Heaven, sister, red, home, forgiveness

Donna Starks five words: Heaven, sister, red, home, forgiveness

Heaven was open the day when the orcano ruled over the earth. I could swear on it; the heaven was open. How else could I have seen what happened there meanwhile, while the orcano ruled? I never dared to tell anybody about it, I was afraid I would be declared insane and stored away into some institution if they had dared to. But I knew what I had seen, and it frightened me as much as it got me realize why things happened on my poor earth, my poor mistreated earth. I used to think about it as that.

I stayed in a small house; I used to think about it as that, I stayed in a small house. Others would have called it a small cottage on it’s way back to the earth from which it was made. I stayed alone in the small house and had done it for some years. Once I had had a mother. I had never known any father. I had asked, but had got no proper answer and had stopped asking. One day my mother got ill, and after some days in bed, she died. I had buried my mother in the same secret place as generations before me had buried our people. We never attended churches. Actually I didn’t know whether we where registered in a church. Actually I didn’t know whether my family was registered in any register.

My great grandfather had been one of the shamans of a tribe and had to flee when he in a confrontation with another shaman had come to kill him. Together with him and his wife fled some children that were more or less damned by the tribe because of some sins of their dead parents. The children beheld their lives, but that was all. The young shaman had tried to help these children, cure their illnesses and give them some food. Actually his care for these abandoned children was the course of his confrontation with his fellow shaman, and the course why he now was fleeing with his wife and the theese children.

After months on run they settled in a place where they had control over the area, where nobody could sneak unseen on them. Even though they had fled for months, they didn’t feel safe.

The great grandfather built a small house for his wife, himself and the children. They lived from hunting, fishing and what nature would supply them with. In due time, the shaman and his wife got a son, an only son, and in more due time this son, who clearly had inherited his father’s shamanpower, married one of the abandoned children and got a daughter, an only daughter, my mother.

By that time when my mother was born, the run-away-family had come to know that there were others living a day’s walk away. They knew about them, but did nothing to have contact with them, and it looked like it was gjensidig. The others did nothing to keep in contact with my family. May be it was the shaman-eyes that kept them away. I can remember my grandfather’s eyes. When he looked at you, you felt he saw through you and saw every little thing you tried to hide. My mother, his only daughter, didn’t inherit the shamanpower, but I knew it passed through her to me. I knew I had had a sister, a twin sister, who died in birth. As I told we had our own graveyard where my great grandparents, all the children that followed them, my grandparents, my baby sister and my mother as the last was buried. I am the only one left. I used to think about Abraham from the Bible who left and got a hell of a etterslekt. My great grandparents and the abandoned children left, and the only one after them is me.

I never worried about about who should bury me. I knew I would be buried together with the others at the secret graveyard. How I know it? As I told you I have inherited the shamanpower of my family. I sincerely felt I was the strongest of our shamans. It is said that when shamanpower passed through a man to a woman, it is doubled. From childhood off I could do things that frightened myself. When my grandparents still were alive, I sometimes saw my grandfather watch me with a curious look. Once he told me to be careful.

I knew my mother had run away and had later returned home pregnant. As I told, she never gave a proper answer as for my father. But the strange ting is, I never seriously cared about that, my father’s part, I mean, who he was and what he had brought to me. I felt through and through a descendant of my great-grandfather, nothing else. On her deathbed my mother wearily asked me for forgiveness for hiding my father’s identity for me. I ensured her that I didn’t much care about him, but she started to say something when her head fell and she died.

Nevertheless I was my great-grandfather’s descendant and felt strongly that his blood ran in my veins. I was still young, and I knew I would become an old woman before I should rest in the graveyard together with the others.

When the orcano ruled my poor earth, I had seen heaven be open, and what I had seen there, made me understand that I had a job to do in the place my great-grandfather had to flee from. The orcano had opened the heaven to give me insight and understanding of my task here on my poor earth before I got too old to handle it.

I had to follow what I had seen, my task on my poor earth, and I knew the orcano would rule until I left, so I consequently left.

Nearly a month later I reached my destination, the place my great-grandparents and the abandoned children had had to flee from. I knew I had company on my travel. As I said, I am a shaman among the strongest ones as I am a woman with power that has passed through a man and as such is doubled on it’s way to a female soul.

With my company – those who once had had to flee from the place. I found myself a central place where I knew I would be observed. There I sat down to eat while I waited for the inhabitants to come and try to find out who I was and what my task here was.

As I presumed they came and formed a half-circle around me. One who from his self-important air I considered was the leader, stepped forward and asked me who I was and what brought me here. I presumed unknown visitors were seldom in this godforsaken village, but I had my agenda to follow, and my fellow travellers – the souls of those who once had to flee from here – had their agenda, so I looked up and silently asked why he asked. He looked at me, not expecting me to ask so since I was a lone soul sitting on a stumb with my food and he an important man of the village. His eye-cast showed suspicion and impatience, then he turned to a tree, pointed a finger to it, and the leaves of the tree fell off.

- That’s why I as, he said coldly.

I looked up at him, worked up by my fellow travellers and asked if that was the only answer he had to my question. I didn’t wait for him to answer, but pointed my finger to the tree. The tree immediately started to rotten, and soon was only trashes on the red soil.

I shall not tire you with details of further happenings, only say that when I left - together with my fellow travellers – I had done my task, and we brought with us what we had come for.

Many years later things from the village came to me in my dreams. I didn’t care. They were none business of mine. I had done my task on my poor earth and was ready for my rest among the others.