I turned to my brother, he neither panted nor breathed; he wasn't there. He was a ghost that lived on in my head. But not the kind of ghost the women whispered about in their gatherings, such ghosts were contrary to the teachings of our Way, and none of the males, boy or man, would openly admit to believing in their womanly tales. Yet, my brother's impression was always there; lingering. An absence escorting me to the Gatheringplace, to our fields, through the sun-hardened summer fields. When I laughed, I'd look to my right, to see his reaction, or sometimes, when I had forgotten a word while speaking, I'd look to him to prompt me.

He neither laughed nor did he fill in the gaps anymore. He loomed. A hole around which the world continued, perpetually void; tethered to something not there.

Perhaps…if my father and I hadn't witnessed it, hadn't seen it happen, had there been something to bury…maybe, I don't know, my brother wouldn't always be here, by my side, waiting. Ever silent, ever reticent.

My father was a twin too, as was his grandfather before him. After, when my father was able to speak again, rather than mumble, I had taken to hating the sight of my uncle, the twin. I used to love his company, and seeing him always heralded a good day to come. But now seeing him always made me think of my lost twin, which led to thoughts of snapping ropes and other sudden un-tetherings…

clean bloodless organs detached from their function…the night sky as it appeared above our stone house…on a cold night when the stars were so bright…like the night after he died and then i stood on the roof…staring and staring at the one dim star…i tried to cry but inside i found a place where nothing was…so i thought of my dead mother instead…but that didn't make me cry so I took myself to the secret cave we used to sleep in sometimes, for fun…when we were still happy…when I saw the cave I was able to cry…when I was done crying I looked to my side and my dead brother was there…I wasn't surprised so we slept in the cave again.

Bright, bright, so we slept in the cave again, I whispered to myself.

The pond was within sight. I flashed a grin at my brother and we sped up our pace. I could see my milk-cousins under the pear tree, resting with the herd in the shade.

We stopped and drank from the spring: always cool in the summer. We ran down from the spring to where my cousins lay. The air was all goat musk and dust and the buzz of the high sun's heat.

I asked my cousins what they brought for lunch. My aunt had packed fresh, sharp yogurt, boiled eggs, olives and pasted pepper. I brought out the two loaves of ovenbread I had promised.

My father says my mother used to bake the best bread in the village, we only knew the taste of our maternal grandsiress's bread, which was agreed to be the current best in the village (according to my brother and cousins and me).

We ate. I was certain my cousins were hungry; they spent their days wandering the valleys and mountains, ever on the search for fallow fields and ungrazed bush. I ate to be polite; my brother observed.

I eyed the pond, as soon as the shade covered the water I would swim. Somehow, the shade did something to the water. Stilled it, though it was already still. Tamed a secret wildness that slept beneath. Night was best for swimming, but we no longer dared venture out of the village at night.

I felt a very strong urge to whisper, but could not as my cousins would hear.

I laid back and looked at the younger of my two cousins and asked if he was going to make tea for his elder. He threw a pebble as he rose and went over to rummage through his pack.

His older brother chided him in response to this perceived servility, my younger cousin insisted that he was practicing proper etiquette, "...and besides, men handle the fire while the boys watch."

All three of us were striplings (though we considered ourselves men, young lions even.) Except my brother, of course.

We half-heartedly clapped and whooped at my younger cousin's attempt at bravado. He had a weak personality, and thus, it was our duty to ride him and whip him until he was nothing but callouses and hardness; not to mention our not so secret pleasure.

I grinned over at my brother but his face was hidden in the shadow of the pear tree.

My older cousin, whose name was Guided, was my age. His brother, Sword, was younger than us by a year. Though they were milk-cousins and not blood cousins, all four of us looked alike and thought alike. We were more sibling than cousin.

When it happened, Guided had gone mad and had to be restrained. Never before had I seen that particular expression on his face. It was as if all the bad emotions a person could have were filling him beyond his capacity and inflating his bulging eyes. Horror and sadness, rage, disbelief, madness. I had been frozen, it all seemed as if it were happening apart from me, all of it. His death, Guided's screams, my father's fingers curled over his own eyes...and then my father's awful wail. My uncle struggling with my father to pull his clawed fingers away from eyes, before he gouged himself blind. All just events that had already happened, as I watched from somewhere far, far away. I felt so small, physically small; geometrically. A tiny dot on a huge sphere. I was the last instance of a black hole before it completely evaporated and said goodbye universe, goodbye!

My brother giggled next to me. I looked at him, the memories of my inaction filling me with shame, and quickly looked away. Sword said, "Faultless! Hey! Here, do you want me to drink it too?"

Sword thrust the tea at me as he jokingly affected impatience. Guided imitated their father, and growled obscenities and profane curses beneath his breath at the cur who would treat a guest so.

I looked at Guided and told him, "You're my guests, you donkey. This is our pear tree."

Sword laughed loud. Guided laughed too.

Sword and I went to look for figs, we found bird-pecked skins in the branches and the fermented detritus of fallen overripe fruit beneath.

"Faultless?", Sword called.

"What?", I responded.

"Is it true your father wants you to marry?"

"Yes."

"I'm envious."

"I'm not.", I curtly retorted.

I looked over my brother, he seemed forlorn and lost. Indifferent to the mechanisms which moved the world of the living.

"You don't want to?"

"I do, but not now. I want to work and save money first."

Abruptly, I ran, kicking off my sandals I jumped into the pond. It was so cool beneath the surface and private. I heard my brother's splash a moment after my own.

Beneath the water I was finally able to whisper to my brother, A hidden wildness sleeps beneath, sleeps beneath.

***

We gathered the goats and drove them up the mountain and towards the village. Just as we reached the goat pen, the call went out for the dusk linking. My uncle and aunt were in the pen, loudly discussing the fate of a sick goat that had been kept secluded for the day.

When my aunt turned and saw me, sadness surfaced on her face, which she quickly stifled. She hugged and kissed me, had tears in her eyes as she fretted over me. She had been like that since before, weepy and fretful, maternal and loving. She pet my chest as she spoke, the way a mother pets an infant and beseeched the Most Merciful on my and my father's behalf.

She smelled of woodsmoke and goat milk and sweat and snow (even though it was summer). Once, as a very young boy, I had asked her why she always smelled of snow, she said it was because she was born in the winter. I hadn't understood but my brother and father had both laughed.

Later, I had asked Aware to explain the joke, he had shook his head in exasperation, 'Its a joke, donkey, a joke! Snow, winter....they go together.'

That's around the time we were discovering that we didn't share every single trait, and we both feared that we wouldn't always be the exact same, and together forever and forever. That's why it used to alarm Aware if I didn't laugh when he did.

I had nodded but hadn't really understood.

My aunt inquired after my father, I reassured her. She insisted I stay to eat dinner, that I take home some cheese, that I sleep the night. On and on her maternal assault went, until finally Guided shouted at her, "Mother, let him get home before it's too dark!"

She put on a show of reluctance, but she knew Guided was correct.

I strode up the path for a ways before cutting across our olive grove and towards our one bedroom home. It was the oldest and smallest house in the village.

I could smell and see the refuse fire my father was poking with a stick.

I walked up to him, "The Peace on you, my sire."

He stared menacingly, "And on you the Peace, and His mercy and his blessings."

I knew it was coming, and was able to jump out of the way before his stick lashed my thigh beneath the buttock.

"But not your sire's mercy!"

Though it was one of his oldest old gags, we both laughed. I went and stood next to him and we both grew quiet. He draped his arm across my shoulders and resumed his unnecessary poking. My dead brother crouched on the other side of my father, gazing up at his strong old face, tears leaking out of his eyes as he thought the inscrutable thoughts of the dead.

"Don't you want to check for eggs?", he asked.

"I ate with my aunt", I lied. I did not want to miss the dusk linking.

" What did she say?"

" She said to convey the Peace on you."

"And His Peace on you, my son, and may He grant that you are worthy of His acceptance", he responded by rote.

I hurried to the Gatheringplace and arrived in time for the dusk linking and stayed on for the evening linking. There were only two other youths there, the only other present were old men.

On my return home, I found my father on a sitting mat drinking tea.

His gaunt legs were apparent through the material of his house pants. His shins were like blades

He gestured towards the kitchen, "Get the teapot and a cup for you while you're there."

I brought him the teapot and set it near his tobacco bag.

He smiled when I poured his tea for him.

"I have good sons..", he began out of habit.

"May my Master find you worthy of His acceptance, my son." he intoned.

He rolled a cigarette and lit it. He stared at me blankly as he always does before feigning anger or rage. Of all the village men, he was the most gentle. Though, truthfully, he looked quite mean, even sinister. Most village boys feared him, and all the men respected him. His name was Farceur, but, of course, as he was a man to be respected, was only addressed by his teknonym, Father of the Faultless.

I remember, after the in absentia funeral linking for Aware, hearing the men whispering that it was a mercy it happened to the second born and not the first born, otherwise, everytime my father was addressed, he would be reminded of a day where grief and horror and loss had driven him to attempt to pull his eyes out.

The guilt and shame that filled me felt deserved.

"You reek of goat urine, o vulgar-one." he smiled and assessed my reaction in that way he does.

My brother smiled.

"I won't sleep in my clothes," I promised him.

He smoked and drank his tea. We had both taken to avoiding sleep.

We settled down to play the stone game. My father said it was far superior to chess, Aware and I enjoyed it, but truth be told, I think it was only 'superior to chess' because he constantly changed the rules and always won.

The village grew very quiet the way it does late at night, so that you could hear the occasional guffaw or shout from all the way on the other side of the village, the crunch of young feet running across gravelly paths, a baby crying halfway down the mountain as someone returned late from the fields, a lone nightingale calling out a beseechment to the Master of the World.

My dead brother, Aware, had asked my father about this once. My father wasn't certain, but he expected it had something to do with the coolness of the night making the air less turbulent or somehow making it easier for sound to travel.

Aware thought it was because there were less sounds to cover the other sounds. While he and I were generally of a similar mind, it was him that used to do the talking for us. Before.

I searched for questions to ask my father as we played the stone game. It pleased him to answer our questions and wax philosophical, filling the night with questions, observations and wisdoms.

But I wasn't like Aware, I had no questions. I had even less questions these days.

Unintentionally I looked to Aware, hoping he would prompt me, but he sat quietly next to my father, still staring at his face. Silently dead.

My father gave me a look I didn't know.

"What's wrong," he asked

"What do you mean?"

"With your neck. Your head is spinning about like an owl's."

"Nothing."

I knew Aware wasn't there. I couldn't tell him I was looking at his dead son.

"Tomorrow have your grandmother wrap your neck with olive oil and sage swaths."

"Yes, my sire."

I felt an urge to whisper 'silently dead, silently dead' but stifled the urge.

*

I woke early in the morning. I idly lay and listened to the call to the linking, and tried to identify who it was by their voice. It was my uncle, the twin, I was sure. But recently a lot of the men had taken to copying his style. He had a lovely, deep voice and a long breath.

