The Marian Message

When I reached the Marian Transmission Dish, it had been nearly ten Moons since I left home. The last of our tribe was left under the care of my husband, my love, Curio. The Wind was whispering to me; carrying crisp leaves across my feet to their drowning tombs in puddles. The Wind told me in a voice like that of my love, my husband, Curio, that my rage brought the blankets of clouds that stretched and flexed under a bruised sky. My husband was the son of the beautiful Owl Priestess, Aurelia, who once spoke the nocturnal language with her eyes and warned the living of their inevitable transitions into Peace or Unrest. Curio inherited his mother's spiritually sensitive intuition when her body became stiff and cold. He did not receive the weighted gift of the Sight. No, it crawled into me as I held Aurelia's last gaze. Until then, the truth of why my people turned to the night had remained unseen by me.
Two decades before my birth, when my parents were playfully courting each other during weekend climbs to the edge of the Canyonland, the elders of our tribe were holding vision-reckoning ceremonies. They stood waist deep in the river and sang for strength for their children, because a disheartening sight had visited them all. The Presortzners (soul less, lime-eyed, floating demons, who walked among the living during the day as beautiful, dark-skinned women) were making their way out of the Shallowland, where they had finished binding an entire city of souls to the dirt, and feeding on their flesh. Of course, the vision was only just a dream through out the rest of their lifetime until the seasons began to change. We eventually lost contact with Earth, Carneal, and the rest of the far off planets aligned in the Milky Way. The days shortened and our many Moons' light changed color. Only the light of the Moons would reveal Presortzners to the women of our tribe who had the Nocturnve (night-sight). Our tribe began hunting only in the evenings when the Presortzners would be revealed to the women who had the Nocturnve. It became too difficult to determine the difference between beautiful foreign women and Presortzners during the day so many of our tribe had fallen victim to the demons. The only protection we had from these soul-sucking, flesh-eating demons was to avoid their gaze and path by climbing to the tree tops or scaling the canyon walls. Our tribe could only guess at how long the danger had surrounded our unseeing eyes.
The Nocturnve is something I now carry as a burden in my heart. As I said earlier, it crawled into me as I held Aurelia's last gaze. I can see the Unrested as well as the Presortzners. Now, that I remember the Unrested, my thoughts have become quick and clumsy. They (the Unrested) float, fettered by an unseen force, just above our rooftops in the fog that has fallen on our Canyonland. The fog fell five years ago, just before Aurelia's death, after Interplanetary Intelligence sent up another satellite to transmit signals for help to Earth. Those who had listened to Aurelia's warnings, during our nightly hunts, or read the scriptures left behind by our families, knew it was coming. I remember . . . Curio would stand waiting on our balcony, where his father used to stand, anxious to hear about what she had to tell me; other husbands busied themselves teaching, building fires or preparing the eating quarters for our arrival. I miss the warmth that his eyes and arms brought me when recounting Aurelia's visions had chilled my chest. Interplanetary Intelligence had their own theory as to what had been happening with our drastic change in seasons. They sent us news of a gradual shift in the orbital path of our little planet, Marian. The Scientists and Astronomers estimated that the shift began almost a century ago, but they never reported anything about the arrival of the Presortzners.
Five nights ago I finished my ascent away from home and looked down to see only darkness wrapped in a silver blanket of fog. I waited until the beginning of the Sunrise to sleep, but the heavens spit out a mood of intolerance, so I decided to continue (as I never have before) in a terrain lit by the Sun. Without the walls and the trees I had to hope that I could find a new means of protection from the Presortzners should I encounter them. The following days were cold and lonesome. I hunted snakes and drank cactus water the way I had been told to by Aurelia, before she passed on to the land of the Rested. The elders of my tribe all believed that their visions of the Presortzners fearsome reign over our land would be ended by the brave journey of a chosen woman. Aurelia and my parents all believed that I was chosen by the spirits of the Rested to make the journey. Why? Well, it never really made much sense to me, but they said I was born with an awareness unlike any other child in the tribe, and also a star shaped birthmark on my left arm. From the age of three and onward, I was trained to hunt, survive, and fight. I was also made to study several maps of our Canyonland and the path to the Shallowland. The Shallowland was where the elders and ancestors believed that evil originated and would eventually be obliterated. Aurelia reminded me every evening, during our hunts, that the journey that I would eventually take would be fueled by misfortune and filled with strife. What she didn't tell me was that my heart would be filled with revenge. I'm sorry, I'm crying now, and I promised myself that when I began to tell this part of my story that I wouldn't cry . . . it's just to much for a mother to bear.
