I was experiencing Arrjee’s revelation for a second time, but this time I was not part of the reveal. It warmed my heart to see Mother and Son break through a barrier of silence. I knew why the barrier had been in place, and hoped that if I ever become the father (or mother!) of a born awakened, I could have as much wisdom and love as had the Silverstones.
“Arrjee, before Skawa sent us on our adventure, you and I had been planning to meet with Grandma again. We had shared with you a bit of our first lives, and you were planning to do the same. Would you like to tell Mom and I now? Maybe then you’ll have the story straight for when you tell Grandma and whoever later.” I smiled, hoping he caught the little joke.
----------------------------------------
[Arrjee’s Point of View]
I caught his smile, and returned it. I’ve already got my story straight, thank you. I’ve been thinking about it since Grandma found out. Your speculation about a mediocre life has resonated with me since then.
“Yes, I’d like that. First, please let Mom know about your speculation concerning who I might have been.”
Forrest seemed kind of embarrassed to repeat what he told her. There is no need; you were spot on. “I surmised that Arrjee was a special person, driven to excellence in just about everything. Grandma asked me what I might intuit about his first life, curious about the contrast between my guess and reality.”
I broke in, “It was his intuition that led him to realize I was probably a born awakened. Lots of little things informed it. Grandma and I can tell you tomorrow, Mom.”
Forrest continued. “I had to wonder about the source of his drive. For example, do you know his Charisma is at 12?” Mom looked at me, surprised and impressed.
Why does everyone seem so surprised? Sure, a strident attribute isn’t as easy to raise as a practical one, but if someone works at it consistently, it can be done. I’ve been consistent for six years, is all.
Forrest adds to his thought, still seeming to regret bringing it up. “What would there be that would push someone like that? My guess was that in his former life he might not have sought to succeed, instead, to accept mediocrity. And now, given a second chance, he has committed himself to be everything he can possibly be.”
“You are leaving out something, brother. You also speculated that I might have somehow been held down, given no real opportunity to improve. The truth is in the middle. I was not actually held down, and I did accept mediocrity. For us, there literally was nothing else.”
I was resolved to tell them what it was like, to the best of my ability. I have had this wall between the full-me and the world for far too long. It was time to let them know who I had been. “We did not have a name for our species. We were the hive, unstated, but always acknowledged. We were an insect race. Imagine large ants, about a foot and a half tall and maybe four feet long. We had six legs. We did not have individual names. All drones were drones, myself included.”
Also, no sex. I hope they get that.
“Our hive mind was not completely gone.”
Always the voices, the implied needs, the commands. I do not have the words for no words. It wasn’t telepathy, exactly but an ongoing awareness of the hive’s needs. This is complicated enough without having to try to explain that. They understand “me-ness”, though.
“However, individual thought and realization of ourselves was taking root. I believe the hive was new to sapience. It would not surprise me if that began happening less than a thousand years before my hatching. Our vocabulary was very limited; I do not believe we had more than 300 words. They were mostly concepts really, communicated by touch, smell, and sounds we could make with our mandibles.”
“Some of us barely spoke at all, instead just transferring the simplest concepts, like ‘food there’. Those drones rarely did anything unexpected and always stayed with foraging parties. I believe they had been born sentient, not sapient. That is the main reason I believe we were a newly emerging sapient species. We still had among us both levels of awareness.”
I thought about my words. I have learned so much since then. “These are my thoughts now. Back then I would have never thought to think about such things.”
“Even with no name, I had a sense of self. I had thoughts which often could not be expressed in our very limited language. I had curiosity. It never interfered with our ongoing purpose, which was twofold. Protect the hive when necessary, and forage. Should the hive ever be endangered, I would have died to protect it. It would not have been bravery but primal necessity.”
“We had more flexibility with our foraging. The majority of the time we would work together as a foraging party, myself included. But so long as we brought back food to the hive, we could do so individually as well. So I would periodically go on my own, to hunt, to explore, to be curious. I knew there were things I did not know. I wanted to know them, to know more. Do you know what it is like to learn something, and not have words for it? Sometimes not even having realized the concept before? Imagine.”
Forrest interrupted me. “Woah, Arrjee. Before going further, please give us a minute to do exactly that, to imagine and absorb. What you are describing – it is something of a life and people I had never considered.”
Mom added, “I need to absorb for a moment as well. You had given us hints of this life years ago, but my imagination was not large enough to fully comprehend it.”
I waited a moment until their eyes expressed alertness for more.
“There were three locations we recognized – hive, above-hive, and foraging grounds. The latter was anywhere we went to hunt that was neither of the former two. The “above-hive” is how we thought of the single nearby community, a place where other beings dwelled. They were another kind of people, looking and smelling nothing like those of the hive. Most were larger than us. In memory I see them as some sort of lizardmen, but at the time they were simply non-food, non-enemy, and their hive to be avoided. I believe they saw us the same way, or we probably would have been wiped out if they had really wanted to. Perhaps there had been conflict in the past, but for my life we were at peace.”