I briefly considered waking my father, but I knew what he would say. "Go ahead, my son. Go ahead."

I don't think I had ever seen him perform the linking on a regular basis. Here and there he did. But never regularly. Yet, he feared The Master, in his way. He would attend the linking this mid-day though, as it was Gatheringday. He attended the Gatheringday linking every week without fail, as did so many of the other men.

I walked to the Gatheringplace. Only the old men and me this time. Aware didn't stand in row with us. He watched from behind us, guarding the door.

After we performed the morning linking, the old men sat on the stone wall, facing the east. They liked to wait for the sunrise. I think it was an excuse to whisper gossip at (not to) each other and complain about their wives and children. The old men were an odd mix of piety and impiety, especially when it came to griping about their wives. I started walking away when my father's maternal uncle called out to me.

"Boy!"

I turned, "Yes, my grandsire?"

"Tell your father he is invited for lunch after the Gathering. Father of Gifter is also coming.", he gestured towards my uncle, the twin.

"Did you hear me? Tell him when he wakes up and don't forget! Or I'll break this on your back," he attempted to raise his stick in illustration.

I loved him. He was the best of the old men. Secretly very loving, and almost as gentle as my father and uncle.

"Yes, my grandsire ", I hurried Aware along with my hand as we turned away.

*

I returned home and to my sleeping mat and slept until the wonderful aroma of eggs frying in goat butter woke me. I lay there listening to the metallic clicking and clacking of the frying pan and tea pot. I could tell my father thought I was still asleep by how he coughed. Very fast and quiet. I imagined him alone in this house after I died, soft, fast coughs and unintelligible mutterings. The occasional fart.

He walked in to wake me.

"Why are you crying?", the lack of concern on his face meant he was indeed worried.

"I'm not!", startled and ashamed, I reached up to my face. My cheeks and eyes were very wet. My face grew warm.

I peeked over at my brother to see his reaction, but his sleeping mat wasn't there anymore.

"Maybe you were dreaming of the lesson I taught you last night?" he jokingly referred to the stone game...

...which he had obviously won.

"Verily," I quipped as I rolled up my mat and blanket. "Father of the Servant has invited you and my uncle to eat after the Gathering."

"Go get the food and teapot", he quietly said, as he bent to lay down an old cloth over the carpet.

Get the mat and roll the teapot, the teapot, I whispered to myself, in the kitchen.

*

My father left after we ate. I considered walking down to my cousins' house, but decided to stay home instead. Gatheringday was their only day to sleep late, and Guided usually yelled when woken.

I watered the mint and the lemon tree, fed the chickens the scraps and egg shells, and filled their water pan from the cistern. I threw a rock in the direction of the mangy cat which insisted on harassing the chickens every morning, only in the morning. It eyed me indifferently. Of the Creators creatures, it seemed that only cats were permitted to wield apathy like a weapon.

When I walked back into the kitchen, through the rear door, I found Gifter standing there with a cloth bundle, patiently waiting in that idiotic way indecisive children wait. Waiting for someone to tell them what to do, where to go, how to get there.

I could smell the bread through my grandmother's old shawl.

"Put it on the table!", I snapped at my much younger cousin.

"My grandsiress said you and uncle should come and lunch with her after the Gathering."

"He can't. Tell grandsiress I will come though," I commanded.

"..."

"Go," I cuffed his head as hard as was reasonable.

He ran off; knowing him, the tears were more anger than anything else. I didn't need to look at Aware to know he had a look of disappointment on his face.

Gifter was the favorite of our younger cousins, almost a younger brother to us. We taught him how to catch birds, and swim, and play marbles. I remember teaching him the rules of intonation when speaking the Recitation aloud. He really was a good boy; it just felt so good to hurt his feelings.

I didn't like him looking at me the way he did, with his stupid, innocent eyes, like I had something for him, answers to his unposed questions, or a new game, or a lesson about bird snares. All I had was images and images.

clean bloodless organs detached from their function…

I turned to Aware and shouted at him, "So what! What's the difference, he's just a little fart."

*

I sat against the back wall with the other youth. Of course, the Gatheringplace was full. Where was everyone the rest of the week? Some had work for an excuse and performed their linking in the fields and orchards. But what of the others?

There was no place for Aware to be, so he existed as an abstraction in my mind for the duration. A dimensionless shape, a logical impossibility; a frozen star.

My uncle stood from his place in the front row and ascended the three steps. I could tell, from the paper he held, which lecture he would give. He only had eight or nine lectures which were on permanent rotation. He was a great orator, and his lectures were very interesting, but we could recite any of them verbatim.

It was the one about proper intentions.

The younger boys nearest me fidgeted and whispered. Everyone else was quiet and still; listening to the lecture itself was considered by the Creator to be an act of worship itself. So only the younger boys moved and whispered, finally sovereigns of their kingdom for twenty minutes a week. Still too young to believe in something as unlikely as all the tomorrows yet to come. I saw Gifter with the other boys his age, he was clean and his hair was wet.

The inside of the Gatheringplace smelled of oils, cologne, and incense. Every male was dressed in his best. The wind coming in through the open door and windows carried the aroma of baking chickens and fresh bread. Every woman cooked the most extravagant meal she could afford, on Gatheringday.

Even the sunlight, that the Light of the Heavens and the Earth blessed us with, seemed brighter.

I tried to pay attention to what my uncle was saying, but I could truly recite the whole lecture verbatim, so I struggled against myself. I felt my eyes shutting and pinched my thigh hard.

I briefly wondered if they would allow us to join them for lunch, but I knew my father wouldn't allow it.

He was very traditional and adamant that neglecting our ways was a sure recipe for disaster. Since I wasn't specifically invited, it would be 'presumptuous'. Everyone else in the village assumed that children and women were included by default in an invitation, but not my father and uncle.

Everything had to be done as if we were still living on the open sand with swords strapped to our waists and horses beneath us. Tedious. Surely we didn't need to be so inflexible.

My uncle started to recite the litany of beseechments, which meant the lecture was ending and the linking ritual beginning; just in time, I thought, my rear end and thighs are starting to grow numb.

We collectively said amen after each beseechment. It was the part of the ritual the younger boys really invested their energies into. They nearly shouted their amens. It was understood that they shouldn't be rebuked.

Our Lord! Do not punish us if we forget or make a mistake.

AMEN!

Our Lord! Do not load on us a severe test as You did burden on those before us.

AMEN!

Our Lord! Do not impose upon us that which we have not the strength to bear; and pardon us and forgive us and have mercy on us, You are our Defender, so help us against the ungrateful people.

AMEN!

And so on, you've heard some of them before, I'm sure.

Then my uncle asked someone to raise the linking and we lined up, shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot. Afterward, everyone shook hands and asked that Allah grant on the other His peace.

Gatheringday really is the best day of the week. Everyone is happy, eager to eat the waiting meal, dressed up, smelling of cologne. Even the dirtiest boys are somewhat presentable.

*

I rushed out of the door and nearly tripped over the sandal and shoe pile. I managed to find my sandals and sit in the shade beneath the pomegranate tree, before the rush started in earnest, and the door was blocked by old men carefully (and ever so patiently) rummaging around for sandals buried beneath the pile.

Other boys gathered around me. No one needed to speak a word, we were all waiting for the same thing. The argument.

Recently, for the past year, every Gatheringday, after the linking, an argument occurred. No one ever knew in advance who the parties would be. Not even the potential combatants. But an argument would be had. Everyone had a theory as to why; because all the men were gathered in one place, the bad olive seasons, the devils were putting in extra effort, outsider corruption. Really, we didn't know. But the old men often discussed the issue during their sunrise vigils, muttering and cursing and pounding their walking sticks.

But even old men had argued after the linking. More than once!

We never mentioned it in front of the grown men, but we all secretly hoped for an actual fight. Three fights had taken place so far, physical fights, not arguments, and one of the fights in particular had been amazingly exciting.

Two men, brothers, had been arguing loudly, and because they were brothers, everyone had been making jokes and laughing loudly at every insult, expecting, because they were brothers, that the situation would end well. That changed when their cousin had tried to push them apart. One thing led to another, and both brothers were punching their cousin and his adult son.

By the time it was over, the son was on the ground holding his bleeding mouth, and his father was completely unconscious, next to him.

And a betrothal was permanently, and formally, called off.

For two weeks after, there had been no more arguments. Everyone understood that the phenomenon was creating a tension which was new to the village. Then the arguments just started back up, all over again.

Guided appeared next to me and whispered, "Who do you think it will be this week?"

"You and me!", I joked as I shoved him excitedly. He grinned, took a step back and kicked at my face, purposefully missing. All the shepherds were very athletic.

An old man snapped at us as he passed,

"You two, stop that before I step on your heads!"

"Yes, grandsire", Guided said obediently, swallowing his grin.

All the boys and youth were milling and shoving each other, waiting for the show.

But nothing happened. The men came out and took a seat wherever shade was to be had. Burning tobacco soon filled the air. A boy was sent for sunflower seeds by one group. The old men took their seats in the place that was reserved for them; the shade cast by the Gatheringplace itself. They began whispering their ancient gripes at each other, like the wicked oracles from the Days of Ignorance. Deceiving each other and their own selves, with lies and exaggerations.

We continued waiting. I gave Aware a look over Guided's shoulders; no show today. Guided, believing I was looking at him, shook his head in exaggerated disappointment.

I knew there was absolutely no way to convince Guided to walk down to the valley to swim, not on his one day away from the valley and goats. Instead, we sat on the large granite block left over from the Gatheringplace's construction, and quietly reminisced about the big fight; perhaps a bit too longingly. Guided pulled out two of the sage stems he loved so much and handed one to me. We chewed and spat.

Gifter skipped over to us, eager to show us the lizard he had caught hiding between the old men's feet. I instinctively kicked out at his hand. The lizard went flying so high I lost sight of it in the high sun.

Gifter let out a wail and a sob, and stuttered as he searched for a rebuke powerful enough to express his emotions, "You're a bad boy!"

My shadowbrother snickered, which the real Aware would never have done.

I reached out to him consolingly, I had meant to kick it out of his hand, but hadn't expected him to cry about it.

He swiped at my outstretched hands. I looked to Aware, he would know what to say. But in his place stood my uncle, the twin. And he had a look I recognized from my father's face.

He grabbed my shoulder and shook me, "This morning you beat him for bringing you bread and now you kick his lizard away, why?!"

I tried to explain that it wasn't a beating, just a cuff, a single cuff. When he heard this, he kept cuffing me on the head and yelling over and over, "Like this?! Like this?!"

I had to assume the question was rhetorical.

I found myself pushing at my uncle, and then I felt a hand at the nape of my neck, and then the road was rushing at my eyes, and then, somehow, I was standing again.

My father stood behind me, his hand gripping my shirt by the collar, enraged. "Be silent!"

He helped his brother to his feet and dusted his backside for him. My father turned to me and commanded me to apologize.

