Planet B-17: The Beginnings

Chapter 22: The Shape of Words

Zadek's golden, clock-wheels irises were watching the sunset atop the village huts and the bioluminescent blue foliage of Seremna. The leaves were swaying in the breeze like steady, slow, ocean waves, ebbing and flowing across infinity. Lilac hues mingled with green as Time-bands gathered together into an oneness and a heightening of is-ness witnessed by itself.

And it was so that Zadek pondered, How is it that we come alive and that we pick thread after thread to form our lives? How is it that we form our being?

Hee'Taa approached. Tall, blue-skinned, knotted dark mane across his back down to the hips covered in a leather garment.

Talk to him, said Omiran, and for once, Zadek did not begin with no.

"It is the Moon that guides our eyes when the Sun's no longer visible," Zadek told Hee'Taa, pointing to the Moon and to his own eyes, then to the fading sun, and in his chest he felt the words turn liquid and ethereal and flow into a stream of sound with meaning.

Good, transmitted Omiran.

Indeed, Hee'Taa had understood. He inclined his head. "Iram," he pointed to the sky – potentially at the Moon herself – and there was music in the word, one he did not sing. Then fist upon his heart, "Ka'Leem."

"Ka'Leem," repeated Zadek, gesturing the same. "Ka'Leem means heart?" And he shifted his focus onto his own heart beating.

Hee'Taa shook his head. "Ka'Leem iram," he uttered, arm like an arrow pointing from chest to sky.

"Feeling? Is Ka'Leem a feeling? Love? Ka'Leem – love?"

Hee'Taa appeared to be thinking. He drew a circle in the ground. "Ka'Leem."

The heart's not circular, thought Zadek. A feeling? Cycles of life? The roundness of the Moon? What else?

Hee'Taa was shaking his head, pointing to his mind, then shaking his head again.

Use your higher senses, Omiran had said. Where language fails, it seems imperative, he pondered, and agreed.

"Ka'Leem," Zadek repeated.

Hee'Taa pointed to the sky, then with his foot he tapped the ground twice – and with his arms outstretched, he called upon the essence of the life within and all around – a melody of sounds rather than words upon his lips – then he said, "Ka'Leem," and he bowed.

"Honour," rushed Zadek to say. "Respect." He was searching his mind, his heart, and found images of his mentors, of Captain Beran, of those he had respected, those he had loved, and cherished them beyond all time and distance as though they would have all felt the feeling in his heart.

A broad smile on his lips, Hee'Taa was nodding. "Am-t. Har." It sounded as if he'd rhythmically pinched two chords.

"What is am-t har?" Zadek repeated, but the sounds produced were not the same. They sounded milder and not as full, as clear, as deep.

"Am-t," Hee'Taa reproduced his sounds, palm on his eyes, taking some steps, and then returned. "Am-t," he repeated, pointing to his palm upon his eyes. "Har," he called, lifting his arms, then letting them fall back, and in their way back to his hips, his arms had spread and covered the whole wide world. "Ka'Leem," he said, hitting the ground once more with his foot.

"Am-t," Zadek repeated, closing his eyes. "Har," he drew a circle above himself. "Darkness and light."

Hee'Taa drew closer, as if to better listen.

"Am-t is dark," said Zadek, and closed his eyes, but as he did so, his clock origins showed him pictures of other worlds. He covered his face with his palms. "Not see."

Hee'Taa was waiting patiently, but looked amused.

Zadek asked him to explain again. Maybe I shouldn't try to seem so smart after all.

Hee'Taa laughed, pointing to Zadek's mind. "Am-t," he told him, placing his palm upon his eyes once more.

"The mind can't see," said Zadek. "That's what you're saying?" He waited. "The mind can't see what you're trying to teach me."

Hee'Taa dismissed the question. "Am-t." He drew his arms as if to gather the air around him and direct it into himself. "Har." Arms expanded. "Am-t." Palm beating his own chest, then covering his eyes. "Har." He looked around and pointed to the trees – then suddenly up to the sky. "Har iram ka'leem." Palms facing one another and as if gathering a stream and pulling it into himself. "Har am't." Then arms back wide. "Am-t har."

"Receiving," pondered Zadek, arm lifted above his head and drawing in the light. A momentary pause. He touched his chest with his open palm. "Maybe incorporating." Then arm up once more, "Giving. A cycle. How do I say it?"

Improvise and verify, said Omiran.

Zadek thought of times of need and of receiving, repeating Hee'Taa's gestures of drawing in the air. "Am-t." He was not closer to pronouncing the word as the tribe leader had. "Receiving. Drawing in." He inhaled, but not just air.

A subtle nod from Hee'Taa.

"Har," said Zadek and as he expanded his arms, his lungs, his chest, he exhaled himself outwards into the horizon.

A peaceful smile. Hee'Taa inclined his head, then pounded with his foot into the ground. "Ka'Leem."

Clock-wheels eyes on Hee'Taa's foot and on the ground, Zadek said, "Ka'Leem," not tapping into the ground, but pointing at the surroundings, the Moon, the sky, the ground. "Ka'Leem," he repeated, as if to himself. "Har. Am-t." But the gestures for each were in reverse.

Hee'Taa firmly corrected him with a swift gesture of his hand.

"Am-t," the leader said, and this time he gathered his fingers together and placed them on his forehead. Then he drew circles around his head. Right arm lifted, he once more pinched the sound of har.

Zadek felt subtle currents across his skin following Hee'Taa's gestures.

"Am-t. Coming." On some level, Zadek was leaning into some untapped reserves of knowing and of meaning. He inhaled, inhaled, inhaled. "Har." The gesture itself was not grand, but the feeling of it, the sensing of har came into him and went from him out into the world.

You're getting closer, said Omiran.

A sudden moisture in his eyes, Zadek pondered, He's teaching me the answer to my question. He inhaled once more and drew the world with gestures in, into the depths of his heart, reverently, his head bowed. "Ka'Leem."

Hee'Taa was laughing and he gave a nod. "Ka'Leem! Iram." Arm shot up to the sky – the Moon? "Am-t." He pounded his chest twice in perfect pitch and sync with the unseen chords of that which he drew in. "Har." This time the vowel sounded longer, as if inside a giving beyond the word. Foot pounded at the drawing of the circle, "Har him," he said.

"We're – we're bridges," Zadek tried. "Life comes to us and through us." He imagined that he was drawing light in and that it passed through him and out through the soles of his feet – but that felt incomplete, and in a spiral he also gathered life up through his feet into his heart, feeding his mind, and through his upper self extended, it reached the heights unseen.

He saw an image of Hee'Taa turning to leave, but that felt on a different plane. Another Time-band? So near? he asked Omiran.

He transmits to you his intention to leave, answered Omiran. He is showing you the future based on that intention – as simple as that.

Of us two, I'm not the smartest, thought Zadek.

You're simply the least expansive, said Omiran. You've yet to integrate all that you've seen and know.

Recalling Hee'Taa's intention, he bowed to him, and then intuitively reached his arms from his chest to the tribe leader ahead. "Ka'Leem."

The tribe leader bowed lower and touched the ground with his fingertips, then turned and left. 

What do you think of Zadek's experiences on Planet B-17/M'alala? Which do you like best?