Children of the Dawn

Children of the Dawn

It was long ago. I scarcely recall it. And what I recall is vague, sketched out in thick shapes and rough feels, and voices — not what was said, but just the cadence and pitch of voices connected to hands and arms that dressed and hefted and moved me. They carried us through the dark cold night and the day was so hot as we climbed — us kids in little rucksacks on their broad backs — up the criss-crossing dust-and-pebble paths, stones and scrub bush on the slope-sides. But on the top; where the air was thin and the sky a blue infinite dropped over mountain, valley, forest, jungle — all spotted with fields of mist; it was too cold. It was cold because it was so high in the sky and it was cold because it was nighttime in a desert environment, where the air doesn’t hold moisture. Our ankles were bound together. Our wrists too. We sat there on stone thrones as the night fell, groggy with some sweet drug. But I; something went wrong; the drug didn’t happen; it didn’t matter, really; the cold was drug enough — see how the stick bug, caught out in the cold night, see how it slows, see how its blood freezes, see how it turns into the air, into the cold air. That’s how it became with me. I became the cold air and whatever had been my heart and my thought evaporated into the cold cold air. I watched my mind and heart and body say goodbye. A few days before, I’d been playing with my friends on the green mountain sides. I didn’t understand why this was asked of me, done to me; I still don’t.

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