"Never raise your voice or HANDS to an elder. Apologize to your uncle and Gifter!"

I knew I was wrong, but I couldn't speak. Everyone was silent, waiting for resolution.

Tears of anger warmed my cheeks, so I ran. How could he side against me?! It had been years since he had laid a hand on me. May the Victor curse their stupid traditions and customs.

I ran down the mountain, faster and faster, through groves and trees, jumping down from terrace to terrace, dirt exploding around me after each landing.

Down I ran, my feet leading me, until I found myself in the deep, unkempt valley ruled by underbrush and oak bush, and the secret cave we discovered so long ago.

Panting, I walked to the tiny spring that barely trickled from a split in the bedrock. I sucked the cool water from the stone. Refreshed, I cast about for mushrooms, under the oak bush, as I gathered wood for an early dinner.

"A frozen star, a frozen star..." I whispered, over and over, as I gathered.

CHAPTER TWO

I dreamt again that I was my father. My house before me. My stone, my bright blue door. My blue shutters and window frames. The intensity of the blue (deep, deep like a perfect day) causing the door to hum and jitter in its frame.

I pushed past the doors, hungrily anticipating the sounds of play. Laughing and outraged shouting and the battle sounds of unwounded boys.

Immediately, I was entombed in silence (a silence at play, at play, I whispered.) A dense, unyielding, and violent fog. Malevolent. My heart was racing, I couldn't remember what the threat was. The threat that set it to racing, but we were in danger. We were there inside the violence. (we were inside, inside the danger, I whispered.)

Aware was there, in the corner; all shadowed and in-cauled. The caul: clinging darkness. He was leering like a hyena, hungry and merciless. Aberration, nature insulting itself. A squared-circle beating itself to pieces.

He held it out to me. I looked away, but wherever I looked it was there. The horrible image. Asymmetry. His clean, bloodless kidney. Just as it had been while skittering across the red earth and off a stone wall and into the blue void of a perfect sky (goodbye, universe, goodbye!)

I found myself repeating, O Allah, O Allah, forever.

.....

And then I was awake in the tiny cave, in the darkness. The vines, vague regularities draping the entrance; foreign geometries obscuring the organic world.

As I lay on my side, staring at the individual slices of sky between the vines, differing calls to the linking went out from the surrounding villages and harmonized. Up and down the valleys, now close and clear, then far and deep and booming. Between the vines, the sky went from dark to violet.

I rolled out of the cave (more nook than chamber) and washed for the linking. I offered the linking in the place where we used to perform it together.

Now he only watched. He was shadowbrother. Perched in a tree like a crow, tracking me with hungry, avaricious eyes. Black and small. No more linking for him.

Black crows, linking crows, I whispered.

I tucked myself back into the cave and waited for the darkness to cease.

....

I sat outside my cousins' goat pen, waiting for them to come out. My back to the wall beneath the kitchen window, I listened to my aunt and her daughters preparing for the day. The three talking over each other continuously as they clattered about the kitchen. The high-pitched innocent piping of the younger two like the tickle of the surface of the pond on our young skin. Tones constantly shifting, now high lyricism, then a sudden shift to shrill rebuke when something was overlooked and grew too hot or too cold, then back to the sing-song melodies that marked the return of accord.

I was floating in their domestic ensemble. I couldn't hear the actual words but every melody and change in cadence moved something inside me. Moved the same thing that lay beneath the green pond waters. The trembling thing that threatened to explode and drown the world. I would wrap my hands around its neck and end it...

'If only you could,' shadowbrother chuckled.

If only I could, if only, I whispered.

"What?" Sword asked from my side.

"Nothing, donkey. Why are you sneaking?"

Chagrined, he sat next to me. He briefly put his hand on my shoulder as he sat, and removed it tenderly. He studied my face as I stared ahead at the restless goats.

He opened his mouth and shut it. He handed me his kerchief and gestured to my face with his chin. We then quietly watched the herd together.

....

Around mid-day we had rested the herd under the cluster of locust trees atop the mountain Steadfast. We could see all the surrounding mountaintops; our village perched above its own mountaintop looked small and clean. The pond was a tiny glint of light amid the greens, browns and reds of the valley.

A steady cool breeze rose up from the valley, following the gentle curve of the mountain, and carried the heat of the day away from our bronzed skin.

Sword was searching the branches of the trees for a soft carob pod to chew on. I was still angry at him for sneaking earlier. Guided was at the edge of the mountaintop practicing shots with his sling.

Snap, and then the weee of the stone.

Snap and weee.

Shadowbrother was sitting on the mountaintop, across the valley to the west. His feet were in the valley and his head grazed the clouds. From time to time a small cloud floated in front of his face on its way to the north.

Since Sword had first climbed the locust tree, shadowbrother had been commanding me to find a nice round rock and to bring him down from the branches.

'Like a baby bird in the nest.'

I knew Aware would never suggest such a thing, so I ignored the dark giant's voice. His awful voice filled the valley like echoing thunder as he grew angrier and ever more insistent.

Sometimes his words arrived clear, though deep, and sometimes like faint indiscernible rumbling or mumbling.

And just like when it happened to Aware, I first saw the effect then heard the booming sound echoing over and over, forever and forever. Shadowbrother's mouth would move silently, then his awful voice would reach me. Commanding death.

I walked over to Guided and watched as he snapped and weee-ed. After a while he handed me his sling and sat behind me so he could watch.

"Why are you sweating?" Guided asked.

"Because I am holding myself. You're just too attractive." I said.

He remained impassive, ignoring the comment.

I fitted a small round stone in the leather pocket and spun the sling above my head, its rotation parallel to the ground. Guided and Sword swung from the side. I released the stone with a jerk and heard the satisfying snap.

I watched the stone sail down and heard the cracking and shattering sounds which meant it had landed on bedrock and exploded into irrecoverable bits and pieces.

As I was fitting a second stone I found that shadowbrother was standing next to me, in his customary place.

He insisted that I use the sling on Sword and that I burst his head clean open like a dove's and splatter his sneaky brain all over the goats.

I ignored him.

Snap and weee.

Snap and weee.

A steady cool breeze rose up from the valley, following the gentle curve of the mountain, and carried the heat of the day away from our bronzed skin.

Sword was searching the branches of the trees for a soft carob pod to chew on. I was still angry at him for sneaking earlier. Guided was at the edge of the mountaintop practicing shots with his sling.

Snap, and then the weee of the stone.

Snap and weee.

Shadowbrother was sitting on the mountaintop, across the valley to the west. His feet were in the valley and his head grazed the clouds. From time to time a small cloud floated in front of his face on its way to the north.

Since Sword had first climbed the locust tree, shadowbrother had been commanding me to find a nice round rock and to bring him down from the branches.

'Like a baby bird in the nest.'

I knew Aware would never suggest such a thing, so I ignored the dark giant's voice. His awful voice filled the valley like echoing thunder as he grew angrier and ever more insistent.

Sometimes his words arrived clear, though deep, and sometimes like faint indiscernible rumbling and mumbling.

And just like when it happened to Aware, I first saw the effect then heard the booming sound echoing over and over, forever and forever. Shadowbrother's mouth would move silently, then his awful voice would reach me. Commanding death.

I walked over to Guided and watched as he snapped and weee-ed. After a while he handed me his sling and sat behind me so he could watch.

"Why are you sweating?" Guided asked.

"Because I am holding myself. You're just too attractive." I said.

He remained impassive, ignoring the comment.

I fitted a small round stone in the leather pocket and spun the sling above my head, its rotation parallel to the ground. Guided and Sword swung from the side. I released the stone with a jerk and heard the satisfying snap.

I watched the stone sail down and heard the cracking and shattering sounds which meant it had landed on bedrock and exploded into irrecoverable bits and pieces.

As I was fitting a second stone I found that shadowbrother was standing next to me, in his customary place.

He insisted that I use the sling on Sword and that I burst his head clean open like a dove's and splatter his sneaky brain all over the goats.

I ignored him.

Snap and weee.

Snap and weee.

I pushed past the doors, hungrily anticipating the sounds of play. Laughing and outraged shouting and the battle sounds of unwounded boys.

Immediately, I was entombed in silence (a silence at play, at play, I whispered.) A dense, unyielding, and violent fog. Malevolent. My heart was racing, I couldn’t remember what the threat was. The threat that set it to racing, but we were in danger. We were there inside the violence. (we were inside, inside the danger, I whispered.)

Aware was there, in the corner; all shadowed and in-cauled. The caul: clinging darkness. He was leering like a hyena, hungry and merciless. Aberration, nature insulting itself. A squared-circle beating itself to pieces.

He held it out to me. I looked away, but wherever I looked it was there. The horrible image. Asymmetry. His clean, bloodless kidney. Just as it had been while skittering across the red earth and off a stone wall and into the blue void of a perfect sky (goodbye, universe, goodbye!)

I found myself repeating, O Allah, O Allah, forever.

.....

And then I was awake in the tiny cave, in the darkness. The vines, vague regularities draping the entrance; foreign geometries obscuring the organic world.

As I lay on my side, staring at the individual slices of sky between the vines, differing calls to the linking went out from the surrounding villages and harmonized. Up and down the valleys, now close and clear, then far and deep and booming. Between the vines, the sky went from dark to violet.

I rolled out of the cave (more nook than chamber) and washed for the linking. I offered the linking in the place where we used to perform it together.

Now he only watched. He was shadowbrother. Perched in a tree like a crow, tracking me with hungry, avaricious eyes. Black and small. No more linking for him.

Black crows, linking crows, I whispered.

I tucked myself back into the cave and waited for the darkness to cease.

....

I sat outside my cousins’ goat pen, waiting for them to come out. My back to the wall beneath the kitchen window, I listened to my aunt and her daughters preparing for the day. The three talking over each other continuously as they clattered about the kitchen. The high-pitched innocent piping of the younger two like the tickle of the surface of the pond on our young skin. Tones constantly shifting, now high lyricism, then a sudden shift to shrill rebuke when something was overlooked and grew too hot or too cold, then back to the sing-song melodies that marked the return of accord.

I was floating in their domestic ensemble. I couldn’t hear the actual words but every melody and change in cadence moved something inside me. Moved the same thing that lay beneath the green pond waters. The trembling thing that threatened to explode and drown the world. I would wrap my hands around its neck and end it...

‘If only you could,’ shadowbrother chuckled.

If only I could, if only, I whispered.

“What?” Sword asked from my side.

“Nothing, donkey. Why are you sneaking?”

Chagrined, he sat next to me. He briefly put his hand on my shoulder as he sat, and removed it tenderly. He studied my face as I stared ahead at the restless goats.

He opened his mouth and shut it. He handed me his kerchief and gestured to my face with his chin. We then quietly watched the herd together.

....

I pushed past the doors, hungrily anticipating the sounds of play. Laughing and outraged shouting and the battle sounds of unwounded boys.

