Kristine Muslim - Age of Blight - Stories

Think about the ones who cannot be saved. Think about the ones who cannot adjust to being different. Think about all our stories and those of the ones before us. This terrible unfolding does not always see a blunt object gain shape. Sometimes, it distorts the object and the landscape that conspires to retain its shape.

Outside, something darted across my line of vision. It looked like a bird, a real one. Flightless birds were the only real birds. I would find it soon. I would find it and then I would kill it. And you could say that this urgency was attributed to the unexcised portion of my tentacle. You could believe whatever sounded convenient, because that’s what drives people to stay sane. Father put me inside the room where there are no windows, the room with just this one door that locks from the outside. I hear them talking outside the room. They are scared. They are panicking. I sense their restlessness. My mother, the first-rate Loyal, I’ll gnaw her throat first when I get out of here, slurp whatever comes out of all her ragged holes.

This happened long before the initial signs of sickness from the outsiders rippled across my village. You should understand by now how my people were easy prey because most of us were trusting, greedy for finery, and readily distracted by new things or any semblance of finesse.

Being the only one in my village who could converse in the language of the Builders, I helped catalyze what the learned ones called modernity . I met the Builders at the gates that day. Oblivious to the sweltering heat, one of the Builders took pictures of the towering natural rock formation we used as landmark and general lookout post. There was nothing significant about the typical karst formation, except that according to one of the Builders, it indicated how the area used to be an ocean floor.

That’s fascinating , I said. And I meant it. I found it remarkable how one could deduce that from a rock formation.

Their leader introduced himself by first giving his title. Doctor , he said, but of a different kind, not the doctor who heals . He had a white and unnaturally even set of teeth. He appeared sincere when he smiled. He also offered his hand to me, a gesture I found unnerving. His hands were clean, the nails neatly trimmed, while I had not washed my hands and there was encrusted dirt under my fingernails. He did not flinch when I clasped his proffered hand. Or he may have willed himself not to cringe.

I showed the Builders around the village. They oohed at the fossilized tree trunks near the lake. They aahed at the marvelously pronounced stratified layers of rock and earth exposed by years of weathering. It is obvious to me and to the elders, however, that the Builders seemed unexpectedly at ease, as if they already knew their way around the village. For example, they weren’t surprised, or even pretended to act surprised, when I led them to the Pit of Hell — a natural hole in the rocky ground where fire had been burning for hundreds of years. It was as if they expected that I would flaunt my village’s access to the underworld.

That’s natural gas , the doctor who claimed to be the type who could not heal, said with no hint of emotion. In the face of such fiery display and overpowering smell of rot, he explained stolidly, It must have ignited at some point. And since the area is incredibly rich in natural gas, the fires never died out. That foul odor you’re smelling — that’s sulfur .

Devonian shale over here , a middle-aged man wearing eyeglasses exclaimed. I did not understand until much later the significance of his discovery. You won’t believe what I found in the gates alone , another whispered. He was close, so I heard him perfectly. Dickinsonia costata, intact and perfectly preserved. They must have thought to shelter it from the elements because they believe the markings have either divine or magical origins. To prevent damage, I think we should superglue it in situ and foam-wrap the rest .

Another Builder conferred with his companion, What do you think of this, Greg? Does it look like a fossilized fern of some sort?

I don’t think so. It looks like good old dendrite to me. See those fissures across the rock? But take some samples just to be sure .

All the while, I marveled at their clean-looking clothes, their neatly trimmed nails, their short hair. Like many people in my village, I was used to being disheveled, with no care to whether I wore ill-fitting clothes or hadn’t combed my hair. I looked at the woman carrying electronic gear, and I felt shame. I felt ugly.

Looking back to that fateful day, I could vouch with my life how they came in peace, with their proper manners, their familiarity of our ways. They must have studied us without us knowing. They knew not to look us directly in the eye because that would be misconstrued as a sign of aggression. They did not walk ahead of us because we would have interpreted it as a form of belittling. And the fact that they were studying the surroundings with a clinical eye while deciding where to begin their construction told me that although they definitely wanted something from us, we could also get something from them in return — an understanding of our natural world through their educated eyes, perhaps. I thought that would benefit my people. That was why I convinced everyone that they should be allowed to stay. They should be allowed to stay even if I smelled the sickness coming off their perspiration. Oh, it was unmistakable — the stench of sickness from outsiders.

They brought out their odd-looking tripods, informed me it was for surveying the landscape. They also brandished whirring metal detectors. Two of them began the process of positioning on the ground what I recognized as the titanium struts of portable tents.

They then explained what they could do for the village.

We will build a hospital and a school , the Doctor said. And highways so you can reach civilization. You could build a tourism base, too. You could sell things to tourists, perform magic shows for them, whatever you want. We would build factories, so you could make more things faster. Then pumps to siphon underground water, so you need not rely on unsafe and exposed well water. Then plumbing systems. Then dams. We could also have a chemical plant somewhere in the plain east of the canyons. The chemical plant will front the fields of lavender. We’ll have our well-trained plant operators manning that part of the project .

The doctor, the one who does not purport to heal, went on and on. I was swayed.

I looked out to the fields and the valley we tilled for crops, imagining how they would teem in the hands of the Builders. The rough beasts of summer languished among the trees, their horns silvery in the dwindling afternoon sunlight. From afar, the forest loomed. All these would soon change , I thought. In my mind, I saw rain against macadam. I saw the feet of my people no longer barefoot and filthy against the ground. Soon, there would be no such thing as out there.

That night, I explained to the village elders that once we let the Builders touch us, the dissolution of everything we believed in, everything we were, would begin. I gave them the consequences in black and white. I knew they understood without me having to lay it out for them. They smelled the lingering sickness of the outsiders, too, caught a whiff of the outsider’s breath, caught a glimpse of their shapely hands — the type of hands that could destroy as well as create.