4. PTA Meeting and Farewell by Shaymaa Abusalih
Blood rushing. Trees whispering. Dirt underfoot.
The smells, the flavors of everything all around, even the soon-coming kill. These were the moments worth living for. How he loved them.
These were the moments where he had a name, a family, and no regret. His brothers called him Nitis and that was all he was called. But not forever.
His speed had matched the others in the hunting party. A slim, tan creature pranced well ahead of them on four, strong legs. Their dinner was getting away.
The sun beat down on brown, glistening skin. Muscles rolled, tightened and tensed beneath it. Beads rattled against Nitis's bare chest and a long, black braid slapped against his back, which was half in shade of his glorious headdress. Hunter, warrior, guardian. And to think that one day they would consider him no more than a Tracker. There was some pride in a name like Tracker but of all his pride, he was only allowed that.
He slowed himself down onto one knee and took aim. The tip of the arrow lined up just right. One shot to the leg, that's all he needed. He'd slow it down and then go in for the kill.
He shot off an arrow before the creature was out of range, but what would have been a direct hit was, instead, a quickly-fading suspense.
The arrow did not make its mark. In fact, the arrow along with the long-chased-after antelope had ceased to be. They had passed through a door. This door was unseen. Much like a painting of a road that is placed at the end of an actual road, giving the illusion that it keeps going on and on and on.
The hunting party stopped dead in their tracks and their cries of excitement soon turned to shrieks of horror. It was "evil spirit" this and "evil spirit" that. They stumbled away, back in the direction of their small, secure cluster of homes. All but one.
The hunter, the warrior, the guardian.
He stood alone and stood his ground. Whatever forces, evil or otherwise were not enough to render him spineless. He stared long and hard at the something that was in all terms and purposes, invisible. (A very roundabout way of inspecting a something to be perfectly honest and he felt quite silly about it after a full minute of doing so.)
He then decided to test it in the same manner as before. He weaved and arrow through his bow, pulled back and sent another flying. It too was gone.
Still, he knew that if he had any chance of discovering the true nature of the something, he'd have to get closer. So, one step at a time, he left what would be the final traces of his existence in this time. A few light footprints left in the rock-riddled sand.
Oh, the seconds that passed. He'd come to regret them and for so long.
"Tracker?"
"Mm." he grunted in reply.
"Do you know how to do this?" Lee asked.
She had been holding her notebook out in front of him for a while now and impatiently pushed it closer to his face. His distant eyes gained focus and glanced over the page.
"There is negative here." he pointed out.
She smiled gratuitously and erased what she had written previously.
He tried to remember when it was she got here and for how long.
Anyone might wonder why Lee Harper was sitting on the Apache Tracker's living room floor, papers and books scattered about her as she dutifully did her homework. Anyone might wonder if she was anyone too.
To him, it was no surprise that she was here. Lee had decided to walk him home once afterschool and from that point on, she saw no need in going straight home, where she was unseen, unheard and unloved. Each had an equal appreciation of the other's company and so there were pleasant, drawn-out silences between them. Every now and then, one would say something and the other would answer. It was all very social. But this day in particular, Tracker was too far away in memories to speak, not even in the usual increments. He hoped he wasn't coming off as rude, but soon, he was lost in thought and didn't care.
Lee didn't mind but did worry. There is an unsettling difference between comfortable, mutual silence and soundless congregation.
She watched as the great, big man's great, thick eyebrows furrowed. This made his beautifully-plumed headdress fall just a fraction past its usual resting place on his wide forehead. His thin lips were lost of the smile he donned in her presence. Then, there was the curious flexing of his fingers, one at a time as though he were playing down the length of a piano, then all together into hard fists which sat atop his knees. He was so rigid in his chair. A statue. ( A statue not to be, in any way, mistaken with those wooden monstrosities which stand at attention in front of every souvenir shop in existence, cackling with still faces and unmoving lips.)
These though, were irrefutably, the signs of a great, big man in distress. And while he wondered about when he felt this feeling before, she wondered what she could do to cheer him up.
Unfortunately, Lee had little to no experience with this sort of thing. It was never a necessary requirement of her existence up until this moment. But she figured that if he was truly in need of her help, he would just ask. She returned to her work after another moment of concerned staring and saying nothing. Unknown to her, Lee had actually handled the situation quite perfectly. It is often the nature of the noticed to determine what or who needs help and do nothing in response. Very well done.
If the Tracker were any quicker in his thinking…and if he had the insight that you did as the reader…he would have known immediately why the feeling that struck him was familiar…But he is not reading this. You are real. He is not real. You are real. He thinks he is real but you are real. You are real but you may only be the one who thinks. Who is real? Who is he? Who are you? Why are you staring so hard at the screen like that?
