Note to readers: “2200 Blues” is a novel in progress, and each chapter is an early draft in its unfolding journey. Your thoughts and reactions are invaluable, guiding its evolution and refinement. 2200 Blues © 2024 by G.R. Nanda. All rights reserved.
“I still can’t understand why we can’t just tell everyone the truth about Rishi and the canyons,” he protested. “How are we able to prepare for what’s coming if everyone else doesn’t let us in?” he complained.
“We won’t share the literal truth from the village square for all to hear,” the lanky priest said, walking closer to the ring of priests. He waved toward the sheets of parchment rolled around the priests that they had been writing on before Nickel had arrived in the shrine room. “That’s because we have a better way—one that illuminates the truths better, by the light of the stars: a story.”
Ethra chuckled.
“You have a way of revealing our secret affairs with such drama, Kyeven,” Ethra said, addressing the lanky man without looking at him. He shook his head in amusement.
“We can trust the boy,” Kyeven said. “He’ll be on his way soon enough. The more he knows, the better he’ll be with the truth,” Kyeven added, looking back at Nickel. “When the truth isn’t enough, you craft a story—a story that lives in the minds of others easier than the raw truth,” Ethra continued, walking through the ring of priests towards Nickel.
“We write the cosmology of tomorrow,” Ethra said. “The dream for the bigger dream,” he nearly whispered. “When the truth causes too much chaos, you send it inside a story that warms the hearts of those you wish to reach.”
“Stories are how we experience the world. The creation story of Life and Great Father Hawk is how you were initiated into the Thraíha tribe.”
“We are stories upon stories, Nickel, told to each other and about each other. It’s what we do. We are storytelling creatures.”
“A story is being written now—of humanity and of each human. It’s the nature of reality. Men turned to the sciences and machines of the Past World, forgetting that what they were really making were stories.”
“Reality is a grand story. It’s the crystallizing of existence and, therefore, of reality itself.”
“Why would such a story be written, Nickel?” Ethra asked, turning to look at him with a sharp look. “What’s the point of our history? Why would it be written? Who would listen to it?”
Ethra turned fully, his whole body now facing Nickel. “Who would read it? What if you were part of a story being read by someone else?”
Nickel laughed.
“What if you and I were in a story being read by someone—being written by someone. Why would someone write such a story about us?”
“Well, I don’t know why someone would write such a cruel story for me,” Nickel said, feeling his smile waver. He lowered his head, rubbing his eyes with his palm, wanting to hide his sudden sadness and self-pity. “I don’t know why someone would be cruel enough to write me—Nickel Veda—such a… shitty backstory.” He looked up sharply. “Why would I be stranded in these canyons?”
“Ah,” Ethra said, his face furrowing. “What if you were the author crafting the story of your life in your mind, writing it every second with the instrument of your thoughts?”
Nickel gave a soft chuckle that was partly a scoff.
“I definitely didn’t write that I wanted to land in the canyons,” Nickel said, “and get stranded here.”
“Yet you landed in the canyons,” Ethra said.
“Because I was fleeing a situation out of my hands,” Nickel said through narrowed lips, his voice rising without his awareness. He only recognized it by the last bit of venom inflected in his final words, hissing like an angry rattlesnake slithering out of his mouth and into the thickets of the air.
“Despite what has happened to you,” Ethra said, “it is your mind that writes the stories you believe in—even the ones handed to you. And then,” Ethra paused, “that begs the question: what is your story—truly? What will you make of it?”
“And on that note,” a priest to the right of him said, “I think it’s time to leave for our council meeting. We’ve been writing and talking long enough. The women will start to wonder what has happened to us. Nickel, you’ve come far on your journey, and you have many ways to go. You have been touched by the constellations, and you have walked the pathway of Father Hawk’s flight—”
“—and he hasn’t even been on a hunt yet!” joked another priest, as they all began standing up, adjusting the folds of their robes as they extended their legs. “—the flight of Father Hawk has been treaded many times—through the canyons and the cosmos, countless times.”
The priest, a lumpy old man with a knobby head and a stumpy beard, smiled widely at Nickel as he prepared to leave.
“May his journey be with yours always………”
A warmth of gratitude swam in Nickel’s chest, mingled with a slowly growing jab of alarm in his stomach. It was a pinprick of sadness creeping in that alarmed him. Why did he get the feeling that he was at the cusp of an ending? He was too overwhelmed to ask the priests if he was, though he felt the urge strongly.
With that, the priests turned their backs to Nickel, filing out of the back of the room, leaving him alone in a mix of relieved tension, melancholy, and confusion.
G.R. Nanda 