by Dan Pearce
“What do you mean he is gone?” The fresh anger that filled me gave sudden and extreme intensity to my headache, as a rush of hot blood entered my cranium.
“He took a few things with him, and he left,” she said, then was quiet for a moment. “He said some things to me…” Her voice trailed off.
“What things?”
Racheele closed her eyes. A new tear suddenly slipped down her cheek and fell on my neck. “He said to tell you that knowing me was no better than knowing a pig, and he left.”
I strained with fresh anger. She attempted to calm me once more. “I will make him suffer for this,” I promised her.
“That is not all he said, Cain.”
“Tell me.”
“He said you once told him that you look upon my face when we know each other and imagine that I am your mother. That’s not true, is it?”
“I will kill him,” I replied. “I will find him and kill him for this. Of course it isn’t true.”
“Shhhhh,” she whispered, as she continued humming. Then, after some time with my eyes closed, I looked up and noticed she had been silently weeping. I reached up and gently pinched her chin. “Am I really no better than a pig?” she whispered.
Her question made my heart sink to a place beyond the depths of my chest. My anger seemed to triple. “You are the sun itself, Racheele. Knowing you is like knowing a god.” Her body language showed her disbelief in my words, which angered me more. “Abel will suffer. He will understand what it means to be a pig, as I gut him for all to see. He will never hurt you or anyone in this village again.” Racheele nodded and smiled a fake smile as she unconsciously condoned my lethal need.
I let her tend to me only until the headache faded, and then took the wool from her to cool the dozens of darkening bruises Abel gave her in his moment of lust and jealousy. We didn’t talk much about what happened after that, and eventually the night’s darkness lured us to our beds. I tried pulling Racheele closer to me attempting to comfort her, but she quickly pulled away. For the first night together since we met, we slept without some part of us touching each other. It was then that I knew just how much more would need to heal beyond the bruises or the cuts.
The next morning, I went looking for Abel. Just as Racheele surmised, he was already gone. Only the beggar Jarabathia saw him leave the previous night, headed out via the South trail.
Had I found him then, I have no doubt I would have killed him. I didn’t go out looking for him that morning to beat the shit out of him or talk things out. I had every intention of putting an end to the ongoing threat that I felt he was to the woman I loved.
I didn’t get to kill the coward, though. He took what he wanted, he said the words he knew would cause the most damage, and he left.
Four winters passed before Abel showed up again.
The river ran high and fast that year as the snow visibly disappeared each morning from the mountains in the distance. Signs of a good spring abounded. The steaming woods were full of fat prey. Our fish traps fed the entire village most nights. Winter had been wet and commanding, leaving our soil filled with rich nutrients. Our village had seen a long span of peace; few travelers had come through. I stood on a hill above the riverbank and inhaled a deep breath of spring’s warmth as I tapped a fist against young Seth’s shoulder. He beamed and tapped against mine. It had all the makings to be a good year. We both felt it.
I looked down toward Racheele, who sat sideways at the riverbank, her legs extended across the soil. She pushed a large pot below the water’s surface and watched with that pleasant and consistent smile of hers, as it flooded full of icy water. It had taken time, but her smile had eventually returned.
Higher up the hill, a black-haired toddler leapt clumsily to and fro, pouncing on insects in the grass. Flor was the only child I successfully conceived with Racheele before a hunting accident seemed to strip me of my ability to place life into the belly of another. Our attempts to give our daughter a sibling had been fruitless.
I took another deep inhale as I turned and watched our daughter repeatedly squat and jump. She noticed me watching and squealed with happiness as she pointed at something in the grass at her feet. She had two winters of life now and was quickly becoming her own little human. A thin white strand of hair grew from the top of Flor’s head. My daughter giggled and twittered constantly. The world was magical and didn’t seem even slightly dangerous to her. Soon she would be weaned, and my little brown-eyed doe would finally taste all the things I would catch, or hunt, or grow for her.
“Cain,” Racheele said, pulling my attention away from my pleasant thoughts. Racheele was distressed when I looked back at her, and she quickly nodded downriver. “Look.”
Seth and I both turned to see the silhouette of a man far in the distance. He was making his way toward us, up the rocky trail that ran alongside the river. I had no reason to panic or worry just yet. It was most likely someone from the village, coming to spread news or look for help with his overloaded fish traps. I turned back to Racheele. The look in her eyes was now saturated with that same fear I hadn’t seen since Abel disappeared.
I turned my attention back to the interloper, and there was no doubting it was our brother. Even in shadows, he had a distinct and arrogant walk about him. His stride was longer than most, his head always held higher.
“Take our daughter and both of you get inside. Now.”
