She Said

Part One

I visited her again. The old woman who seems to be always ill. She told me it was because of the ever present darkness and the dust which thickly fill the air. She told me her name once, which confused me, because no one had names in the mine. Not the minors or the whip-holding overseers. The only thing that had names down here were the jewels that the overseer steamed interested in.
She told me her name once, and just that once, and made me swear never to repeat it or tell it to anyone. Her name was the first secret I ever had. I liked the old woman, she was different than the others. She had been born in the world outside of the mine. She told me stories of when she was my age. They were strange tales that seem too fantastic to be true.
She first told me about what was called sky. She said that it was far above the heads of the people in her native land. She said that it was blue, like the Sapphire that I had once found when I was small. She said that in the sky there were creatures called clouds. They flew lazily about like bats. She said that they were white, like the color of a fresh bandage cloth; and were just as soft. She told me that there were phases of the sky, like a work shift in the mine.
When the sky was awake, it has something called a Sun in it. She told me that the Sun was like the torches that the overseers carried. It was so bright that it illuminated everything, showing the people the world around them. I wanted to feel the warmth of the Sun, I wanted to see the sky.
She told me about what happened when the Sun was away, and the sky was asleep. She told me about the moon, a being that glowed with soft, pure, white light. She said that when the sky was dark it was filled with Stars. I remember how confused I was at that, and how sad she was about being away from the stars. She had trouble finding the words to describe them. But eventually, she told me that when the stars were in the sky, it looked like a hundred pieces of shattered diamond scattered across the floor. I had gasped at the thought, I knew that diamonds were the most valuable jewel the overseers were looking for. If diamonds were that important, then how much more valuable where these stars that she spoke up? I could hardly imagine.
She said that the rivers in the land where she came from, were clear and sparkling blue. Far more important and beautiful than any jewel that any of the miners could produce. I could not believe her, for the only river that was here was black with mud and waste.
She said that there were forests all over the place in the land above. I did not know what forests were. She said that they were made up of trees, and trees were made up of wood. Like the wood we used to keep the furnaces going. She said that trees were thick, strong wood things that reached for the sky; using their long, brown trunks as support beams, straight and tall. She said that the land was green with plants. I had never seen a plant before, and she was hard pressed trying to explain it to me.
One day, she came across what she called moss, and she showed it to me out of excitement. She told me that this was a plant, and that the world above was full of green, soft things like the moss. I tried to picture what it would be like to live in the world covered in this screen. I remembered asking her how moss could cover the whole world, and she shook her head slightly.
She said that in actuality, the world was covered mostly by oceans and seas. I didn't know what she meant by those words. They sounded dangerous to me. She said that seas were like large rivers, where you couldn't see the other bank. She said that oceans were even bigger than seas, and I shudder at the thought. How could anyone live in the world above, if things like those existed?
I knew that when the rains come, many miners were drowned and the mine flooded and the furnace fires were put out. Those floods were the largest amount of water I had ever seen, and when they came, the overseers made everyone work twice as hard to make up for the damages. So if the oceans and seas were even bigger than those floods, then I was frightened to think of their size.
As I grew out of my youth, she told me many things about the world above. She told me stories about animals and farm, castles and kings, everyday people, and about families. The last part puzzled me for many years, even though she told me about them often. What was a mother? What was a father? Sister? Brother? Cousin? Aunt? Or uncle? These terms were foreign to me. No one in the mine has connections with anyone else. No one in the mine knew who their mother or father was. For all I knew, my parents could be dead.
She told me about everything she knew about the world above. But as she got older and sicker, she told me less stories. Everyday I have expected to see her corpse, for death was close to claim her as his own . During the last night of her life in the mine, she told me the best story of all.
She told me about her new home and the field that surrounded it. She told me about the deer in that field, and how the tall grass danced in the wind. She said that the clouds there were always soft and pure white, and flew lazily overhead. She said that there were beautiful wild flowers in that field, how they were pleasant to smell and bursting with vibrant color. She said that across the field and over the hills beyond, were small wooden homes lined up in a straight line. She told me about those homes, old and small, yet full of life and laughter.
