First to Dance

by Sonya Writes

  Ayita nodded in agreement. Everything felt strange here. She didn’t know how to interact with Dakarai in this environment. Everywhere she turned she felt her mind being sucked back to Zozeis. It was a different mentality, and she didn’t know how to mix it with the people of Adonia.

  “I’d like to go back to the library,” she said. “Will you come with me?”

  He looked oddly at her, then agreed because he had nothing better to do. They walked together down the same path Ayita always took to class. She felt herself pulled toward the park again and decided she should probably start walking a different way from now on. She tried to push the thought out of her mind.

  Ayita felt herself coming alive again when she stepped into the room full of books. There were so many of them, and she wanted to read them all. She wondered how many she could read before the winter was over. Any that she didn’t read now would have to wait until next year.

  Dakarai had no interest in books. He learned how to read when he was young, thanks to Etana’s videos, but books didn’t fascinate him the way they sometimes fascinated others. He did have a journal which he wrote in a few times a year, but more often he forgot to write in it and forgot to read what he had written. He saw the joy on Ayita’s face and smiled, though. He didn’t understand her love of books, but briefly he was able to love them simply because she loved them.

  As Ayita started pulling down books to see what they were about, she noticed something which she’d missed earlier in her initial excitement. Many of these books were beginner readers and children’s books—perfect for a forgetful society that only used the winter months to learn this skill. Then she saw another detail. Earlier when she looked at the pages of copyright information, she noticed that the books were written on Earth. Now she noticed also that they were written in years ranging from 3600-3800. Ayita remembered the photograph of Etana, taken in 3143. These books were written and published hundreds of years after that picture was taken. Someone had brought these books here long since then. Ayita wondered if it had been Etana herself. If she traveled often enough at a relativistic speed, she would have aged only months at a time while decades passed on Earth and Adonia. Maybe Etana was still alive, even now. Maybe Ayita could actually meet her someday.

  Ayita didn’t notice that Dakarai had already left the room until after she gathered a handful of books to take back and was ready to leave. She looked around but didn’t see him and she walked with the books in her arms back to her home. She took a different path this time so she wouldn’t have to walk past the park, and when she got home she took the books up to her bedroom. She sat down excitedly, ready to read, but then it was as if a cloud came over her head and she didn’t feel so excited anymore. She couldn’t bring herself to read the books here. It just didn’t feel right to be reading about Earth in her bedroom. Ayita gathered up the books again and brought them all downstairs to the basement. This building even had windows in the basement, small narrow windows up near the ceiling, and they let in plenty of light from outside.

  The room was nothing more than a big empty space, but Ayita knew approximately where her secret room would have been and where she used to sit and lie down when she was reading. She curled up in that spot with her pile of books and read.

  These books took Ayita to worlds she never knew existed before, and then she found out they didn’t. Among the books Ayita had from the library were a dictionary and several books that looked like they were about space travel and other planets. They were indeed about space travel and other planets, but there was a label on each book that, after seeing it often enough, she finally decided to look up in the dictionary.

  Fiction (noun):

  A class of literature identifiable by imaginative narration

  A story that is made-up, feigned, imagined or invented

  An imaginary thing or event, proposed for the purpose of argument or explanation

  Ayita puzzled for a long time over this concept. She could hear Aira’s voice telling her that these were books of lies, and now she realized they really were. She didn’t know what to think about that. People wrote books about things that weren’t true, and yet they were published and read on Earth anyway. On Earth it was actually okay to have a true book of lies and for everyone to know about it. The stories were fascinating, but once Ayita realized they weren’t true, she couldn’t quite bring herself to continue reading them.

  Ayita gathered up the books to take them back to the library. It was getting late, and she was hungry again. She stopped next door to see if Dakarai would join her for dinner, but he wasn’t there. She walked alone to the library where she returned the books, and then in the hallway she bumped into Ziyad.

  “I wondered what happened to you!” he said. “You disappeared yesterday and I was concerned you might get lost. I’m glad to see you found your way!”

  Ayita smiled. “Oh yes,” she said. “I just couldn’t wait to find out what these houses were like.”

  “So?” he asked. “What do you think?”

  “It’s…just like home,” she said.

  He could see a hint of sadness on her face. “Is that a bad thing?”

  “I’m not sure yet. It feels very strange.”

  She asked him about their customs here and also asked about the room with Etana’s video. He didn’t know how it got there, but he explained that because of the cold, there was not very much to do here, so frequently the children and anyone else who was interested would end up in that room watching the videos and learning to read. He didn’t know how the building had power either, nor had he previously wondered about it. It was simply something they all accepted, but Ayita wasn’t ready to accept it without understanding the facts. If that building had power, there was probably some way for the other buildings to have power as well.

