The god of Change

Thousands of years ago, before there were monsters and fairy tales, when man was just old enough to tell stories of the past, there was nature, and there were living gods.

In the warmest months of the year, one of the few hundred nomadic families would travel North to the flowing water and fertile fields of the grasslands and the plains of what would later come to be known as North America.

In the life-bringing sunshine, they would hunt, fish, farm, make love, and bring up their young with the stories and lessons taught to their parents in their own youth. Safety and food were the only worries of this family, spending their days ensuring they had enough available for the time being, and for the ever-looming months of the cold. Though uncomfortable and at times bitter before they made their departure, it was not the cold creeping back into their lungs that made them leave every year. It’s what they found would accompany it and what it would take with it in its wake.

What I was taught and came to understand from a young age until now in this family is that with everything given, something is taken. There is no life without death. Just as the summer sun births the flowers, winter was known to bring heartbreak and death. We’d been carefully avoiding youthful demise for generations by heeding the warnings of our elders who’d done the same. They warned of knowing that the snow would fall seemingly endlessly, that it would pack down and freeze alongside the streams and the lakes. Frozen snow and ice would build into thick walls, so that the homes we’d settled into on the Earth would no longer be there in the Spring.

We’d mark our routes with the features of the landscape, breaking branches off of trees or moving boulders. Both subtle and obvious clues that every member would study and remember before and as we traveled each year. Uncles developed to learn to chart the stars and plot a course for us. But every season, no one would be able to come exactly back. We’d get lost and have to begin anew: A new foundation, new resources to find, and a new lifestyle, replicating our last to the best of our ability. We’d lose rituals, traditions, stories, and knowledge. When we returned, where there were thought to be valleys, there’d now be canyons and valleys. Where there once lay a shallow river would be a lake and a waterfall.

We’d been taught by our fathers, fathers’, fathers that nature was cruel and ever-changing, that we’d dare not challenge the rules set in place to protect us, that there was nothing to be found beyond the rules they’d set in place but regret and heartbreak. For generations, we all believed it blindly. Everyone did, until I saw something that made me question everything. The truth that had me remain in the frost-bitten North atop the pile of ice that covers the home I once helped construct. I stayed after my family had left to find the truth that I believed in: “Nature” was a living god, and it lived beneath the snow and ice.

I’ve learned so much while I’ve been on my own that I cannot wait to share it with my family. I’ve never seen a deer as large as the ones that meander through the pine trees- their antlers thick like paddles but rigid and sharp. One towering alone was easy to aim my bow at. Tied below my feet, those antlers make it easy for me to waddle above the snow and ice that continues to pile ever higher. Its fur is thick, warm, and plentiful. I fashioned some atop my head to help keep my heat trapped in. I am no longer cold nor hungry with the clothing and food I’ve procured, but the night is terrifying and lonesome. Though I’d fashioned extra layers of thick pelts and blankets to wear in the night, I’d shiver in the blackness. I do not know what else could be out there, or what could be coming. I didn’t know what to be on the lookout for; I only knew that I was above the ice.

Every day for the last four full cycles of the moon, I’ve trekked and tracked new paths atop the snow, little by little over time. Using the techniques of my family, I was able to explore all directions away from my home to far distances that were previously unreachable. But I’d been careful and clever and was always able to find my way back to my home grounds. I’ve slept away a handful of times now and always managed to get back. I am eager to find the truth, but it’s the truth that I’m worried about finding.

At this point, I’m uncertain if I had seen something that was even born of the natural world, of this world. What could be large enough to reshape the land while being so light-footed that it remains elusive to me in my search for it? The thought terrified me. Could it have been my mind that was misshapen? Had it been twisted since I was young? Was I wrong on the day that everything began to change for me?

But the feelings that come and twist my lungs are as real as the snow that falls and stings me. It only gives me a spark of hope to what remains of my beating heart that maybe my home would be saved. Maybe I could save it if I found the truth. I needed to know the truth.

With a shrill breeze, I’m reminded of a time when the cold came in early one year back when I was a child. As the eldest boy of my family, I’d run all day, scouting and pulling as many dead trees as I could manage back to our home for firewood. I had come across a valley beyond a distant hill with a deep crevasse carved through it. As I made my descent down, the sunlight crept across the grey, speckled, snow-tufted rock and followed me to the bottom. When I arrived, the sun shone down bright overhead and illuminated a few meters into the hole. That’s where I saw it:

The opening of violent eyes, cold, sharp and scaly, wrapped in yellow and shining grey. In my disbelief, it slammed into the Earth below, cracking the valley floor, separating it into two and shaking the hill to the very top of the original point of my descent. Maybe if I hadn’t come back so exhausted after working so tirelessly… Maybe if I had approached the elders more calmly and less hysterically… Maybe if I had done something differently, someone would have listened to my claim.

