Reteller

            The long, gangly, grey haired and wrinkled, parchment colored old man sat crookedly on the slab of alabaster stone in front of the clan’s fire. His eyes were clouded over, their grass like hue lost to the world for more years than there are fingers and toes. His clothes, sand colored rags, hung on him like drying clothes on a branch. He was Riok, the historian. He was about to impart a story told to him by the previous historian, and so on and so forth for generations, all the way back to the times of glass towers and iron beasts.

            “The history of our people,” he began, “starts and ends with the sun, the glorious halo above us that heats our backs as we work and warms our faces in winter. It was said that we worshipped it, and spilled blood on alters to appease it. Harvests were plenty, the earth was full of emeralds and golds and sapphires. And then a new messiah came, and when we worshipped Him, blood was spilled in wars and feuds to make others believe in him. The earth continued to go on in its own little peace as rubies were added to its hoard. And then? And then we stopped believing.

            We started to think of ourselves as gods, and the earth became black. As black as this rock I sit on. I was told, by my predecessor, that the world we live in now, is because we defiled the earth and we mined all the jewels of life out of her. We covered it in alabaster and rubies. We took her sapphires and emeralds and golds and silvers. We took and took and took until she caved in on herself and our creations turned on us.

            Our machines, our chemicals, our creations that we gods had built in defiance of Him poisoned us as the earth caved in and swallowed us whole.”

            Riok looked into the eyes of his successor, holding him by the shoulder so he knew he was looking into the child’s eyes. They sat in their cavern, a caved in and sculpted place that their clan had made centuries ago.

            “When you leave this place. You will see the things that I have spoken of. You will smell it. You will understand everything I have taught you once you go above. And when you come back, you will have your own history to account for. A history to retell many times to the clan as it thrives, until you are as old as I am.”

            The boy nodded, making sure Riok felt his head move in the gesture of understanding, and took the bundles of histories from the old man’s side. He would have to research them, remember them, and add his own accounts someday. And when he came back from the above world, he would be a man, and he would understand that the earth was not to be trifled with. It would not be a mistake to be repeatedly throughout the ages.