  Ayita then asked if he would help her find each of the kids they worked with over the summer and encourage them especially to watch the videos each day. She suspected they might pick it up a lot faster than the other children simply because they spent time exercising their memory over the summer.

  Ziyad and Ayita ate dinner together and then Ayita walked back to her home with a new stack of books, this time books that were not labeled “fiction.”

  When she got home it was already dark out. Ayita put the books she’d collected down in the basement, but it was certainly too dark now to read. She ascended the stairs and stepped into her bedroom, closing the door behind her. It still surprised her that the room wasn’t pitch black with the door closed and the light off. She looked at the window and wished to cover it up so that this might feel more like home. But did she really want that? She wasn’t sure.

  She lay down on her back where her bed was supposed to be and closed her eyes. She focused on her breathing and inhaled, exhaled. She could feel the way her body positioned on the floor and she imagined that she was in the water, floating on her back with Dakarai’s hands holding her up. Her eyelids felt less heavy and she smiled. Then she wanted to cry again. Why did she always want to cry when she came to this room? She looked up at the window. She’d wanted a window in her room ever since she found out they existed on Earth, but now she just wanted it to be gone. It didn’t belong here, in this house.

  Then Ayita could faintly hear Dakarai playing his instrument. It was muffled by the walls, but he always played rather loudly. Ayita stood up and opened the window to let the song come in. She closed her eyes and imagined that she was back at home, under the tree.

  Home. She sighed. Where was home? She’d read a phrase in one of the books, which said, “home is where the heart is,” but Ayita’s heart was torn between so many different places. Her heart was beside the lake, with Dakarai. It was on Zozeis with her family, Acton, and Aira. And her heart was also the passenger of a spaceship headed for Earth.

  One thing she knew for sure, this specific house was certainly not home. It felt like home, but it wasn’t. But that fact didn’t take away the heavy reminder that there were people o
n Zozeis who weren’t free to express themselves. Unless someone took action, they never would be. As Ayita pondered this, she started to realize she would never be truly satisfied with settling for a life here on Adonia. Dakarai was right—she wanted to be out there more than she wanted to be here. If she discovered that she truly did have a way to leave this planet, then eventually, she would take it.

  12

  Four days after they settled in, a second group of people showed up. A few days after that, two more groups showed up, and finally, about a week later, a fifth group of people arrived. The town started to feel more like a town, with people filling up most of the houses and regularly roaming the streets. The room full of clothes quickly emptied, and the classrooms that were previously empty were now filled up with food.

  Ayita talked with Ziyad and he explained to her that sometimes, after the winter was over, a few people would switch places and go to another settlement for the warm seasons. “Some want a change,” he told her, “others honestly don’t know where they came from.”

  When the fifth group of people came, it happened that several of them decided to settle into the house Ayita considered her own. She felt herself becoming angry at them, as if they were intruding upon her, but then she realized she was the foreigner here—if anything, she was the one intruding upon their regular customs and culture. Privacy didn’t exist in their world, and they would find her unreasonable if she demanded it. She gathered her things off the bedroom floor and planned to return later for the books she had in the basement.

  As Ayita stepped outside she saw that people were moving into the house Dakarai stayed in as well. She wondered how he would fare with that because now he would have nowhere to escape to. She checked, but he wasn’t home. Then Ayita continued walking and carried all of her things to the library, where she decided she would stay. Other people occasionally poked their heads in at the door, and a few people actually came in to look at the books, but for the most part it was quiet and Ayita was alone.

  Ayita made a second trip to the house so she could bring the books back from the basement, and then she set out to find Panya, Dakarai and Ziyad. She thought she understood before why Panya said the people were more forgetful in the winter, but now she could see it even more. With so many people around, it would be easy to lose daily contact with each other. Ayita wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.

  Winter moved in quickly. Soon it was freezing outside and occasionally snowing. As time went on, it became more and more difficult to spend time with any of the people Ayita cared about, especially Dakarai. He was always looking for a place to be alone, and Ayita rarely found him in the same place twice. It was an impossible task to find him, and too cold outside to spend the day searching. He started to forget her name again, and then, after several weeks Ayita realized he was spending time with Kesi on a regular basis. She didn’t know how it started, but it did. Kesi followed him everywhere.

  They came in together for meals, and Ayita could see the way Kesi looked at him, though he didn’t always return that look of infatuation. But sometimes, he did. Kesi would laugh and touch his arm. She smiled at everything he said. Ayita thought about following him everywhere, too, but it didn’t seem right to her. It also felt increasingly awkward to join him when Kesi was at his side. She kept hoping that one day Kesi wouldn’t come and he would choose to stay in the school building. She invited him several times to stay with her, but the building was constantly noisy with people going in and out and it was more than Dakarai cared to deal with. The more she tried to pursue him with Kesi there between them, the more she realized it would never work this way. He needed to pursue her also, or their friendship wouldn’t last.

