Tag: writing

Somewhere in the universe, an alien race named the planets of our solar system after the most impressive natural phenomena of their world. They have names that describe the floating jungle in their skies for our Neptune; names that tell of clouds shimmering in colours our own eyes couldn’t see for our Venus; they call the moons that orbit us with tender names of plants that aren’t quite flowers and not quite corals.

Only once have they named a planet differently. Earth had long been their favourite subject to study, to watch, and their children love the stories of its strange and far-away life. The name is impossible to translate for human ears and their limited range, but if I were to try, I would tell you that the aliens call our world Growing Home.

Well, they used to.

They won’t come.

They try to forget.

They still watch, but the children don’t ask anymore. Names have changed rapidly as did hope, and then only a single drone remained circling our orbit, sending infrequent pictures of desert where forests were, of oceans as far as its steel sensors could detect. They sent it to land a few times. The results confirmed all fears. A new drone was sent when the old one succumbed to the heat on its search for where ice used to be.

After they found skeletons where their One Day Friends – where we used to live – they didn’t sent another drone.

And one last time, the name for Earth changed, and Growing Home became Uninhabitable.

how dare you, they say,
we are who you owe
we gave you this life
and ours is your soul

how dare you not listen
how dare you not care
what our mouths want to see
what our ears want to hear
who are, who were you, how came you to be
to stand here before us, too strange and too free?

so there I stand
in silence alone
watch crowding wrath
of dark-martyred bones
their flock falters, shatters, fool’s gold to stone
and my song echoes: I am my own home

moami

maybe the darkest parts of the universe, the most unimaginable of creatures, unspeakable in any other planet’s thousands of tongues, stay away from earth because they’ve seen what we’re capable of when we fight each other, and they don’t want to find out what we would do to something that threatens all of us.

kaleyus:

Primero, fueron los grandes guerreros.

Disparamos balas en sus pieles y lucimos sus dientes como trofeos. Los desnudamos de sus pelajes, de sus vidas, de su dignidad, perdida mucho antes de que la sangre dejara de correr por sus venas. Los tachamos de monstruos, y aquellos pocos que los llamaban grandiosos, el culmen, una hermosa y necesaria parte de nuestro mundo se vieron obligados a acallar su voz. Olvidamos sus nombres, olvidamos qué eran los tigres, los osos, los zorros, los leones, los lobos o los gatos.

Así que primero, los guerreros fueron asesinados y no sentimos el viento cuando empezó a soplar más fuerte.

Segundo, fueron los poderosos vigilantes.

Nos abrimos paso entre sus escamas con arpones y consumimos sus aletas. Los atrapamos en redes y arrastramos a su asfixia, sus ojos desvaneciéndose luego de que nuestros cuchillos los alcanzaran. Fuimos a su mundo, tomamos los colores de sus hogares de coral y clamamos que era su culpa cuando intentaron dar pelea, desesperados a causa del dolor. No nos acordamos de sus nombres, no nos acordamos del tiburón, de la ballena, de la foca, de la manta raya, del pulpo o del arrecife.

Así que segundo, los vigilantes fueron asesinados y no sentimos el suelo del océano cuando se partió en dos.

Y luego, fueron los pequeños errantes.

A esos no les dimos caza. Eran pequeños, casi invisibles para nosotros, y éramos demasiado grandes y magníficos para preocuparnos. Arrebatamos sus flores, sus estanques, les quitamos sus amados bosques y consumimos y destrozamos y aniquilamos. Nos emocionaba someter a los guerreros y a los vigilantes, pero los errantes no eran muy importantes, demasiados feos para siquiera echarles una mirada. Y ni siquiera nos dimos cuenta, no fuimos tras el sapo, la araña, el pez, el ratón, el pájaro o el insecto.

Entonces, los errante murieron y ahora sentimos el suelo rugir debajo de nuestro pies.

Intentamos.

Te lo aseguro, intentamos. Sacrificamos y lloramos y nos unimos para arreglarlo, para enmendarlo, para hacer algo. Cualquier cosa.

El viento gritó nuestros nombres. El océano y la tierra susurraron sedientos por nuestra sangre.

Si hubiésemos conservado a los errantes, últimos, definitivos, esenciales, con vida, entonces quizá las barreras se hubieran mantenido en pie. Quizá, si el último enjambre no hubiese muerto junto con su reina en un laboratorio caro, entonces podríamos haber vivido.

Deberíamos haber sabido que los guerreros no eran nuestras presas, sino el ataque de nuestro planeta contra lo antiguo. Deberíamos haber sabido que los vigilantes no eran una carga, sino la defensa de nuestro planeta.

Deberíamos haber sabido que los insectos ignorados, los molestos grillos, y los últimos errantes que una vez simplemente llamamos abejas de la miel, no eran nuestros servidores, sino nuestra única forma de supervivencia.

Así que fallamos. Y cuando el viento con su calor, el mar con sus olas, y la tierra con su hambre vinieron a engullirnos, cerramos los ojos y sentimos.

Escrito por @moami  

Traducido por @kaleyus

Me encantó tanto esta pequeña historia que no pude evitar traducirla. Es la primera traducción que publico así que espero hacerle al menos un poco de justicia. ¡Espero que les guste! 

Thank you very much for allowing me to translate and post this beautiful piece, Moami! 

First, it was the great warriors.

