Chapter 4 - The Last Man on Earth III

When the spirit came up to me it had the appearance of a young girl of about 16, with pale skin, wavy, dark-brown hair and yellow eyes. It was dressed in a thick black coat lined with fur I had never seen before, a strange pointed and wide-rimmed hair-ornament made of cloth placed on its head, and brown boots. I knew instantly that it was powerful, for it had a staff made of clean and well-carved wood nothing like that which is found drifted upon the shore, and on the bottom end of the staff was a collection of what seemed like twigs of a bush meticulously crafted to be straight and gleaming.
     Its appearance was awe-inspiring, and it was only when it was right before me, that I realised nobody actually knew what the apparition looked like. In fact, I was not even sure if the spirit that stood before me was the one talked of in the stories—those stories were more for amusement and gossip, and had little, if any, cultural significance.
     However, there was something about its appearance. Not just its strange clothing or its unaccountable materials, but something of the way the spirit conducted itself, which indicated to me that it was not of this world, and which reaffirmed the realisation I had come to long ago, that I would never see another human being again.
     The spirit began by waving at me—a gesture I had not seen since my teenage years hunting with the other men of my tribe. I had almost forgotten its meaning, but my memory soon sparked alight. The men would wave in different patterns to communicate about keen-eared animals and their locations in a noiseless manner, to avoid detection. It did not take me long to remember that current pattern indicated a hare hiding somewhere close by.
     It confused me somewhat that the spirit only waved when it was directly next to me, but if this was a chance to finally get some more food, I had no time to waste. I grabbed my spear and scanned the landscape for the hare. To this the spirit made a noise of discomposure, shaking its head and pointing at itself, then bringing its hand forward with one finger raised.
     I understood now it was pointing to the sky, and although it could not be seen during the day, the spirit was referring to the constellation of the hare, and introducing itself as the spirit of said constellation.
    I lowered my spear and apologised profusely, and the spirit, magnanimous as it is was, simply nodded, sat down on the cold snow, and began talking. It spoke a tongue of strange, foreign sounds, but with a tone soft and sweet, if a little unemotional, that somehow reminded me of my own daughter.
     Then I heard another voice. This one was harsher, croakier, lower, with a sound like a young man. I was not sure what to make of this.
     The spirit nodded once towards its staff then looked at me. It took its open left hand, pointed at itself and said; ‘Apzida’, then pointed to its staff and said; ‘Kortl’, and having done that, pointed to me.
     It took me a moment to understand what the spirit desired from me. If I had been a shaman maybe I could have communicated in the heavenly tongue of the spirits, but alas I was not born so. Still, I could understand it was introducing itself, so I too said ‘Thuluk’, as I pointed to myself.
     The spirit smiled slightly—ever so slightly, in a dignified manner that both made me feel so small yet put me at ease.
     ‘Great spirit, I offer you this,’ I reached my hand out towards the spirit, revealing the musk ox horn fragment that I had been carving.
    ‘It is unfinished, I am sorry… but it is a memento I was making for my daughter. Thoyu, she was called. Thoyu… why, she looked a little like the form you have taken right now (I realised then that the spirit must have taken on such a form to put me at ease) and I loved her… I loved her so much.’
     The spirit took the memento in both her hands. ‘Thoyu’, it repeated, and again smiled.
     I was happy to find that the spirit seemed to be in a good mood thanks to my offering.
     ‘May… May I ask, oh great and wonderful spirit… What was the reason for the Tholnyar? Why did we have to die out? And… Am I really the last person left? I… I can’t help but wonder if there are other tribes out there still surviving…’
     The spirit stared blankly at me for a moment, its yellowy eyes staring deeply into mine, before shaking its head in a manner which conveyed such sincere regret, that I was no longer able to continue.
     We remained in silence for a while, and the spirit turned away, creasing its face slightly as if in thought. Finally it began to draw a circle in the snow, with a single vertical line sprouting from the top which divided into two perpendicular lines, which then in turn divided perpendicularly again. At the end of each line it drew a circle, and pointing first to the left circle it said “Afilya”, then to the right it said “Perigey”. Finally it pointed at the original circle and said “Apzida”.
 After repeating the naming once more, it began drawing the same diagram in the snow beside the first one, only this time pointing only at the original, single circle closest to me and saying “Thuluk”.
     Was the spirit testing me? And if it was, then for what reason? I considered the diagrams, these two names supposedly connected to the spirit of the hare constellation, a separate diagram with only my name attached to it. I do not mea to boast, but I was quite well-known throughout the tribe for being quick-witted. Perhaps that was the reason why I was the only one who survived—more of a burden than a gift now—but it allowed me to realise that I was looking at a diagram showing lineage.
     I originally questioned my theory because lineage is followed only through the father’s side—the mother’s role is secondary in the birth of a new life, and it is the father’s skills, personality and position which are inherited by his children. However, there was a high probability that the spirit had only taken the form of a young girl like my daughter to put me at ease, and was in fact male, and furthermore the hare constellation consisted of three major stars—the brightest star as the father and the lesser ones as children.
     From this I could deduce that the second diagram, with only my name attached to it, was incomplete until I filled it with the names of my own children. Indeed the fact that she knew I had had two children and drew the right amount of circles for me was evidence enough that my theory was correct.