  Ayita spent a lot of time in the library, and she never tired of reading the books there, but eventually she decided to take a break from it. She brought a blank journal to the library and sat down to fill it with Etana’s story. She noticed that an entire wall of books was full of journals belonging to people who lived here previously. It was fascinating to read other peoples’ stories, told in bits and pieces by people with only a fragmented memory of their past. Ayita did not know if anyone else would ever read it, but Etana’s story belonged on that wall too. She wrote down everything she knew about Etana, and then started writing out Etana’s letters to Aaron.

  Ayita closed the book at the sound of the door opening, and she was surprised to see Dakarai standing there. “Hey,” she said. He nodded. She was glad to see him.

  “What are you reading?” he asked.

  “I’m writing,” she said. “I want to fill this book with the memories I have of Etana.”

  “Who’s she?” he asked. “A friend?”

  Ayita nodded. “Yeah. You could say that. She’s the one who let me know that there was more to life than I knew about; that if I looked hard enough, I could find something better.”

  “Better than what?”

  Ayita weakly smiled. She wondered how many times they would have this conversation before he might not have to ask anymore. She wondered if it would ever happen. She retold her story on Zozeis, but as she did so, she found herself thinking: If I looked hard enough, I could find something better. Over the summer she came to believe this was her something better. Now she wasn’t sure.

  She wanted to ask him where Kesi was, but she didn’t want to remind him that Kesi existed. He asked if she wanted to go for a walk with him, and she eagerly accepted.

  For a while they walked only in silence. Ayita enjoyed it, but at the same time it made her nervous. She was content to be walking with him, but she wondered if he was thinking the same, or if there was a reason for his silence.

  “What’s on your mind?” she asked.

  He shrugged with his mouth. “Nothing,” he said.

  “You’re quieter than usual today.”

  “Oh,” he said. “There’s just nothing I want to talk about right now.”

  “So nothing’s wrong?”

  He shook his head. Ayita didn’t fully believe him, but she didn’t want to push it. She gave herself a headache wondering as they continued to walk and he didn’t say anything.

  They were walking for some time, when finally, he turned and asked her, “How do I know you?”

  “I was drowning,” she said, “and you pulled me from the water. I came to be your friend after that.”

  “I haven’t known you my whole life?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I remember, Dakarai. I always remember. I haven’t always lived here.”

  “I feel like I’ve known you my whole life, but I also feel that maybe I’ve only known you a short time.”

  “Less than a year,” she said.

  “Seems like more….”

  “Even if it were more…would you really know me any better because of it?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  Ayita sighed. “You’re forgetting things about me,” she said.

  “Did I used to remember?”

  “Some things, yes.”

  “Like what?”

  “My name, for one.”

  “What makes you think I forgot?”

  “Do you remember?”

  His shoulders fell. “No….”

  “It’s Ayita.”

  “That bothers you,” he said.

  “A little, yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize,” she said. “It’s not your fault.” Is it mine? she wondered. She knew she could make more of an effort to spend time with him. She could follow him around everywhere the way Kesi was doing and make sure he didn’t have time to forget who she was. She didn’t have to stay in the library so much, reading and writing about people who no longer existed. But something about following him around all day every day just didn’t feel right, and she really wanted to read the books they had here.

  They continued walking in silence for a short time, when Dakarai said, “I don’t forget everyt
hing about you. I remember that I like you.”

  Ayita allowed herself to smile at this. “I like you too, Dakarai.”

  “You don’t seem as happy as you usually are,” he said.

  “Oh.” His comment took her a bit by surprise. Ayita took in a long breath and slowly exhaled. “Are you happy?” she asked.

  “I think so,” he said. “Been happier, though.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t remember when, to be honest, but I can remember the feeling of it.”

  Ayita nodded. “I was happier in the summer,” she said.

  “Me too, I think. What changed?”

  Ayita thought about the house and all the memories that it didn’t own but which it carried, and of the books. Are the books making me less happy? she asked herself. She didn’t want to believe so. She knew the joy their information brought her, but she wondered if all her time reading them couldn’t be better spent, and she knew that since finding them she became more reclusive and distant toward all those around her. She had a thirst for knowledge. Reading brought her many wonderful ideas and dreams, but she also realized she was spending too much time away from her friends, to the point that Dakarai no longer remembered her name.

  They walked up and down the streets together, and then Dakarai led her to the park and sat down on a bench. Ayita sat down beside him and he put his arm around her. She pondered the planet and wondered how much of it had ever been explored. How much had gone untouched by man in decades, centuries, or ever? Then she wondered the same about Zozeis. Perhaps Zozeis had lakes after all, only none the people knew about. This city, this replica of her hometown on Zozeis, didn’t have any lakes either.

  “I wish there was a lake here,” Ayita said.