Jonestown is a place that existed between the city of Helena and the gold mine. I’ve worked at the mine for several years, and sometimes, when I feel I need to clear my head, or think about the things that happen in my life, I walk.
It’s a good walk, a good distance from my home in the outskirts of the city. It takes me a good four hours. The path takes me through Jonestown, I know it well by now. I don’t worry much of vagrants or robbers or drug addicts, the ghosts keep them away.
At the top of one of the several hundred blue mountains that rose from the ground in that distant planet, under a night of stars and dreams, above a sleeping city, a conversation began to take place.
“Do you know what day it is?” A man of silver skin and shining eyes asked without turning.
“No…” A young mind answered, one which had been born into an eternal body, ignorant of the millennia that preceded him, without thinking much on the questions he was hearing.
“Today is the day we remember the dead.” The voice of the prehistoric man explained, his voice resonating in the valleys between the mountains.
We sailed away many days ago. It’s strange because sometimes I forget what I did the day before, or sometimes I forget why I walked into a room. The everyday memories of our travels are fleeting. Our actions routinary, but I will never forget the day we left, no matter how far away that day is from my present.
I remember walking to our vessel. Thousands upon thousands of people watched us from afar, from a safe distance. It looked like a sea, and they roared like one too. The many voices of the people I belong to echoed through the valley as one, like the waves of an ocean hitting the shore at dawn. *It was dawn*. The dawn of a new era, and there we walked up to the shore, ready to venture out into the open black sea of space.
Do you see our white skin? It’s not the color we are born with. It’s a color that’s given to us. Once the young ones shed their birth color, they are ready for the hunt.
So you want to hear the tale? Is this why you’re here? They tell me you came from the sky, but I don’t believe them. That’s okay. They are young still. Gullible. There’s plenty explanations for that. Maybe you were raised inside a cave, maybe you’re afraid to be outside, it doesn’t matter. You’re not my enemy, so I am not your enemy. I will tell you the tale, but you will do something for me. It’s just a small thing, it’s nothing you can’t do. Once I’m done I will tell you what it is, and you will do it. The guards will not let you leave if you don’t, so I ask… Do you want to hear the tale?
Good.
Somewhere inside the large desert that was Earth, under a full moon and a clear sky, the last man watched the stars from inside his small home through a broken window. Sometimes he would count them, sometimes he would stare at a specific few and follow them across the darkness until he fell asleep; And as he did he would listen to the whistling of the wind as it passed through the cracks and the cavities of the mountain behind the house that he had built.
Some nights it was quieter than others, but it was always there. And on occasions, when the wind was strong, it almost seemed to speak, yelling out long drawn out words that he would try to understand. Perhaps it was the world telling whoever would listen its secrets. Perhaps it was just the mountain, saying ‘good night’ to the sole remaining climber to climb its walls.
