Drumbeats tumble over the riverside.
The sound waves, in fact, collide—they dance together in mid-air—to create an indistinguishable warble of shifting, layered rhythms. The drumbeats, themselves, emanate from below these dusty, yellow patchwork tents lined haphazardly along the opposite bank of the sacred river, Placenta-C. The tents belong to a tribe of Melic half-breeds who, cast out by their own society, have come together to form their own community of wandering nomads who no longer wander. This nomadic spirit of theirs, this passion for freedom has taken a less assertive form and inclined itself to manifestation through a tonal release into the surrounding atmosphere.
In those layered patterns of waves—which seem to melt together to form a kind of deep hypnotic buzz, like that of a foghorn—a liberated hum of dull, unenlightened timbre fizzles out into the vast reaches of the Cosmos, as a story is told of the half-breeds’ centuries-long journey along the Melic archipelago to the lands outlying it and back again. This long, yet unsuccessful migration had been a failed attempt at escaping the persecution and injustices they’d suffered at the hands of their half-brethren; historians and reputed scholars alike have come to attribute this botched exodus to the absence of organization or definitive leadership among the half-breeds—in some cases, indicating that the group lacked focus, which inclined them to, in many cases, seek the protection of others, rather than achieve even a moderate level of self-sufficiency for themselves as a society, making their day-to-day livings as beggars, plantation workers, and even petty thieves.
The inevitable result brought forth by this was that after many trials and tribulations, divisions and secessions, after drifting about by land and sea for generation upon generation to the limits of the frontier, the remaining half-breeds—that is, those who hadn’t finally decided to settle abroad—found themselves in a position in which they’d had to return to their homeland to ask for asylum from the governing theocracy. The Melic Papacy was accommodating, but only as much as one might expect them to be with their unwanted half-children. They couldn’t really be taken in as refugees. Neither could they be looked upon as citizens. And so, without an acceptable precedent in place, the government had no choice but to grant them a special provisional status, similar to that of guest workers. These half-breeds were, therefore, allowed back into their homeland, but made to endure a condition of living not much different from that of indentured servitude, which despite its seeming hardships, managed not to diminish the spirit that had guided them throughout their many voyages.
And yet the passion of this spirit, the buzz created by their confluence of rhythms, now, still manages to be compliant like that of a drone speaking honorifics in the presence of its queen; accommodating and meek—as they have eventually become after centuries of living as perpetual guests in foreign lands and, more recently, as guests in their own land. Yet beyond that, there is another layer to that buzz. It isn’t a sense of resignation, but, more likely, a kind of transcendental delight—a whimsical carelessness toward the prospect of an existence that strips them of their cultural identity; an existence that has scraped away the very concept of social status; an existence now peeled to its core, right down to its very essence. They didn’t have much in the way of money, or possessions, and little, if any, influence on their surroundings, but instead a kind of happy-go-lucky appreciation for having a place to stay, people to love, and whenever possible, food to eat.
Upon their return to their homeland, the half-breeds had found Melic society unrelenting in its religious protocols. The social codes, which seemed to take a rather narrow interpretation on the teachings of the Prophet Morell, had apparently given way to a highly sophisticated and specialized hierarchy of roles by which their society functioned. This religious infrastructure permeated every aspect of their daily life to the extent that the duties of its people were invariably prescribed in nearly every imaginable context and with such remarkable clarity and detail that it left little to chance, doubt or imagination. There was only one way to lead a religious life in Melic society and any deviations from it were dealt with severely. Naturally, this left its citizens with no recourse but to adopt and maintain an attitude that was both humble and God-fearing without really knowing why. And yet their social constructions of reality had been perpetuated for so long that this need for faith without conviction had come to be intuitively accepted by its people.
Thus, the repatriation of these half-breeds didn’t seem to make logical sense to the average Melic citizen. That reckless demeanor—that wild, mischievous spirit that had guided them aimlessly into dangerous, often life-threatening circumstances: it was simply misunderstood. And so, the returning half-breeds had had no comprehensible place in the Melic reality. They didn’t have a specified trade or craft. They weren’t formally educated. At best, they were maybe mediocre artisans, but not of the conventional sort. Thus, in a society as steeped in religious and traditional lifestyle as the Melic, they could only manage to co-exist however they could, the most rational solution being as servants to the pure breeds—those who’d managed not to see a connection as a race between themselves and those who’d been the children of captured and enslaved comfort women during the wars.
These half-breeds had once been the scraps of conquest: the forgotten cost of cultural expansion. And now, they were back in greater numbers, lost children from a wayward path with stories to tell. The Melic people were, however, unimpressed by this, as the half-breeds had a greater significance to them as cheap labor. Their common heritage was unimportant; common ground: there simply was no common ground, for the scriptures never mentioned that there should be. These half-breeds were the help and their co-existence was acceptable, so long as they stayed in line.
At the same time, in accordance with Morellan ideology, Melic citizens understood that they had to be accommodating to the lifestyles of the half-breeds, however bizarre and savage they may have seemed. After all, the half-breeds, as with all lower creatures, were purposeful to the ebb and flow of the ecosystem, and were, thus, to be left to their own natural inclinations unmolested. And so, they were allowed to continue indulging in their bizarre traditions and rituals of living, without fear of retribution. Thus, there was no fuel for hatred and, certainly, none for persecution.
The lost children had come home.
And to this day, their traditions have endured.
They meet by the river daily and they tell their stories in patterns of drumbeats and warbles, encoding a rhythm with layered implications; a rhythm that tells a story that they’ve carried with them for centuries on their travels and yet, one that’d left no traces, no remains of itself in any of the places they’d visited.
A story that booms and reverberates and dampens, before finally evaporating into the surrounding atmosphere.
A story lost in its own echoes.
Echoes