When I asked her what laughter was, she said it was the sound the heart made when it was happy. I did not know what happiness was, so I asked her what it meant. She said that happiness was what I made her feel when I came to see her, and ask her questions. She could see that I still do not understand, so she promised to take me there; to the houses lined up in a straight line. Only then what I know what happiness was.
I told her that that was impossible. I said that we would both die in the mind like everyone did. She shook her head and brought my ear close to her lips. She whispered to me her plan on escaping this dark place. She said that many miners died from the annual sickness that plagues the mine. Many believe that it's because of the water that are brought down from the top of the mine, but no one knew for sure. She told me that we would pretend to be dead with the plague.
I told her that they burned the bodies in the middle of the mine to give the other workers light. The overseers burn the corpses next to the murky river that we draw our water from. Then the corpses' ashes were dumped downstream, and taken into the unseen land beyond. The woman's plan was to escape in the river, and from there she would take me to her homeland of flowers and a little, old wooden houses lined up in a straight line.
For the first time in my life I burned with desire. I wanted to see that field with tall grass, the bellowing white clouds and the deer. So that night, we prepared ourselves for our escape. She told me that her land was far to the east, and she gave me a small, metallic gift. She called it a compass and taught me how it worked. I instantly love this 'compass' thing. It was the most beautiful object that I had ever seen, because it was a sign of freedom. With this compass, the outside world seemed closer than ever. My blood began to hum in a way that it had never done before. Something inside me was stirring, yet I couldn't find the words to define it.
When the woman saw my face, she gave me a huge smile. She said that I was excited, and that she was glad that I was starting to live for the first time in my entire life. I gasped. If this is what it felt like to live, then I finally understood why she wanted to be free so badly. Now I knew why she was willing to risk everything to leave this place.
That night we slept lightly, excitement coursing through our bodies like fire. When our next shift came, we remained perfectly still. An overseer came up to the woman and struck her with his whip. Anger burned inside me like hot at the base of a flame. It took every ounce of will to remain still. The overseer struck her two more times, and I feared that she would cry out from the pain and give us away.
But she remained silent like the dead, and the overseer walked over to me. I clench my teeth shut, and suppressed my groans of agony as the overseer whipped me too. Eventually, he decided we were truly dead and dragged us to the giant fire that burned in the middle of the mine. The woman and I were stacked in with the other corpses, and the smell of the dead was sickening. The overseers were everywhere, bringing more corpses to lay on top of us; or burning others so the pile wouldn't get too high.
My back was to the slow moving river, our salvation. We were still very far from it, and any attempt to fall into the river would mean our doom. The woman slowly reached out and clasped my hand. She nodded to me and I shook with fear. I shook my head in protest, wanting to explain to her that we will never make it. We would get caught and the overseers will surely kill us. But she had a light in her eyes and a determination on her face that I had never seen before. Without warning she pushed me and I went tumbling. The bodies that had been stacked on top of us were scattered, adding to the chaos.
I was frozen with fear at the edge of the river, watching I'm moving as the overseers race towards us. Woman bent down and push me again into the water. I knew very little on how to swim, but enough so that I didn't drown. With a gasp of relief, I broke the surface of the water just in time to see an overseer draw out his sword. The woman was being held by another overseer, unable to flee. Just as the man's sword came down in a fatal blow, I gave a scream of fear. My cry distracted the man long enough for the woman to sharply turn away from him. The sword cut deeply into her arm, but her sudden shift of weight caused her to fall out of her enemies' grasp. She fell into the river.
I swam up to her, as many overseers jumped into the river in chaos after us. Catching hold of the woman, I grasped the sword that was still in her arm and pulled it out. I had no practice controlling such a device, but I didn't need to, since the overseers were weighed down by their armor. We were quickly carried away by the current.
As I struggle to keep her and myself above water, I ordered her to speak to me. The woman was very pale, and her breathing was laborious. But then I realized that the sound I was hearing was not all coming from her. There current was sweeping us along at a swift speed. I could not fight against it. I wrapped my arms around her as crashed into a rocky wall and then into another. The sound that I had heard before was deafening now. I chanced to glimpse what was ahead and despaired. She had told me a lot water falls, but I didn't know how to picture it until we fell off one.