Raven alighted on a rock and stood completely still.
Perhaps the stone man had the answer, he thought. A living statue. Perfect stillness.
He did not move. He did not sway. The rains came, then the snow, then the beating heat of summer. Still. Very still. Until he became something of a rock, and time changed for him. He was not asleep, yet he was not awake.
“He is WOKE,” said a voice from behind him. Raven turned and saw many forms appearing from the fog. They were people from his village. Elders wearing blankets and carrying drums, singing songs, dancing, barely wisps of themselves, made of water vapor and dreams.
“Is that different from being awake?” Raven asked, relieved to no longer be a living statue.
“You are woke to the injustices in the world,” the vapor forms told him.
“That is true,” said Raven perfunctorily, “but words change in meaning from day to day, so that word has a different meaning now than it had when you were alive…a thousand years ago. You are ghosts, aren’t you? Have you come to tell me that my uncle murdered my father with the help of my mother? Are you here to tempt me with Christmas parties and then show me my grave?”
The foggy forms, which had by then formed into full ghosts, seemed confused.
“Raven,” they said, “you cannot run. You cannot hide. You cannot turn yourself into a statue. You must remember the past, or else you will be doomed to repeat it!”
“That sounds nearly fatalistic!” cried Raven. “Please, let’s not go there! I didn’t like the Past the first time I lived through it. Please don’t make me do it again!”
“You must drink from the same pool of knowledge as your Elders,” the ghosts told him. “You must learn the traditions, sing the songs, dance by the fire. By so doing, you will be able to see this world, and by so seeing, you will be able to heal this world. If you continue to run and hide, the Past will haunt you!”
Raven groaned. “Really?”
“Raven,” they said, “It is your mission. You must unite the world. Eagle will help you on your mission.”
“Wait, what?” Raven exclaimed. “Who said anything about Eagle?”
“Um,” said the ghosts. “We just did.”
“Gak!” Raven cried. “Of the infinite computer simulations of our universe containing every permutation of every possible situation, all running side-by-side through eternity, I’m stuck in the simulation where I must save the universe…with Eagle? That seems somehow unfair. I’d like to choose a new universe please.”
“Remember the past, Raven,” the smoky ghosts said as they faded into the air, “or you will be condemned to repeat it!”
