LIT 11. The Festival

Lost in Translation Chapter 11

Previously: Marie went with Ghara and her family to the nearby town. There she met an alien named Bahr, who looked nearly human. Bahr took her to the town library to try and find out where she was from. They did not find Earth, but they did find another human - laid to rest on the outskirts of town below an engraved headstone.

Bahr said something I didn't understand. I thought it might have been a question, and if it was he received no answer. I sat in front of the stone for what felt like few minutes, and then he helped me to my feet.

For a fleeting moment I wanted to put my mouth on that stone, not to kiss it but to bite it. It didn’t seem real enough. None of this seemed real enough. Maybe if I broke a tooth on it, it would become so.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Thank you. But... I did not know this person."

"Were they ---- Earth?"

"Yes. I know these words." I reached down and ran a finger along the inscription. Portuguese, if I wasn't mistaken. All I knew for sure is that they were the alphabet I recognized, and only a human would be buried under them.

"Are you okay?" I nodded, still staring down at the letters. "Come with me. ---- may help with ---- ----. There's a ----." I followed him out of the cemetery. He'd been helpful so far, as helpful as he could have been, and I had nothing better to do.

We went to see Ghara first. Bahr explained something to her, too quickly for me to follow. She seemed sad as he explained, I assumed, our trip to the cemetery. Then she perked up as he finished speaking. "Go ----. Arie, ---- ----." I nodded along to a command I couldn't understand and let Bahr lead me to the other side of the town.

I heard our destination before I saw it. There were a dozen or so small drums being played by hand. Next I heard their companions, soft bells and flutes. We rounded the corner into a clearing dressed in banners and colored chalks. A festival. The crowd was almost entirely made up of people who looked like Bahr, large tusk like teeth and black eyes on otherwise human looking faces.

We sat down on a log on the outside of the clearing, with dozens of others, and watched those in the center. There were a few couples there, jumping to the music over a large rope being swung by a particularly tall pair of individuals. For a moment I was back in elementary school, on the playground with a jump rope. Bahr said something I didn't understand, and I smiled and nodded at him. This was hardly an answer to my problems, but it was a welcome distraction from them.

A few minutes later Bahr was pulled away from me by what I assumed were his friends. The scene was quite familiar even though I understood none of it - the joking around, the enthusiasm. At one point one of them said something that made the rest of the group pretend to be terribly offended, all but smacking the grinning offender.

The scene almost made me sadder than the cemetery had. When Bahr glanced back at me, I avoided eye contact. Whatever this was, it was a joyous occasion. I could keep my melancholy to myself — I owed Bahr that much at least, for his kindness.

The couples switched off at seemingly random intervals, perhaps when they got tired, only to be replaced by another pair. Bahr made his way back to me, and I tried to think of the words to tell him he didn't have to keep me company if he had plans with friends.

"Arie ---- ----?" The question was accompanied by a hand gesture I didn't recognize. Then he held his hand out like he was waiting for a handshake. I took it.

He just stood there for a moment, blinking at me. One of the drummers shouted something I didn't understand. Bahr glanced at him, smiled at me, still looking a bit bewildered, then led me toward the clearing. Don't trip, I told myself as we went over the rope. Don't trip.

I didn't trip. My days on the school playground had trained me well.

I noticed, once I had gotten into the rhythm of jump rope, that he kept glancing around at the crowd while we jumped together. "Are you okay?" I whispered, not sure how else to ask it.

"Yes," he replied, then paused and let out what sounded like a small laugh. It sounded almost like a human laugh, but not quite, and I suddenly became very worried. He looked so much like a human that I kept forgetting that he wasn’t, a fact I needed to remember but had no incentive to believe.

The music ended not long after Bahr and I had left the clearing. An older person of Bahr's species came over to us, said something loudly that I didn't understand, and took out a wooden ring. It was painted yellow, was about ten inches across, and had a few yellow feathers hanging from it. He passed it to Bahr, who then held it over my head.

I stared Bahr in the eyes, trying to ask a question non verbally. If the question was received, he didn't show it. He lowered the ring onto my head like a crown. "Arie! ----! ----!"

Long live the Queen, I thought to myself.

When Ghara saw us return, she all but freaked out, and started rambling to Bahr. Taru started chanting something. None of this helped me understand what had happened. Bahr seemed embarrassed by all the attention. I turned to Taru for help after his enthusiasm had died down a bit.

"What does this mean?"

"You're a ---- now."

"A what?"

"A ----. Like Bahr. You will ---- --- --- ---- home will be ---- him."

I turned to Ghara. "I'm sorry... I don't..."

Ghara waved away my half baked sentence. "This is good! We'll get your ---- and ---- and ---- ----. And you will go with Bahr."

"Where?"

Bahr cut into the conversation. "I talked to ---- about the man in the library. ---- you want to go to ----. There may be more."

"More? More like me?" I whispered.

"Maybe. I'll help you look."

"Thank you, thank you." I repeated it about a dozen more times.

Ghara began speaking to Bahr, or rather, she began talking at him as he nodded every minute or so. Her stream of words did nothing to slow down her work of packing up the cart. Bahr and I tried to help, but between Ghara being distracted and her children swinging wildly between helping, tackling each other, and shouting, I think she did it all herself.

Bahr walked back home with us. I wanted to tell him he didn't have to, that I could just find him in town the next day, but I didn't have the words for it. I got the feeling he wouldn't have listened anyway.

My duffel bag with all of my possessions was sitting in Ghara's house. "My... cart..." I tried to think of an excuse to visit the ship again, possibly for the last time. There was nothing in there I needed.

"We'll go see your cart," Ghara declared. "Bahr, let's go -----. It's Arie's ----- -----."

"You don't have to go," I told him. He shook his head.

"I want to." Ghara led the way through the brambles and forest, Bahr and I following behind.

There was barely a breeze. I thought that the ship had shifted in the mud slightly, in the days since the crash, like it was burying its head under the dirt like a burrowing animal. The ship looked like it was sleeping, though of course it couldn't and never had. I opened the door, and it gave the smallest of creaks in protest.

Bahr seemed entirely unsure about it. "That's a cart? There's no ----."

"It flew." I pointed to the sky. "My home is there"

He nodded, slowly. "I've seen flying ----. From the other ----. Those are much larger."

I shrugged. "This cart is just for me."

He frowned. "Why? Where were you going?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it as I tried to think of the words. "There was danger at home."

"I'm sorry."

“Thank you,” I muttered. Not sure what else to say, I leaned into the ship.

There was nothing else in it. I checked in the compartments, just in case something else had been left behind. There was registration and insurance information - useless. There was a small pocket knife; this I took. There were a few pens. I took these as well, and used the back of one of the insurance papers to write a message.

"This ship belonged to Marie Dumont, of the Southern Lunar Colonies. I crashed her in June, in the 345th year of the Lunar Project. I have spent time with a family of creatures that resemble velociraptors, who have been very kind to me. The food they've given me has all been safe for me to eat. I have been helped by an alien that looks almost human, but with tusks like a boar and eyes like a dog. The people here do not seem to have invented space travel yet themselves, but they are not unfamiliar with it. I have found the grave of another human, with an inscription in a Latin language. I have been told that there may be more humans here, and I am going to search for them."

I turned to Bahr and Ghara, who were waiting outside patiently for me to finish. The sky had begun to turn its sunset green. "Where are the others like me? Where will we go?"

Bahr said a word, then, when I gave him a blank stare in response, he pointed northward. To the mountains. I nodded, and continued to write.

"I am going with one of the aliens here, named Bahr, northwards to the mountains. There may be other humans there."