…
If the Tracker were any quicker in his thinking, he would have recognized the feeling to be no different than what he felt that day he went through the invisible something. Which could mean one of two things: He should not have eaten that can of tuna last night. Even though he was under the impression that canned tuna couldn't possibly go bad, he was beginning to think that there was a chance it actually could if not properly cooked three months after its expiration date. Or it could most certainly be that the something was back. If he were any quicker in his thinking, he would have come to the conclusion that it was the latter. He was not. He thought of tuna and things he had read about tuna and had Ish-Kay-Nay eaten the tuna and did this mean he had to go out and buy more tuna. And then he realized it was the latter.
The same something was brewing in NightVale just the same as it did those close to three hundred years ago. On this same godforsaken patch of crusty land, a portal was opening to let loose time and hell and perhaps, a way back home.
"Should we…"
"You see? You see? This is the kind of crap that happens when these people get together and make decisions." Carlos shot at Edgar as he spun around, lab coat billowing. He had been pacing quite furiously, quite fabulously, in his office after receiving a bad speck of news. "I knew something like this would happen but no they had to take the door down because it was too 'tacky' and went on about lead paint. Lead paint for crying out loud! As if that were the real health hazard here!"
Perhaps, more than a speck then. It was probably more along the lines of a generously sized crumb, fallen off an exceptionally big loaf of bread.
Now, it couldn't be said with surety that the vote to remove the door marked with warning signs about some plutonium nonsense had anything to do with the current state of affairs but it very well could have. And now Carlos, in all his perfection was perfectly riled up at the moment because of it.
Edgar couldn't deny that there was something hypnotic about an angry Carlos. It had all the appeal of a hurricane – so devastating a force that you could only want to look on, even if you were swept away. He was beginning to understand the intrigue that fellow on the radio kept going on about.
When Carlos was done having his fit, he rolled up the sleeves on his coat, scratched an itch where his gorgeous hair once flowed and got to work immediately.
He had to keep this town from falling to pieces on a weekly basis. It was a wonder how they managed to survive all this time on their own.
"You're gon'na have to take the headdress off if you want to listen." Lee told him, holding her glossy, red headphones.
The Tracker rolled his eyes and plucked it from his head. There was a subtle indent along his hairline from where it sat and the skin just below it was considerably lighter from having seen so little of the sun all these years.
He looked so naked without it. Lee considered it an improvement though – she could see his whole face and it was rather nice. This was one of those rare moments, too vast in importance for the mind to immediately comprehend and one that could not possibly be captured with the snap of a camera. She'd make sure to remember it forever though.
The Tracker bowed his head so Lee could fit the headphones properly over his ears, and then placed the headdress gingerly atop her head as an exchange.
It was a bit damp, but that didn't bother her too much. She felt so empowered, so important. She stood up and shuffled toward the bathroom, where she could take a good look at herself in the mirror. In the blazer that was old in age but new to her and in a crown of neatly-groomed feathers, Lee felt herself grow warm inside and toasty all around.
This feeling – not to be confused with the early signs of spontaneous combustion – is called nostalgia. She didn't know this though. For, how can one have fond memories of the past if they never had one? Still, the feeling was the same, a secondhand nostalgia really. Because that's the feeling you get when you wear your fathers' clothes.
All the while, Tracker was listening to the latest news with a frown that started from the first crease in his furrowed brow, all the way down to the thin line that was now his lips.
A portal had, in fact opened. It was not much different from the one that had appeared in the post office a few months ago. The same portal, he concluded, which brought with it a certain Mr. Hiram McDaniels, literally a five-headed dragon. But it was not the one which brought him to this place.
In his mind, the Tracker made it out to be as such: There were several kinds of portals, all of them opening here in NightVale for reasons unknown. Some spit out creatures and things from worlds beyond and things seen only as specks to the naked eye. But some created tears in time.
This portal had to be it. It only made sense. The instinctual feeling he had in his gut, along with the sightings of species, long deceased, amounted up to what he determined to be fool-proof evidence.
In short, it was a way back home.
He looked back at Lee with eyes, two parts guilt and one part sorrow. He was going to have to tell her. He would have to tell her everything and then say "farewell".
"Ish-Kay-Nay." he called to her. "We go for walk now."
"Can't I finish my homework first?" she asked.
They exchanged a look that would've otherwise been a silent conversation, but even then, he could not manage just the right words to bring up into his saddened eyes. Lee felt a pit in her stomach that started to grow into a seedling of worry and from it hung a fruit of curiosity that any human, existent or otherwise, could not resist.
She left her homework, half-finished on the stained coffee table and followed the Tracker outside.
And though they were met with the chaos of car alarms and the screeching of flying, prehistoric beasts, the Tracker strode down the street, Lee bobbing after him in the headdress that was far too big to her.
"There is story I must tell." he began.
"What kind of story?" she asked.