Immediately I was entombed in silence (a silence at play, at play, I whispered.) A dense, unyielding, and violent fog. Malevolent. My heart was racing, I couldn't remember what the threat was. The threat that set it to racing, but we were in danger. We were there inside the violence. (we were racing, I whispered.)

Aware was there, in the corner; all shadowed and in-cauled. The caul: darkness clinging to him like a second skin.

He was leering like a hyena, hungry and merciless. An aberration, nature insulting itself. A squared-circle beating itself to pieces.

He held it out to me. I looked away, but wherever I looked it was there. The horrible image. Asymmetry. His clean, bloodless kidney. Just as it had been while skittering across the red earth and off a stone wall and into the blue void of a perfect sky (goodbye, universe, goodbye!)

I found myself repeating, O Allah, O Allah, forever.

.....

And then I was awake in the tiny cave, in the darkness. The vines draping the entrance vague regularities; foreign geometries obscuring the organic world.

As I lay on my side, staring at the individual rows of sky between the vines, differing calls to the linking went out from the surrounding villages and harmonized. Up and down the valleys, now close and clear, then far and deep and booming. Between the vines the sky went from dark to violet.

I rolled out of the cave (more nook than chamber) and washed for the linking. I performed the linking where we used to perform it together.

Now he only watched. He was shadowbrother. Perched in a tree like a crow, tracking me with hungry, avaricious eyes. Black and small. No more linking for him.

Black crows, linking crows, I whispered.

I pushed past the doors, anticipating the sounds of play. Laughing and crying and battle sounds of unwounded boys.

I was immediately grasped by silence (a silence at play, I whispered.) A dense, unyielding, violent fog. My heart was racing. I couldn't remember what the threat was. The threat that set it to racing, but we were in danger. We were there inside the violence. (we were racing, I whispered.)

Aware was there, in the corner; all shadowed and incauled. The caul: darkness clinging to him like a second skin.

He was leering like a hyena, hungry and merciless. An aberration, nature insulting itself. A squared circle beating against itself until it is haphazardly scattered pieces; lost toys cast to the floor.

He held it out to me. I looked away but wherever I looked it was there. The horrible image. The asymmetry. His clean, bloodless kidney. Just as it had been while skittering across the red earth and off a stone wall and into the blue void of the perfect sky (goodbye, universe, goodbye!)

I found myself repeating, O Allah, O Alla

h, forever.

Like bosons,

Mediating.

Feverishly failing to balance home and exile.

Aromas which once weren't exotic,

Leaking through the crinkled, plastic bags,

Stamped with the oily fingerprints,

Of the people closest to you.

(Who you'll never see again.)

Sesame seeds and thyme transporting energy across time and space,

Sunlight locked into place.

Little food packets,

Exchange particles,

Messenger particles,

Carrying,

Mourning shrouds for the living,

Wails for the newborn,

Open arms for death.

XXX²: Void in chest which disobediently beats as if it is flesh and blood.

XXX³: Lucidity so harsh and cold and sharp that all things are reduced to absolutes, and the world is made whole again.

XXX⁴: Necessary enmity.

XXX⁵: A thought stored neither in long nor short term memory, rather it subsists persistently like a spear in XXX².

XXX⁶: A situation which demands that all emotions run at maximum intensity, always, forever after.

XXX⁷: Certainty of victory despite of being in a state of XXX¹.

XXX⁸: Inability to express to those without XXX³ the wisdom and patience which results from XXX⁵.

XXX⁹: Total and complete alignment with The Most High whether or not non-XXX³ers like it.

XXX⁰: The inevitable coming oneness of the community which cannot be stopped.

I turned to my brother, he neither panted nor breathed; he wasn’t there. He was a ghost that lived on in my head. But not the kind of ghost the women whispered about in their gatherings, such ghosts were contrary to the teachings of our Way, and none of the males, boy or man, would openly admit to believing in their womanly tales. Yet, my brother’s impression was always there; lingering. An absence escorting me to school, to the Gatheringplace, to our fields. When I laughed, I’d look to my right, to see his reaction, or sometimes, when I had forgotten a word while speaking, I’d look to him to prompt me.

He neither laughed nor did he fill in the gaps anymore. He loomed. A hole around which the world continued, perpetually void. I was tethered to something not there.

Perhaps…if my father and I hadn’t witnessed it, hadn’t seen it happen, had there been something to bury…maybe, I don’t know, my brother wouldn’t always be here, by my side, waiting. Ever silent, ever reticent.

My father was a twin too, as was his grandfather before him. After, when my father was able to speak again, rather than mumble, I had taken to hating the sight of my uncle, the twin. I used to love his company, and seeing him always heralded a good day to come. But now seeing him always made me think of my lost twin, which led to thoughts of snapping ropes and other sudden un-tetherings…

clean bloodless organs detached from their function…the night sky as it appeared above our stone house…on a cold night when the stars were so bright…like the night after he died and then i stood on the roof…staring and staring at the one dim star…i tried to cry but inside i found a place where nothing was…so i thought of my dead mother instead…but that didn’t make me cry so I took myself to the secret cave we used sleep in sometimes for fun…when we were still happy…when I saw the cave I was able to cry…when I was done crying I looked to my side and my dead brother was there…I wasn’t surprised so we slept in the cave again

“Bright, bright, so we slept in the cave again”, I whispered to myself.

The pond was within sight. I flashed a grin at my brother and we picked up the pace. I could see my milk-cousins under the pear tree, resting with the herd in the shade.

We stopped and drank from the spring: always cool in the summer. We ran down from the spring to where my cousins lay. The air was all goat musk and dust and the buzz of the high sun’s heat.

I asked my cousins what they brought for lunch. My aunt had packed for them fresh, sharp yogurt and boiled eggs. I brought out the two loaves of flat bread I had promised.

My father says my mother used to bake the best bread in the village, we only knew the taste of our maternal grandsiress’s bread, which was agreed to be the current best in the village (according to my brother and cousins and me).

We ate. I was sure my cousins were hungry; they spent the days wandering the valleys and mountains, ever on the search for fallow fields and ungrazed bush. I only ate to be polite; my brother observed. I eyed the pond, as soon as the shade covered the water I would swim. Somehow, the shade did something to the water. Stilled it, though it was already still. Tamed a hidden wildness that slept beneath. Night was best for swimming, but we no longer dared venture out of the village at night.

I felt a very strong urge to whisper, but could not as my cousins would hear.

I laid back and looked at the younger of my two cousins and asked if he was going to make tea for his elder. He threw a pebble as he rose and went over to rummage through his pack.

His older brother chided him in response to this perceived servility, my younger cousin insisted that he was practicing proper etiquette, “...and besides, men handle the fire while the boys watch.”

All three of us were striplings (though we considered ourselves men, young lions even). Except my brother, of course.

We half-heartedly clapped and whooped at my younger cousin’s attempt at bravado. He had a weak personality, and thus, it was our duty to ride him and whip him until he was nothing but callouses and hardness; not to mention our not so secret pleasure.

I grinned over at my brother but his face was hidden in the shadow of the pear tree.

My older cousin, whose name was Guided, was my age. His brother, Sword, was younger than us by a year. Though they were milk-cousins and not blood cousins, all four of us looked alike and thought alike. The we were more sibling than cousin.

When it happened, Guided had gone mad and had to be restrained. Never before had I seen that particular expression on his face. It was as if all the bad emotions a person could have were filling him beyond his capacity and spilling out of his eyes. Horror and sadness, rage, disbelief, madness. I had been frozen, it all seemed as if it were happening apart from me, all of it. His death, Guided’s screams, my father’s fingers curled over his own eyes...and then my father’s awful wail. My uncle struggling to pull my father’s clawed fingers away from eyes, before he gouged his own eyes out. All just events that had already happened, and I watched from somewhere far, far away. I felt so small, not in stature, but physically small; geometrically. A tiny dot on a huge sphere. I was the last instance of a black hole before it completely evaporated and said goodbye universe, goodbye!

My brother giggled next to me. I looked at him, the memories of my inaction filling me with shame, and quickly looked away. Sword said, “Faultless! Hey! Here, do you want me to drink it too?”

Sword thrust the tea at me as he jokingly affected impatience. Guided imitated their father, and growled obscenities and profane curses beneath his breath at the cur who would treat a guest so.

I looked at Guided and told him, “You’re my guests, you donkey. This is our pear tree.”

Sword laughed loud. Guided laughed too.

Sword and I went to look for figs, we found bird-pecked skins in the branches and the fermented detritus of fallen overripe fruit beneath.

“Faultless?”, Sword called.

“What?”, I responded.

“Is it true your father wants you to marry?”

“Yes.”

“I’m envious.”

“I’m not.”, I curtly retorted.

I looked over my brother, he seemed forlorn and lost. Indifferent to the mechanisms which moved the world of the living.

“You don’t want to?”

“I do, but not now. I want to work and save money first.”

Abruptly I ran, kicking off my sandals I jumped into the pond. It was so cool beneath the surface and private. I heard my brother’s splash a moment after my own.

Beneath the water I was finally able to whisper to my brother, “A hidden wildness sleeps beneath, sleeps beneath.”

***

We gathered the goats and drove them up the mountain and towards the village. Just as we reached the goat pen, the call went out for the dusk linking. My uncle and aunt were in the pen, loudly discussing the fate of a sick goat that had been kept secluded for the day.

When my aunt turned and saw me, a sadness surfaced on her face, which she quickly stifled. She hugged and kissed me, had tears in her eyes as she fretted over me. She had been like that since before, weepy and fretful, maternal and loving. She pet my chest the way a mother pets an infant as she spoke and beseeched the Most High on my and my father’s behalf. She smelled of woodsmoke and goat milk and sweat and snow (even though it was summer). Once, as a very young boy, I had asked her why she always smelled of snow, she said it was because she was born in the winter. I hadn’t understood but my brother and father had both laughed.

Later, I had asked Aware to explain the joke, he had shook his head in exasperation, ‘Its a joke, donkey, a joke! Snow, winter....they go together.’

That’s around the time we were discovering that we didn’t share every single trait, and we both feared that we wouldn’t always be the exact same, and together forever and forever. That’s why it concerned Aware if I didn’t laugh when he did.

I nodded but didn’t really understand.

My aunt inquired after my father, I reassured her. She insisted I stay to eat dinner, that I take home some cheese, that I sleep the night. On and on her maternal assault went, until finally Guided shouted at her, “Mother, let him get home before it’s too dark!”

She put on a show of reluctance, but she knew Guided was correct.

I strode up the path for a ways before cutting across our olive grove and towards our one bedroom home. It was the oldest and smallest house in the village.

I could smell and see the refuse fire my father was poking with a stick.

I walked up to him, “The Peace on you, my sire.”

He stared menacingly, “And on you the Peace, and His mercy and his blessings.”

I knew it was coming, and was able to jump out of the way before his stick lashed my thigh beneath the buttock.

“But not your sire’s mercy!”

