Arwain had promised me he would be waiting for me outside the Cynefin at 9 AM. At 8 AM I put on clothes, had dinner and am sitting at the dinner chair, waiting. When I walk outside at 9 AM sharp, Arwain is waiting for me, that sheepish smile still plastered on his face. He greets me, I ignore him. He does not seem surprised.
The deadening silence of the previous day continues as we walk towards the town center. It certainly is a weird thought to think that you have been present a few miles away from me for a hundred days now. You would think I would have noticed, that I would have felt something. Maybe you were the discomfort I felt all along, a septic presence muddling my thoughts.
We arrive at the town hall. Do you really live here? But no, Arwain points at the small, pink flat next to the town hall. ‘That’s her office.’, he says.
One would think that the Great Founder would have taken a more prestigious building to be her office. Is it modesty? Or is it the sign of a deep guilt, knowing that you do not deserve any of the luxuries you have claimed for yourself.
We go inside, where what I assume to be your secretary is typing rapidly at her desk. For a moment the rattle of her keypad stops and she looks up. ‘Did you make an appointment?’, she says.
‘It’s an emergency.’, Arwain says.
Her fingers go back to frantically tapping keys, before she looks up again. ‘Okay, wait here for five minutes.’
We spent the waiting time sitting on a set of mint green sofas. Five more minutes of silence pass by. I do not care in the slightest. What are another five minutes on centuries of waiting?
Finally, the secretary looks up for a third time to call us over. ‘Okay, the Great Founder will see you now.’
Her comment cracks me up. You really are the Great Founder to all of them. What would they think of you when they knew what I knew?
As always, Arwain tells me goodbye chipperly. And seemingly lightly, he says: ‘And, take it easy in there. Don’t destroy anything too precious, will ya? I don’t want to come in there and get you.’
But I see his sharp gaze and I know that this is far from a light comment. Is it a threat?
I smile the biggest smile I can muster. ‘I’ll be good. Besides, if I destroy anything too important, I can always flee to another planet and start over, right?’
He does not stop smiling for a moment, though the light in his eyes dims a little. The secretary seems a bit concerned, but says nothing. No one seems to ever speak their mind around here, do they? I walk to the door and enter your office.
There you are! Blonde curling neatly over your shoulder. A colorful and eccentric, but at the same time impeccable outfit. Arched over a perfectly smooth, light wooden desk. Green, doe eyes looking up at me, quick to conceal the shock you experience once you recognize me.
‘Red?, what a surprise, I thought I’d never see you he-‘
‘SHUT UP!’ Your eyes widen, your mouth still opened slightly. ‘JUST SHUT UP.’ The veins in my head are throbbing. I want to throw your perfectly polished desk at your perfectly polished head. And then I want to wreck this miserable little planet, this giant lie you created.
I manage to regain myself a bit and in a hushed voice I say: ‘This is where you went off to? This is where you ran off to when the earth was falling apart?!’
‘Well yes, but it is not as you think it is.’
‘How is this not as I think it is?’ I can’t keep my tone from rising. My eyes feel like they are about to pop out of your head. ‘You came here to play the little hero, the Great Founder who builds a home for all the little space orphans. You are unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable!’
You reach out to me, begging.
I almost slap away your hand. ‘Do not touch me!’
For a moment I am so filled with hatred that I cannot speak. ‘Earth is dead.’
Your eyes widen as you act surprised. ‘I didn’t know. I’m so sorry, I-‘
‘You know it’s your fault, right? After you, they all left.’ I’m heaving and my chest aches. ‘Earth would still be here if it wasn’t for you. You and the thousands of fighters who swore on their life that they would protect earth. You all ran away like cowards the second things got tough. I asked you, I asked them a million times if they wanted to stay. They said yes, you said yes, each and every time. How can you live with yourself?’
‘I just couldn’t say I wanted to leave. I don’t think I even knew it.’
