A New Name

             The sky closed before Istu, and the band lived on without me, just as absolutely as we had lived on when the grass grew over Wachiwi, my Nomad mother.

            From your point of view, reader, this will be a strange sort of literature because our modes of existence no longer match sensibly. It is neither exactly a time or a space matter. I am at a bit of a loss to explain. How can this be.
            To you, the incidents will arrange themselves as a sequential narrative. It wasn’t like that, but it’s what we have to deal with between us, no?

            As I stepped through the rainbowed door I didn’t look back, for all was new before me. The light was golden and in the depths above and around I saw more stars than I could have imagined existed in heaven.  No familiar constellations greeted my eyes.
            “Yes, I will go with you,” I said. My trust was absolute and has never abated.
            You might be amused to picture us at that moment. What I had thought of as a lid on his silver colored object, I had no notion of vehicles at that time, was opened. As I had entered his existence, the apparently small metallic cylinder had grown much much larger.          

    In the opening stood the man, no taller than I. Unlike any man I had ever seen, his hair was light yellow, almost the color of some meadow flower.  His eyes were pale blue. He was dressed in a strange material of blue covering all of his limbs in a loose comfortable way. He gazed upon me and I at him.
            And I, what can I say, I had never seen myself.  But I know that I was small, I was tanned, I was dressed in a deerskin gown of my own construction. I knew that my eyes were dark blue, for Jula had told me so, and I had sun bleached brown hair, braided Nomad style. I believe that I was about 15 years old.
            He held out his hand to me and I took it in mine.  “I am Mak,” he said, smiling. I stepped into his ship. The lid closed beside us. I stood looking around at this interior. It appeared to be a large low ceilinged room full of soft seating and gentle lighting. There were a few other men, perhaps crew members, if I had known of such things.
            “All you see, is yours,” said Mak. “It always has been.” I don’t remember being surprised at all.  I merely accepted his words.
            There was another time.
 On his birth planet, I was gathered into his family. His mother loved me and taught me. Kindly, she spoke to me in my own language. She dressed me in beautiful liquid fabrics. She praised me tenderly. She said that she had always known me. His mother became my mother.
            Mak’s father watched all, quietly. He was the calm at the center of all their doings. Strength flowed from him, and wisdom.
            His sister took my hand and walked with me through the beautiful, subtle city. I learned their names and their words as we walked along. We visited gardens with flowers and plantings unlike any others I had ever seen and met various lovely beasts also walking freely. These animals greeted us civilly and bowed as we passed. Some were hooved animals almost like horses and some appeared almost bearlike, and others were large canids apparently, mighty speaking wolves. There were also flying beasts with fur and feathered ones also. They called out joyous melodies as they flew overhead in the turquoise sky.
            Oliisha, my sister, here, enjoyed my pleasure in all about us as we walked. She was much like her brother. As we walked arm in arm every day, I came to know my city.
            There were other people also as we strolled on wide marble streets beneath fantastic trembling trees. They greeted us warmly, in their language. I didn’t yet know what the greetings meant.  They bowed and let us pass, waiting as we walked by. Good wishes followed in our wake.
            When I was a child, my life had been like a line drawn on a flat paper. Little did I understand depth and expanse, dimensional disparity. All that I can convey are isolated spots, an image here and there.
            Once upon a time, dear reader, there was a time when Mak and I became one. Of course we had always been one. I had come to know this finally. All my life before he had watched over me. This is where it gets hard to express to you.
            Oliisha filled my curls with red flowers, I was dressed in a gown of deep indigo blue, a fabric like silk. Mak’s clothing was of the same. This is another image.
            There was a great feast for us. All of the planet rejoiced. His mother and his father made way for us.  They stepped back into the background. For I was found again.
            When we stood together, before the people and also the animals, he said, “today I give you a new name, it is my gift to you, if you wish it.”
            “I wish it,” I said to him.
            “Soosha, I name you Ruza, once again,” he said.                     Then I understood that I had always been Ruza. At last, I understood all that had gone before, to use a term that makes little sense but is a necessary literary device.
            So, as one, in our blue silk and our curls and our flowers and before our feasting people we stood together again. It is another image.

This whole ball of yarn.