I have often wondered about that. They let us live in peace. Why? We were so different. Would the various races of Heere leave insects be?
“I wonder now if we were poisonous to them, or we tasted bad and there was plentiful food from other sources. Or perhaps they were peaceful by nature and recognized and respected our sapience. For us, they were simply too big to mess with, so long as they left the hive alone.
“To me they were more. Their differences drove my curiosity. I thought about them, what they were, what they did, and why their skins varied. That last I recognize now as clothing, but “clothing” was one of the concepts for which we had no word. I eventually did realize the clothing was separate from the creatures, removable and replaceable.”
“I’ll just call them lizardmen from now on. I don’t know if it is an accurate description, but lizardmen are easier to talk about than creatures or beings. In form they were much like Humans, except for larger heads and skin that was smoother and leathery. Again, I am applying knowledge of things I know now to what I experienced then. Sometimes they also got on top of another type of being, and it would move them around. I recognize now that they rode something like horses, but again, riding is a concept that was not even in our language. Well, we could boost an injured drone back to the hive. I think that is as close to ‘riding’ as I could have imagined.”
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
The playground. If I could have loved anything, it was the playground. “There was a – a playground I guess – outside their village (the ‘above-hive’). They had what I recognize now as seating of some sort, and a large umbrella for shade. Older children and teenagers would spend time there. I simply recognized them as generally smaller than the more numerous big ones, but not as small as some much smaller ones I had seen through their gate. When I had free time, I would watch them, thinking myself hidden in brush. Maybe they knew I was there the whole time, or maybe they finally noticed me after multiple visits. They took interest in me, making sounds at me, and facial expressions.”
“Over days, one of them had begun to slowly approach me. I was scared at first, and ran off, but I was never chased. After that repeated several times and nothing bad happened, I let the young lizardman approach me. I held my ground, ready to run, but I was never given reason to. He, well maybe ‘she’; I was a drone and would not have even thought in those terms. He just remained crouched down, making more sounds at me, and sometimes turning around and making sounds at the others. I soon realized those sounds must be how they communicated.”
“He eventually placed a small piece of food in front of me, and watched, not moving. I did not actually know it to be food. I did wonder if it might be, and if it was forageable. I smelled it, and nibbled it. It was food. It was forageable.”
I smiled. “I wonder what he thought that first day, when I picked it up and ran off with it.
I was outside.
I was foraging.
I had foraged in a different way, and brought it back to the hive.”
But now I had more than foraging in my days. I had – I don’t know for sure now, and I certainly did not know then – I had life.
“I returned at about the same time the day after, and that became a habit. I don’t know if it was the same younglings each day, but ‘my’ lizardman was usually there. I knew him by his smell. Sometimes when he was not, another one of the younglings would leave me food, but they would not spend much time trying to communicate with me as my main youngling did. Sometimes large ones, adults, would be there too, and observe. I’m guessing they were interested in this project of the children. Other than communicating with the children and watching me, they were content to stand back.”
“This went on for seasons, I don’t remember how many. ‘Long term’ time was another concept we did not really understand. Before too long I recognized a sound he made whenever he gave me food. It had meaning. I still do not know if the meaning was “food”, “sugar-bread”,or “here take this”. It didn’t matter. Whatever he said meant food, something I could forage, something I could eat myself and share with the hive. He began standing back with the other younglings, crouched low, and held out the food where I could easily grab it. He coaxed me to come to him, and there had been no threats. I think now I liked and trusted him, but again those were concepts we in the hive had not really developed.”
I stretched for a moment, and then searched their eyes. Are they really getting this? The totality of my ignorance begging for … something else?
“So I went to the group and accepted the food. This time I did not run off. The situation had changed, and I was curious. I had decided they were not threats, and I stayed with them until I felt the need to get back to the hive. They started teaching me other words, often for things I had had no concept of. One I remember in particular was ‘chair’. He kept making a sound, pointing to and sometimes holding this large minor obstacle. He would sit in it, and after a minute or so stand. He was patient, and I finally realized the relationship between the sound and the chair and what it was used for. I could not sit, but I observed them doing it all the time.”
“I used my mandibles and feet to try to replicate the sound he made. I’m sure it was not close, but he realized the sound I was trying to repeat was ‘chair’. Once the others recognized I could learn words, several of them were interested in teaching me. I was confused about one thing they kept trying to teach me. One would touch their chest and say a sound, and repeat it. Eventually I realized it was identification. “That one.” But then another would try, repeating the same motion, but with a different sound. I was confused. The sound was for “that one”. Why is the other youngling making a different sound for “that one”?
