Have you ever seen a behemoth? The ones brought in by the foreigners
after the silent war? I was a boy, eight, nine years old, when I saw it.
Have you ever seen a forest catch fire? Your entire village’s herd destroyed
in an instant? Of course not. The behemoth was eight feet tall & breathed fire.
It’s body was made of metal and painted black. The behemoth destroyed our land,
making it impossible to sow. There was no harvest that year. Do you know what we did?
We built a behemoth of our own. An ugly thing, powered by sunlight and unlike the original,
our behemoth required piloting. I was chosen to ride the thing. It was a terribly tight fit.
But I managed. The behemoth struck me but our machine held its own. When it spat fire,
I shot water from my chest. When it tried to uproot trees, I bound it with strong cords.
I pushed it away, away from the village, deep into the hills. Then I hit it until it fell apart.
That was when I thought I would die. Nobody to help. My own behemoth was heating up.
Do you know what I did? I prayed. Or tried to. But I couldn’t remember the word for death.
I was praying to our ancestors for a swift death but the word was replaced
by the foreigners tongue. Ha. Obviously, I survived. But I sat there in pain and fear,
because they just didn’t try to destroy and steal our land but they tried to take our language.
Do you know what the word for death is? You don’t? Lean closer and I’ll tell you . . . .
