The Thrill Report #011399 The Ancient Ones Speak

We were a happy people. We didn't know we were happy, we just were. We had no cause to speak about happiness because it was to us as the air...always with us.

We lived simply. We did not know it was simple, it was just our way. We looked to the Earth for all that we needed. The Earth gave abundantly and generously. The Earth was our Mother. It had always been so.

We looked to the Sky for inspiration. We did not know that we did this. We saw the Sky and it was One, like we were One.

We lived. We loved. We knew the Earth and all others like us. We shared the Sky together. We were One People. We did everything with joy. We knew no other way. This was how it was for us.

We lived a very long time. When one of us was ready to go on we all gathered around our Changing One. As the essence passed into us our beauty grew. It was as the butterfly emerging from the cocoon. We were greater because of this. We did not think about it. We did not plan for it. We just knew to do this.

When a New One wanted to come in we all gathered and placed our hands together in a circle and brought the New One into our being. Joy was added to our world and brought even more greatness. We did not know this as a measure, it was just the way of our world. This is the way all beauty is made.

Peace was our breath. Joy was our essence. Happiness was our state. Love was our home. We knew nothing of this as separate from our being until the visitors from the Sky came. They were beautiful to look upon...like we looked upon each other. They came because we had reached them. Our Joy was so great. Now we would have them in our Oneness. Our greatness increased even more. Now we knew of others from the Sky World, just like us. We were all One and our joy was magnificant.

Now we knew other worlds like our own. Far places were near to us. The Sky World was our world. We gazed upon the trees that the Others in the Sky Worlds might see what we see. We held dewdrops in the palms of our hands so that Others might see the crystal beauty. We gazed into the faces of our flowers and filled the Others with delight. Others in the Sky World showed us their beauties. We saw beauty everywhere. Until the strangers came.

They came from the ground. They were not as us. When they came into our midst and we looked upon them, our Sky World was gone. We did not know what this was. We did not know why we stopped seeing. We could not look upon these strange ones from the ground. It was wrong. It brought things to us that we never knew. We saw they were not like us. We didn't know what that meant.

To look upon them was to go far away from our home. They moved upon us. They dwelled in our abode. We stopped looking at them. Soon we stopped seeing each other.

We were made to wear tight pressings on our heads. We could not think. We could not make our sounds. We could not look at the Sky. Our heads pressed to the ground. Our New Ones disappeared. We could not look for them. We could not see. The smell made us blank.

Now we only knew suffering yet we did not call it that. We had no word for this. We called it nothing.

In silence we endured.

Because we could no longer bring forth the New Ones they tore our bodies open with their tools and planted their seed inside us. It grew and grew until it was the size of a large stone. Then we must push this stone out of our bodies. It tore us apart in ways we had not the means to say. We said nothing.

The strange New Ones were greedy. They began to devour us but we could not deny them. They were hungry. They were helpless. They were wounded too. The ones with a planting tool were wounded on their planting tool. They ones without a planting tool were wounded in their secret garden. We could not protect them. We cared for them tenderly in our dimness. Lost feelings stir inside us from far, far away.

When the strange New Ones no longer needed us they were taken from us. Again we were torn to plant another seed and the cycle began again.

At first we watched with secret glances when our strange New Ones entered the stranger's world but we found only great suffering. We could not bear to see their fate. We stopped seeing the meals we were required to prepare. To look upon the foodstuff was to go mad. To go mad was to endure the unendurable.

We sought nothingness. We saw nothing. We heard nothing. We spoke nothing. We felt nothing. We knew everything yet we did not know what it was. We were lost.

Some of us were put to work making things for the strangers to cover their bodies, though they already had much covering. They chose to hide their own covering beneath the covering like we once wore. Now we must wear covers like theirs. We must smell like them. This was a law. A law was what must be.

We must gather and color and weave for them. Beautiful garmets they must have to cover their covers. The ones without the tool for planting us must have fine garmets for their heads. To make these caused our eyes to fail completely.

Without eyes a life of darkness came upon us. The ones with the planting tools caused us great suffering while we lay upon a stone. They made strange sounds and unspeakable smells while they spoke us unto our end.

Just before we could endure no more someone picked us up from the stone and smashed us against it scattering our essence in every direction. We were left in pieces to wander forever in darkness.

That is what we were until you came for us.

Jana Janus The Rogue Butterfly Scribe in the Ancient Language of Thrill