Mandrake Hemp - Wa. - FIN

<APPEARANCE>
It's easy to forget about me. Nothing makes me very special. I can't lift bushel after bushel of corn over my shoulder, or run all the way to the end of the valley and back without keeling over, or kill one of the mountain goats with a spear or arrow. I don't have the physicality. I was born a small person, smaller than all the other babies here. My father and mother are both strong people, but I didn't seem to inherit any strength at all. Or height or weight. I'm smaller than everyone else in the valley and almost every single one of them could probably break me just by giving me a friendly slap on the back. I'm used to pain though, like everyone in the valley. I learned early that there are others who have suffered through much worse than I have and didn't utter one word of complaint. For example my grandmother. (Although, having no tongue might keep you from complaining ...)

I do look quite similar to my father though. Brown hair and eyes and dirty skin and hands from years of harvesting and planting crops. And I got my nose from my mother, or so everyone says. There is only one mirror in the valley and I have only ever looked at myself once using it. I prefer to look into the creek instead, with the ripples and and glinting of sun. Sometimes fish swim by and I dive straight in after it, wondering if I can catch one with my bare hands like a bear would. And then I take a long bath, soaking in the cool water until I can't feel anything anymore and then crawl out and lay on the bank and sun with the turtles. I guess that is as clean as we valley people get. No soap, just fishy water. But it smells like home to me. And of course there are tons and tons of flowers for you to lay in. I love coming home smelling like lilac. And my mother does too.

I don't have much for clothes. The elders get the nicest clothes, which are denim pants and cotton shirts, which, even if they have holes in them, are the nicest thing we have. Lots of times I wear animal skins or nothing at all. When we have to bury someone or welcome another baby into the world, I wear my nice clothes. A pair of tattered denim jeans and a nicer leather jacket that I was able to make for myself. The jeans are big on me and drag on the ground but the jacket fits me perfectly considering I made it for myself. But I'm only allowed to wear it on special occasions. Don't want to make myself seem anymore special than anyone else.

<PERSONALITY>
Have you ever wondered where you are supposed to fit in? With me, it has always been this way. Wondering what I am meant to do, what I was born for. Everyone around me seems to accept the world as it is, no questions asked. But I can't understand how they couldn't want to know more. I can see the lies in the eyes of the elders, that they are keeping things from us, but they don't see it. They believe and accept and cherish what the elders tell them. It is easy for them and I wish so much just to be like them. I wish to know my place, and when not to ask questions, and to keep from wondering. I try, I really try to keep quiet and to keep my prying questions inside me, but I always have the urge to ask my grandmother or my parents. My grandmother swats me away, and my parents look frightened and confused. I am not like the others. They are never sure how to answer my questions.

I want the days back from when I was a smaller child. I would cherish every second of those days when you were clean and innocent. I couldn't ask questions then. I don't even think I could think for myself then. Back when no one tried to reassure me that it was okay that I didn't understand, that I just need to relax and let it flow and believe in everything. Back when no one looked at me like I was a bother or like I didn't understand or like I didn't fit in. Back when I didn't get dragged off to have a smoke to take my mind off things. back when no one tried to help me solve my so called 'problem.' I know everyone here loves me, but it doesn't help the feeling I get after I ask a question and everyone stares at me as if I had just committed murder.

So I try hard to keep the questions to myself. Instead, I read books that I find in the empty, abandoned buildings. The books don't scold me for asking questions, but instead reward me with answers. (And, unfortunately, provide me with more questions.) I love the world and the earth and the breezes that sweep through the valley and the smells of flowers and cooking meat and how amazing everyone here is and how much we all cherish each others company, but I know there is more than just us. There has to be. The books I read tell me of buildings that reach into the sky and huge, metal contraptions that carry you through the air and clothes that are in perfect condition and made of the oddest materials. And although I know that my questions may hurt us, (the valley people) I know I have to ask them and find the answers.

<HISTORY>
I am a rarity. It's all right there in my name. I was born so small, so fragile, so early - they thought I may not live, like a lot of the other children that are born here in the valley. And with no real medical instruments my parents debated just letting me die in the meadow. But my strangled cries raked through the serene night and they knew I wasn't going to die. Everyone in the valley knew that I was going to be a fighter - a rarity among those children before me. For months I lived with only the scents of various plants to hold me. Sorrel from my parents, wreaths of yellow violet from the town, and mandrake roots to teach me my own name. I did not receive the coos from my parents like the place I came from told me I would. They were silent and used rough hands to hold me, smelled of nothing but earth and dirt, and only smiled at me. No words were used to raise me, only flowers.