The evening before I decided to begin my journey was a horrific one. I had returned from an evening hunt to find Curio was not waiting on the balcony as he always had. It had been nearly three months since his mother had passed on, and he had carried on the tradition of waiting for me on the balcony. Instantly, I felt my heart ache as if something terrible had happened. My first thought was of my son, Isaac. I had always warned him to never play outside of the courtyard unattended by a woman with the Nocturnve. My heart pounded in my head as I ran through the village and out to the courtyard. There I found Curio kneeling with the other husbands of the tribe. I pushed through them and beat my aching chest in anger. Isaac's little hand was lying at Curio's feet, still clutching his Moon necklace, and his arm was three yards from his hand. The rest of my son's mangled body was about six yards from his arm. Curio cried and cried. I went to my sleeping quarters and readied my self for the journey, having not cried a single tear. My heart froze that evening and I am just now feeling the warmth again so forgive me for my tears.
After four days of walking through the desert, the rain stopped, and I finally decided to lay myself down to rest in what must have been the only patch of grass I had seen in days. I had not encountered a Presortzner and was sure that I would not. I don't know exactly how long I slept but I remember my dream. I was standing in a field watching the Sun set and I saw a plane approaching me from the direction of the horizon. Suddenly, from what seemed like no where, a blue man appeared. He was wearing a maroon colored suit and had a star shaped pendant on the left part of his chest. He had a calm expression on his face but urgency in his voice. He said "Hurry to the Shallowland, my child! Look for Interplanetary Intelligence Head Quarters. The satellite must transmit the Marian message to all." I tried to ask him what he meant but as quickly as he appeared, he disappeared. When I opened my eyes the Moon was directly above me. I rolled over, stretched, and lifted my tired body from the ground. I realized then, that I was at the edge of the desert and overlooking the glittering lights from the city of the Shallowland.
As I said at the beginning of my story, ten Moons had passed by the time I reached the Marian Transmission Dish. I was tired, confused, and nauseated. I had spent two days wandering through the Shallowland, exploring a dead city. I expected to see the souls of the Unrested or the glowing eyes of the Presortzners. The silence that I found here was often interrupted by the loud smell of rotten meat, human decay and spoiled fruit. The only movement I found was the forced flight of leaves and newspapers by the Wind. Dead people and animals lay haphazardly; some flattened in the street by cars, a woman in a phone booth with a bullet through her temple, and children at the bottom of the steps of a school. Not as many as the stench had indicated, but I was trying not to look, not to see the butchery. You see, I began asking myself an important question since my arrival at the center of the city of the Shallowland . . . Is anything as it seems? And if nothing is as it seems is anything as it should be? I became so overwhelmed by the stench and sight of these people that I must have fainted, because the next thing I remember is waking up. Something cold, light, and rough smacked me in the face and I sat upright, grasping at it and screaming. I had fainted in the path of the flying front page of a newspaper. Frustration flared up in my heart and all my hands could do was crumple up the paper, but as I was doing this, a bold, black print caught my eye. I unfolded the newspaper to read the headlines: Transorbital Madness Overflows Wards and Prisons. I opened up the paper to read more: Interplanetary Intelligence Miscalculates and Another Satellite Lost. Nothing really made sense to me. I looked at the date on the newspaper to find it was nearly a week old. I remembered the dream I had about the blue man with the star pendant and decided to look for the Interplanetary Intelligence Head Quarters. I pulled the dead woman from the phone booth so that I could look up the address on a phone book. Her stench made me vomit violently. After about three minutes of losing everything in my stomach I managed to find the address of I. I. and a map that would help me get there. I couldn't stop thinking about the headlines in the newspaper. Transorbital Madness? That was what the paper had said wasn't it? A new Moon cycle began and a new urgency fueled me. I can't remember very much about that night except that I was drawn to a green glowing light. Sometimes I stumbled over a body or tripped off of a curb. I followed the green light until the Sun rose and slowly bleached the green in to white. Having not slept much, I felt intoxicated. My vision blurred, but I could almost swear that the lights in homes and buildings were still on and flickering. The sidewalk was hard against my cloth shoes. My legs moistened as my skin released the toxins of a journey filled with horrifying smells, terrible sights, memories, and loneliness. I walked in the same direction of the glowing light until I reached the edge of the entrance of I.I. Headquarters. It