SABIS the SURVIVOR

Chapter 17: His Ancestors

Images of my wife and two daughters run through my head. Where are they now? Are they united in the afterlife or have they come back to guide me? Can they help purify me, wash away my sins, reorder and organize my life?

When I think of you, Marie, my life becomes easier, it seems. But how do I find my true path?

The images of my parents also dance in my mind─You two are the ancestors and your memories will never be dead. I live so that your memories live on and I survive so that you too can survive.

Excerpts from the personal journal of Gadi Reyes, the leader of the Survivor tribe, @2053, three years after the establishment of the Survivor tribe.

Chapter 17: His Ancestors

Sabis had decided to continue with his trek despite the dreadful climate conditions. According to his logic, Daris would have urged him to seek and fetch. So it had been with a heavy heart that Sabis continued on his quest, alone with his thoughts. Daris had perished because of him and immediately after his death, the fractured ground had swallowed his lifeless body whole, along with the tree that had crushed the breath out of him. If Sabis had not cut the cord that had tethered him to Daris, then he too would have been dragged down to a fiery demise.

He wandered aimlessly for so much time that he could only determine the elapsed time from his need to sleep.

His once mesomorph and supple frame had been reduced to a gaunt and almost brittle shell. His moss tunic hung so loosely under his beast vest that the now frigid winds found a home in the ever-growing pockets of air under his clothing that surrounded his shrinking torso and extremities.

As he marched onwards, SkyGod continued to taunt him, casting foreign shadows of himself behind and beside him.

"Is that my shadow following me? Oh Mother Earth, please restore with your glory and guide me beyond the darkness, into the place where shadows know their place. Let it be."

His feet began to rebel against his will to continue forward. Every thousand paces, Sabis noticed numbness and burning that ran across the top of both his feet. As the burning spread up to his shinbones, his hopes of ever finding a cure for his tribe reduced from a burning desire into regretful embers.

"Was this a pointless and calamitous dead-end loop filled with death and doom? Who am I to think that I can save my tribe from any force of nature that looms?"

He felt like a traveler lost in a confusing world filled with icy labyrinths, burning brimstones, and bitter pills.

With each heavy footfall, his sorrow grew roots in his consciousness.

"If I close my eyes now, then will the darkness behind my eyelids stomp out the last remnants of my hope and energy?"

Then Sabis remembered his Mother's words to him before he left his home cave.

"Sabis, my heart sings with the thought of you. I will sing for you every steam cycle that you are in SkyGod's domain. You will hear my song as you slip into sleep, as you awaken, and when you listen to your own heart. I love you and know that you possess all of the best qualities of your Father, grandparents, and ancestors."

As he opened his eyes, his quandary was solved. He had short-circuited the doubts and regrets that he had been carrying about his abilities and decisions so far on his quest.

"Who am I? I am Sabis the Survivor! That's who."

From that moment onward, no tears would flow for fallen comrades. Nor would he pause on his journey.

"When everyone listens, then that is the time that no one understands. When no one listens then it is the time that you need the most understanding." Sabis recalled these words of wisdom spoken to him by an Elder on his thirteenth ritual of fire.

Sabis rose up and realized:

"I need to listen to my own heart. Thank you Mother! I hear your song and it is alive in my heart."

The ritual of fire occurs once a year for all members of the Survivors tribe. This ritual rite marks the anniversary of each members' birth. On the first anniversary of a tribe member's birth, he is baptized into the Sea of Fertility. With every subsequent anniversary, each tribe member places or throws an empty but weighted pot into the sacred sea and reels it in by an attached rope. The more anniversaries a member celebrates, the longer that the rope extends from the pot. Since the length of rope corresponds to the arm span of each member, then with each additional anniversary, the further away from shore does a member's pot sample from the sea.

The Elders believe that the souls of the Ancients reside furthest away from the shore, in the deepest depths of the sea. Therefore, only the mightiest of tribe members can ever hope to sample from the soul of the Ancients.

Once a member reels in their pot with a sample of bone lake soup, the pot is lit on fire. When the soup is bubbling over the sides, then it is ready to be sampled. A song is then sung in honour of the ancestors as the member is about to drink:

"Can I wash away my sins, while you order and organize? I am ready to self-purify, whatever it takes to thrive. You were everything to this tribe and now you help to fulfill dreams, when I think of you, life becomes easier it seems. How do I find my path? You help wash away my crimes as I age, like a continuous stream of strength, you provide for the future. Generations to follow, forever imprinted on me; I feel loved by you as I sample your wisdom by the sea."

With this song in his head, his Mother's song in his heart, and feeling his home cave flesh in his pocket, Sabis no longer felt cut off from his tribe. But still cutting into his quest were the questions of who he had become. What sort of a tribal member was he?─A loyal one who shows honour and loyalty or a frightened recluse whose faith cannot be found? Sabis came from a world full of ritual and honour where every move and every activity involved prayer and acknowledgment of the lives of past Elders who, by their wise decisions, had kept the tribe safe and together.

The wisdom of Sabis' ancestors included spending time alone in caverns to familiarize oneself with the inherent weaknesses and strengths that arose from one's existence. But on this mission, Sabis had not given himself permission to do this soul-searching. He had been too preoccupied with surviving: The cold, changing landscapes, roving predators, SkyGod's obstacles, his own self-doubt, and more recently, Daris' death.

"Would the time ever come to release me of my tribal obligations?"

He wondered this and other thoughts about his future as he held on to his past teachings and the ancestral wisdom that gave him the strength to continue.