I grew in the fields, in the creek, in the rocks just as every plant does. My parents fed me corn and potatoes and strawberries and raspberries and so many more green things to help me grow. But I could've lived with no food at all. All I needed was sunlight, rain, and love. My parents gave me a poem, something special for my 5th birthday. It really was a beautiful thing; almost as beautiful as the earth itself and something I will always cherish to this day. When I bathe in the creek, the coolness of the stream seeming to rush straight through me, I recite poem. In my head of course, because I was never taught to speak. No one I know can utter any word that makes up something of meaning. the books I read tell of a world where you are free to speak and say whatever you like, but my parents were never taught how to speak - my grandmother has no tongue. But everyone here understands eachother. We all know when the harvest should be, when the kids need to be bathed, when it is time for a lesson, where the edge of our valley is. It is not spoken - at least, not from our lips - instead it is given. With a flower or a poem or from our bodies. We are one with the earth around us. Our town wears no shoes to feel the soil in our toes, we wear nothing but animal skins because the animals in the mountains are our friends and they gave their lives to keep us warm, and we grow together, learn together, harvest together, bury loved ones together. We are of the earth, as closely connected as the roots of a tree are connected to the dirt.

Everything and everyone in the valley speaks of nothing but beauty. They cling to it like they have known something different - something terrible about the earth. i have questions but I do not ask. No one in the valley ever asks, we only listen. But I have always wondered, always tried to ask, to question what happened. Why are we here? I would write. What is at the top of the mountain? What is at the bottom of that? But grandma never answers. She only points me towards the deadly nightshade patch. I am a rarity, they say. But I can't help feel like rarity means disgrace. My parents give me love, my friends give me friendship, but I'm not sure they mean it. I ask them if they are sincere and they reply with a smile and a gripping of a hand but I still feel alone. Alone in a world where everyone has seen each other without clothing. Alone in a world where you can sleep at your best friends house every night of the week. Alone in a world where everybody knows each other and you touch eachother's shoulders and hands and faces to communicate feeling. I feel alone in a world where it is impossible to actually be alone. And all I can wonder is, What is wrong with me?

But some nights I'm okay. The nights when I lay in a circle with all the valley kids and pass a joint of marijuana around. Sure our parents could easily find out, but we are all too high by the time we think about it that we don't care. Laughter, and stars and dirt mix together and it's easier for me to forget where I am. I drift away, into the stars, letting them carry me away with the sound of laughter and dirt clinging to my back. I can feel my questions being answered. I can feel my life finally start to make sense. And then I wake up the next morning pondering why I can't grasp the answers. When will the answers come? How long must I wait? Will the right question be answered? And with all these questions another one always arises. What happens when you die? Those are the days when I yearn for silence and solitude - deadly nightshade and heath - wondering what would happen if I brought just one of it's leaves to my lips. Does death hurt? Does the pain ever go away? And more importantly, Will the questions stop nagging me?

There are so many books in the place I live. Old books; books that are falling apart and have pages missing and words smudged over. They answer some of my questions, but the answers I get only make me ask more. My parents try to help me understand, the elders in the valley can answer some of my questions, but most times I am sent to the deadly nightshade patch to mull over my thoughts and think about what my questioning of things can do. One of the elders of the valley died recently, leaving a single message before he left the world. A full-blown rose, Solomon's seal, maidenhair fern; secrets, secrets, secrets. And winter cherry tangled in brambles. I watched my grandmother enter his house and burn every part of the message. I can still feel her palm slashing against my face and pointing fiercely towards the nightshade. And even when my thoughts were supposed to go out to go out to the elders souls to help guide him, my thoughts were elsewhere, discovering things they shouldn't be. Asking more questions. What did this elder regret so much? What secrets did he hold?

When I thought everyone in our valley had no secrets, there they are, suddenly arising with the death of our wisest members. I lay on his grave, and wonder, What did you want to tell me? And as I approached my grandmother on the day of her death, she finally told me that there are so many more like her. She gave me a letter, telling me how she among others escaped a form of slavery and traveled here, leaving so many behind. And the last word on the page was, 'Go.' We buried her that day, as we bury everyone else and leave flowers on her grave. And then I knew that I had to leave - I had to find the others if I wanted any answers.