Saga of the Man Called True: First Moon
(Note: The following is probably not going to make a great deal of sense. Roll with it. It's also all my original work, (c) JEO 2011.)
Saga of the Man Called True
First Moon: Before Truth, Growth
And let it be known that there are many worlds, and many futures sprung from them. Do not let it be believed that the "many worlds" hypothesis is the truth, mind you. Not all choices lead to different futures. When you choose what to have for breakfast this morning, you create a single future - you don't create a dozen futures where you eat every possible thing (along with one where you skip breakfast entirely).
No, the divided futures are their own entities, not predicated on any sort of linchpin in history. All exist due to the work of God. Mind you, this is not the God you think you know. This is God as a Creator, not a caring one. God - neither male nor female, though we shall call God male for sake of discussion - has created countless worlds, scattered about reality, and when one is complete He turns from it and starts anew. So it is that each universe has grown under its own power.
This tale is in a universe somewhat but not quite like the one you and I live in. Time is independent in each world, and thus it is farther ahead than we are. By their clock, it is, perhaps, 2200 AD. But no one is quite sure. For this world lost track of time many years ago. Time only has meaning when there is something to wait for.
This world lost anything to wait for a long time ago.
For this is a world of harsh sunlight and sharp winds, of biting cold and searing heat. This is a world where, a long time ago, something went terribly wrong. The weather is your worst enemy on this world, and what food you can grow you must defend with your life. It is a rough, desolate world, and not one that you can survive in for long with kindness.
And it is in this world that he was born.
At the time, he had no name. Most children earn their own names in this world - life is so hard that most children don't survive, and so parents don't bother to name them until it is clear that they will live. That assumes that they even have parents; some are just abandoned to save on supplies. This child lucked out in having parents with enough supplies to take him on.
For the first years of his life, the boy grew up in a fairly stable environment, if not particularly loving. He learned to wrap himself in canvas when the wind came, to hide in the shade and cover his skin when the sun beat down. He learned how to make fire, how to lay low from the heat, how to find shelter when the storms came.
He learned about the cities.
They were just myths now, but in times past, there were great cities of men. Some said they were still there, too - cities walled from the wind, with greater heaters and fans to fight off the chill and the sun, and with great farms such that no one ever went hungry. The stories drifted throughout the world, and while few believed them, everyone wanted to.
The boy believed them with all of his heart. Whenever he and his parents stopped to rest, he asked them to tell him about the cities. They told him every story they knew, until he knew them all to the last word. Every time they met others out in the cold, out in the heat, out in the wind and the rain and the storm, he would ask them about the cities. Eventually he knew every story about the cities there was.
With every cycle of the moon and the stars, the boy dreamed about the cities. He looked up into the dead gray sky, and he saw the buildings. He looked into the empty blue water of the rivers, and he saw the streets. He saw the cities everywhere he looked.
After a very long time, no one could say how long (perhaps thirteen or fourteen years after his birth? Even he did not know), the boy's parents told him that they were leaving. They told him he could not come with.
The boy had expected this. He'd already taken to preparing his own walking stick from a limb he'd found along their travels, hardening it in the fire and smoothing it with sand. He had prepared clothes of tough canvas, for when he would not be able to replace them for a long time. He had practiced all the skills they had taught him.
It still hurt, but he did not feel the need to cry.
The boy's parents told him to be careful. They told him where they kept caches of food, and where they went for clean water. And they told him that if he was going to look for the cities, he would be best advised to head south.
And then they named their son and left him for the rest of their lives. What they named him, only he knows.
The boy waited for them to be well out of his sight before he allowed himself to cry. When the tears were dry, he went the other way. They never saw each other again.
There are many more tales to tell, but the moon's light is waning. I shall meet you again when the moon shines anew.