Racheele immediately jumped into action, leaving her pot behind, and dashed past us. She scooped up Flor and disappeared over the hilltop with her.
“Who is it?” Seth inquired with heavy breath, as he returned to my side holding the spears we habitually kept nearby. I hadn’t even seen him go for them, but I was happy to take my weapon from him.
“I am not sure, but I think it is someone I don’t want here,” I said, as I attempted to make sense of the sudden rush of emotion and adrenaline that had swept over me. I knew it was Abel, but hoped it turned out to be someone else.
I had never told Seth what happened four years earlier. I simply had agreed with his wishful thinking any time he came up with a theory of where Abel might have gone. I suppose I hoped our brother would never return, and that I would never have to deal with it. The longer he was gone, the more I felt his disappearance had been his own antidote. At one point, I even convinced myself that I had forgiven Abel in an attempt to distance myself from my growing hatred for him.
But now, as the man we called our brother emerged from the shadows enough that we couldn’t question whether it was indeed him, a memory of what took place the last time I saw Abel rushed over me. Thoughts of what he did triggered a rebound of all of the same anger, resentment, and hatred I had been carrying for this man. Fresh rage consumed me, as I thought back to the nights spent consoling my sleepless Racheele after Abel’s disappearance. Then, as I thought of the woman I loved, currently hiding our daughter from this man, the protector in me thundered.
“Brothers!” Abel exclaimed, at the exact same time I pointed my lance at him and planted my feet into the ground.
Seth laughed at my reaction and dropped his weapon. “Cain, what are you doing? Drop your spear. Our brother has returned!” He rushed to Abel, and the two grabbed shoulders tightly for some time before approaching me, their arms wrapped around each other’s necks.
“Look at you. You have become a little man,” Abel said to Seth as they walked.
“Why are you here, Abel?” I demanded, with clenched teeth.
Abel pulled away from Seth and held both arms open to me in a truceful stance. “I decided it was finally time to forgive you, Cain.”
A rush of blood through my head pushed my eyes more tightly against their sockets. I squatted even deeper in my stance, as my breaths intensified. Seth took a step back and looked at me with sincere worry over what Abel had just said. “What does he mean forgive you? What did you do to our brother, Cain?”
I didn’t answer. Seth and I could discuss the past later.
“A
re you the reason Abel left?” he asked, my silence making his worry grow.
Abel widened his hands toward me. “Cain, why are you so hostile? I have come home to be with my brothers. I have brought with me a great bounty to share with those in the village. I forgive you for all you did, which drove me away.” I growled. Abel ignored it. Seth stood shaking his head. “I only desire that you come and share with me in my fortune and listen to my tales of the last many seasons.”
Again, I did not reply, not that I could have. My throat was constricted, my tongue suddenly swollen.
“Drop your spear, brother.” An increasingly nervous Seth had joined me at my side, and now gently touched the tips of his fingers to my locked elbow in an attempt to calm me. “Abel is obviously not here looking for a fight. Now tell me the truth behind what he speaks because I can make no sense of this. We should all feel happy now.”
My voice, though shrill and quiet, finally found its way out as I ignored Seth and kept my focus on the threat in front of me. “Go on. Tell him, Abel. Tell our youngest brother what you did to Racheele. Tell him what you did to me.”
Seth backed away from us both, and instinctively reached for his own spear as the tension grew thicker.
Abel only laughed in reply, hardily, and waved one hand in the air as he took a deceivingly friendly step toward me. “Cain, if I knew what it was that you think I have done, I would make things right. I am only here to invite you to a great feast I will hold on the morrow. We will drown ourselves in fowl, elk, magnificent fruit you have never yet tasted, and of course…” He took a large step toward me and lowered his voice. “Lots, and lots, and lots of pig.”
Every muscle in my body tightened, and I pressed the weight of my weapon into Abel’s sternum. “Leave,” I said. “Leave now, and do not return or I fear I will do that which I will regret eternally.”
Abel disregarded my anger and smirked as he slapped the spear away. “If tomorrow’s pig is anything like it was in the past, it will hardly be worth the trouble it takes to find some way to enjoy something so ordinary. But that is why I have all the other food to enjoy.”
I honestly only remember two things that happened in the moments which followed. I remember my thoughts feeling so hot they might burn through my head, and I remember everything in my vision becoming saturated in crimson.
The first semi-conscious memory I have after it was done is of Seth screaming what seemed like nonsense at me, pinning me to the ground with such great force for how young he was. I remember dropping my head to one side, as Seth pressed my shoulders into the Earth. I remember the confused and terrified look on Seth’s face, as he tried to make sense of the sudden corpse in the grass beside us. I remember my spear, standing erect in the sky above Abel’s body. I remember holding my hands up to my face, expecting to see blood and finding none. I remember dropping my hands and looking at the sky. It was so blue that day. I remember all those things in such a crystal-clear blur, but I don’t actually remember the moment I killed Abel.