That’s bullshit. ‘That’s bullshit! How can you not know? After all this time.’
‘Hiraeth has another meaning. Besides a homesickness to a home you can’t return to, it’s also a homesickness to a home which never was. A yearning instead of a nostalgia.’
When I do not answer, you keep talking. ‘That’s what this place is to me, the place I always wanted, the place I knew in my deepest of being I belonged to. And that’s why I left earth, because it wasn’t that place.’
I snicker, my blood boiling with a poisonous fury. ‘Of course it wasn’t. No place was ever going to satisfy your fairytale dreams. So you just created your own little wonderland. One where you can play with your dolls forever, play house with the seven dwarves.’
‘That’s not fair.’
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‘Is it? You know these people all adore you, right? That they think of you as their savior, their messiah? The one who built a place for the lost to be found. But you never intended this place for anyone but yourself.’
I walk closer and closer to you. ‘Because you don’t care, really care, about anything or anyone other than you.’
‘That’s not true, I love all of them. I would give my life for all of these people.’
You try to be as mild-mannered and calm as you always were, but eyes are a liar’s worst enemy. And in the midst of that well-kept exterior your eyes confess shame.
‘If that’s true, why didn’t you tell them the truth?’
Now, when my face is only inches away from yours, your eyes scream your guilt. I whisper: ‘Why don’t you just tell them that you didn’t find this place because you had no home left to return to. That your home still existed and you left it to DIE. That you are no Great Founder. That you are a traitor. ’ I can hear the smallest whimper exit her mouth. ‘I can’t.’
I have you, I totally have you. If the people of this planet hear who you really are, then you will experience firsthand what abandonment feels like. After all these years, these centuries of suffering that felt like eternity, I finally have my revenge. They say nothing tastes sweeter than revenge. And in this moment revenge tastes like sweet, sweet chocolate wrapped in candyfloss.
I do not know if you have ever had candyfloss before. It tastes like the greatest thing you have ever had when you first take a bite. But with the tenth bite you are ready to throw up. Revenge feels a little like that. For a second it is ecstasy. Within ten seconds that feeling withers and decays and you are left feeling sick.
I feel so sick I feel mute again. You are still looking at me, a little scared, a little guilty, maybe a bit pitying. It makes me feel even more nauseated. I have to leave. I have to leave before I throw up again. It is the only thought that fills my head as I storm out of your office and slam the door shut.
In a flurry I rush back to Cynefin. I see nothing and hear nothing but static as I walk up the stairs. Nothing registers until a voice drowns out the noise.
‘Red!’ Arwain stares at me with something resembling concern on his face. ‘How did it go?’
It takes me ages to answer, as my body is physically unable to. When I do manage to produce the words, I feel weak. ‘I did not kill her at least.’
I expect him to scream at me or console me or criticize me or to just tell me everything is going to be okay. Instead, he tells me to write down my feelings. The mere words inflame in me an anger that could burn down cities. That someone can tell me that a centuries old torment involving the loss of one’s whole life could be solved by putting it down onto paper is a vulgar insult to say the least. Seeing the white hot anger in my eyes perhaps, he tells me that it is not the solution to everything, just a start. That it was a start for him too. And considering that I do not have anywhere to start, I follow his advice. From the little belongings I have, I fetch a piece of paper and a pen and start writing. I start writing a letter to you starting with how I hate you.
I hate how everything always comes easy to you. I hate that everyone always loves you for merely existing, for merely being you. I hate that things just seem to fall in to place for you. I hate that you do not notice that things just fall into place for you. I hate that you do not notice how hard I have to fight just for people to endure me. I hate that you do not seem to see that every waking day I have to push myself to make it through. I hate that I feel guilty once I think these thoughts, because deeming my suffering more impactful than yours seems arrogant and egotistical. I wish I could just be arrogant and egotistical and selfish. I wish I would have, could have taken revenge on every one who left me behind so that they could experience a sliver of what it feels to be the one who is left behind. I wish I could actually hate you. I wish I did not hate myself. I wish that I had enough self-respect to leave a planet entering its deathbed; to not hold onto withered flowers and find the blooming ones instead. And now that I write this letter I secretly wish that it did not make me feel as relieved as it does, because it means that Arwain was right and more importantly that I was wrong. And I hate being wrong.
