Notes From Another World: The Steppe
They believe there are thousands of levels of hell and this is one of the early ones.
Year Two
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You have learned all you can from the birds. You must cross the land to the red villages.
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The cave-dark night over the echoless prairie.
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Monsters roaming the barren earth, the last treasure and the last princess lost long ago.
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It isn’t clear how many people inhabit the steppe. Every few days you stumble upon another home, hidden in the earth. When you speak of other homes that have sheltered you, they do not believe you. You stop telling them.
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“The sun has never complained.”
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Wives that wait for the remaining islands of the ozone layer to float overhead before they peek out of their covered wagons.
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The old songs they like refer to physically impossible beings.
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He receives the sash of a master storyteller when he has a tale for every star in the sky.
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Lightning in any direction.
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A hammer hanging above the door, azure bloodstain uncleaned.
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You think there is a mountain in the distance but then it stretches and starts to run, faster than should be possible. You make sure not to look at its eyes.
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Stars that know every name they have been given but do not care.
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Everything about the culture of the steppe indicates historical predation by something more cruel. The annual shuffling of children. The renamings. The preference for fog and nocturnality. Their old weapons are unsuited to any creature that currently walks this planet.
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On your planet how much land do humans still have?
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The sun stops setting. Everything is tinted lavender. You can keep walking and reach the day, or you can stay here for a while and watch everybody fleeing the night.
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A fire on the horizon. Then another.
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The flowers move quickly when they think no one is watching and surrender to the wind when they notice your gaze.
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You can’t recall if your lover’s birthmark is below her left eye or her right. This is a strange thing to forget. You do not tell the people of the flower tribe, who kill infants with birthmarks, believing them to already be poisoned.
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A saying you don’t understand: “When the wasp lands upon the orchid it understands humans and machines.”
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You keep walking. You can feel something watching you again. You pretend you don’t know it wants you to leave.
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Wild horses in the distance. Mundane beauty. You pretend they are not tearing at the flesh of a man nor stomping him to death.
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They believe there are thousands of levels of hell and this is one of the early ones.
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Little machines wandering through the dusty fields, looking for humans to please.
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The heavy dark air that hunts skin.
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A lake shaped incorrectly at the end of the steppe. You drink its water but immediately feel a fool, having forgotten the warnings of all of your hosts over the plains. When you wake up, your shadow is gone.