Pahm (Short Story)

Photo by Joshua Bartell

“Hold out the lantern, be our guiding light;

the darkness is looming, the pain out of sight.

Carry our burdens so we can be free;

take our fears, our broken shards, our memories—

take our stories, tozhare, and hold them tight.

We are coming, Inazh. We are coming tonight.”

He danced softly on the stone. A master of his movements, his kone called him varni ach tevar, flight of the owl. His feet made no sound when they touched the cave rock, his motions light as if carried by the wind itself. He could’ve soared through the sky had he not been born to weave through the darkness of the world below.

Though one of dance, he had never been one of music, but rather of the silence of a still pool of water. The silence had often been unsettling to his kone, but it was comforting now, as if his lack of sound could ease away any danger that may be lurking beyond his sight. Sen, Nem, Pahm, Chav, Ton. Step by step, he made his way deeper into the fog—the lantern did not do much to clear the mist, illuminating only puffs of white and gray and a sliver of color from the cave walls. 

Yet he did not need the lantern’s light; each step was solid, sturdy as if he had walked this path many times before. He had no need for light when he held a compass within. Sen, Nem, Pahm, Chav, Ton. He leapt from stone to stone, through gem-studded tunnels and stalactite-filled domes, toward the cold fire that had always been tugging at his soul, until he reached what could be the heart of it all.

The mist parted as he stepped out into the empty space. He stood on a cliff—a cliff settled in the largest dome he had ever seen, with stone that glowed, a dome lined with stars in a night sky of rock. It dawned upon him—this was the farthest that anyone had ever gone. This was where Somen had once stood, on his journey to find the deepest verca of them all. He had reached it—Nom Sarte.

As he stood, a shudder ran through the dome, the earth trembling from a being deep within. He nodded slightly, taking the blue stone out of a small satchel and placing it onto the ground before looking to the sky.

The ground shook again, the blue stone rising into the air towards the stars. It was as if the world had come to one place to create the impossible—filled with wonder, he watched the stone float, suspended, unable to take his eyes away. A pale blue orb, it seemed to shine with the stars as if it was one of them—a lost star returned home.

And then the stone disappeared into the sky, fading for a moment before returning brighter than ever before, with a million others that lit up to show a face, not quite human and yet he could still see it, its hands moving in circles and arcs in the language he had created, or rather, the language he had always known. A language that no one else seemed to speak, one that needed no voice to communicate.

“You have returned.”

He watched, not quite ready to reply. It was as if the stillness of the air was another silence that could be broken with his hands. And so Inazh continued.

“You have come here for a wish, I know. Your community wishes for peace.”

“Yes,” he signed back.

“And what do you wish for?”

“I wish for,” he paused. “I wish for peace for my home as well.”

“But do you?” It was as if it knew his doubts, the uncertainty on which his wish lied upon.

“I... don’t know. I’ve never really thought of it as my home.” He was still for a minute until a question arose. “How do you speak this language? This language of mine?”

“I have always spoken it. It has been woven into my soul unlike any other, as it has for you. For you are one of us. And home, well, most of us never find one. But perhaps you one day will.”

“But if I am one of you, then who am I?”

“I cannot answer that question for you; it is a question you must answer yourself. And perhaps it is why you do not know your wish—you must first know who you are to know your heart’s desire. Alas, time has never stopped to let you figure out what you are supposed to be. What do you wish for?”

He thought for a minute. “I wish for peace. And I wish for a home.”

The face seemed to smile, aligning, unlike any smile he had seen before and yet he could feel its warmth. “One wish too many. But I’ll allow it. You are my kin, after all.” 

The stones descended from out of the sky to the space right in front of him, so close that his hands could brush them—he reached out to touch them and he could almost feel their warmth, one of joy and of completion, so different from the ache of desire that filled him. They swirled for a moment, with a message. “Follow the stones.” And then they were whisked over the edge, falling. He rushed to the edge of the cliff and peered into the darkness. “Trust me. There is another world below. And time is ever-turning. Ton tov.”

Ton tov. He steadied himself, eyes still adjusting to the black. The stones left a trail of light, becoming smaller until it was smaller than the stars above. There was no end in sight. “Why should I trust you?” He received no response. 

Sen, Nem, Pahm, Chav, Ton. And then he heard it. There was a beat, a rhythm. His heart was beating louder now, in unison with the cave. In unison with the world. 

Ton. Chav. Pahm. It was an odd sort of song, the kind that rises from the quiet of the stars, where sound was never really present, and yet it is undeniably there. It was the feeling of being where he’d always been meant to be. Come home.

Nem. Sen. They had said that he could fly, dancing in the wind. But to fly on the ground was so different from taking to the skies. He took a breath and stepped out over the edge. 

Tov. The world was falling, and so was he.

“The world has never known you, Pahm. Just as you have never known yourself.”

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Author's note: This was written for my English class, and it's been the first short story I've written in a while; I've been writing a lot more poetry lately, and I think the poetic style is leaking into my prose. I really the feeling of poetic prose though, and I think it fits the mood very well. But writing this on a deadline definitely burnt me out a little bit.