. That is a thing to make even the bravest man or woman pause and let others pass him by.
The white men walk forward as if they cannot see.
I hear the first scream and my spine begins to tremble.
I hear the second scream joined again by the first and I know that I was wise to be afraid.
The night grows darker and the screams rise and linger and echo in the terrible silence that follows and fills the night.
The rain continues to fall.
And I am afraid.
I am frozen to the place that I stand.
I can smell the blood and urine and feces and too a smell that I have never known and hope to never know again.
It is far more foul than the other smells and it makes me gag.
I do not know if it is the fear that I smell or the spirits themselves. I have never heard tell of such a smell.
The morning is very far away.
The moon is bloody and the shadows are long and dark and rain beats down unforgivingly.
My skin is damp. Not just from the rain. My legs are weak. My stomach lurches towards my throat and my bowels quiver and I do not move.
I know that if I move I will die or something will happen to me far worse than dying.
I can make out pieces of torn and bloody flesh in the darkness.
I will stand here until the morning comes or until the spirits come to take me. I will stand here as long as I can stand and I will not move.
I tried to warn them.
I tried to tell them.
Now it is too late for them to listen.
Now it is too late for them to see.
Only the night can hear me now and I will make no sound.
Only the night is listening and something else.
Something that lurks in the darkest part of the darkness.
It waits.
It lurks.
And I wait.
I tried to warn them.
I tried to make them see.
They were blinded and they were Civilized.
And now there is nothing left but the darkness.
The lurking silence.
That I cannot see and cannot hear.
I too am blind.
I am alone.
And all that there is for me...
Is the night.
And the darkness that is darker than the night.
And the waiting.
The endless waiting.
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