Mekanurg
I'd rather be different than indifferent.
Memories of brown and blue
I will always associate Ariana with the smell of dust, dry as cinder. It is a land of few colours: brown soil, grey rock and green vegetation characterize the hills and valleys. What do the inhabitants really subsist on in this arid home of death? It took some time before I realized what the farmers cultivated and what their herds grazed. We will usually not eat what they grow, but they are able to eke out a meagre existence here.
The sole relief for my eyes was the blue sky, a brilliant shade that I had never seen back home. Occasionally puffy clouds would drift across it, adding white to the limited palette. The sunlight is so sharp that the human eye cannot determine its colour; it is simply dazzlingly bright, be it white or yellow. It is only at the brief sunrises and sunsets that you can look in its direction and then its disc is mainly orange, casting pink and purple hues across the sky.
What do we do here, aliens in an unearthly land, hated by some, distrusted by most and appreciated by too few? Ariana had for decades been a place shunned by the powers-that-be, the home of fierce natives and devoid of anything that would attract the attention of outsiders. However, the game of the thrones is played according to rules that often are hard to comprehend for common men.
Suddenly there was a war, not a regular war of conquest in which a state subjugates another to make it a vassal or a province, but a war of so-called pacification, a war to put an end to an untenable anarchy and establish a semblance of a central government and a public administration. Ariana could not be permitted to be a haven for foreign criminals that knew how to exploit the natives’ code of honour and tradition of hospitality.
Columns of soldiers marched out of the ocean ports controlled by the great powers and crossed the mountains that serve as Ariana’s shields. Already before that, airships had departed in secrecy with agents that spoke the local tongues and carried coins to bribe warlords and chieftains. The goal was to make the natives fight among themselves, to gain some as allies and to make these groups establish a new order that afterwards would be supported by foreign soldiers.
And behind the military men followed civilians like me, the people that would make the new order grow from words on documents into tangible arrangements: administrative bureaux, law codes, law enforcement officers, school and clinics. The notion was that by providing the amenities of what we define as “civilized life”, the people of Ariana would embrace the new order.
Initially these plans worked to some extent, by as the years passed they started to wither. Yes, many natives rejoiced at foreign novelties that did improve the life of the poor and the oppressed – or, at least, for a part of them. But pride and stubbornness are an essential part of the way of Ariana, too, and one cannot expect such ancient traits to wane quickly. After all, where I come from it took gener¬ations to eradicate the “honourable” custom of duelling, despite numerous decrees that outlawed the practice at the pain of death.
Looking back, what memories of Ariana are etched into my mind? The early morning ride from the barracks to the office, my colleagues and me surrounded by a squad of ex-soldiers charged with protecting our lives by risking their own. They were coarse men in sturdy civilian dress, but I always respected them for their professionalism.
Fright was an ever-present companion. Ambushes and home-made infernal devices were the most common strategies of the insurgents. Even though the ride was short and across familiar terrain, there were no guarantees for our safety. The fright geared my body into a stubborn fight-or-flight mode, making the senses more acute while dulling my intellectual capacity. Anyone is able to cope with this particular stress for brief periods, but if you experience it for extended periods it will harm both body and mind. That I learned the hard way.
People say “time heals all wounds” – they are wrong. Some wounds, though invisible on the outside, are so deeply engraved in the mind that they remain as scars as long as you live. But when you step off the ocean liner in your home city and return to normal life, the people around you are unable to grasp that. They have never faced what you have. They have never lived with the knowledge that there are enemies nearby determined to kill or maim you. In a civilized city, such notions are called mental illness. In Ariana, they are a healthy trait. He who fails to grasp the seriousness of the situation will perish -– ignorance and naivety are indeed lethal.
I think that this is why my memories of Ariana are so sharp and painful. When I close my eyes, there are so many thing that come as vivid images to my inner sight: the rickety houses, the huge beasts of burden, the milling crowds, the ornate temples, and always the dry brown hills. When I boarded the airship down by the ocean and heard the hum of its Reynolds engine as it cast off its moorings, I had no idea what alien landscape I would encounter when we reached the highlands.
Is Ariana really a part of our world? I have no idea. But when I, standing by myself on the airship’s observation deck, eventually saw the sky-defying World-Encircling Mountains at the horizon, I got sure that whatever reality is hidden beyond its unconquerable dark peaks, there is a leakage between it and our familiar world. The Rim is simply too unlike home.
I will always associate Ariana with the smell of dust, dry as cinder. It is a land of few colours: brown soil, grey rock and green vegetation characterize the hills and valleys. What do the inhabitants really subsist on in this arid home of death? It took some time before I realized what the farmers cultivated and what their herds grazed. We will usually not eat what they grow, but they are able to eke out a meagre existence here.