I knew what I had done, though. And I knew that Seth had witnessed it happen.
He finally became convinced that I was down and would stay down and left me in the grass while he frantically turned his attention to our dead sibling. “Please do not die,” he pled, as he forcefully pulled the spear from Abel’s already unmoving chest. Seth pressed one hand against the wound and held a cheek to Abel’s mouth. “Cain, you killed him. You killed Abel,” he said as he lifted and dropped Abel by his shoulders. “Why would you… How could you… He just…”
I knew what he was saying was true. I had killed Abel.
I struggled to find enough of a breath to somehow explain things to Seth, but no words came as he collapsed onto Abel’s chest.
I knew as I watched him that there never would be words.
As Seth’s blood-smeared head turned again to face me, I could see in his hurting and furious eyes just how much he suddenly hated me and would always hate me. There would never be a way to come back from what just happened.
CHAPTER 5
I was cursed by a witch for what took place on that hillside. She marked me for my crimes. My own eventual death was an option taken from me.
So many of history’s great thinkers arrived at the same basic conclusion as the curtains drew closed on their lives. They came to understand that in the end, none of us really know much of anything at all. We simply exist within the finite perceptions of the infinite universe that surrounds us.
Twelve thousand years. I think that’s how long I’ve been alive, give or take a couple centuries. That is a very long time to question what is true and what is real, and I will admit there are only a few things I actually believe I know. Even then, I am not obtuse enough to claim that I actually know them, or that the knowledge surrounding them cannot somehow change.
I speak close to six hundred living languages, but only 308 of them do I speak fluently. I speak many languages better than native speakers, yet I would not claim to know those languages because there isn’t a language in existence that doesn’t constantly grow, evolve, and eventually prove to me that what I think I know can always be altered and become something else completely.
So is the paradox of knowledge. The closer I think I am getting to it, the further away it somehow seems to always be.
Thirst for knowledge is a distinct and important cog of the human experience, but most people don’t understand it for what it is. It seems to me that as humans, we seek out new knowledge, we chase it down, and we hope to obtain it, but it’s like grabbing onto a handful of water and hoping we might somehow keep hold of it all. Obviously, we can’t. The water is always going to go wherever physical laws take it, and knowledge is always going to go wherever universal laws shape its path.
I could tell you I know that I have been alive exactly 12,219 years. After stitching every piece of my own history together, I am almost certain that is the exact number, but the truth is there were hundreds of periods when time passed by for me in which I wasn’t quite certain if it had been 8 years or 9 in a certain place, 17 years or 18. A year here or a year there, hundreds of times, could possibly add up to a discrepancy of a couple hundred years age difference. So, I simply think I know how old I am. I also believe knowing a number that is “close enough” is good enough.
I do feel like I actually know a few things; universal truths, if you will. They each are truths, as I know them, yet they each have undoubtedly had their exceptions.
I know that money is indeed the root of most evil, as I understand evil to be.
I know that dishonesty almost always drives more dishonesty.
I know that pain almost always is temporary.
I know that loneliness eventually cripples most of the people who wander through it.
I know that to love another, and to be loved by another, is often man’s greatest nonphysical need.
And, I know that life is usually just better in sweatpants, so I wear them often.
Other than that, I can’t claim to know much. I would think after 120 centuries, I would have figured out deity, the next life, the previous life, my purpose here, and everything else mankind has yet to peg. I don’t even look for answers to those things anymore because I believe answers don’t exist. Not really.
I believe faith exists, and that there is power in it. I have seen people poor and rich, all around the world, show fascinating faith. Most had faith in ideas and concepts which greatly conflicted with the ideas and concepts that anchored the faith of others, but they had their faith, nonetheless. I have come to respect any person who puts their faith in something and says, “I don’t know, but I believe.” I struggle to respect any person who tells me she “knows” that which can’t be known.
Twelve thousand years. I’ve been alive so long I can tell you how to say that number in thousands of different languages, most of them dead or nearly dead. Twelve thousand years. I wonder if any who read this will stop and really think about that. I certainly have been abl
e to think about it plenty.
Twelve millennia. I have witnessed and learned probably more than any other person alive, and I can’t even give you a single sound theory as to how anyone could live so long. According to science, it certainly shouldn’t be possible. The cells in our bodies split eternally, constantly reincarnating us. Each time our cells split, the ends of our DNA get a little less crisp, as if they were passing through a copier. Our bodies become old and sick, and ultimately, they stop working because the DNA eventually can’t be properly read or replicated.