Blackmoon - Short Story

Blackmoon awoke in the darkness of night with the hair standing up on the back of his neck. Born during a

full solar eclipse of the moon totally blind, he yet sees the world well enough in his way having learned from the medicine woman who raised him among so many things that we see with our mind, not our eyes. He lies still with his hand on his tomahawk for a moment listening as closely as would any white tailed deer sensing that whatever this is, it is not the kind of danger that a tomahawk can properly address. Rising, slipping silently into his dress and belting the tomahawk to his side, without waking his sleeping wife next to him, Blackmoon pushes open the animal skin door standing just outside their tepee in the dead of night. As sensitive to what is not there as to what is, he hears a silence that he has never heard before then, the hair still standing up all over his body now, out of the preternatural silence, a bright, white beam of light descends like a tree trunk from the sky above him. This beam of light seems to search the ground it’s like nothing he has ever experienced before, this light, and it is as solid as and about as wide in diameter as one of the old mother poplar trees in the forest.

This beam of light coming seemingly from no where above approaches him and then what is manifested upon the ground as if coming out of this beam sends chills down his spine and the manfear that he had thought mastered since long ago since first becoming a brave wells up making his legs weak beneath him where he stands and only with a supreme effort of will does he command his body back to respect – perhaps I have died in my sleep, Blackmoon thinks a little wildly, only bringing his mind into respect with his body again with great effort of will – perhaps, he wonders, I have passed over and this now is The Other Side of the River? This would explain the preternatural silence and the enigma of the light and this … this thing now standing not more than three man lengths in front of him having appeared out of the light like … like what some demon not an animal spirit some man shaped thing but not human, no, not human at all, the height of a child with an enormous head, gray in color, eyes twice as large as duck eggs, without ears and with a slit for a mouth and no discernible nose. He thinks that no one else has awoken that too leads him to suspect that this is not real – perhaps I am dreaming? He wonders.

When the thing takes a step toward Blackmoon, it is all he can do to contain his bowels and fear such as he had never known ices his bowels and he thinks with certainty now that this is no dream. This is real. It moves again not so much walking, he notes, as gliding toward him and Blackmoon remembers to breath and to stand in his center. He is not certain then as the things gets closer if he can move as this thing the size of a human child looks up at him with it’s enormous insect eyes now not even one man’s length away – what IS this think? he wonders wildly. His hand rests on the handle of his sheaved knife as he looks down into the bug eyes as if transfixed by them.

We are no threat to yourself or your people, the thing says then not with words to Blackmoon’s astonishment but somehow speaking this directly into his mind. The things lips do not move. It is strange but Blackmoon realizes that it is with speech similar somehow to the manner in which he “sees” without sight. He feels that they are both suspended within a bubble of this silence as if maybe they are actually in the forest, here in camp, yet at once not in the forest, not here in camp? He does not understand and it’s almost as if his mind stops trying to understand? He wants to look around, in fact, to confirm that he is indeed still here but he finds that he cannot take his eyes off the creature before him.

He finds himself speaking in the same manner then asking this creature – What is it that you want from us?

It is to you that we wish to address ourselves, Blackmoon. You are an exceptional thing, the creature somehow conveys a genuine sense of admiration. Your body is almost immune to our control and your mind is completely resistant to us something extraordinary in our considerable experience with your kind here.

How do you know my name? Blackmoon asks again in that silent manner as before, not sure how he could do it?

Unlike your people, what one of us knows all of us knows and you, Blackmoon, are well known among my people. Some of my people argue that your kind here is useless and dangerous while others argue that if we have found one such as this Blackmoon, then there must be others as well such that your entire kind is redeemable after all. I wished to see for myself, call it an indulgence, if you will.

Blackmoon acting instinctively, finding himself suddenly and inexplicably fluent in this new form of communication, steps forward closing the gap between them looking down at the little creature – well, he asks, you have seen me, now what?
The thing seems frightening, Blackmoon thinks, as it glides quickly backwards away from him and Blackmoon becomes keenly aware again of that preternatural silence around them become distinctly uncomfortable and not just for himself. He had mastered his own stillness many moons ago so let the silence be expressing his anger at being assessed like some weaker thing, something under scrutiny. Blackmoon felt the lack of dignity in this and reacted against it looking directly into the enormous insect eyes.

We are beings that live in the earth here and have lived here longer than have your people, we come from the rocks and the trees, from the mountains and the rivers -
Blackmoon “speaks” with disdain, interrupting the creature’s stream of thought – you are a being that lies to me, he intones, from his centered place, from his strength, allowing the anger to rise up flowing naturally outward – I know well of the beings who inhabit the earth, the trees, the mountains and rivers of this land and you are not one of them. It does not “speak” but looks up into Blackmoon’s eyes with those bug eyes utterly inscrutable but nevertheless Blackmoon senses its fear thinking – It is afraid of me? He could almost smell the fear coming off of it, such an odd feeling overcame him and he had to dismiss it in order to stay connected to this thing, this demon or whatever it is?

The thing then does try to tell the truth, Blackmoon senses, “saying” - I cannot properly tell you what it is we are for there are not the words for it that you would understand but we inhabit the same space and we have always been here in this place since long before your kind rose up out of the dirt of this earth.

With that, the creature seemed to simply vanish but Blackmoon had the sense that it traveled up that light beam that was the size of a mother poplar in the forest back up into the sky from whence it had apparently come? The light beam itself seemed to disappear upwards as if somehow withdrawn. Blackmoon looked up in the starry night sky hearing the night sounds of the forest return around him then becoming aware of a strange, high pitched whistle before seeing what looked like a star that falls from the heavens but one rising up from some suspension just above him and shooting up into the sky as if a star was falling backward into the sky above. He felt dizzied by this as if his sense of balance were suddenly extinguished.

He pushes back open the animal skin door returning back into the tent to his wife, his bed and to sleep. Tomorrow, he and a party would search for ginseng root and he knew would find a man-shaped one perfect for his work. He takes off his dress and returning naked to his wife cuddling in close against her backside feeling that there was no threat from this thing, whatever it was, and thinking that perhaps, after all, it had merely wanted to introduce itself to him as it had said? In a moment, he feel back peacefully asleep reassured by the normalcy of the early morning night sounds around them.