#akela rambles

I took her back to her house, helped her get her stuff out of my car and went inside to say hi grandpa and talk for a bit. Grandpa has a lot of Coca Cola merch, and like the old awesome, sturdy merch. The kind that they don’t make anymore. I mentioned that I’d like to have a couple pieces, someday. When he’s no longer around. He seemed surprised, said that no one had really shown an interest in any of it except for one of my cousins who has his own Coca Cola collection. I told him that no, I don’t drink Coke, and I don’t really care about its merch--but that wasn’t why I wanted some of those pieces. I wanted some of them so I could have a piece of him. Along with his photos--and holy hell does he have a lot of photos--that’s something he cares about and gets excited about. Of course, I want that piece of him. 

Then my grandmother delivered the kill shot. 

I asked about a photo on the wall. It’s been there for years. It’s a ballerina, mid-turn, obviously not something mass-produced, but I’ve never really given it much thought before. It was just--something on the wall, covered in dust like everything else in that house. My grandmother went misty-eyed. She told me it was drawn by one of her younger brothers, who died when he was just 21 from a thyroid condition. 

It’s one of the few pieces of him she has left. When he died another brother, one she doesn’t speak too, went through and took most of his work. She took me into the back bedroom, and from a hiding place, took a stack of other rough pencil and pen drawings. Only a couple have color, but they were all obviously by the same person. Carefully, she handed them to me. And carefully, I looked through the stack. They were gorgeous, full of life even without color or a medium fancier than a cheap pencil. She told me pieces of him--smart, so smart, but couldn’t be trusted to drive. A voice like an angel and obvious skill in his drawings

I never met this man. I’m not sure I’ve seen a photo of him before, this man that died at 21, long before I was born. I’m 23. He’s been dead longer than I’ve been alive but I’ve been alive longer than him. 

I almost started crying, staring at these drawings that are the only solid pieces I have of him. I have no memories. I do not know his face, his voice, what he hated, what he loved. I know nothing, but these drawings. 

If you asked me before today if it was possible to grieve for someone you never met, didn’t know and had never seen, I don’t know what my answer would have been. But now I know that it’s possible to grieve for a stranger. He was my family, and he never really got to live. 

Now I have pieces of him. I have my grandmother’s faded grief, her stories, and her feelings. I have my grandfather’s laughter, his wry amusement of this young dead man’s car troubles. And I have my own grief, my own watered eyes, my own pieces of this great uncle I never met. 

Hello Uncle, it’s nice to meet you.

She’s known. 

Our Pearl isn’t known. Not like White Pearl. During the rebellion, no one connected OUR Pearl with Pink Diamond’s Pearl. No one wondered where Pink Diamonds Pearl went when PD was “Shattered.” PD’s Pearl was literally leading the rebellion with Rose, who NO ONE knew was PD. But no one connected Rose’s “terrifying, renegade Pearl” to PINK DIAMONDS Pearl. 

During the trial, the lawyer gem even goes “Where was her Pearl, when her Diamond was Shattered?” Pearl was with the rebellion, fighting alongside the leader. Yet you never hear about how Pearl betrayed PD, you never hear about the Diamond Pearl that left her Diamond to be shattered. Because Pearl was just a Pearl, and therefore above notice. Above care. PD was the tragedy. PD was the heartbreak. Her Pearl could have been shattered too and no one would’ve cared. Because she was JUST a Pearl. 

Pearl stood in Blue Diamond’s court, announced herself as a Crystal Gem and attacked members of BD’s Court. This was BEFORE PD was “shattered,” before the rebellion was considered ‘serious.’ And yet Blue Diamond didn’t connect that Pearl with PD’s Pearl, whom she MUST have seen before. Pearl states that she was “given” to PD before the Earth colony was started. 

Because who cares about a Pearl? Even when Gems talk about the rebellion, it’s all about Rose, it’s like they forgot about Pearls involvement. Forgot about the “TERRIFYING RENEGADE PEARL.” 

Homeworld erased that. A Quartz rebelling is bad enough, leaves a bad enough stain on their reputation, on the order of things. And they can’t ERASE it, not completely. Because PD was SHATTERED. She was GONE. They HAD to tell HW something. They had to explain how a Diamond was Gone. If the Rebellion had ended without that, it would’ve probably been erased from Gem History. The Gems that fought in the war would either be Shattered if they weren’t useful anymore or ordered into silence. 

The Rebellion would fade into distant memory. 