“It took me many, many sessions to realize there were different words for ‘that one’, each unique to a given youngling. This is one of the cases I mentioned a while ago, to learn something and not have a word for it. I now knew what names were, but had no word for the concept of names. So it eluded me for a long time, because in the hive, there were no names.”
“What I could eventually comprehend was that each sound was associated with a specific youngling. I could even try to repeat it. With my limited ability to repeat a sound, I could even show them that I know the sound that went with each of them.”
“They also started using a sound for me. I remember that its sound was something like the Covargh word, ‘more’. “
I began repeating that sound, trying to replicate what the lizardmen actually said. Could I repeat that sound from memory? I didn’t have a lizardman’s mouth or vocal abilities, but I had to try.
I sighed. It looked like Forrest was trying not to smile.
Mom broke in. “My son, Arrjee More. With your quest for more knowledge, more experience, more awareness, both then and now, it’s perfect! And even before, you had a thirst for knowledge, yet did not even have a word for that thirst.”
Forrest added, “I think it goes even beyond that, Mom. One of the phrases you remembered Beaver saying was ‘There is much, so much more.’ I think he was in constant amazement about how much bigger this world is in general than what he knew before.”
Even after all these years, I was sensitive to being called “Beaver”. I guessed it was quicker than “the pup Arrjee '', but I still gave him the stink eye.
I had to acknowledge his main point though, nodding, “I still am amazed. Every day is more, and I am constantly thankful to the gods for it. I do not regret my first life, it laid the basis for me to appreciate and love everything here.”
“Fortunately, they did not only try to teach me their names. They would spend some time trying, then move on to something else. One word was for the concept ‘shade’. In this case, I knew what shade was; it was not like ‘name’. But it wasn’t a word we had needed. We would not say something like, ‘Come to the shade to get out of the sun.’ The closest we could come was ‘too hot’ and then move toward a spot with less sun, ‘come here’.”
“I could eventually distinguish between ‘chair’ and ‘bench’. That one was tricky because it did not occur to me that not only could a word represent both object and function, but whether it could be used multiple times at once. Altogether I probably learned about 100 of their words, including names.”
“I enjoyed those times. I liked to forage generally too, but foraging was just foraging. With the lizardmen, I was also learning. I kept at it for seasons. Other young lizardmen would replace the ones I first knew. Thinking back, I may have been part of an ongoing school project, or maybe part of a peacekeeping endeavor. I don’t know.”
I got a big smile relating to a private hope. “I want to think it was peacekeeping. Since our hive mind still functioned in a sense, my experiences filtered to the rest. My repeated exposure to the lizardmen, with the ongoing positive feelings, must have been felt in both societies, right?”
Neither Mom nor Forrest could answer. They could only shrug and offer small hopeful smiles.
Hearing no response, I continued. “Foraging with a group, foraging by myself, learning by myself, and learning with the lizardmen. That was my life. Until one day, I stopped, with no more memories.”
----------------------------------------
[Forrest’s Point of View]
““Mediocre”, uncheck.
Arrjee paused for a moment. “Maybe I died from old age. I restarted again here, with realization of my former self probably becoming strong about the time Mom and Dad started to hear me say unusual things. You said I was about two and a half, right?”
Mom replied, “That is right Arrjee. How hard was it to adapt to being here, and in an entirely different type of body?”
“Fortunately Arrjee’s mind was already actively thinking and learning things before the “before me” regained consciousness. “
I break in. “Let’s make it simple. The ‘before you’ is ‘More’, the ‘now you’ is ‘Arrjee’, and the whole you is ‘Arrjee More’. I guess that makes the ‘before me’ be a person called ‘Jacques Liedestrar’, but the whole me had chosen to be called ‘Forrest Rhodes’. I guess I’m Forrest Silverstone now, right?”
Mom shrugged. “That is up to you Forrest. Adopted teens often keep their original last name.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll decide later. I interrupted Arrjee, but I really want to hear what he has to say. Sorry.”
He says, “Keep the ‘Rhodes’. It is distinctive, and it ties you to something I don’t have, the void. And if the whole you is ‘Forrest Rhodes’, I think the whole me is ‘Arrjee Silverstone’. Arrjee-alone only existed for about two and a half years.”
“You heard the wolf, Mom. I am remaining ‘Forrest Rhodes’.” She acknowledges with a nod.
Arrjee returns to the topic. “Arrjee-alone had a sense of self before More’s awareness awoke. For More, that was just one additional blessing. I think I would have hated myself if More had simply possessed this body. As it is, we integrated happily. Arrjee was very pleased to gain More’s extra-ness. We have both gained so much. The rest you pretty much know, Mom.”
She and I stand up. Arjee then does as well, and we go in for a hug.
I think, “Thank you, System, for awakening More and allowing Arrjee to be so … total.” That was probably the closest I ever came to honest prayer since Jacques was a child.
I don’t know if Interface was being a smartass or sincere. Probably both. Small blue window.
Amen.