Work Text:
The Snow and the Desert
Prologue
Dualism: an instance of opposition or contrast of two aspects, or a state of division; a dualism.
This concept teaches us that every aspect of life is created from a balanced interaction of opposing and competing forces. A wonderful fact to reflect upon, is that every human is constituted to be a mystery: an unfathomable secret. The juxtaposing nature of this statement perplexes us, as we often perceive each other as open books. Some people live continually in denial, that they will never understand everything about another individual. There is a propensity for humans to refute the perpetual mysteries of one another, somehow enforcing the belief of being locked away, never fully reachable by outside minds. We theorise people can read our minds, our most sacred place of being. We surmise that those around us know what we need without us having to utter a single syllable. It’s nonsensical: but a dilemma many face, or, at least used to.
Chapter 1
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They decided life was peaceful. The forever blue skies and the rustling of leaves in the soft breeze left a funny feeling in their tummy, making them feel like skipping on their way.
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School started sometime around mid-June. Spirits were a mix of highs and lows, the familiar butterflies settled in the children's stomachs. Locks of white and red hair could be seen covering the play area, the sound of laughter and newly polished school shoes scuffed against the worn asphalt. Their happiness a plague that caught onto others far too easily, readily disrupted at the slightest inconvenience that may come their way. I myself thought I was different: more knowing, regarding myself as considerably more mature than the other children.
The screen around the outside of the school projected a woman with white hair informing the citizens of the Nation of current weather conditions and government protocols. White hair, silver eyes, more white hair. That's all I ever saw on those screens. My own rusted locks stared back at me as I glanced at my reflection in a window. I liked to think I knew: knew the lengths the government would go to in order to procure a perfect society. I didn’t truly understand what that meant other than some intangible murmurs and whispers from my father and his colleagues. The bell rang, signifying that class was starting; I watched as the other children arranged themselves, the snowy kids, with their white hair and silver eyes, filing into a bus to be taken off campus to another school while the desert ones with our amber eyes and rusted hair shuffled into the usual classrooms. Although my brain held an infinite amount of knowledge [as I myself believed] I was always perplexed when we had to be separated like this.
I began to follow, but the sight of a petal floating across my gaze caught my attention.
The flower field wasn’t far off today. Dismissing the bell, I ran off to the soft petals calling my name. The white chrysanthemums clashed with the orange lilies as I knelt down, the petals rubbing against my bare legs. What was it that Mr Smith had said about the flowers? Just as the thought was about to roll off my tongue, a muffled boom filled the air. I looked up, perplexed at the sudden cacophony of voices that followed quickly in pursuit. Smoke filled my vision and aircrafts swarmed the sky, screams of crying children and worried adults could be heard throughout the school.
The classroom jostled, turning on its side, shouts of a familiar voice clouded my hearing. The roars and the screaming got louder, the classroom started to fade away, evaporating into nothing
Chapter 2
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Life wasn’t always peaceful.
The father, a porcelain man with snowy eyes yelled at the desert, the mother, hair rusted and
bronze, eyes like the amber that oozed from the tree. The termination started to make sense.
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Pidge get out of the way!!”
Blood smeared my windshield.
“Enemy on your left, legion approaching from the north, get out of here!!”
“Fuck!” The ear-splitting sound of metal scraping against metal filled our ears.
“Pidge? PIDGE?! 257 come in, do you copy?!” The radio silence was deafening. We’d all heard it. The crunching of bone as the enemy viciously tore about our squadron, the consequential splattering of red blood mixed with white petals rising up in an explosion from the ground.
Day 279:
As I gaze upon the vast expanse of land, I reflect on the secrets and mysteries of each individual. A bitterly cold breeze sweeps past, making the soft, vibrant petals of the white chrysanthemums and orange lilies brush up against my mangled thigh. The chirping of birds snaps me out of my preoccupation, I sigh, urging my weary body to stand. I walk over to my drone, checking the fuel levels, my coms device tight around my ear. As I climb into the drone, I take one last look at the world that I once knew. Blood smeared the battlefield and my eyes confirm that I am in fact, not dreaming. The image of my dead friend, my dead mother, my dead father, my love, the darling of my soul: dead; their heads spattered in a perfect unsynchronised fashion. Their hair is matted and filthy, representative of the cause we were, we are, fighting for. It is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that will always be present in the individual which I shall hold onto until my life ends.
. . . . .
I recall the words my mother spoke to me when this all started. Back after the explosions, white and orange flowers clutched tightly in my hands. Our surroundings were dark and damp, a stark contrast to the heat of the flames just outside our reach.
“My darling child.” She held me close, our reddish hair intermingling. Her speech was hushed and slurred. “Do not be afraid. Do not show them you are afraid. Fight and do not stop fighting.”
My own duality twists the words of reassurance into something completely taken out of context and instead of my brain recognizing that and instantly dismissing it, it holds onto that negative thought so tightly and perceives it as actuality.
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I am the last one, the lone survivor. I fight to protect the peace but I do not fight for the Nation. They took away my friends, my lover. From the safety of my drone, I gaze at the valley of death, the innocent white staring back at me, taunting me with its purity: I realise how little I knew. I didn’t know the extent of what the Nation had wanted, I didn’t know what lengths they would go to in order to achieve a ‘perfect’ society. I didn’t know how much more time I wanted, needed, craved, with my closest people. The secrets and mysteries of the people I loved most, still buried within their souls. It brought me back to the snow and the desert. I remembered the day this all started, 1,826 days ago, the day I’d run off to the flower field. The same white flowers had been staring at me, brushing against me, mixed in with the gentle hues of sunset orange. Mr Smith’s teachings echoed in my ear:
“The white chrysanthemums, children, symbolise death while the orange lilies symbolise rebirth.”
Ironic, I think as the faces of my loved ones flash across my vision, their rusted hair and amber eyes reflected in my own.
Ironic that the traitors, the white-haired villains of my nation, get to live while my loved ones are slaughtered before my eyes.
Anger, so deep and raw swells inside of me.
I think about what I’ve been fighting for. I think about how I’d forgotten what they did to me. What they did to others. How could a desert live with the snow? Snow and sand, never once mingling or seeing eye to eye. One harvested the cold, the other harvested the heat. I look up, tears prickling at the corners of my eyes. I am once again reminded of the fragility of my mind, my eyes scan my surroundings as I see hues of orange and white dancing in the wind, performing for an audience of one, the secrets of their own bond melting into the sunset.
Epilogue
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Life was a lie.
In death we discover truth.
The world imploded; citizens witnessed for themselves the evil behind the screens that lay across the public. The snow fought the desert, the lies fought the truth and there was no justice achieved. We knew. We knew the truth that was so violent we forgot to believe it. The lies we told ourselves in order to live and interact with the snow collapsed.
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Death.
Rebirth.
The contrasting words swirled around my head as if walking on a foggy day, intertwining and overlapping, but never quite forming into one. Life was coming to an end. It slipped away, the string holding me to the earth slowly disintegrating. Death or rebirth, I didn’t know. The orange flowers that touched my cheeks told me otherwise while the glaring white stared into my soul, wrapping its fingers around the corners of my mind.