But PD’s gone. Shattered. They can’t do that. But they CAN erase some of it. A Pearl?  In the rebellion? Don’t know what you’re talking about, are you feeling well? Crack your Gem? It makes you wonder what other types of Gems they may have erased from the fight. Other Gems that are in lower castes, that serve like Pearls do. Not quite as low, but certainly Gems you don’t want to give ideas too. Gems you don’t want to think. Gems like Rubies, who are supposed to be soldiers lower than Quartz’s, to guard and not do anything else. Who cares if a Ruby is shattered? It’s a Ruby. But you don’t want them to think they’re more important than they are. 

Truly, this Rebellion probably caused...tensions, on Homeworld. Made Gems wonder, even if they didn’t admit it, even if they didn’t voice it if they were worth..more than what the Diamonds said they were. If they could DO things that the Diamonds said they couldn’t. I wonder if there was some Rebellion to squash on Homeworld too or other colonies. Or was the rebellion kept quiet for as long as possible? How much did Homeworld keep from its citizens? 

The Off-Colors with Lars can’t even agree if Rose EXISTED or not. That’s some heavy propaganda. If Rose existed she was terrifying, but that’s if she existed. Homeworld had to do some serious damage control. 

It makes you wonder how many Gems were shattered off Earth for daring to pick up the Rebellion in other corners of the galaxy.  

Here in NY, far from NYC, from the hustle and bustle of City life and the things that lurk there--The sewers and subway tracks are old and have their own myths and legends. The rats have no fear and there's something living in the cracks of abandoned buildings--there are things that live in the fractured forests, places that don't exist at noon but exist at midnight tucked away in the mountains. Something follows you in a winter-dead wood, you can hear it, but you cannot see it. There are lakes and rivers that are deep and swift. There are cornfields and endless cow fields with bits of trees stuck between them.

The roads stretch, up and down hills, around tight corners an under bridges. There's something on the other side of these blind turns and blind hills and road blocking bridges. You see a glimpse as you pass, of something moving, or something watching. A glimpse and it's gone and then it's just you and miles upon miles of road with no end in sight. When was the last time you saw another car? You don't know what time it is and you're scared to look. You've been driving for hours, you have been driving for twenty minutes and haven't left the county.

There are mountains to the North that are ancient and swallow people whole. There are paths that lead to nowhere and trails that are endless. Where is the end? Is there one? You can't tell but you are not alone. If you step off the path you risk never being seen again. The forest remembers and knows that parts of it are dying or are dead.

It will take revenge.

There are hours and hours between towns that are more than just convenience stores and half broken gas stations. Does anyone live here? The houses have eyes and you can't tell if there's life behind those closed doors. There are lakes and rivers and creeks and they twist and wind through forests and small towns--and you should've found your way out by now. Follow a creek down and eventually you reach civilization--right? Right?

The rivers never sleep, even when covered by ice and snow. They wait. They won't lead to safety and you cannot trust the ground beneath your feet.

In the winters everything halts. The trees are dead. Were they ever alive? No, they're sleeping and that's somehow worse. The snow is there until it's not, and then it's flooding and mud--and what is that footprint? There in the mud, it doesn't belong to you, you have not seen the ground in months and you have not walked here. No one has walked here and yet there are marks in the mud.

There are animals in the woods, of course. But sometimes the sounds you hear, deep in the forests--or as deep as you can get, many forests have died in man's journey to expand, the forests are thinner but they remember. They, too, wait-- that don't sound natural. Was it a fox or something screaming? Did a rabbit die or is there a child out there, lost? There is a child but it's been lost so long it's not human, it's not real. The deer are wraiths in the woods, beautiful and divine. They see your faults, they see your lies.

Summer is green and alive, the birds wake at 4 AM and the sun is high and bright by 7. The nights are short and everything seems to be safe. What can get you in the light? Everything's alive and growing. There are things breeding in the light of the day, hidden in the summer deep shadows, unafraid of the light. Sometimes, when you wake at 4 AM with the birds you hear things that sound like a bird but are not. They are false beings but they pretend and you can pretend too. Pretend you didn't hear the bird that wasn't a bird at 4 AM so you can roll over and fall asleep again.

It's fall and everything is dying, the summer passed in a blur and now it is fall. There are crunching leaves and was that something moving or just the wind and leaves dancing? How can anything come back after the winter to come? After the frosts and the feet upon feet of snow and the cold. How does anything survive? How do you? You read in the paper about people going missing in winter only to see their names again in spring when the snow finally melted and the frozen bodies of the missing could be found. They look alive, these frozen corpses. They were alive five minutes ago, they've been dead for two months.

Away from NYC, away from those stories, lies miles and acres and stretches of land and mountains and lakes that are hungry. They have been here for millions of years and they will be there for another million years.

Maybe the mountains will one day release the bodies of those they swallowed, maybe the rivers will run in a straight line to safety.

Maybe the wild will be tamed.