Supernova

by Georgia Chioni

  “Oxanna.”

  That was the most beautiful female name he had ever heard.

  “Oxanna,” he repeated.

  She held a piece of animal skin. She went closer, and touched his old cloth trousers waist-high. He was surprised.

  “What do you want?…To take my clothes off?”

  The girl was scared. He smiled politely, and took the animal skin. That would be his new outfit. He would wear that piece of skin, but he wouldn’t let her undress him.

  “Me,” he showed himself. “I’ll do it on my own.”

  Oxanna smiled, and got out of the hut.

  In his new clothes, he went out for a stroll. All his neighbours were cordial and smiling. Many women sang. Never before had he met such a cheerful tribe. Looking at his hut, he thought it was too small. He would build his own place, since circumstances were more than favourable. With his visiting neighbours looking on, he picked up some soil, and gathered it behind the hut.

  He carried on building his house the next day. He mixed the soil with water, and made clay. He then started a fire, and took to heating it. In doing so, he gave it some shape. He was making some square slabs. When he heated quite a few, he made a wooden construction, like a fence, to support them. He began to weld the slabs with clay. In one of the walls he built, he left some open space, where he stuck a piece of wood. He would make a window there. He took branches, and bound them together with a climbing plant. He then tied it fast to the piece of wood. In the same way, he fixed the door to another piece.

  Two days later, he made the roof. First, the inner part by means of a construction that he fixed to the walls, on top of which he built the slabs. His house was ready. Much better than a hut. Everyone stood in awe. They left and, after a while, came back with some little baskets full of food. He thanked them, but he couldn’t understand why they were giving all this to him.

  Late in the evening, he went out for a walk across the flatland. It was then that he realised there were different settlements in the four corners of the block where he lived. Behind one of them, there was another hill, on top of which perched a temple.

  The next day, he put the seeds from the fruit he had eaten into two big baskets. He decided to make a small garden where he would plant them. He chose a small stretch of land, and fenced it with stones. He would also make room for a ditch to bring water from the stream.

  His neighbours wouldn’t tear their eyes away from him. They watched everything he built in awe, and tried to communicate with him. Within three days, Mor had learnt their names and some small words: ‘good morning’, ‘yes’, ‘no’, his neighbours’ names, and words referring to animals and fruit. He called the flatland with the four settlements ‘Tetrapolis’.

  Days stole by calmly. A beautiful place and warm-hearted, cheerful, and smiling people. Mor made some more constructions. His neighbours’ enthusiasm grew more and more. Along the stream, he built a dam with stones. Digging around its bank, he made a small canal to water his garden. He tended his garden with various tools he made by chiselling stones. Mor couldn’t understand their language, but he could feel those people’s tenderness.

  Every morning, at the edge of the flatland, the settlements put up their stalls with their goods. Baskets of fruit, jewels, clothes. They grew and picked up their seeds, making various items for everyday use. On hot days, they would bathe in the stream, laughing and singing. They also washed their clothes in its waters. At the edge of the valley grew some blood-red roses, whose petals they crushed to make a thick cream the women applied to their lips and cheeks in lieu of cosmetics. It was a slow-paced society, with no problems, stress, or worries. Mor would lie by the stream at night. The starry sky reflected in the cold water. That picture soothed him, while his mind drifted off on another dimension.

  Those sounds he heard gradually became familiar to him. Their language had lots of consonants, but only a few vowels. Some of these consonants were hard to pronounce as it took some strange combinations of the pharynx and the nose. They represented symbols with words. “It wouldn’t be so easy,” he thought. He would first have to learn which word represents each symbol. It was quite easy to learn the first words. Later on, the whole thing was quite mind-boggling. The inhabitants took great pains to teach him more and more words. ‘Aroumadja’, they would say, and pointed to the sky. It wasn’t difficult. ‘Daga’ meant ‘water’, ‘vor’ tree, and ‘g-ha’ soil.

