A Matter of Life and Death
By: EstayaPosted on: August 23, 2010
Journal, I must tell you about my recent trip to Minia. I am badly shaken and recording the events that transpired will hopefully help me to sort out my thoughts. I had heard much about Minia as a haven for young adventurers such as myself and, itching to explore, I soon found my way there. As I wandered down a well-traveled path, I couldn't have been more pleased. It was a beautiful, warm day and butterflies drifted through the air around me. After the bustle of the cities and the confusion of the open roads, it was comforting to find myself in this calm, charming place. I could relax, observe, and let my guard down - it was the perfect place for a young one like me to gently become acquainted with the world.
As I rounded a bend, I had the disconcerting feeling of having suddenly expanded to several times my size. I was approaching a tiny village with inhabitants about a third of my height - pixies, I realized, as I watched them hum about their daily tasks, gauzy wings holding them inches above the ground. Though a few smiled at me in greeting, most seemed to unaware of my presence. I gingerly sat on a tiny stone bench in their cozy main square by an equally small fountain. Though I could see no reason for it, there were guards stationed around the square. Though they held small, sharp knives, they seemed otherwise very comical, bearing what were obviously attempts at serious expressions that in fact made them look more like children playing at soldiers. After several minutes of gazing happily about, the bubbling of water, the warm sun, and the smell of flowers which overflowed from window boxes sunk through my skin, pulling me into a doze. I awoke to a high-pitched, unintelligible chatter followed by a piercing shriek and laugh - pixie children were zipping around, and one had just thrown a companion in the fountain.
Until this point, I had not encountered another traveler in Minia and had temporarily forgotten that I was not the only non-pixie in the world. A clomping of boots from around the corner alerted me to the arrival of forced company. He was shorter than I was and heavyset but still appeared tall amongst the pixies. He nodded his head in greeting to me as several pixies grinned at him in welcome. I smiled and was about to exchange pleasantries when, with apparent calm and carelessness, he grabbed a pixie guard about the neck and seemed to concentrate. As I began to stand, confused, the pixie guard's skin began to boil, as if his blood was being heated from inside. Though the guard couldn't make any noise for the hand around his throat, he had raised his knife and was frantically stabbing and scratching his attacker. The heavyset man grunted as his wounds began to drip blood, but he did not seem particularly injured. The hand encircling the guard's neck gripped harder, and the guard's eyes rolled back into his head as he shuddered into death. The newcomer casually threw the body in his pack and looked around at the pixies still present who were now staring at him.
"What are you -" I began, but before I could finish he had grabbed a shrieking child - a child - and killed it as quickly as he had the guard. Still, the rest of the pixies stood transfixed. Unable to watch more, I fled the square. I am still ashamed I did not try to stop him. Around the corner, I saw a pixie woman calmly weeding her garden and approached her, breathless, spewing warnings and gesticulating madly. She look at me skeptically.
"You are new here, yes?" she inquired in a tinkling voice. I nodded. "This is the way of things." she shrugged.
"You mean travelers come here all the time and kill you? And you let it happen?" I was outraged.
"We all die," she said. "If you haven't died yet, I'm sure you will soon. And when we do, our souls will fly to Maya, the great mother, and she will judge us. If our time here is not yet complete, she will grant us more life. If, on the other hand, we have woven our tapestry and our spool is of thread is empty, then we will pass on to be one with The Mother. There is no need to fear death." She smiled at me.
"But..." I shook my head. "So you just give yourselves up? Let whoever comes along kill you?"
"No no," she said seriously. "We fight. Life is worth nothing if you give it up so easily."
"What about the children?" I asked, but before she could answer the traveler strode around the corner. The woman gave me a meaningful glance, then turned to face the man. Ignoring me, he grabbed the woman around the throat. I watched her hands beat at his chest and arms, her nails scratching gouges into his skin, but she boiled like the rest had and died with a gasp. As he tossed her body into the pack, I imagined her soul rushing past me on its way to Maya. The traveler gave me a cursory glance and moved on, his pack bulging with bodies. I slowly walked back to the now empty square and sat on the bench in a daze. It was still sunny, the flowers still waving lazily in the breeze, the fountain still gurgling cheerfully, and yet the village was different. Filled with the memory of death. Uninhabited, it seemed to wait, and without knowing what else to do, I waited with it. I must have sat there for hours, the heaviness of death burning off like a fog in the sun. Towards late afternoon, I heard a light hum and turned away from my thoughts. A pixie woman was moving along the edge of the square, wings humming as she drifted past the colorful houses. She looked at me and smiled in greeting, and though I stared at her until she drifted around the corner I couldn't be sure. All pixies look the same to me.