Though it was one of his oldest old gags, we both laughed. I went and stood next to him and we both grew quiet. He draped his arm across my shoulders and resumed his unnecessary poking. My dead brother crouched on the other side of my father, gazing up at his strong old face, tears leaking out of his eyes as he thought the inscrutable thoughts of the dead.

“Don’t you want to check for eggs?”, he asked.

“I ate with my aunt”, I lied. I did not want to miss the dusk time linking.

“ What did she say?”

“ She said to convey the Peace on you.”

“And His Peace on you, my son, and may He grant that you are worthy of His acceptance.”, he responded by rote.

I hurried to the Gatheringplace and arrived in time for the early evening linking and stayed on for the late evening linking. There were only two other youths there, the only other present were old men.

On my return home, I found my father on the sitting mat drinking tea.

The skinniness of his legs was apparent through the material of his house pants. His shins were like blades

He gestured towards the kitchen, “Get the teapot and a cup for you while you’re there.”

I brought him the teapot and set it near his tobacco bag.

He smiled when I poured his tea for him.

“I have good sons..”, he began out of habit.

“May my Master find you worthy of His acceptance, my son.” he intoned.

He rolled a cigarette and lit it. He stared at me blankly as he always does before feigning anger or rage. Of all the village men, he was the most gentle. Though, truthfully, he looked quite mean, even sinister. Most village boys feared him, and all the the men respected him. His name was Farceur, but, of course, as he was a man to be respected, was only addressed by his teknonym, Father of the Faultless.

I remember, after the in absentia funeral linking for Aware, hearing men say it was a mercy it happened to the second born and not the first born, otherwise, everytime my father was addressed, he would be reminded of a day where grief and horror and loss had attempted to pull his eyes out.

The guilt and shame that filled me felt deserved.

“You reek of goat urine, o vulgar-one.” he smiled and assessed my reaction in that way he does.

My brother smiled.

“I won’t sleep in my clothes,” I promised him.

He smoked and drank his tea. We had both taken to avoiding sleep.

We settled down to play the stone game. My father said it was far superior to chess, Aware and I enjoyed it, but truth be told, I think it was only ‘superior to chess’ because he constantly changed the rules and always won.

The village grew very quiet the way it does late at night, so that you could hear the occasional guffaw or shout from all the way on the other side of the village, the crunch of young feet running across gravelly paths, a baby crying halfway down the mountain as someone returned late from the fields, a lone nightingale calling out a beseechment to the Master of the World.

My dead brother, Aware, had asked my father about this once. My father wasn’t certain, but he expected it had something to do with the coolness of the night making the air less turbulent or somehow making it easier for sound to travel.

Aware thought it was because there were less sounds to cover the other sounds. While he and I were generally of a similar mind, it was him that used to do the talking for us. Before.

I searched for questions to ask my father as we played the stone game. It pleased him to answer our questions and wax philosophical, filling the night with questions, observations and wisdoms.

But I wasn’t like Aware, I had no questions. I had even less questions these days.

I looked unintentionally looked to Aware, hoping he would prompt me, but he sat quietly next to my father, still staring at his face. Silently dead.

My father gave me a look I didn’t know.

“What’s wrong,” he asked

“What do you mean?”

“With your neck. Your head is constantly spinning about like an owl’s.”

“Nothing.”

I knew Aware wasn’t there. I couldn’t tell him I was looking at his dead son.

“Tomorrow have your grandmother wrap your neck with olive oil and sage swaths.”

“Yes, my sire.”

I felt an urge to whisper ‘silently dead, silently dead’ but stifled the urge.

*

I woke early in morning. I idly lay and listened to the call to the linking, and tried to identify who it was by their voice. It was my uncle, the twin, I was sure. But recently a lot of the men had taken to copying his style. He had a lovely, deep voice and a long breath.

I briefly considered waking my father, but I knew what he would say. “Go ahead, my son. Go ahead “

I don’t think I had ever seen him perform the linking on a regular basis. Here and there he did. But never regularly. Yet, he feared The One And Only, in his way. He would attend the linking this mid-day though, as it was Gatheringday. He attended the Gatheringday linking every week without fail, as did so many of the other men.

I walked to the Gatheringplace. Only the old men and me this time. Aware didn’t stand in row with us. He watched from behind us, guarding the door.

After the morning linking the old men sat on the stone wall, facing the east. They liked to wait for the sunrise, I think it was an excuse to whisper gossip at (not to) each other and complain about their wives and kids. The old men were an odd mix of piety and impiety, especially when it came to griping about their wives. I started walking away when my father’s maternal uncle called out to me.

“Boy!”

I turned, “Yes, my grandsire?”

“Tell your father he is invited for lunch after the Gathering. Father of Gifter is also coming.”, he gestured towards my uncle, the twin.

“Did you hear me? Tell him when he wakes up and don’t forget! Or I’ll break this on your back.” he attempted to raise his stick in illustration. I loved him. He was the best of the old men. Secretly very loving, and almost as gentle as my father and uncle.

“Yes, my grandsire “, I hurried Aware along with my hand as we turned away. My grand-uncle’s sharp eyes made a note of the off-handed gesture.

*

I returned home and to my sleeping mat and slept until the wonderful aroma of eggs woke me. I lay there listening to the metallic clicking and clacking of the frying pan and tea pot. I could tell my father thought I was still asleep by how he coughed. Very fast and quiet. I imagined him alone in this house after I died, soft, fast coughs and unintelligible mutterings. The occasional fart.

He walked in to wake me.

“Why are you crying?”, the lack of concern on his face meant he was indeed worried.

“Im not!”, startled and ashamed, I reached up to my face. My cheeks and eyes were very wet. My face grew warm.

I peaked over at my brother to see his reaction, but his sleeping mat wasn’t there anymore.

“Maybe you were dreaming of the lesson I taught you last night?” he jokingly referred to the stone game...

...which he had obviously won.

“Verily,” I quipped as I rolled up my mat and blanket. “Father of the Servant has invited you and my uncle to eat after the Gathering.”

“Go get the food and teapot”, he said quietly said, as he bent to lay down old newspapers over the carpet.

“Get the mat and roll the teapot, the teapot.”, I whispered to myself, in the kitchen.

*

My father left after we ate. I considered walking down to my cousins’ house, but decided to stay home instead. Gatheringday was their only day to sleep late, and Guided usually yelled when woken.

I watered the mint and the lemon tree, fed the chickens the scraps and egg shells, and filled their water pan from the cistern. I threw a rock in the direction of the mangy cat which insisted on harassing the chickens every morning, only in the morning. It eyed me indifferently. Of the Creators creatures, it seemed that only cats were permitted to wield apathy like a weapon.

When I walked back into the kitchen, through the rear door, I found Gifter standing there with a cloth bundle, patiently waiting in that idiotic way indecisive children wait. Waiting for someone to to tell them what to do, where to go, how to get there.

I could smell the bread through my grandmother’s old shawl.

“Put it on the table!”, I snapped at my much younger cousin.

“My grandsiress said you and uncle should come for lunch after the Gathering.”

“He can’t. Tell grandsiress I will come though.”, I commanded.

“...”

“Go!”, I cuffed his head as hard as was reasonable.

He ran off; knowing him, the tears were more anger than anything else. I didn’t need to look at Aware to know he had a look of disappointment on his face.

Gifter was the favorite of our youngest cousins, almost a younger brother to us. We taught him how to catch birds, and swim, and play marbles. I remember teaching him the rules of intonation when speaking the Recitation aloud. He really was a good boy; it just felt so good to hurt his feelings.

I didn’t like him looking at me the way he did, with his stupid, innocent eyes, like I had something for him, answers to his unposed questions, or a new game, or a lesson about bird snares. All I had was images and images.

clean bloodless organs detached from their function…the night sky as it appeared above our stone house…on a cold night when the stars were so bright…like the night after he died and then i stood on the roof…staring and staring at the one dim star…i tried to cry but inside i found a place where nothing was…so i thought of my dead mother instead…but that didn’t make me cry so I took myself to the secret cave we used sleep in sometimes for fun…when we were still happy…when I saw the cave I was able to cry…when I was done crying I looked to my side and my dead brother was there…I wasn’t surprised so we slept in the cave again

I turned to Aware and shouted at him, “So what! What’s the difference, he’s just a little fart.”

*

I sat against the back wall with the other youth. Of course, the Gatheringplace was full. Where was everyone the rest of the week? Some had work for an excuse and performed their linking in the fields and orchards. But what of the others?

There was no place for Aware to be, so he existed as an abstraction in my mind for the duration. A dimensionless shape. A promise you want to keep, but staying true to it is a logical impossibility; a frozen star.

My uncle stood from his place in the front row and ascended the three steps. I could tell, from the paper he held, which lecture he would give. He only had eight or nine lectures which were on permanent rotation. He was a great orator, and his lectures were very interesting, but the both of us could recite any of them verbatim.

It was the one about proper intentions.

The younger boys nearest me fidgeted and whispered. Everyone else was quiet and still; listening to the lecture itself was considered by the All-Knower to be an act of worship itself. So only the younger boys moved and whispered, sovereigns of their kingdom for twenty minutes a week. Still too young to believe in something as unlikely as all the tomorrows yet to come. I saw Gifter with the other boys his age, he was clean and his hair was wet.

The inside of the Gatheringplace smelled of oils, cologne, and incense. Every male was dressed in his best. The wind coming in through the open door and windows carried the aroma of baking chickens and fresh bread. Every woman cooked the most extravagant meal they could afford, on Gatheringday.

Even the sunlight, that the Light blessed us with, seemed brighter.

I tried to pay attention to what my uncle was saying, but I truly could recite the whole lecture verbatim, so it was a struggle. I felt my eyes shutting on their own and pinched my thigh hard. I briefly wondered if they would allow us to join them for lunch, but I knew my father wouldn’t allow it.

He was very traditional and adamant that neglecting our ways was a sure recipe for disaster. Since I wasnt specifically invited, it would be ‘presumptuous’. Everyone else in the village assumed that children and women were included by default in an invitation, but not my father and uncle.

Everything had to be done as if we were still living on the open sand with swords strapped to our waists and horses beneath us. So tedious. Surely I wouldn’t need all those traditions in the future.

My uncle started to recite the litany of beseechments, which meant the lecture was ending and the linking starting; just in time, I thought, my rear end and thighs are starting to grow numb. We collectively said amen after each beseechment. It was the part of the ritual the younger boys really invested their energies into. They nearly shouted their amens. It was understood that they shouldn’t be rebuked.

Our Lord! Do not punish us if we forget or make a mistake.

AMEN!

Our Lord! Do not load on us a severe test as You did burden on those before us.

AMEN!

Our Lord! Do not impose upon us that which we have not the strength to bear; and pardon us and forgive us and have mercy on us, You are our Defender, so help us against the ungrateful people.

AMEN!

And so on, you’ve heard some of them before, I’m sure.

Then my uncle asked someone to call us to the linking and we lined up, shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot. Afterward, everyone shook hands and asked that Allah grant on the other His Peace.