We shot bullets into their fur and wore their teeth as trophies. We stripped them off their pelts, lives, their dignity lost long before the blood stilled in their veins. We painted them as monsters, and the few that called them great, apex, a necessary and beautiful part of our world, had their voices silenced. We forgot their names, forgot what tigers, bears, foxes, lions, wolves or cats were.

So first, the warriors were killed, and we didn’t hear how the wind got louder.

Second, it was the mighty watchers.

We pushed harpoons into their scales and ate their fins. We caught them in nets and dragged them into their suffocation, their eyes fading after our knives got them. We went into their world, took the colour of their coral homes and roared them blame on them when they lashed out, desperate from the pain. We don’t remember their names, don’t remember shark, whale, seal, ray, octopus or reef.

So second, the watchers were killed, and we didn’t hear how the ocean floor cracked open.

And then, it was the tiniest wanderers.

Those we did not hunt. They were small, almost invisible to us, and we were too grand and magnificent to care. We took their flowers, their ponds, ripped out their beloved forests and ate and shattered and wiped out. We found thrill in submitting warriors and watchers to us, but wanderers were too unimportant, too ugly to even look at. And we did not even notice, did not look for frog, spider, fish, mouse, bird or insect.

So then, the wanderers died, and now we heard how the ground howled beneath our feet.

We tried.

I promise you, we tried. We sacrificed and cried and brought everyone together to fix it, mend it, do something. Do anything.

The wind screamed our names. Ocean and earth whispered for our blood.

If we’d been able to keep the final, the last, the crucial wanderers alive, then maybe the barriers would have held up. Maybe, if their last swarm had not died along with its queen in an expensive lab, then we would have lived.

We should have known that the warriors weren’t our prey, but our world’s attack against the ancient. Should have known that watchers weren’t a burden but our planet’s defense.

Should have known that the ignored insects, the annoying critters, and the last wanderers that we once simply called honey bees, weren’t our servants but our only survival.

So, we failed. And when the wind and its heat, the sea and its waves, and the earth and its hunger came to swallow us, we closed our eyes and heard.

“I’ve caught one,” the fisherman screams, grinning at his hook stuck in the girl’s cheek. “I caught myself a mermaid!”

Her hair is green, algae curled around it. The fisherman’s grip is greed, is lust, when he rips at it to get her closer. Her mouth glints like a pearl and oh, he could sell her after he’s – well, once he’s done with that beauty of hers. “Aren’t you a pretty one,” he licks his lips, “and all mine. I caught you, so you’re mine.”

All at once, her song ends. No sound comes out of her mouth that stays open, teeth tiny and many, sharp in the slick night. She tugs the hook out of her cheek. The fisherman watches, his heart burning from how fast it runs against his flesh, as her wound closes up and a bit of blood drips from her little mouth.

“Yours,” the mermaid says. The sea echoes her voice, an accent he can’t define, oh who cares, she’s just – just prey – and her pupils snap into slits. “Yours?”

The ocean ripples.

The waves tremble.

The wind whispers, smiles, then stills to not disturb the song that rises once more.
“No,” whisper a thousand voices, whisper a million teeth, whispers ten thousands of stares in the water. “We caught you. You are ours.”

People often misunderstand what the old saying about a cat having nine lives means. The cats prefer to keep it a secret, as most humans can’t be trusted with information so fragile and precious, but there are exceptions.

The merchant who shares his leftover fish. The young girl that hides littler after litter of newborn ones in her room until they find new homes. The old man with scars who still has enough kindness to open his shed to let them slip in from the rain. Boys, teenagers, mothers, warriors, brothers – some are trusted.

Exceptions, yes, few nowadays and rare, but honoured all the more.

So nine lives there are indeed. Each cat is born with them and no matter the time or place, they are lost easily.

This is where the story ends for most people.

But for those who are trusted, those who wake up one morning and find a weird taste in their mouth, the scent of a forest never touched by human hands in their nose, and a strange lingering touch of whiskers on their forehead – they know the truth.

Nine lives for this world, is what all our legends used to say.

You, friend of cats, know the ancient, almost forgotten sayings.

You know of cat eyes shining in the deepest night when they shouldn’t be able to. You know of cats staring past your ear, at that forbidden spot right by the frayed corner of your vision, and you fear that if you look, your cat won’t be able to stare it into submission anymore. You don’t look. The cat purrs. You’re safe.

The kittens have all their lives still. They do not look at the edgewalking beasts that whisper through their humans’ house. It will take time until they fall, hurt, learn.

The oldest cats know so much that a touch of their paw will make an entire village shudder. Their quiet voices cast spells. Let them roam. You cannot imagine the things that flee from them as they walk in silence.

Cat friend, you know it in your heart.

You know of the paths they walk that human feet can’t find.

You know of the nights they vanish and return with the scent of blood, earth and salt in their fur, and when your fingers touch their coat, a cold shiver awakes your skin.

Sometimes, they hear things. You don’t know what, but you know enough to let them sit in front of your house or room, paws tucked under, dark stare never leaving an invisible spot in the air.

And when you float between sleep and life, when you’re unlucky enough to claw at the edge of death before you’re ready to go…

Then maybe, friend of cats, you’ll feel a brush of fur along your legs. Maybe, just before you startle with awe in your heart and wake once more, the same pair of eyes that should sleep by your side winks at you from another world.