By Carol van Strum and Jordan Merrell
They used to call us “autistic,” and before that they had other, even cruder names. They used to call this place Minnesota, and it was famous for snow. I have never seen snow, but I know this from old books. Now mahogany trees grow here, and vanilla orchids. And parrots.
That’s what I’m trying to tell about, the parrots. But first who are we. We are five that were six before, until Blue went to sleep and didn’t wake. It’s called death. I know this from old books. Blue was one of those who heard colors. We still sing sadness for her and now I write this because she started it. Blue said we were left here when civilization disappeared. Civilization was very noisy and we don’t know what happened to it. We were left because civilization did not understand us, Blue said.
Here is what the civil ones did not believe or understand. Which is that some of us uncivil ones, the ones they called autistic, could hear colors and see melodies and tune in to rhythms and harmonics the civil ones couldn’t see or hear or understand. But the birds could. We didn’t know this until the civil ones left us here. Blue said the civil ones probably forgot all about us in their rush to go somewhere else. And after all their machineries were gone or stopped, we could hear what the birds were saying and it was what we had heard awake and asleep. Blue said we should tell the song in writing like the old books. It is very hard to do this but Blue said it must be done.
The old books tell how the civil ones took many years and built many machineries to listen to hydrogen frequences for signals from civilizations in other galaxies many light years away. I like light years, the light sings on tracks of time. But with all their machineries the civil ones never heard or saw any signal from other worlds. That made them feel sad and lonely. The old books say that. I am sorry to know this, because if the civil ones had asked us we could have told them. But they said we were autistic and put us in Buildings and never asked us anything.
Here is what we would tell them if they asked. Blue said to tell it like the stories in the old books. Here is the story we know and hear and sing.
Once upon a time there was life just beginning on this planet. The planet did not have a name then but now we know its name is Earth. The old books say so. The new life was just cells at first, and then bunches of cells and eventually there were plants and animals. It all took billions of years. That is also in the old books.
What is not in the old books is that during that time of newborn life the planet that was not yet called Earth was in a galaxy that was moving around in the universe the way galaxies do. And the galaxy with this planet in it traveled through a kind of field in space that was many light years across. This was a wave field of signals, like pulses, from a civilization in another galaxy so far away it didn’t exist any more. Only its signals survived, singing and pulsing in that part of space that Earth’s galaxy was moving through. And the life just beginning as the planet moved through that part of space picked up the pulse and rhythm and harmonies of those signals in its cells, in every chemical bond of every atom and molecule. For billions of years every cell and life form carried those signals one generation to the next. And every cell and molecule of every living thing still carries those signals.
We who were called autistic could hear and see and feel those signals in our cells, and we moved and sang and danced and thrummed to their song. Blue said the civil ones did not understand us so they put us in Buildings. After civilization disappeared we left the Buildings and discovered animals outside. They were dogs and cats and squirrels and horses. And birds. The old books tell what they are. And they knew the signals like us, and did not run away or put us in Buildings. The birds even sang the signals and flew together in harmonies and intervals we knew from our own cells.
That is the story of the signals from a long ago galaxy. Now here is the story the signals tell. The parrots tell it best in colors and songs and flight patterns. That is why Blue called it the Song of the Parrots. The story is that the civilization that sent the signals was disappearing and trying to warn other civil ones, because it had understood the signals of an even older civilization too late to save itself. Blue said our civil ones heard the signals, too, and even repeated them in their songs and music over and over, but they never understood, either, and so they are gone. Here is the Song of the Parrots exactly in Blue’s words.
Know – sing – live
Know – power – destroy
Know – dance – light
Know – control – kill
Know – bend – laugh
Know – force — die
Know – too late – too late
When I had visions of the world that I first came to on planet Urth – as a piece/s of light, like stars we came – to my island where we became human and lived – we were much a part of the world of the fishes and birds.
I remember how we wove vast nets and strunge them from the trees over us. I suppose much like we put a couch in our living rooms today to invite guests to sit.
Also, we collected their feathers this way – that is, in the nets. When they were full of what our friends left behind, we would take them down and swim into the water with the nets, the feathers would float and we would collect them off the surface.
This was a lovely “fictional” read. Thanks!