Gatheringday really is the best day of the week. Everyone is happy, eager to eat the waiting meal, dressed up, smelling of cologne. Even the dirtiest boys are somewhat presentable.

*

I rushed out of the door and nearly tripped over the sandal and shoe pile. I managed to find my sandals and sit in the shade beneath the pomegranate tree, before the rush started in earnest, and the door was blocked by old men carefully, and ever so patiently, rummaging around for sandals buried beneath the pile.

Other boys gathered around me. No one needed to speak a word, we were all waiting for the same thing. The argument.

Recently, for the past year, every Gatheringday, after the linking, an argument occurred. No one ever knew in advance who the parties would be. Not even the potential combatants. But an argument would be had. Everyone had a theory as to why; because all the men were gathered in one place, the bad olive seasons, the devils were putting in extra effort. Really, we didn’t know. But the old men often discussed the issue during their sunrise vigils, muttering and cursing and pounding their walking sticks.

But even old men had argued after the linking. More than once!

We never mentioned it in front of the grown men, but we all secretly hoped for an actual fight. Three fights had taken place so far, physical fights, not arguments, and one of the fights in particular had been amazingly exciting.

Two men, brothers, had been arguing loudly, and because they were brothers, everyone had been making jokes and laughing loudly at every insult, expecting, because they were brothers, that the situation would end well. That changed when their cousin had tried to push them apart. One thing lead to another, and both brothers were punching their cousin and cousin’s son.

By the time it was over, the son was on the ground holding his bleeding mouth, and his father was completely unconscious next to him.

And a betrothal was permanently, and formally, called off.

For two weeks after, there had been no more arguments. Everyone understood that the phenomenon was creating a tension which was new to the village. Then the arguments just started back up, all over again.

Guided appeared next to me and whispered, “Who do you think it will be this week?”

“You and me!”, I joked as I shoved him excitedly. He grinned, took a step back and kicked at my face, purposefully missing. All the shepherds were very athletic.

An old man snapped at us as he passed,

“You two, stop the that before I step on your heads!”

“Yes, grandsire”, Guided said obediently, swallowing his grin.

All the boys and youth were milling and shoving each other, waiting for the show.

But nothing happened. The men came out and took seat wherever shade was to be had. Burning tobacco soon filled the air. A boy was sent for sunflower seeds by one group. The old men took their seats in the place that was reserved for them; the shade cast by the Gatheringplace itself, they began whispering their ancient gripes at each other, like the wicked oracles from the Days of Ignorance. Deceiving each other and their ownselves, with lies and exaggerations.

We continued waiting. I gave Aware a look over Guided’s shoulders; no show today. Guided, believing I was looking at him, shook his head in exaggerated disappointment.

I knew there was absolutely no way to convince Guided to walk down to the valley to swim, not on his one day away from the valley and goats. Instead, we sat on the large granite block left over from the Gatheringplace’s construction, and quietly reminisced about the big fight; perhaps a bit too longingly. Guided pulled out two of the sage stems he loved so much and handed one to me. We chewed and spat.

Gifter skipped over to us, eager to show us the lizard he had caught hiding netween the old men’s feet. I instinctively kicked out at his hand. The lizard went flying so high I lost sight of it in the high sun.

Gifter let out wail and a sob, and stuttered as he searched for a rebuke powerful enough to express his emotions, “You’re a bad boy!”

My shadowbrother snickered, which the real Aware would never have done.

I reached out to him consolingly, I had meant to kick it out of his hand, but hadn’t expected him to cry about it.

He swiped at my outstretched hands. I looked to Aware, he would know what to say. But in his place stood my uncle, the twin. And he had that look I recognized from my father’s face.

He grabbed my shoulder and shook me, “This morning you beat him for bringing you bread and now you kick his lizard away, why?!”

I tried to explain that it wasn’t a beating, just a cuff, a single cuff. When he heard this, he kept cuffing me on the head and yelling over and over, “Like this?! Like this?!”

I had to assume the question was rhetorical.

I found myself pushing at my uncle, and then I felt a hand at the nape of my neck, and then road was rushing at my eyes, and then, somehow, I was standing again.

My father stood behind me, enraged. “Be silent!”

He helped his brother to his feet and dusted his backside for him. My father turned to me and commanded me to apologize.

“Never raise your voice or HANDS to an elder. Apologize to your uncle and Gifter!”

I knew I was wrong, but I couldn’t speak. Tears of anger warmed my cheeks, so I ran. How could he side against me?! It had been a years since he had laid a hand on me. May the Victor curse their stupid traditions and customs.

I ran down the mountain, faster and faster, through groves and trees, jumping down from terrace to terrace, dirt exploding around me after each landing.

Down I ran, my feet leading me, until I found myself in the deep, unkempt valley ruled by underbrush and oak bush, and the secret cave we discovered so long ago.

Panting, I walked to the tiny spring that barely trickled from a split in the bedrock. I sucked the cool water from the stone. Refreshed, I cast about for mushrooms under the oak bush, as I gathered wood for an early dinner.

“A frozen star, a frozen star...” I whispered, over and over, as I gathered.

I told my brother about this,

(and other matters)

I told my brother my thoughts on the matter,

And he sang a song of sorts.

(though he is not inclined to sing)

And we laughed like crazy loons in the restaurant,

(Route 80, from Paterson, N.J. to Cleveland, OH)

Still bopping our heads.

(a dog was barking somewhere)

I said something,

(wah wah wah wah)

And he responded with something fitting,

(wee wee wee wee)

But I was eager to get back on the road,

(and a door opened somewhere far away,

a matter which concerned neither of us in the least,

had we even been aware of it’s taking place, at all)

And in the car I would have wept,

(but I was unable)

And in the car one would have wept,

(but one was unable)

And in the car it would have wept,

(but no hot razors)

My brother looked over at me and smiled,

(5.0, midnight blue, racing gears, racing tires, and tachometer)

And I said,

“Why are we bopping our heads,

the music ain’t playing?”

(A third person, somewhere, walked through the doorway)

And the stars laughed,

(their light reaches us cold)

And I said,

(whisper now, he is, after all, my brother)

“Hey Moe, what’s the matter?”

Is gone now.

And I’m laughing lovely.

Glad to witness,

That I’ll be gone one day too…

Remember no needs?

Remember morning times?

Never ever welcomed with a grown.

Remember tears?

Sweet, sweet like corn.

Remember father-mother-brother-sister?

Remember evening time?

Always approached with a grown.

Remember good food?

Remember good days?

Remember feeling good and good feelings?

Remember saying ‘member?

Remember heart-dread over first sin?

Do you remember how tall all the small buildings?

And then at the right moment, dab the gold leaf. A beautiful story.

I will say “thank you” and “please”. And...I’m sorry.

Happy times yet to be seen,

Merciful respite from sanity.

He picked up a stone,

(it felt like a firm, heavy, unyielding sponge in his hand)

And crushed the black scorpion,

Over and over.

He felt that it was best for everyone,

(including the scorpion)

That it be ground flat,

Until it’s brown juices mixed with the decaying blossoms and dirt.

And that he do this quickly, without remorse.

Later that day, his mother asked about the brown stain on his shirt,

“Oh, nothing Yamaa, just some earth”

I cannot remember,

It lies buried beneath the bone,

It had taken a hold,

Steady drowning my soul.

Yamaa,

It has receded now,

Only a third heartbeat,

A crashing wave,

Salt crystals on an open wound.

Yamaa,

An afternoon walk,

And the trees reduced to ashed clay.

Shattered bars of sunlight scattered on the forest floor,

Even the shadows were snatched away.

Yamaa,

I’m better now,

I’ve gnawed away at the hateful leg,

Ripped out the painful bone.

Yamaa,

I’m better now,

When are you...

When I sit and gather myself to explain it, to you, the outsider, I find a silence in me. The very act of ‘explaining it’ is one of the viruses harming us. And I'd rather not spread the illness.

So I search in me, for I better way, and find a silence. Not a peaceful, tranquil silence. Nor is it a silence of the inanimate thing.

Rather it's a witnessing. The knowledge and wisdom forced upon us, by way of trials and difficulties, and will not be understood by you, yet. Unfortunately for all of us.

If only you had the understanding!

Somethings cannot be taught or understood via language. They can only be harvested over time, and in then, in the days of deep cold, that which was harvested will nourish.

This isn't meant as a rebuke, it's an attempt to give voice to this silence, this thing laying in wait, an over abundance of lucidity, the void overfilling our hearts.

Maybe it's a message to my children, “See, I too feel the same!”

Whoever spoke against absolutes is a fool. The world is shades of different absolutes, and, filtered thru our silence, we take it in. Catagorizing and cataloguing.

We would warn you of the path you are taking, but this isn't a thing that can be understood via words. It must be learned.

We are people of fields and valleys and mountains and the sea. Ancient. When you see the mountainscape of our land, we are implied.

We would have you as brothers, but you revel in our blood. You explain morality to us, even as our children's organs are stolen and sold. You rebuke us for sheltering our children beneath our shattered bones. Our words cannot reveal yourselves to you. You will have to harvest what you harvest and come to find out.

As for us, that silent thing, the thing to which you are not yet privy, it is harboured in each of our hearts. Wordlessly, as is the way of ancient peoples, it can be explained to each other. A slow blink while imperceptibly nodding assent. A smile or frown at the appropriate word. Or sometimes silence.

I turned to my brother, he neither panted nor breathed; he wasn’t there. He was a ghost that lived on in my head. But not the kind of ghost the women whispered about in their gatherings, such ghosts were contrary to the teachings of our Way, and none of the males, boy or man, would openly admit to believing in their womanly tales. Yet, my brother’s impression was always there; lingering. An absence escorting me to school, to the Gatheringplace, to our fields. When I laughed, I’d look to my right, to see his reaction, or sometimes, when I had forgotten a word while speaking, I’d look to him to prompt me.

He neither laughed nor did he fill in the gaps anymore. He loomed. A hole around which the world continued, perpetually void. I was tethered to something not there.

Perhaps…if my father and I hadn’t witnessed it, hadn’t seen it happen, had there been something to bury…maybe, I don’t know, my brother wouldn’t always be here, by my side, waiting. Ever silent, ever reticent.

My father was a twin too, as was his grandfather before him. After, when my father was able to speak again, rather than mumble, I had taken to hating the sight of my uncle, the twin. I used to love his company, and seeing him always heralded a good day to come. But now seeing him always made me think of my lost twin, which led to thoughts of snapping ropes and other sudden un-tetherings…

clean bloodless organs detached from their function…the night sky as it appeared above our stone house…on a cold night when the stars were so bright…like the night after he died and then i stood on the roof…staring and staring at the one dim star…i tried to cry but inside i found a place where nothing was…so i thought of my dead mother instead…but that didn’t make me cry so I took myself to the secret cave we used sleep in sometimes for fun…when we were still happy…when I saw the cave I was able to cry…when I was done crying I looked to my side and my dead brother was there…I wasn’t surprised so we slept in the cave again

“Bright, bright, so we slept in the cave again”, I whispered to myself.