     I pointed to the left circle and said “Thoyu”, and the spirit remembered the memento, raising it for me to see as if to seek confirmation.
     ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘Thoyu is my daughter whom I was carving the memento for. She was an energetic and bright girl, although not so much towards the end…’
     I could feel the tears well up in my eyes. To prevent myself from crying, I quickly began describing my second child.
     ‘My second child was Nagl. He died when he was only six years old. There was a period of extreme cold during the winter, and many of the weak, young and old died. So many died that winter. Of course not as much as the Tholnyar, but it was then that I vowed I would never lose a child again…’
     To my great disgrace, my emotions got the better of me. I attempted to cover my eyes, but it was too late—the spirit had seen the tears sliding across my cheeks.     The spirit, magnanimous as it was, attempted to console me, although the manner in which it did so was peculiar. It raised the fourth finger of its left hand and said “wan”, then its third finger as well and said “too”. Then lifting its second finger it said “tree”, its first finger while saying “for”, and finally it stuck out its thumb and said “fyve”.
     Seeing my perturbed look the spirit pointed at the sky and said “skiy”, then at the ground while saying “snow”, at its leg while saying “laig”, at its chest while saying “heart”, and continued to point at things and say something different each time.
     Finally I understood—The spirit was attempting to create a mutual understanding of vocabulary, by pointing to things and naming them in the language of the spirits. It in turn wished for me to name them in my language.
    I began pointing at the things that the spirit had, reciting their names as I went. We continued this way, and I later found out that the spirit was attempting to find out how I count from one to five, when it was raising its fingers earlier. I told it how my people counted, to which it appeared to be very pleased. I soon forget my position, and got incredibly excited in explaining and describing what things exist in this cold, deserted land. In fact, I had never thought I could become so enthusiastic about a world so barren and unforgiving. Being alone for too long does strange things to a man.
     After some time of doing this, the spirit stood up and began a small speech which somehow, despite the difference in languages being spoken, I could tell was one of thankfulness. Then, having done that, it a little too hastily turned around and began to walk off.
     I grabbed the spirit by the wrist. At first I was unsure myself why I had done such a thing, but something in the back of my mind told me that I should not let it go.
     ‘A… Are you leaving so soon, great spirit? There is still much that I wish to ask you, much that I can learn from you, much that I…’
     My voice trailed off when I saw the spirit’s face. I cannot hope to properly describe it, but if I may at least attempt to, it showed something of regret and concern so strong, that I could not help but let go of its wrist, and turn my face away.
     What really struck me was it was not a look of sorrow arising from personal plight. It went deeper than that—it was a face of pity. An abyss of sympathy for some perceived horror that it had no hope in saving. Like it was looking straight into the eyes of a dying child. In fact, it looked just like my daughter did, as I held her in my arms, and her breath faded away.
     When I looked up again the spirit had gone, and it took a while for everything that had just happened to sink in before I realised what it was that both of us were so afraid of—it was the loneliness.
     There was no one left in this icy wasteland. That was probably the last person, spirit or otherwise, whom I would ever meet. I am the last man on Earth. The loneliest man on Earth. People in the past have complained of being rejected, disregarded, left out and marginalised, but there is no loneliness, no unadulterated solitude which exceeds that which I am condemned to.
     But there is also something more than that. My death is not just my death. It is the death of a culture, of a people—of all our hopes and dreams and beliefs and joys and love and everything that we have ever done and felt which will be swept away into nothingness like my bones will be by the icy cold wind. I carry the burden of taking the entire human race down with me when I die, and when the inevitable comes there will be no trace left of us. Nothing to prove we existed, and nobody to remember who we were—and what comes with that is a terrible truth. The truth that we are weak, that everything we have strived for has been for nothing. There is no better evidence than becoming extinct to prove that we are mediocre, that we are useless, and it would not even have mattered if none of us had ever been born.
     That was what the spirit was trying to prevent. It was trying to learn about me and my culture so that even after our literal death, our figurative death could be avoided. But it too realised the futility of such an endeavour and turned away, making such an anguished face because it could not do any more. It is not its fault—there was nothing that it could do.
     But then a thought crossed my mind. A naïve, presumptuous, wishful thought, which many of my ancestors would probably be infuriated with me for, saying that it misses out on so much—all the lives and stories and experiences that our people had gone through. But for me, in my infinite loneliness, in the desperation and horror of the burdens I carried, if my hope were to come true, that would be enough.
     Even though our time together was short, the spirit had taken away a part of me when it left. This part it could still hold, to keep it somewhere, whether out in the open or hidden away in the darkness. I would feel happy—I would feel fulfilled, if every once in a while, or even unconsciously or without understanding, the spirit, or not even it, but somebody—anybody—would remember the ivory thought that I hold true to my heart and which has kept me warm in such dark, cold lands. That is all I need. Just recognition of the thought. An acknowledgement of its existence. That is enough to keep me from dying, and that is enough to stop everything that we, my people, had ever done from being in vain. It is enough to prove that we existed, and that we mattered.
     And with that thought still warm, I closed my eyes.

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