  Mor noticed that none of the people wrote. They were illiterate. He dried leaves, and wrote on them in some ink of his own making. He noted down the words he heard, so that he wouldn’t forget them. Only those spending their day at the temple knew how to write. He guessed they must be priests. They were supposed to be more knowledgeable. One day, he saw one holding a scroll. The more he observed the temple, the more curious he grew to explore its interior.

  That morning was different from all the rest. Everyone was even more cheerful. His neighbours had woken up early. There were peals of laughter and voices. People were cleaning their houses, dusting, and washing, while there were no pedlars at the edge of the flatland.

  “Aroumadja,” they shouted and giggled, pointing to the sky.

  Their songs had a different rhythm, slow-paced and warm. In the afternoon, they began to clear and decorate the flatland. It was then that Mor realised they were having a feast. Oxanna, who paid him visits almost every day, kept talking to him. She was the daughter of the ‘Chief of the Tribe’ or ‘Archpriest’. He was the oldest and most venerable man in the tribe.

  Mor was sure that the girl explained to him what was going on, and he was trying to isolate some words, so that he would understand what would happen. “Iskadil, iskadil,” the young woman repeated, pointing to the sky and Mor. “Maybe, she refers to the stars,” Mor thought. “If ‘aroumadja’ means ‘sky’, then ‘Iskadil’ must mean ‘stars’ or ‘God’.” Ashira’s last words jingled in his ears: “They will look upon you as a God. Make sure you take advantage of that.”

  Just before dusk, the Chief of the Tribe, or the Archpriest, came out of the Temple, followed by the rest. Mor counted eight priests and four priestesses, Oxanna being one of them. The procession went down the flatland in a grandiose way, all of them kneeling down, chanting and praying, with their hands raised to the sky.

  “A festival for the stars,” Mor thought. According to his research, primitive civilisations usually worshipped deities. So, they must be worshipping a deity related to the stars. But they all lived among the stars. “Maybe, they are celebrating a specific season.” He hoped to learn soon.

  Since he couldn’t understand what was going on, he decided to enjoy the sweet evening. After the prayer, they started big fires, and everyone sat around it, singing and dancing. There was also lavish food.

  At some point, Oxanna went up to him with one of the oldest priests. They sat on the ground. The priest was talking to him, but Mor didn’t understand a word. He spoke in a different language. Some of the sounds were similar, while others completely different. “Priests must speak a different language,” he thought. While the man was talking to him, Mor was smiling. “Iskadil, Iskadil,” he whispered.

  He made a pile of soil with his palm. All of a sudden, the priest formed a small round ball with his wooden stick. Without much thought, Mor pointed to the ball, then up to the stars in the sky.

  “Iskadil?” he whispered. The priest shook his head. He hit his stick on the ground.

  “Div.”

  He knew that word. It meant ‘no’.

  “Za,” he shouted.

  “Za?”

  The priest kept pointing to the ball and the ground.

  “Za.”

  “Za,” thought Mor. Of course! “Zaon! He’s pointing to the planet.”

  “Za,” he replied. “Za.”

  The priest nodded. Right away, Mor flattened the soil and, a few inches away from Zaon, he drew Saabah. He put that at random.

  “I came from this place,” he said and pointed to Saabah,
showing his spaceship’s route. The priest looked at him, and took to drawing some round spheres and lines with his stick. Mor couldn’t believe his eyes. Within a few minutes, he had drawn planets and their trajectories, satellites, and neighbouring planets. How could that man know about all this?

  He put his finger on a planet.

  “Iskadil?” he asked.

  “An,” he replied, nodding his head. He drew a line from that planet to Zaon.

  “Iskadil me, too,” he continued. “I came from the stars. Look!”

  He pressed a button on his metal wristband. The little lid opened, and out popped the device.

  “With this device.”

  He pressed the button to activate it. The screen lit up at once. The priest and Oxanna were surprised. They mumbled something, then ran away. Mor deactivated the device, and put it back in its place. His eyes flicked between the drawing on the soil and the sky.

  “Something’s going on,” he murmured, “and I’m going to find out soon.”