"It is not finished. It goes on." was his unclear reply.
Lee did not speak, but waited for fear of being rude, for fear that he might not tell her any more than that. Instead, she watched the people scampering to and fro through the town, arms flung over their heads and screaming. She thought it to be a bit ridiculous, considering that the pterodactyls took it as an invitation to swoop down and snatch them up. Or perhaps they were pterodons…
The Tracker finally removed the headphones from his ears, though, by the look on his face, he was still unsatisfied by what he had heard.
Lee was glad he let her keep the headdress on. It gave her the feeling that for whatever he would say to her, wearing it would make all the words good ones and everything would be okay.
He did not look down at her when he decided to speak again. For now, he was a storyteller, reading from the pages the past had written for him. He almost squinted, trying to see as far back in memory as he could.
"I had a family. A mother and father, brothers, sisters and no bride. I was young. I was strong. I was foolish.
"There was day when I hunt for food with friends, but they all run scared because we find something that was strange. It cannot be seen, but it swallows what comes to it. We chased deer and the deer was swallowed. And then it swallowed me."
"An animal?" Lee guessed, frowning as she imagined how unpleasant that must have been if she were right.
"A path." he corrected. "It went through time and it swallowed me and then I was here. But I think I have always been here."
"What do you mean?"
"Same place. Different time." he clarified. "There were cars and houses and white men everywhere. That is how I knew, because I came from a time when these things had yet to come. My family was gone, my tribe crushed. I was alone.
"The arrows I shot at the deer, hit a car and that car hit the deer, and in the car was the man I made a promise to."
"What man?" she interrupted.
"I cannot think his name any more. I cannot see his face. But he was good to me. So, I make promise to him." he answered. "The white men I knew were cruel, this man was not. I did not know why until I saw myself. I was no longer Nitis, but cursed with the white man's skin. So, I stay here for so long. Another name. Another face."
"So…you weren't always white?" Lee dared to ask.
Tracker finally looked down at her and shook his head. "I am Apache as you would say. Inside. Always."
"And…your name is Nitis?"
He nodded.
"That's a nice name." she said and was glad to see that familiar smile spread across his face, even if it was only for a moment.
"It took everything from me." he continued. "But gives me things in return. Magics. Friends. And Ish-kay-nay."
Lee smiled a mix of flattery and embarrassment with a dash of anxiousness.
"I was good and sad also. I searched for the path again, but it did not show. And then a path came the day the cloud hung over our heads."
"Did you go through it?"
"It was not the right one and it was gone when I got to it."
Lee was about to apologize in the way that wouldn't have really been an apology, but just a way to give a reply to something terribly unfortunate without saying the wrong thing. But Tracker stopped her before she could.
"It is here again today." he said and with a sigh, he turned his eyes downward, away from the past, away from Lee.
Being quicker in thinking than the Tracker, Lee understood what this meant and a heavy anguish and terror rose up and strangled her until tears threatened to pour from her eyes.
"You're leaving." she whispered more accusingly than she had intended. He could only nod in reply. "But…why?"
She very well knew the answer he could not give. Still, she wanted to hear it from him. She wanted to know that if this was real, if this was true, that he'd be brave enough to tell her and that she would not be left with questions unanswered.
But before he could even think of an answer, the Tracker stopped. Where he stopped had nothing peculiar about it, which is probably why it seemed so peculiar to them. While chaos raged around the city, people ducking into houses and scientists trying to make sense of it all, here, on the outskirts of the Dog Park, there was nothing. No sound, no misery, just…stillness. Nothingness. But that very nothing could be the very something he was looking for.
Lee did not feel the same as he did. She was buried too deep beneath her own emotions. The Tracker though, felt an inexpressible amount of delight. And bitter as it was by his ever-growing guilt, he could not remember feeling such longing, such sense of home.
Without thinking, he began to edge forward, his eyes glazed over as though he were under a trance. His heart beat against his chest, he could feel every inch of himself, feel the air he was breathing, and the hairs on his arms stand up. He was so close now. So close to three hundred years ago.
But something small and deliberate yanked him back, yanked him by his big, burly arm. It yanked and pulled until he wasn't slipping forward, but stumbling back. His mind was clear again and he knew that it was Lee who had him in such a tight grip, her eyes pleading and rimmed with tears.
"You have to say goodbye." she demanded. "You don't just leave like that. You have to say goodbye."
"I cannot." he told her as though it pained him to speak.
"Why not?"
"I am not leaving. It is the same place. Different time."
"That's not good enough!" she cried and her grip loosened on his arm as he took hold of hers. She sobbed as shamelessly as a child. She felt cheated. She could not understand how unfair he was being. Why did he bother to remember her at all? Why did he bother to save her? To care for her? Why do all that just to leave? It's one thing to go unnoticed, but another to be left behind.
