Humanity Prime. Bruce Mcallister
screaming dying, she is still alive in screamdeep’s memory of her day of death, and I pried this memory from Father long ago.
I become Father watching and sharing Mother’s dying....
“A soul may give his experience to another soul,” Father once said. “The soul who receives is able to remember the gift of event as if it were his own, from the beginning and in the now. But the dark truth is: such gifts can be dangerous. The truth is: a child who receives too many gifts from others’ memories may lose his own personal soul, may forget who he is and fall into splitting darkness. And if too many of the gifts are moments of death...
I become Mother dying.
And Father’s soul, in Father’s memory, will not let go of me.
I struggle to leave, and in the end, when the memory is spent, I win.
But I lose in other ways.
Once again I return from waterjoyup’s death, screamdeep’s agony, and my own raw birth with the bleeding sore of a truest truth: I am a terrible child named fishsinger, killer of mothers.
I always wanted—as any soul would—the memory of my own birth. But when I finally received it, it became death itself; and still I want it—as any soul would.
I started young to pry, coax, plead for Father to give it to me, soul to soul, in the vivid now of given events.
Father refused, denied, protected me from it with the pretended pink of a lie: “Waterjoyup...? She died when you were young. That is all. The simplest of truest truths.”
But dark colors of mood, strange rivers of feeling flowed often from screamdeep’s soul when the momentary thought of waterjoyup came to either of us. So I continued to pry, to peer, to question, or to probe at more dishonest levels.
Sixty days before screamdeep’s death, I found him asleep in the yau, and pierced his memory for the truer truth—
—that fishsinger’s life had brought waterjoyup’s death.
It did not matter that Father no longer saw it that way. He had once, and once would always be now.
Curiosity brought me pains that cannot be dimmed by time. And still my blue curiosity learned nothing from the experience.
The next time—after Father’s death—brings equal pains, in a probe of poundgrayly’s soul.
The face of wrinkled scales, the tiny eyes, the ancient depths, witnessed screamdeep’s death. Without will, the man offered his death’s moment, and such an offering can never be refused, with or without will.
To my own eyes and eye of soul the day of Father’s death occurred too simply—incomplete:
I was sick, not from white moss on skin, but from the smallest invisible souls who had chosen my stomach as their territory. Screamdeep left me with a man and woman in the nearest territory and went with poundgrayly to find a scarce food called “eye shells” whose meat was believed good for sicknesses of the stomach and chest.
I waited, and was surprised when the pains of stomach began to leave on their own, as the thousands of tiny souls within began dying and dimming in the victory of my body.
Poundgrayly came back.
The return of one soul—when two had left—should have been enough to bring understanding, but I could not touch the truth so easily.
Eyes always have less range than souls. It was one lone soul, indistinguishable in the distance, who called softly to me from gray waters:
“I am called poundgrayly, who is alone and sorry.”
Poundgrayly approached and offered only: “Your screamdeep father has died. One accident, without will, his or mine, at the talons of ioe.”
My muscles hardened, and I probed for more.
Poundgrayly refused. Small eyes blinking. Heavy soul pounding brown, like a shelter of leaves, reprimanding: “I cannot give it. Your screamdeep father would not have me give it.”
“So you do have it!” I shouted, green rivers browning. “He did give you his death!”
“He did not choose to—I did not choose to receive it. Gift without will. But now poundgrayly will not give it to you. Why do you desire his moment so?”
“He was my father! Two souls share from birth to death. He would want it so! I have the right...”
“You do not.”
I prodded, probed and bothered the old soul. Poundgrayly defended with: “I find you stupid. You desired your mother’s death moment, and you got it, and agony with it, and crags of guilt you do not deserve. But perhaps you deserve something for your stupid unlearning way.”
I gave no answer. I began waiting.
After many days the moment comes. Poundgrayly eases the shelter of his soul for a single moment, and I ride the moment into memory, find screamdeep’s darkest day, and it takes me completely, without will. Once again I become screamdeep, and ride a quiet wave toward the violence of death.
Fishsinger—
I—
Screamdeep—
I am here. Swimming.
Poundgrayly is with me, following above and behind. A bright wide shell of friendship’s constancy arches from his euyom soul, arches out with a wish to cover my own—just as his body’s hard green shell protects wrinkled flesh and would cover mine if souls could have their way with flesh, skin and rigid bone.
Our destination nears, and we share waking dreams of “eye shells” in the rumored bed at a sandy place.
“Nothing is simple,” I say with the formal fringe of my soul.
“Explain,” poundgrayly answers, the fringe too abrupt for understanding.
“The bed is near an island, one place where reefs or rocks assure ioe presence, or some other dark jaws of our choice.”
“Perhaps. It is said the bed lies in an inlet.”
“Certainly between two masses of rock or coral crags—the perfect opportunity for jaws. Certainly we will find ourselves digging in sand surrounded by caves.”
I am joking, offering the bright fins of a smiling soul. Nothing is ever certain, and poundgrayly in his wisdom would be the first to announce it.
“Do ready your soul, though,” I say. “Get your ioe lies in shape.”
All ioe are darkly stupid. Their souls feel only large shadows or the brightest of lights, so the lies we throw at them never fail to protect us. And though most euyom are clumsy with lies—finding learned images too hazy for perfect molding, too slippery for easy handling—poundgrayly is an experienced soul, and perhaps he is somewhat talented. We have managed to learn from each other since the day our depths first touched.
But in the end, quickness and precision of the soul are the only certain way for protection.
The yau are beginning to thin out.
“One pause,” I say and stop swimming. I uproot a long yau stem from its lone rock base at the sandy bottom.
Poundgrayly knows what I wish to do. The idea came from him, as do many ideas for hands—even though they are not for his kind of limbs: flat, scaly, useful only for swimming.
We swim on and I strip the stem of its leaves, then tie it in close knots to form a basket for any shells we find.
The sandy place we seek appears now to our souls: the murmuring of the large shells buried there. And now to face’s eyes: the shallow bright water warm in its nearness to a beach’s hot dryness.
I reach the place first and begin digging in its softness. Poundgrayly will wait to see what my hands are able to find.
The first shells I find