  The feast was over, and the peaceful people returned to their huts to sleep. Everyone but the priests. They had all gathered in the temple, listening to the elder explaining how he had seen the device flicker. There was no doubt that the sturdy visitor was sent by the God of Stars to pave the way for His advent. This was the only explanation. That’s why he had come from the sky in a vehicle granted by God Himself. Decision was unanimous. They would bring Mor to the temple, anointing him priest.

  The next day, two priests accompanied Mor to the temple. The Archpriest awaited him at the entrance. Amid murmurs and chants, he covered his head with a weft. He got hold of a small broom made of straw, and started wiping him from head to toe. He would have to be cleansed and purged of his previous life, in order to enter the temple, and be accepted by the eminent caste of the priests. That’s what Mor assumed, and underwent the procedure without demur. When it was over, they put around his neck a hand-woven garment, and a pendant depicting a deity.

  After a while, the purified priest entered the temple. Hearing them speak, he could recognise many sounds, but the combinations were different. It was a mystical, sacred language for the chosen ones of that society.

  The temple was huge. It didn’t look so big on the outside. There was a vast hall, half built and half chiselled into the rocks. The walls were full of drawings. A strange smell wafted in the air. It was pungent and addictive, at the same time. A priest was anointing the dead body of a man with some kind of myrrh. That’s what gave off that smell.

  There were scrolls all around. Some were in neat piles, while others were scattered across the floor. Some priests were writing, unlike the people of Tetrapolis. “Weird,” he thought. Some scrolls were incredibly huge. Mor went closer. There were various symbols. A kind of writing he couldn’t fathom.

  Several yards away, on both sides of the aisle, there were two doors leading to two smaller rooms. In the one on the left was the priests’ dormitory, with smooth, chiselled stones. In the other, which was bigger, there were some sarcophagi, on top of one another, or in the rock niches.

  Suddenly, Oxanna held his hand, and showed him an exit. He followed her into a smaller yard. They crossed it. It was surrounded by wooden sheds that looked like a fence, sticking out just before the cliff. There was a wooden door in one of these. Behind it hid some chiselled steps along a declivity. Walking ahead, Oxanna motioned for Mor to follow. He looked downwards. The rock was high and steep, waves came lashing against it. The steps were too narrow and rugged. They weren’t wide enough for a man to stand on. The slightest stumble could cost your life. They went down a few steps, when an opening turned up on the left, and walked in. Oxanna turned around to speak to him, but Mor didn’t understand a word. Then, he stood in awe of an opening covered with a huge stone. The surfaces of the rocks seemed to have been chiselled. Oxanna saw him stop short and look around in surprise. She smiled and urged him to walk on.

  It was much cooler in the bowels of the rock. She pointed left. Mor could barely make out amid the steams a small natural source inside the rocks. Oxanna softly touched his hands, and showed him the water. Without waiting for any reaction on his part, she took off her mantle, folded it, and dipped into the source, encouraging Mor to do the same. At the sight of her slender body, he couldn’t react. That girl was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He was in a trance, while she was laughing. He felt ashamed of himself. She got out of the water. She took off his pendant and belt. She also wanted to take off his leather skirt, but Mor didn’t let her by grabbing her hand. She was trying to explain, but in vain.

  As he saw her smiling, he wanted to touch her hand, but he restrained himself. He was lost inside those eyes of hers, and he felt serene.

  “I know you don’t understand, and it may be better this way. I come from a different planet, a different universe. Our civilisation is much more…advanced. Our planet was destroyed. Only this wristband was left. Maybe, if I stayed here…we could be together…but you are the Archpriest’s daughter. You are so young and beautiful. I don’t know what I’m saying to you…and you’re listening to me. If I go, will you follow me? I don’t know…”

  Oxanna was looking at him smilingly. She guessed he was telling her about the temple as he was pointing to various parts in the room.

  “You’re so beautiful. Beau-ti-ful,” he repeated. “Yes, you. Beautiful. Very beautiful…,” he murmured.