The pond was within sight. I flashed a grin at my brother and we picked up the pace. I could see my milk-cousins under the pear tree, resting with the herd in the shade.

We stopped and drank from the spring: always cool in the summer. We ran down from the spring to where my cousins lay. The air was all goat musk and dust and the buzz of the high sun’s heat.

I asked my cousins what they brought for lunch. My aunt had packed for them fresh, sharp yogurt and boiled eggs. I brought out the two loaves of flat bread I had promised.

My father says my mother used to bake the best bread in the village, we only knew the taste of our maternal grandsiress’s bread, which was agreed to be the current best in the village (according to my brother and cousins and me).

We ate. I was sure my cousins were hungry; they spent the days wandering the valleys and mountains, ever on the search for fallow fields and ungrazed bush. I only ate to be polite; my brother observed. I eyed the pond, as soon as the shade covered the water I would swim. Somehow, the shade did something to the water. Stilled it, though it was already still. Tamed a hidden wildness that slept beneath. Night was best for swimming, but we no longer dared venture out of the village at night.

I felt a very strong urge to whisper, but could not as my cousins would hear.

I laid back and looked at the younger of my two cousins and asked if he was going to make tea for his elder. He threw a pebble as he rose and went over to rummage through his pack.

His older brother chided him in response to this perceived servility, my younger cousin insisted that he was practicing proper etiquette, “...and besides, men handle the fire while the boys watch.”

All three of us were striplings (though we considered ourselves men, young lions even). Except my brother, of course.

We half-heartedly clapped and whooped at my younger cousin’s attempt at bravado. He had a weak personality, and thus, it was our duty to ride him and whip him until he was nothing but callouses and hardness; not to mention our not so secret pleasure.

I grinned over at my brother but his face was hidden in the shadow of the pear tree.

My older cousin, whose name was Guided, was my age. His brother, Sword, was younger than us by a year. Though they were milk-cousins and not blood cousins, all four of us looked alike and thought alike. The we were more sibling than cousin.

When it happened, Guided had gone mad and had to be restrained. Never before had I seen that particular expression on his face. It was as if all the bad emotions a person could have were filling him beyond his capacity and spilling out of his eyes. Horror and sadness, rage, disbelief, madness. I had been frozen, it all seemed as if it were happening apart from me, all of it. His death, Guided’s screams, my father’s fingers curled over his own eyes...and then my father’s awful wail. My uncle struggling to pull my father’s clawed fingers away from eyes, before he gouged his own eyes out. All just events that had already happened, and I watched from somewhere far, far away. I felt so small, not in stature, but physically small; geometrically. A tiny dot on a huge sphere. I was the last instance of a black hole before it completely evaporated and said goodbye universe, goodbye!

My brother giggled next to me. I looked at him, the memories of my inaction filling me with shame, and quickly looked away. Sword said, “Faultless! Hey! Here, do you want me to drink it too?”

Sword thrust the tea at me as he jokingly affected impatience. Guided imitated their father, and growled obscenities and profane curses beneath his breath at the cur who would treat a guest so.

I looked at Guided and told him, “You’re my guests, you donkey. This is our pear tree.”

Sword laughed loud. Guided laughed too.

Sword and I went to look for figs, we found bird-pecked skins in the branches and the fermented detritus of fallen overripe fruit beneath.

“Faultless?”, Sword called.

“What?”, I responded.

“Is it true your father wants you to marry?”

“Yes.”

“I’m envious.”

“I’m not.”, I curtly retorted.

I looked over my brother, he seemed forlorn and lost. Indifferent to the mechanisms which moved the world of the living.

“You don’t want to?”

“I do, but not now. I want to work and save money first.”

Abruptly I ran, kicking off my sandals I jumped into the pond. It was so cool beneath the surface and private. I heard my brother’s splash a moment after my own.

Beneath the water I was finally able to whisper to my brother, “A hidden wildness sleeps beneath, sleeps beneath.”

***

We gathered the goats and drove them up the mountain and towards the village. Just as we reached the goat pen, the call went out for the dusk linking. My uncle and aunt were in the pen, loudly discussing the fate of a sick goat that had been kept secluded for the day.

When my aunt turned and saw me, a sadness surfaced on her face, which she quickly stifled. She hugged and kissed me, had tears in her eyes as she fretted over me. She had been like that since before, weepy and fretful, maternal and loving. She pet my chest the way a mother pets an infant as she spoke and beseeched the Most High on my and my father’s behalf. She smelled of woodsmoke and goat milk and sweat and snow (even though it was summer). Once, as a very young boy, I had asked her why she always smelled of snow, she said it was because she was born in the winter. I hadn’t understood but my brother and father had both laughed.

Later, I had asked Aware to explain the joke, he had shook his head in exasperation, ‘Its a joke, donkey, a joke! Snow, winter....they go together.’

That’s around the time we were discovering that we didn’t share every single trait, and we both feared that we wouldn’t always be the exact same, and together forever and forever. That’s why it concerned Aware if I didn’t laugh when he did.

I nodded but didn’t really understand.

My aunt inquired after my father, I reassured her. She insisted I stay to eat dinner, that I take home some cheese, that I sleep the night. On and on her maternal assault went, until finally Guided shouted at her, “Mother, let him get home before it’s too dark!”

She put on a show of reluctance, but she knew Guided was correct.

I strode up the path for a ways before cutting across our olive grove and towards our one bedroom home. It was the oldest and smallest house in the village.

I could smell and see the refuse fire my father was poking with a stick.

I walked up to him, “The Peace on you, my sire.”

He stared menacingly, “And on you the Peace, and His mercy and his blessings.”

I knew it was coming, and was able to jump out of the way before his stick lashed my thigh beneath the buttock.

“But not your sire’s mercy!”

Though it was one of his oldest old gags, we both laughed. I went and stood next to him and we both grew quiet. He draped his arm across my shoulders and resumed his unnecessary poking. My dead brother crouched on the other side of my father, gazing up at his strong old face, tears leaking out of his eyes as he thought the inscrutable thoughts of the dead.

“Don’t you want to check for eggs?”, he asked.

“I ate with my aunt”, I lied. I did not want to miss the dusk time linking.

“ What did she say?”

“ She said to convey the Peace on you.”

“And His Peace on you, my son, and may He grant that you are worthy of His acceptance.”, he responded by rote.

I hurried to the Gatheringplace and arrived in time for the early evening linking and stayed on for the late evening linking. There were only two other youths there, the only other present were old men.

On my return home, I found my father on the sitting mat drinking tea.

The skinniness of his legs was apparent through the material of his house pants. His shins were like blades

He gestured towards the kitchen, “Get the teapot and a cup for you while you’re there.”

I brought him the teapot and set it near his tobacco bag.

He smiled when I poured his tea for him.

“I have good sons..”, he began out of habit.

“May my Master find you worthy of His acceptance, my son.” he intoned.

He rolled a cigarette and lit it. He stared at me blankly as he always does before feigning anger or rage. Of all the village men, he was the most gentle. Though, truthfully, he looked quite mean, even sinister. Most village boys feared him, and all the the men respected him. His name was Farceur, but, of course, as he was a man to be respected, was only addressed by his teknonym, Father of the Faultless.

I remember, after the in absentia funeral linking for Aware, hearing men say it was a mercy it happened to the second born and not the first born, otherwise, everytime my father was addressed, he would be reminded of a day where grief and horror and loss had attempted to pull his eyes out.

The guilt and shame that filled me felt deserved.

“You reek of goat urine, o vulgar-one.” he smiled and assessed my reaction in that way he does.

My brother smiled.

“I won’t sleep in my clothes,” I promised him.

He smoked and drank his tea. We had both taken to avoiding sleep.

We settled down to play the stone game. My father said it was far superior to chess, Aware and I enjoyed it, but truth be told, I think it was only ‘superior to chess’ because he constantly changed the rules and always won.

The village grew very quiet the way it does late at night, so that you could hear the occasional guffaw or shout from all the way on the other side of the village, the crunch of young feet running across gravelly paths, a baby crying halfway down the mountain as someone returned late from the fields, a lone nightingale calling out a beseechment to the Master of the World.

My dead brother, Aware, had asked my father about this once. My father wasn’t certain, but he expected it had something to do with the coolness of the night making the air less turbulent or somehow making it easier for sound to travel.

Aware thought it was because there were less sounds to cover the other sounds. While he and I were generally of a similar mind, it was him that used to do the talking for us. Before.

I searched for questions to ask my father as we played the stone game. It pleased him to answer our questions and wax philosophical, filling the night with questions, observations and wisdoms.

But I wasn’t like Aware, I had no questions. I had even less questions these days.

I looked unintentionally looked to Aware, hoping he would prompt me, but he sat quietly next to my father, still staring at his face. Silently dead.

My father gave me a look I didn’t know.

“What’s wrong,” he asked

“What do you mean?”

“With your neck. Your head is constantly spinning about like an owl’s.”

“Nothing.”

I knew Aware wasn’t there. I couldn’t tell him I was looking at his dead son.

“Tomorrow have your grandmother wrap your neck with olive oil and sage swaths.”

“Yes, my sire.”

I felt an urge to whisper ‘silently dead, silently dead’ but stifled the urge.

*

I woke early in morning. I idly lay and listened to the call to the linking, and tried to identify who it was by their voice. It was my uncle, the twin, I was sure. But recently a lot of the men had taken to copying his style. He had a lovely, deep voice and a long breath.

I briefly considered waking my father, but I knew what he would say. “Go ahead, my son. Go ahead “

I don’t think I had ever seen him perform the linking on a regular basis. Here and there he did. But never regularly. Yet, he feared The One And Only, in his way. He would attend the linking this mid-day though, as it was Gatheringday. He attended the Gatheringday linking every week without fail, as did so many of the other men.

I walked to the Gatheringplace. Only the old men and me this time. Aware didn’t stand in row with us. He watched from behind us, guarding the door.

After the morning linking the old men sat on the stone wall, facing the east. They liked to wait for the sunrise, I think it was an excuse to whisper gossip at (not to) each other and complain about their wives and kids. The old men were an odd mix of piety and impiety, especially when it came to griping about their wives. I started walking away when my father’s maternal uncle called out to me.

“Boy!”

I turned, “Yes, my grandsire?”

“Tell your father he is invited for lunch after the Gathering. Father of Gifter is also coming.”, he gestured towards my uncle, the twin.

“Did you hear me? Tell him when he wakes up and don’t forget! Or I’ll break this on your back.” he attempted to raise his stick in illustration. I loved him. He was the best of the old men. Secretly very loving, and almost as gentle as my father and uncle.

“Yes, my grandsire “, I hurried Aware along with my hand as we turned away. My grand-uncle’s sharp eyes made a note of the off-handed gesture.