The Tracker pushed the headdress back to the top of her forehead – it had slipped over her eyes as she shook with tears – and made his voice as soft as a lullaby.
"I must go back. It is where I belong." he told her. "I have lived in a time that was not mine. I have been cursed and I have been waiting. I must go."
"But I want you to stay." she said helplessly.
"But I do not belong." he said just as helplessly.
"Then let me come with you." she begged.
"No." was his firm reply. "It brings only agony for those who pass through. It may reverse the bad it has done to me, but I do not know what it will do to Ish-kay-nay."
"I'll take my chances." she said. "Anywhere is better than here and if I'm with you…I'll be happy."
"I only want this."
"Then why are you leaving? Why are you leaving me behind?"
"Because all must be made right. All must be where it belongs."
"Then, where do I belong?"
Her eyes were red and wet now, her face soggy and strange. He did not like to see her cry. Not even as a baby could he stand to see her cry. And just as he didn't know what to do then, he did not know how to make the tears stop now.
"You will be safe here." he told her.
"That doesn't mean I belong here though, does it?" she shot at him. "If I belonged, then people wouldn't see right through me all the time. People would remember me. I would matter to someone!"
"You matter to me!" he bellowed, insulted by what she was insinuating.
Lee was taken aback by this, but she did not retreat from him. Instead, they stared at each other, just long enough to say what they could put into words and touched by his unspoken speech, Lee fell into his arms, sobbing harder than before.
He was sorry to leave her. Sorry to leave her in a place like this. He too had hated it for as long he had known it. But his leaving was not an escape and especially not one he was denying her. Had it been in his power to do so, he would take her away with him just as she asked. He'd raise her and keep his promise and they would live three hundred years away from this strange and awful place. But this is what was required of that very promise. In leaving her, he would be given the chance to make her happy, correct the wrongs done in her life and bring balance to it once more. He could not tell her how or when this would happen, but he hoped that she would trust him enough to be as patient as he was, when left alone in this world of cars and poorly patched-up problems. And if she could not find the light in a place as dark as this, she was capable of being that light herself. This he said to her without words.
And her unspoken reply was a gentle and well-deserved, "You're an asshole."
It was a long embrace, the longest one either of them had ever known and it only ended when a screech tore through the sky and the last of the prehistoric beasts – finally confirmed to be pterodactyls – came crashing a few feet away from them at the Dog Park's entrance.
Its heavy, gigantic body plowed through the grass and soil like a winged meteor and it squealed pathetically when it came to its final resting place. And as these desperate cries drifted toward the obsidian walls towering in the distance, hooded figures drifted down to meet it. Lee's face was still buried in the Tracker's chest as he stooped over her protectively. She could barely see them, let alone count the number of hooded figures, but they swarmed the beast. The mournful cries turned to panicked squawks which were silenced with an intimidating swiftness.
Lee looked up at the Tracker and could tell that if there was ever a time to go, now was that time. And though he wasn't looking for permission, he saw it in her eyes.
Slowly, he drew away from her until she was clinging to his arm by the tips of her fingers.
"You'll come back, won't you?" she asked, hope taking the place of sorrow in her eyes.
And the Tracker smiled for her. "I am always with Ish-kay-nay. I made promise."
"Okay." she breathed, nodding, though her heart screamed something differently. "Okay."
He carefully lifted the headphones from around his neck and placed them in her quivering hands. Then, returned the headdress to its rightful place on his brow. Lee was wrong about it. It hadn't made the words any better at all.
Before she had time to do the same, the Tracker stepped back and placed a firm kiss on the top of her head. He said, "Farewell, Ish-kay-nay." and was gone before she could even reply with a weakened voice.
"Later."
Now that he was gone, no trace of him left, Lee could barely resist the temptation to go after him, but the hooded figures just a few feet away were churning like leeches in a barrel around the pterodactyl carcass and she wasn't so sure she wanted to hang around long enough to find out what had become of it. And she was completely sure that whatever had been done to it, she didn't want to be next.
She walked back home, not even bothering to pick up her things from the Tracker's house. She already missed him too terribly and she didn't know what that sort of thing would do to her. Everything was back to its usual strangeness and she passed a few scientists, huffing exhaustedly in the streets with little, whirring devices in their hands. She even saw the one that used to have such lovely hair, Carlos. Lee thought to give him a wave hello, but then she remembered that the only man who ever knew of her existence was three hundred years away. She walked home alone and ignored. Only her radio kept her company. She thought that at least this would take some of the sting away, but today's weather was all too fitting for the occasion.
A lady crooned a song that made Lee think about the promise Tracker had made – what was it and to whom did he make it to? She thought about all the "why's" she had before and a few more still. She thought about every person who had come to love her and every person she had come to love. She thought about how close they were. And how they were close enough to lose.