Nightmare Transcripts Page 2

  But after all this work was done, Old One was lonely.

  When the sun fled from the sky and the moon shined her cold light over the land, Old One would sit huddled by the campfire in front of his wigwam, and he was filled with sadness.

  “What’s the matter, Old One?” Brother Wolf asked one night, seeing how sad Old One was.

  Old One puffed on his pipe and didn’t answer as he looked up at the stars, his creations, and thought long. He saw the stars’ beauty, but he felt their loneliness, too. Looking across the land, he saw the valleys and mountains he had made, and the gleaming rivers and oceans he had filled; but they, too, filled him with a deep longing. He knew in his heart that none of his creation mattered unless there was someone to look at it, someone who could appreciate its beauty.

  “I’m lonely, Brother Wolf,” Old One said after a long while. “I look around me and see what I have made, and it saddens me.”

  “The world you have made is very beautiful, Old One,” Brother Wolf said. “The woods and plains are filled with animals and birds. The waters are alive with fish. The hunting is good, and all that is strong grows and prospers.”

  “Yes, but that is not enough,” Old One said sadly. “I feel the loneliness of the world, and I need someone...someone I can talk to. Someone who can share with me and enjoy the beauty of all that I have made.”

  “Every day after the hunt I come to your camp and we talk long into the evening. Am I not company enough for you, Old One?” Brother Wolf asked. He lowered his head and pointed his sleek black tail to the ground as he waited for Old One’s reply.

  Again, Old One smoked and thought long before speaking.

  “No, Brother Wolf,” he said finally. “Your company is not enough. The world needs Human Beings, creatures created in my image who can truly enjoy what I have made.”

  “But Old One,” Brother Wolf said, scowling deeply, “would not creatures made in your own image also share your powers? I mean no disrespect, but would it be wise to give Human Beings such dominion over your work? Perhaps they will make things and do things to your creation that are not part of your plan.”

  Old One laughed loud and long, and smoke as thick as storm clouds billowed from his nostrils.

  “Brother Wolf,” he said sagely, “I have no plan other than to do what I have said. In the morning, I will take more soil and spit, and I will sing a sacred song as I fashion Human Beings for my world.”

  Brother Wolf bowed so low his snout nearly touched the ground as he shook his head from side to side.

  “Meaning no disrespect, Old One, but I think that would not be wise.”

  Saying that, he bid Old One good night and skulked away; but in his cold, animal heart, he held resentment for Old One for not telling him that his company was enough to give him pleasure. That very night, he resolved to wait for the dawn and, before the sun could light the land in the morning, he would steal it and hide it in his den.

  2

  Old One slept, and the night was long, seemingly without end. He was not aware that while he slept Brother Wolf had stolen the sun. When Old One awoke, refreshed, he sat and smoked, waiting for the sun to rise. After a long time when it didn’t come, he grew impatient and called Brother Bear to him.

  “Brother Bear,” he said, “I feel in my heart that many hours, perhaps many years have passed in darkness, yet the sun has not brought his light and warmth to the land. Do you know anything about this?”

  Brother Bear shook his head sadly. “I do not, Old One,” he said. “Like you, I have slept long and have awakened to find the world still dark. You created the day and the night, the sun and the moon, so you must know if this night will last forever.”

  “We shall see,” Old One said, stirring the coals of his campfire. There was little wood, and the fire was no more than a feeble orange glow in the darkness. “If the night lasts too long, I will either find the sun or else sing a sacred song and make a new one.”

  After that, Old One called to him Brother Deer, Brother Fox, Brother Rat, Brother Raccoon, and many others. They all said to him what Brother Bear had said to him, and Old One answered them as he had answered Brother Bear. Before he could call Brother Wolf to him, however, Old One found that he was growing tired. Remembering his resolve to create the Human Beings today, he set about his work in spite of the darkness. By this time, his campfire had burned out, and he could no longer see in the darkness to gather more wood. Digging blindly into the earth, his creation, he took a handful of soil, spit into it. Singing a sacred song, he began to fashion a Human Being. But working in the dark, he was unable to see his handiwork. It was only by touch that he fashioned a Human Being like himself who walked on two legs like Brother Bear but was naked.

  “To you, Little Brother, I give the gift of life,” Old One said. With that, he blew gently onto the molded soil until he felt it stir with life. Carefully, he held his new creation close to his face and addressed it thus:

  “Also to you, Little Brother, I give command of the earth. All of the animals I have created are for you to—”

  He intended to say “for you to enjoy,” but before he could continue, Brother Wolf came sniffing to Old One’s campsite. Old One heard him prowling in the darkness and called out to him, “Brother Wolf, why do you come to me, skulking in the darkness?”

  “I have heard from my brother animals that you are displeased, Old One,” Brother Wolf said softly. “You have been asking my brothers if they know where the sun is.”

  “And you know,” Old One said, seeing clearly into Brother Wolf’s heart.

  “I do,” Brother Wolf replied, “for I have taken the sun from the sky and hidden it inside my den.”

  Old One’s heart flashed like lightning with anger, yet he said nothing.

  “I was saddened by what you said to me last night,” Brother Wolf went on, “that my company was not good enough for you. I stole the sun to prevent you from making Human Beings.”

  “Go! Now!” Old One commanded, his voice rumbling like distant thunder in the darkness. “Return the sun to the sky, or else you and all of your children will perish.”

  Without another word, Brother Wolf departed back to his cave where he retrieved the sun and placed it back in the sky. As soon as the warm yellow light touched the land, Old One looked into his hand and saw what he had created from soil and spit and by singing a sacred song in the darkness.

  The Human Being was short and stunted. His body was covered with thick scales like those of Brother Lizard. The back of his head was pointed, and his face projected forward like Brother Rat’s. His eyes were round and bulged from his face like twin full moons. His shoulders were broad, like Brother Buffalo’s, but his body was narrow and had long, dangling arms that ended in wide flat hands upon which were long, curved claws like Brother Mole’s. He stood shakily on thin, gnarly legs that bowed outward at the knees like no creature Old One had ever created.

  “You are a disappointment to me, Little Brother,” Old One said, looking earnestly at his creation as he placed it carefully on the ground. “I thought, working in the dark, my hands and my sacred song would guide me, but now that Brother Wolf has returned the sun to the sky, I see that I was wrong. You are not what I had in mind at all. You are not a Human Being.”

  Little Brother looked up at Old One but, because Old One had not given him the gift of speech, he said nothing. The sudden blast of sunlight hurt his round, bulging eyes, and he shielded his face from the day’s warmth as best he could with his wide, flat hands.

  “No, Little Brother, I am sorry, but you are not a creature of the daylight,” Old One said solemnly. “You were created in the night, and you are a creature of the dark, so to the darkness below the earth I will send you. But to show that I am kind, I will allow you and all of your children to come back to the upper world once every five years, there to see my creation and all the animals which I have created for you to—”

  Again, Old One intended to say “for you to enjoy” but at that m
oment, Brother Wolf returned, approaching Old One with his head bowed and his snout scraping against the ground.

  “See what you have done!” Old One said, clenching his fists and shaking them over his head until the wind rose high in the sky. “Because I was not able to see, I have created this, not the Human Being I intended. And it is all your fault, Brother Wolf. Because I have to banish this pitiful creature to the dark caverns below the ground, I also will have to punish you. You, Brother Wolf, will become a child of the night as well, and every night, you and all of your children will howl at the full moon, the pale reflection of that which you tried to steal from me!”

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