*

I returned home and to my sleeping mat and slept until the wonderful aroma of eggs woke me. I lay there listening to the metallic clicking and clacking of the frying pan and tea pot. I could tell my father thought I was still asleep by how he coughed. Very fast and quiet. I imagined him alone in this house after I died, soft, fast coughs and unintelligible mutterings. The occasional fart.

He walked in to wake me.

“Why are you crying?”, the lack of concern on his face meant he was indeed worried.

“Im not!”, startled and ashamed, I reached up to my face. My cheeks and eyes were very wet. My face grew warm.

I peaked over at my brother to see his reaction, but his sleeping mat wasn’t there anymore.

“Maybe you were dreaming of the lesson I taught you last night?” he jokingly referred to the stone game...

...which he had obviously won.

“Verily,” I quipped as I rolled up my mat and blanket. “Father of the Servant has invited you and my uncle to eat after the Gathering.”

“Go get the food and teapot”, he said quietly said, as he bent to lay down old newspapers over the carpet.

“Get the mat and roll the teapot, the teapot.”, I whispered to myself, in the kitchen.

*

My father left after we ate. I considered walking down to my cousins’ house, but decided to stay home instead. Gatheringday was their only day to sleep late, and Guided usually yelled when woken.

I watered the mint and the lemon tree, fed the chickens the scraps and egg shells, and filled their water pan from the cistern. I threw a rock in the direction of the mangy cat which insisted on harassing the chickens every morning, only in the morning. It eyed me indifferently. Of the Creators creatures, it seemed that only cats were permitted to wield apathy like a weapon.

When I walked back into the kitchen, through the rear door, I found Gifter standing there with a cloth bundle, patiently waiting in that idiotic way indecisive children wait. Waiting for someone to to tell them what to do, where to go, how to get there.

I could smell the bread through my grandmother’s old shawl.

“Put it on the table!”, I snapped at my much younger cousin.

“My grandsiress said you and uncle should come for lunch after the Gathering.”

“He can’t. Tell grandsiress I will come though.”, I commanded.

“...”

“Go!”, I cuffed his head as hard as was reasonable.

He ran off; knowing him, the tears were more anger than anything else. I didn’t need to look at Aware to know he had a look of disappointment on his face.

Gifter was the favorite of our youngest cousins, almost a younger brother to us. We taught him how to catch birds, and swim, and play marbles. I remember teaching him the rules of intonation when speaking the Recitation aloud. He really was a good boy; it just felt so good to hurt his feelings.

I didn’t like him looking at me the way he did, with his stupid, innocent eyes, like I had something for him, answers to his unposed questions, or a new game, or a lesson about bird snares. All I had was images and images.

clean bloodless organs detached from their function…the night sky as it appeared above our stone house…on a cold night when the stars were so bright…like the night after he died and then i stood on the roof…staring and staring at the one dim star…i tried to cry but inside i found a place where nothing was…so i thought of my dead mother instead…but that didn’t make me cry so I took myself to the secret cave we used sleep in sometimes for fun…when we were still happy…when I saw the cave I was able to cry…when I was done crying I looked to my side and my dead brother was there…I wasn’t surprised so we slept in the cave again

I turned to Aware and shouted at him, “So what! What’s the difference, he’s just a little fart.”

*

I sat against the back wall with the other youth. Of course, the Gatheringplace was full. Where was everyone the rest of the week? Some had work for an excuse and performed their linking in the fields and orchards. But what of the others?

There was no place for Aware to be, so he existed as an abstraction in my mind for the duration. A dimensionless shape. A promise you want to keep, but staying true to it is a logical impossibility; a frozen star.

My uncle stood from his place in the front row and ascended the three steps. I could tell, from the paper he held, which lecture he would give. He only had eight or nine lectures which were on permanent rotation. He was a great orator, and his lectures were very interesting, but the both of us could recite any of them verbatim.

It was the one about proper intentions.

The younger boys nearest me fidgeted and whispered. Everyone else was quiet and still; listening to the lecture itself was considered by the All-Knower to be an act of worship itself. So only the younger boys moved and whispered, sovereigns of their kingdom for twenty minutes a week. Still too young to believe in something as unlikely as all the tomorrows yet to come. I saw Gifter with the other boys his age, he was clean and his hair was wet.

The inside of the Gatheringplace smelled of oils, cologne, and incense. Every male was dressed in his best. The wind coming in through the open door and windows carried the aroma of baking chickens and fresh bread. Every woman cooked the most extravagant meal they could afford, on Gatheringday.

Even the sunlight, that the Light blessed us with, seemed brighter.

I tried to pay attention to what my uncle was saying, but I truly could recite the whole lecture verbatim, so it was a struggle. I felt my eyes shutting on their own and pinched my thigh hard. I briefly wondered if they would allow us to join them for lunch, but I knew my father wouldn’t allow it.

He was very traditional and adamant that neglecting our ways was a sure recipe for disaster. Since I wasnt specifically invited, it would be ‘presumptuous’. Everyone else in the village assumed that children and women were included by default in an invitation, but not my father and uncle.

Everything had to be done as if we were still living on the open sand with swords strapped to our waists and horses beneath us. So tedious. Surely I wouldn’t need all those traditions in the future.

My uncle started to recite the litany of beseechments, which meant the lecture was ending and the linking starting; just in time, I thought, my rear end and thighs are starting to grow numb. We collectively said amen after each beseechment. It was the part of the ritual the younger boys really invested their energies into. They nearly shouted their amens. It was understood that they shouldn’t be rebuked.

Our Lord! Do not punish us if we forget or make a mistake.

AMEN!

Our Lord! Do not load on us a severe test as You did burden on those before us.

AMEN!

Our Lord! Do not impose upon us that which we have not the strength to bear; and pardon us and forgive us and have mercy on us, You are our Defender, so help us against the ungrateful people.

AMEN!

And so on, you’ve heard some of them before, I’m sure.

Then my uncle asked someone to call us to the linking and we lined up, shoulder to shoulder, foot to foot. Afterward, everyone shook hands and asked that Allah grant on the other His Peace.

Gatheringday really is the best day of the week. Everyone is happy, eager to eat the waiting meal, dressed up, smelling of cologne. Even the dirtiest boys are somewhat presentable.

*

I rushed out of the door and nearly tripped over the sandal and shoe pile. I managed to find my sandals and sit in the shade beneath the pomegranate tree, before the rush started in earnest, and the door was blocked by old men carefully, and ever so patiently, rummaging around for sandals buried beneath the pile.

Other boys gathered around me. No one needed to speak a word, we were all waiting for the same thing. The argument.

Recently, for the past year, every Gatheringday, after the linking, an argument occurred. No one ever knew in advance who the parties would be. Not even the potential combatants. But an argument would be had. Everyone had a theory as to why; because all the men were gathered in one place, the bad olive seasons, the devils were putting in extra effort. Really, we didn’t know. But the old men often discussed the issue during their sunrise vigils, muttering and cursing and pounding their walking sticks.

But even old men had argued after the linking. More than once!

We never mentioned it in front of the grown men, but we all secretly hoped for an actual fight. Three fights had taken place so far, physical fights, not arguments, and one of the fights in particular had been amazingly exciting.

Two men, brothers, had been arguing loudly, and because they were brothers, everyone had been making jokes and laughing loudly at every insult, expecting, because they were brothers, that the situation would end well. That changed when their cousin had tried to push them apart. One thing lead to another, and both brothers were punching their cousin and cousin’s son.

By the time it was over, the son was on the ground holding his bleeding mouth, and his father was completely unconscious next to him.

And a betrothal was permanently, and formally, called off.

For two weeks after, there had been no more arguments. Everyone understood that the phenomenon was creating a tension which was new to the village. Then the arguments just started back up, all over again.

Guided appeared next to me and whispered, “Who do you think it will be this week?”

“You and me!”, I joked as I shoved him excitedly. He grinned, took a step back and kicked at my face, purposefully missing. All the shepherds were very athletic.

An old man snapped at us as he passed,

“You two, stop the that before I step on your heads!”

“Yes, grandsire”, Guided said obediently, swallowing his grin.

All the boys and youth were milling and shoving each other, waiting for the show.

But nothing happened. The men came out and took seat wherever shade was to be had. Burning tobacco soon filled the air. A boy was sent for sunflower seeds by one group. The old men took their seats in the place that was reserved for them; the shade cast by the Gatheringplace itself, they began whispering their ancient gripes at each other, like the wicked oracles from the Days of Ignorance. Deceiving each other and their ownselves, with lies and exaggerations.

We continued waiting. I gave Aware a look over Guided’s shoulders; no show today. Guided, believing I was looking at him, shook his head in exaggerated disappointment.

I knew there was absolutely no way to convince Guided to walk down to the valley to swim, not on his one day away from the valley and goats. Instead, we sat on the large granite block left over from the Gatheringplace’s construction, and quietly reminisced about the big fight; perhaps a bit too longingly. Guided pulled out two of the sage stems he loved so much and handed one to me. We chewed and spat.

Gifter skipped over to us, eager to show us the lizard he had caught hiding netween the old men’s feet. I instinctively kicked out at his hand. The lizard went flying so high I lost sight of it in the high sun.

Gifter let out wail and a sob, and stuttered as he searched for a rebuke powerful enough to express his emotions, “You’re a bad boy!”

My shadowbrother snickered, which the real Aware would never have done.

I reached out to him consolingly, I had meant to kick it out of his hand, but hadn’t expected him to cry about it.

He swiped at my outstretched hands. I looked to Aware, he would know what to say. But in his place stood my uncle, the twin. And he had that look I recognized from my father’s face.

He grabbed my shoulder and shook me, “This morning you beat him for bringing you bread and now you kick his lizard away, why?!”

I tried to explain that it wasn’t a beating, just a cuff, a single cuff. When he heard this, he kept cuffing me on the head and yelling over and over, “Like this?! Like this?!”

I had to assume the question was rhetorical.

I found myself pushing at my uncle, and then I felt a hand at the nape of my neck, and then road was rushing at my eyes, and then, somehow, I was standing again.

My father stood behind me, enraged. “Be silent!”

He helped his brother to his feet and dusted his backside for him. My father turned to me and commanded me to apologize.

“Never raise your voice or HANDS to an elder. Apologize to your uncle and Gifter!”

I knew I was wrong, but I couldn’t speak. Tears of anger warmed my cheeks, so I ran. How could he side against me?! It had been a years since he had laid a hand on me. May the Victor curse their stupid traditions and customs.

I ran down the mountain, faster and faster, through groves and trees, jumping down from terrace to terrace, dirt exploding around me after each landing.

Down I ran, my feet leading me, until I found myself in the deep, unkempt valley ruled by underbrush and oak bush, and the secret cave we discovered so long ago.

Panting, I walked to the tiny spring that barely trickled from a split in the bedrock. I sucked the cool water from the stone. Refreshed, I cast about for mushrooms under the oak bush, as I gathered wood for an early dinner.

“A frozen star, a frozen star...” I whispered, over and over, as I gathered.