Pale Fragments

why

"How high do the trees go?" Nobi asked one day.

His mother, Clabi, sighed this time as all other members in their raking group worked faster, inching away. One sniffed dramatically.

"Nobi, that's an inappropriate question."

"Why?"

"Because it's distracting to us, we who are working very hard."

"But I'm working, and talking."

"That's not the point."

"Why not?"

"Because the point is that...shush," and they did.

They had lost much of their vocabulary and language over the years; it had decayed and frayed and melded together as ash ere the wind comes. Nobi was attempting, ignorantly, to throw gentle kindling onto a rogue spark.

"Okay, but why are we working?" he said a minute later, voice quivering and unable to hold itself back. He knew it was a terrible question, so was surprised and then even angrier when all the faces round about turned to look at him, some slow, some full of rage, others staring blankly, and still others laughed (a rare sound on the Grove); he was angry because they only gave attention when it was a question with a clear answer.

"Nobi," Clabi said. "We are working so you can eat and not...get lost in leaves."

"If we stop, the leaves will eat us..." Nobi said, eyes down and in his mind, not arguing any point at all. This is not how his mother took it; she and everyone else felt disproprtionately attacked and abused by his questions and attitudes; this was eventually accepted as a given, for doing so was easier than stopping to analyze his mind and intent.

"That is not appropriate," she said. They raked in silence until just before the sunset when they all walked to their beds, leaving Nobi with his fruit alone atop the Tall One's then-ancient ship, alone with me and all the universe. The hurt his family caused him didn't bother him much; the wretched pain burrowed deep inside his heart, and never would it ever see the light of his awareness.