  The cool sensation of the water was so soothing, balm for his burnt skin. After a while, they stood up. Oxanna showed him a long corridor inside the rock.

  Mor couldn't believe such a discovery. Oxanna couldn’t help laughing at his surprised look. She began to talk to him in their language, touching his hands, and showing him the corridor that led towards the Temple. He couldn’t understand what she was saying to him, but her touch was warm and relieving. He couldn’t get his fill of her angelic smiling face.

  After a while, she stood up, put on her garment, and urged him to do the same. She wanted him to follow her further inside the temple. He couldn’t but obey. They walked along the path between the rocks. Mor found it hard to follow as his head almost touched the ceiling. Oxanna kept talking and pointing in a specific direction.

  Various symbols were drawn on the walls of the internal temple. Parallel to the path, a whole world unfolded on these walls. Much to his surprise, they were covered in paintings. The whole history of the planet and its creation. Oxanna laughed, seeing his puzzled face. She put her hand on the drawings, and began to explain to him. Mor looked at her, all at sea. He could barely understand, except for a few words. He would try to decipher all these drawings on his own. He groped and studied them laboriously.

  Whoever had made them had drawn some spheres around a bigger one. The drawings looked pretty much like the ones the priest had made on the ground. The same planetary maps. The biggest sphere was Zaon. The rest represented other planets.

  He counted the spheres. One, two, three…There were seven of them, with the biggest one in the middle. Oxanna kept talking to him. She pointed to the sky. “Da-i-ta, Da-i-ta,” she repeated. There were other, different drawings underneath each sphere.

  Around the first planet were drawn some human-like beings, bigger than the planet itself. Oxanna was trying to explain. She had stretched her hand to show something above her head.

  “Tall?”

  Without understanding much, she kept pointing.

  “Very big…giants. Was that it? The planet of giants?”

  The young girl continued to explain in her own code.

  Animals were drawn on the second planet.

  “These don’t look like the reptiles on Saabah or on our planet. They are animals, but so different.”

  The drawings showed big, sturdy animals with small heads, bulky bodies, and huge tails. Many of them had wings on their back.

  “What weird creatures!” Mor murmured.

  Underneath were drawings of a great number of animals and human-like beings dressed in l
ong tunics. He couldn’t understand if they were friends or enemies.

  On the next planet, there were some huge mountains.

  “This may be inhabitable.”

  The planet next to it had the symbol of water drawn all over it. There were some unsightly images, but Mor couldn’t make them out.

  Oxanna pointed to the next drawing. It was the biggest planet of all. Her tone of voice slightly changed; it turned serious now. She kept repeating the word ‘harum’, and showed her heart. What could that be? The planet of the hearts? “Adenul,” she added. Mor was sure he had heard that word before. His mind scurried back to Tetrapolis. ‘Adenul’. All of a sudden, he remembered. It was one of the first words he had heard. “Death!” Death, planet, heart. It was the planet of the souls.

  He looked at the girl, and smiled. “Adenul,” he said. Oxanna showed him the last planet. Next to it stood some monstrous figures. He took a closer look. They had human bodies and animal faces.

  At the end of the corridor, there was a small room. It was full of various organs. He would never think these people were able to make them. The first thing that caught his eye was a mechanism made up of two concentric spheres. The internal sphere was in the external one at an angle. “Simulator,” he thought. It was a device that simulated the erratic movement of the planets, in combination with some circular movements considered the only acceptable trajectories for perennial motion.

  Next to it was another organ. It was engraved in metal, a calibrated quadrant. One tip was pointed, while the other carried a weight. The geographical width of each place could be calculated by directly aiming at the polar star, and by indirectly gauging the meridian of any other celestial body.

  “A primitive place locator,” he thought. “Impressive.”

  “Iskadil,” repeated Oxanna.

  “I see. Knowledge that came from the stars.”

  They went back. On the other side, the walls had murals depicting human-like creatures. “Their Gods,” he thought. Oxanna pointed to a figure.

  “Iskadil.”