was a grey building with a giant dish on the top and beautiful round, glass windows. The glowing light that I had followed was coming from a giant sphere that hung over the sliding glass doors of the entrance. I entered this massive building and was overtaken by the technology I encountered there. I had been raised in a village where life was kept simple and unburdened by such technology. However, I had studied about the many different kinds of computers and transmitters that were in the Shallowland for my journey. A holographic representation of the Milky Way hung above my head, in the center of I.I. Head Quarters. I marveled at the largeness of our Galaxy and forgot the pain in my heart and feet. I almost forgot why I was here until a gurgle and then a choking sound startled me. I lowered my chin and looked down at my feet. A blue man who was dressed exactly like the one from my dream was laying there. He had something protruding from his stomach and blood flowing from his mouth. I kneeled; I realized he was holding a knife in his belly. I did my best to comfort him as he died and to also understand the answers he coughed up, which were mixed in blood and bile. His odor gagged me, but his conditioned softened and warmed my heart. Goleta was his name, and it was printed in green letters over his star pendant. He told me that he had spent over a month of his life as an Astronomer trying to transmit a signal to any planet that would receive it . . . and had failed. A drastic shift in our planet's orbital path had thrown all of our satellites off course. Interplanetary Intelligence had fouled up their calculations for our change in orbit because they used theories and variables that remained constant. The only thing that had remained constant was our Moons' orbits around us. He said something strange and seemingly unrelated started to happen over the years; the numbers of people admitted to Psych Wards and Prisons for extreme hallucinations and eventually violent crimes were increasing rapidly. Doctors joked that it was due to the change in seasons . . . that lunatics were controlled by the pull of the Moons. By the time that our evenings had become significantly longer than our days, perfectly peaceful people were committing brutal acts against family, friends, and fellow townsmen. On a planet where we had proudly proclaimed to planets like Earth that we were peaceful and without war, it was inconceivable. I.I. kept the new calculations and old miscalculations quiet. They made sure that the numbers of people committing violent crimes never made it to the media. They also told Goleta to keep quiet about his theory. Goleta believed that our Galaxy was slowly being stretched and then ripped apart by a super-charged black hole. All was kept undercover until a doctor in a Psych Ward got fed up with the new, evil practices of the government, and ran screaming and crying to the local papers. He told them that I.I. was experimenting with new drugs on these "lunatics" and eventually disposing of them. Investigations later showed that there was indeed a sudden decrease in numbers of patients in these facilities because the people all together disappeared. They didn't disappear, they were disposed of. The public started calling the illness: Transorbital Madness. I.I. continued to try and send up more satellites and Goleta kept up a secret correspondence with a man at a place on Earth called: NASA. He had started the correspondence because he feared that the black hole was closer than I.I. Scientists eventually admitted, and even Earth's own orbit had become affected. Goleta told me that the black hole had torn a hole in the Space-Time continuum. Mass hysteria and hallucinations were plaguing the planet. Finally, all correspondence was lost between Goleta and NASA, as well as with I.I. and the rest of the planets in our Galaxy. Five years ago, I.I. panicked and sent up their last satellite, but was unsure if it would stay in orbit around Marian.
After an hour of listening to Goleta choke and gurgle this story to me, his eyes filled with tears. He told me that he saved himself with the knife after seeing the glowing eyes of a creature. A Demon was hovering above him last night. Goleta told me that Transorbital Madness must have finally gotten a hold of his mind and that I must carry on the burden of transmitting a signal to any planet that would receive it. He told me what buttons to push to record this message that I am attempting to send now. Thank you for hearing me if you have received this message from our planet of Marian. I now will continue my journey by returning to my homeland. I have removed Goleta's sharp salvation from his belly, and now I am going to save my people. Someone in my tribe must pay for what happened to my son Isaac, because now I know that the Presortzners were merely our own hallucinations. I will free all of their souls from their flesh and avenge the death of my son!
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Interplanetary Transmission received by N.A.S.A. at 10p.m. Central-Standard time on January 6th 3005, twenty years after the planet Marian, vanished from the Milky Way. Earth-Marian relations were established in 2065, two years after Russian discovery of the planet that "existed at the edge of the Galaxy."