As I turned my head over to sleep again, I drifted towards a dream that was more memory. In a land very lush and beautiful, I was a stranger here. Their language and faces were different than mine, yet they welcomed me and my group with open arms. We chose to sit at the table of understanding and learn from one another. I learned about their ways, they learned about mine. They learned about why we travel, and I learned about their wars. Little that I knew at that time, I would learn about their wars first hand.
We spent many days in that camp. I am not sure how many for it all seems like a dream now. My wife and the rest of the group wanted to leave. I chose to stay and continue to learn. After receiving a blessing from the leader of the camp, they left and I stayed. I began to see their language. It looked Japanese, but it was different. It seemed to live in everything that they did. From the way they planted gardens, to how the soldiers trained, their language lived in all that they did. I never found the courage to ask to learn their language. I was just too mystified in seeing it live through people this way.
There was one day. I was taken to a place like a temple. It was near the walls of the city. I was shown writings once again. I cannot explain it, but their language started making sense to me. The strokes on the ancient scrolls seemed to reach out to me and I understood what it was trying to tell me. The weird part is that I could not translate it. There seemed to be no words in my tongue that matched what I saw on that scroll. My guide and some others took me to a darkened room. It looked the part of a closet. The floor of this room would open and I was led into a shelter of some kind. There was chilled food and large containers of water here. The room was unlike any that I had seen up to that point in the camp. Everything else had a sense of life about it; this room had a sense of just holding on. I remember being told that if there was an emergency, I was to go down here. I would be safe. Remembering the stories of how villages would burn down and hunt down anyone, I was not sure about this. But I gave the camp leader my word that I would go here.
The next days were like a blur as well. I trained with the armies and helped them to fortify their gates. I walked with the women and learned of their conversations and issues. For me, it had seemed like the women were in bondage. But to them, they were free, and preferred not to have the duties of the men. The children were the best as they welcomed and played with me. I grew to love this village. I began to see them as life.
My heart longed to see my love. Outside of the camp I would spend time looking towards the horizon waiting for that time she and the others would return. I do not remember any letters. I sure do not remember me writing any either. I was so involved here. It was almost like another world had taken over within me.
Rumor came to the camp that there was another village wanting to war with ours. We gathered up all the people and prepared to arm them. We were too late. The sounds in the distance of a horn and many feet meant that we had only a little time. The women and children gathered arms and went towards the back, while the trained men went towards the front. My heart raced. “Wasn’t this a dream,” I thought. I was reminded about the hidden closet and that I would need to get there. I declined. These people had taught me so much, had left so much of themselves within me, I owed them. I had to help them fight.
My guide and I ran to the front and made everyone get behind the second gate. We worked as fast as we could to close the first gates, to put all of the wooden planks in place. We worked as fast as we could. Then I heard sounds the men dying. Some blood came in between the space in the gate and my heart only raced more. We got the posts down in time for the other army to start trying to run through the gate. The sounds paralyzed me. My guide grabbed me as if to say, “Come on! We have to go now!” I followed him and heard the sounds behind me of the camp dying. All I could think of was their language. That it was dying. That their life, it was dying. I was told to go into the secret room and wait there. My guide stayed in the closet section, he wanted to protect me. I heard the sounds of many people dying that day. I went to the corner of the shelter and prayed they would not find me.
It felt like a dream; each moment passing quickly into the next with no semblance of time in between. As the sounds of war ended, I felt more scared. Was I going to be found in this place? The scroll in my hand, I do not remember how it got there. My mind thinks back to how I was pushed into this room, there was an older man. He pushed the scroll into my hands. The darkness seemed to last hours and months. There was ample food here for one person, for many people, they would die quickly. I had no strength to open the chilled container, so I slept. Breaks of day would enter into the shelter, my mind staying on life and choosing to live.
There were no sounds. No men sharing jokes. No women chatting with neighbors. The community was gone. My eyes alone were let to remember their life. I heard a clunky motor outside of the shelter. I wanted so much for it to be my love returning. But I had no clue. If I left the shelter, there could be death waiting for me. As the motor drew closer, I made the decision. I would go meet that person and share my story.
Opening the secret door to the closet, I saw my guide. He died defending me. His life for mine and I began to tear. The beauty of the land was now taken over by death. Robes and veils that draped the city in majesty looked more like the tattered rags of a wanderer. I walked through the camp and only the flowers planted made any reference to the way things were. The motor still going, I heard a voice, then many voices. The people seemed to be looking for something. As I walked slowly from the second gate, I felt a familiar embrace. My hands clutching the scroll tightly, I remembered the scent. She hand returned. But the land that I loved was no more. The camp was destroyed.
I don’t remember any more speaking there. Only that I awoke. That dream seemed too real. Every moment seemed crafted to tell me something that was to come. Yet it reminded me also of a story I had heard. Something within it all grabbed at me. The language on the scroll I can still see. Each symbol still reaches out to me. I see in my eyes the camp that lives on in me.
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