Role

Chapter 7

Mother,

we walk through the forests, barefoot, and we listen to the spirits as we go.
There are many different voices, all telling us a different story. Some
whispering, some shouting and demanding attention. But some are mute and
silent, and those frequently draw our curiosity.

We found ourselves in the Valley of Veran. Weaving our path through the
hostile fauna as we found a hole in the cacophony of all the angry voices. A
stone. An arm, broken from some statue. It reminded of us and you, Mother,
and it set us on a path to the mountains.

We turned to the mountains to find wisdom, and as with all things, we find
ourselves unable to explain sufficiently what we experienced. We feel when a
mountain sheds a stone due the natural course of frost and water and wind, it
is like the birth of new stone. A stone that speaks with its own voice, but
is aware, connected to its mother and never wandering too far away. When a
stone is cleft in many different pieces from the mountain rock, it is like
the same person trying to tell a single thought, but through many different
mouths and all at the same time. These stones are a painful thing to behold.
They want to tell of their pain, of the longing for their mountain mother and
of a sense of being incomplete. But they can not. Each word of their lament
is spread across all the different mouths. None of them able to coherently
say what pains them, so they just moan in pain instead. The saddest of them
all, are the silent ones.

We have tried listening to the mountain, to hear of the mother's pain of
having her children taken from her. Hoping, we would understand what you must
have felt. But the mountain is ancient, enormous and deep. And we are mortal,
small and shallow. All we can hear is a slow, uneven, rumbling breath.
Perhaps we were asking the wrong question.

We find no answers when we look at our thoughts. Only more confusion. Only
greater uncertainty. Does wisdom ever come from thinking like this, or does
it just always lead to madness?

We remember an old wooden paddle. Blood on tile. Cold, night air. Hot tears.
A mouth full of gravel. Why don't we have any happy memories of you, Mother?