The sole relief for my eyes was the blue sky, a brilliant shade that I had never seen back home. Occasionally puffy clouds would drift across it, adding white to the limited palette. The sunlight is so sharp that the human eye cannot determine its colour; it is simply dazzlingly bright, be it white or yellow. It is only at the brief sunrises and sunsets that you can look in its direction and then its disc is mainly orange, casting pink and purple hues across the sky.
What do we do here, aliens in an unearthly land, hated by some, distrusted by most and appreciated by too few? Ariana had for decades been a place shunned by the powers-that-be, the home of fierce natives and devoid of anything that would attract the attention of outsiders. However, the game of the thrones is played according to rules that often are hard to comprehend for common men.
Suddenly there was a war, not a regular war of conquest in which a state subjugates another to make it a vassal or a province, but a war of so-called pacification, a war to put an end to an untenable anarchy and establish a semblance of a central government and a public administration. Ariana could not be permitted to be a haven for foreign criminals that knew how to exploit the natives’ code of honour and tradition of hospitality.
Columns of soldiers marched out of the ocean ports controlled by the great powers and crossed the mountains that serve as Ariana’s shields. Already before that, airships had departed in secrecy with agents that spoke the local tongues and carried coins to bribe warlords and chieftains. The goal was to make the natives fight among themselves, to gain some as allies and to make these groups establish a new order that afterwards would be supported by foreign soldiers.
And behind the military men followed civilians like me, the people that would make the new order grow from words on documents into tangible arrangements: administrative bureaux, law codes, law enforcement officers, school and clinics. The notion was that by providing the amenities of what we define as “civilized life”, the people of Ariana would embrace the new order.
Initially these plans worked to some extent, by as the years passed they started to wither. Yes, many natives rejoiced at foreign novelties that did improve the life of the poor and the oppressed – or, at least, for a part of them. But pride and stubbornness are an essential part of the way of Ariana, too, and one cannot expect such ancient traits to wane quickly. After all, where I come from it took gener¬ations to eradicate the “honourable” custom of duelling, despite numerous decrees that outlawed the practice at the pain of death.
Looking back, what memories of Ariana are etched into my mind? The early morning ride from the barracks to the office, my colleagues and me surrounded by a squad of ex-soldiers charged with protecting our lives by risking their own. They were coarse men in sturdy civilian dress, but I always respected them for their professionalism.
Fright was an ever-present companion. Ambushes and home-made infernal devices were the most common strategies of the insurgents. Even though the ride was short and across familiar terrain, there were no guarantees for our safety. The fright geared my body into a stubborn fight-or-flight mode, making the senses more acute while dulling my intellectual capacity. Anyone is able to cope with this particular stress for brief periods, but if you experience it for extended periods it will harm both body and mind. That I learned the hard way.
People say “time heals all wounds” – they are wrong. Some wounds, though invisible on the outside, are so deeply engraved in the mind that they remain as scars as long as you live. But when you step off the ocean liner in your home city and return to normal life, the people around you are unable to grasp that. They have never faced what you have. They have never lived with the knowledge that there are enemies nearby determined to kill or maim you. In a civilized city, such notions are called mental illness. In Ariana, they are a healthy trait. He who fails to grasp the seriousness of the situation will perish -– ignorance and naivety are indeed lethal.
I think that this is why my memories of Ariana are so sharp and painful. When I close my eyes, there are so many thing that come as vivid images to my inner sight: the rickety houses, the huge beasts of burden, the milling crowds, the ornate temples, and always the dry brown hills. When I boarded the airship down by the ocean and heard the hum of its Reynolds engine as it cast off its moorings, I had no idea what alien landscape I would encounter when we reached the highlands.
Is Ariana really a part of our world? I have no idea. But when I, standing by myself on the airship’s observation deck, eventually saw the sky-defying World-Encircling Mountains at the horizon, I got sure that whatever reality is hidden beyond its unconquerable dark peaks, there is a leakage between it and our familiar world. The Rim is simply too unlike home.
Ja, självklart ska du ha gott betyg när du har gjort ett så bra jobb. Det är sällan man hittar texter på ett forum, skrivna på engelska av svenskar, som känns verkligt välskrivna och bekväma att läsa. Jag själv behärskar inte en så målande engelska. Möjligen för att jag använder min engelska allt mindre numera, hur som helst har vardagsengelskan blivit kvar. Damn... Jag behöver definitivt få mitt engelska ordförråd tillbaka. Nausicaa har jag inte sett än, men Laputa är en av mina absoluta favoritfilmer.
