He said the name I knew him by was true and false. He said the current I stepped in was but one of many and all of them are valid for the one swimming in it but only the current one was drenched in. He said if I dared to go deeper, what I know as true then would become false and I would have to seek a new truth.
He said all this.
I went deeper anyway.
It is a little thing I found. Another step away from the Heathenry I thought I knew. Another depth of understanding of the letter this fool could recite. Another name now devoid of meaning, no longer fitting him now that I’ve seen behind the mask I forced upon him because I was told he could be no one else and I never knew to challenge what I was told.
(I said I wasn’t going to write anything.)
I have reconstructed what the unvoice said to me in the cave. What I had rejected so bitterly, even the memory of it was exorcised. It was not the figure’s blow to my chest that shook the meanings out of my mind. It was my willful and intentional blindness that made me vulnerable to expulsion in the first place.
The unvoice said to my heart, «Language is shaped by experiences.»
«This was placed long before [whiteness] became a thing. It was placed before the forerunners of your language was filthy slang. If you can claim Charlemagne as an ancestor then you can also claim those who were in this current, in this cave, who saw this figure, and recorded him here.»
«If you can claim them, then you can claim him. But because your experiences are different from theirs, your words will likewise be different. The names others have given him will not be the name you call him by.»
I had seen color photographs of this image. Despite care to capture finer details, the images always appeared indistinct to me. As if the figures on the walls were caught in mid-dance. I watched the figure take on other colors that were not in the photographs. Colors I have seen on a similar figure, but not in the depths of a fire lit cave. In a grove, under a gray sky, surrounded by a ring of young white birch trees and attended by a single verdant mound.
«Some forces are constrained by blood. Some forces are fed by blood. Some forces are carried by blood. Some forces are blood.»
«You are both predator and prey.»
«You have forgotten how to be both.»
«This figure is [a certain role].»
«This figure is [the Antler Crowned and Green Masked Figure].»
«[REDACTED LIKE FUCK.]»
It was at this point that I rejected what my heart was told so violently that I could only stand trembling in stunned confusion. The figure bounded off the stone and quickly crossed over to me. He struck me where the medallion rested on my chest, not to expel me, but to imprint the memory so that after my hardened heart had relaxed, I would be able to relive that moment again and hear what the unvoice said to me if I dared.
He was successful.
As was I.