If even one person could have consoled me, I probably would not have delayed our winter departures to search for the living god beneath the ice for the last handful of years. I would not have argued so much, so increasingly frequently, with my father. I would have been there with my sister when she slipped on the ice into a newly formed crevasse. I probably could have saved her- I know I could have. As the snow piles up on me while I’m unmoving in my search, I imagine this is how she felt in her final moments: cold, watching the snow fall, seeing the white pile up.

Now, I am scornfully tired and begrudgingly regretful. I could be warm and fat in the Southern sunshine. I have not seen the sun in a very long time. It feels like it’s been at least a year, but even in all of the time that has passed, I have not found any answer to what lies beneath the ice. Nor have I found it easy by any means to keep myself alive. Nothing has shown itself for me to hunt. My bones are frozen and stiff. The pain in my stomach from hunger made it hard to venture out, and the heartache of my plight, unresolved, was maddening. I don’t want to die out here; I want to return to my family, gods be damned.

The squeaks of packed snow beneath my steps remind me of the light footsteps of my brothers and sisters, and of the infant babes of the Spring rustling in their sleep. I don’t know if I’ll survive the journey as the snow continues to fall, but I must try. In the pathways I paced across, I was able to find and note the path my father carved to take my family south. I will take my pelts, and I will follow it as far as I can to try and reach them. Even if I cannot get there, my body will act as a marker for my family so that, even if the landscape has changed, they will know where to go to be home once again. I am determined not to die in vain.

With my goal in hand and a fire in my heart, I set off. The first night of my trek was cold, snowing, and brutal. When I awoke on the frozen ground, I was nearly unable to resurface beneath the snow that had piled up on top of me overnight. The second night was even worse; icy rain pelted me, and if it weren’t for the empty cave I came across, I would have surely died. The balls of ice that pelted my head were the size of my fist and would have bled me out. I could hardly sleep at night. It was miserable. The third day, my spirit was close to flickering out.

In the deep snow, every one of my steps sank and buried my legs to the knees. It took almost all of my strength to pull them out. I debated turning back, putting my survival up to chance in the cave again with every minute. I was close to fainting with my eyes closed when suddenly, I felt something. The snow stopped. A light came through my eyelids, and a warmth kissed my cheeks. The clouds cleared, and the sunshine poked through, accompanied by a warm breeze. A warmth that I had not felt in a very long time that thawed my chipping bones. It pulled my lips back into a smile and melted the ice from my thick black hair. I heard droplets of water splashing in puddles below the icicles hanging from the branches of the surrounding pine trees. The light refracted off of them across the white, fluffy snow, and the beauty of the moment captivated me. There, suddenly, was hope in the promise of the return of a Spring that I doubted would ever come.

I pressed on.

The next day, when I awoke, the clouds had parted, the sun was shining down, and the snow was nearly fully melted. I walked on and took notice that in my fresh resolve, I’d come to find myself at the top of a hill where I could look out along the land. It was beautiful. I could stay up here until my family comes back soon, maybe in less time than a full cycle of the moon. I was sure food would be coming along soon as well. The fresh dirt showed and warm wind blew through the air. It was perfect. Then, the ground split open in the distance and ate through the Earth until it swallowed the hill below me. I careened down and rolled, tumbling, tumbling, tumbling.

When I awoke, the bright sun shone down on my face in the gap between two new mountains. In pain and discombobulated, it took me a while to remember what happened. Though I had to limp, I limped as quickly as I could to higher ground. I needed to see it: the truth unearthed. No snow falling or ice left to hide under. With gritted teeth and pain-filled tears pouring out of my eyes, I raced on around and around the hillside. After merely dropping in pain several times, I made it to the top. I peered out and turned around to look as far out as I could see, all of the fresh dirt and rock.

Where is it?

In the still, crumbling, settling dirt, there was nothing. No holes, no scales, nothing but Earth and nature. I looked out behind me. No gods. Nothing left to pin my blame on but myself.

Something caught my eye nearby. With no shortage of tears to blur my vision, I ran back down the hillside.

I see familiar faces on unfamiliar bodies that were taller and smaller than they were the season before. There were a few different faces, losing elders and gaining babies as the years have repeated. I could see my father in the front, leading the way. He was taking them North to reclaim the home they left behind, but something was wrong.

As I approached, the truth became clear. As clear as the cold of the ice and snow, the landscapes that changed with the season echo a change in another part of nature. I saw the confused, shrunken, grey-bearded face of my father, who wandered North, clearly lost. I approached them and embraced him, explaining the changes of the Earth as I took the lead with some help.

When we arrived at the foundation of our home that was preserved under the ice, we had come to share the truths of Nature that we had uncovered.