When I start going around in circles I realize I have written what I needed to write and I lay down my pen and search for Rhian.
I ask her where I can find the calennig.
‘At the marketplace.’, she tells me again. ‘I’ll buy you a bunch, it’s no worry.’, she tells me again.
‘But where does it grow?’
‘In the caves east from the town. But I don’t know if it’s safe to go there.’ I tell her I’ll be fine, but she comes with me anyway.
It’s an hour hike to the caves. The weather is beautiful as always.
‘Does it ever rain here?’, I ask Rhian.
‘Only at night.’
It’s almost like this planet is specifically built for humans to find. As if it is telling you: “I was here all along, waiting for you. Why did you take so long to find me?” It does make earth look miserable in comparison.
‘Is there anything you don’t like about this planet?’, I ask further.
‘Since there are new things to explore every day, life never gets boring. People are happy, bullying or hateful speech rarely takes place, the weather is good.’
‘So you’re saying there’s nothing you don’t like.’
She turns to face me. ‘This place seems perfect, but perfect isn’t always what you want. Sometimes it seems to miss something. A deeper layer, a purpose, an understanding that only comes with a lifetime of experience, both good and bad, in both planet and people. The people born on this planet live to enjoy, a lifetime of bliss, nothing more nothing less. Sometimes I wish I could find a planet, where things aren’t as perfect and people aren’t raised with the expectation that things would be perfect. Where people understood my sometimes ill-funded anxiety and how much I loathe my sometimes self-indulgent acts. ’
Again, I am surprised by the complexity of those who moved to this planet. And it strikes me how much I am not alone in wandering through space, looking to not be lost for a while.
When we enter the cave system, it seems like we leave Hiraeth behind for a second to enter another world. When you are outside, Hiraeth seems like a young child, smooth and light. But in here, the jaggedness and coarseness of the stone, the darkness and stale air make it seem ancient. The only sounds I hear are the echoes of our footsteps and water dripping from a rock into a puddle below.
Rhian takes out a small orb from her bag with a blueish glow. Enaid. It sure is fascinating to look at, resembling what I would imagine a phantom or spirit to look like. Its light reflects on a small river that flows besides the stony path. Maybe if we cross that river we will end up traversing to the great beyond.
The journey through the caves we make in silence, not uncomfortable, just emerged in our own thoughts. The path is not always easily passable and it is clear it is not treaded often. Some passages are blocked and at times I fear that we might be trapped under a stone avalanche, never to be found again. But then, as I struggle to get over the rubble, Rhian holds me back and points up at a high stone formation.
Somehow, sticking out of the top of that formation, I see a bright lime green flower. Delicately curved turquoise tips as if they were dipped in sea-colored paint. Golden pistils that spring from the heart of the alien belle. And it's fresh, a new bloomer that survived in this barren landscape. I stumble as I make my way up to the flower, but I catch myself in time. At first, I stretch out my hand to pluck it. Then I reconsider and instead dig it up out of the ground. Rhian sees what I am doing and rummages around in her bag for a bit. She pulls out a little plastic cup.
I plant the calennig in its temporary home. ‘You’re coming with me.’
I am happy to have Rhian with me as her sense of direction is flawless and we make it out of the caves in no time. Outside, it has already become dark and rain is pouring down. It is a nice change. Soaked to the bone, we make it back to Cynefin. After getting dried by the fireplace, I go to bed and fall into a deep slumber, sung goodnight by the crackling of the burning wood. My mind stays as silent as the night.
