Past Sight

I awoke. There was a chill in the air and faint smell of wood smoke from the night before.

I could hear the children playing and the soft voices of the village women as they went about their work.

I was still tired from the hunt of the day before. We had gone into the mountains to hunt the great elk-much bigger than the deer here in the valleys and better to feed the People with through the Winter.

I rolled over pushing the hides and blankets away-the early morning chill bit at my skin as I dressed in my deerskin pant and shirt.

The light from the doorway guided me and I crawled out into the small room I had built in front of the cliff to shelter the entrance to my home-a small cave sheltered in the cliffs overlooking the valley below.

I walked onto the path and waved at my children. The older boys had joined in a game of chunga-beating one another with sticks as they ran through groups of other children. The ones to cry or stumble would be out and counted lesser among the children.

My woman was beating corn into meal on the grinding rock with some of the other women. I needed to go down and bring up water for our home.

I gathered the bags,,,waterskins made from Elk and deer stomachs. Carefully cleaned and dried then stretched and oiled. I could carry much water like this.

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I got to the river. A small stream coming from the mountains. It never ran dry and the water was always cold-even in the middle of the hot season when water everywhere was scarce. We had fought and killed many from other tribes who tried to take our homes and our water. I had thirteen kills to my name.

I began my walk back up towards the dwelling. The day seemed hot and much brighter,,,almost too bright to see.

My head swam and I sat in the shade of a tree. I was afraid that I was getting sick from the white eyes diseases that had emptied many of the villages towards the East.

I got up and the world swam...I walked slowly towards the cliffs-my home disappeared behind the trees.

I could not hear my children or the village. It was too quiet.

I cleared the trees to see the ruins of my village. The walls to protect our homes were crumbled and somehow looked old.

I swung my water bags down and looked-they weren't right...there was a backpack and some equipment...a camera.

The door to my home-the walls were gone...it was blocked off. My home was gone...for hundreds of years... it was 2003.