Spirits of the Coastals

“As children in our learning circles, we had heard that in the time when the Ancients ruled, the earth was unstable. It was a time that was plagued by unpredictable weather, upheavals that caused major calamities and disasters over the entire planet. We were told that Mother Earth was cleaning herself with this activity, because despite how often humans defiled and abused her, she refused to be a dirty whore. We were told that the earth could only clean herself for so long and eventually, she lost her patience with these Ancients. As a means to stop the abuse she convulsed on the inside and widespread seismic activity reinvented her surface.” “Do you think this is why we are having this storm Nokum?” Little Mesha inquired still clearly frightened by the deafening howl of the wind and the rain beating down on the dwelling, intermittent with the deafening crashes of thunder and blinding flashes of lightning. “Do you think the earth is mad at us?” “I think she is mad, but I don’t know if she is angry at us,” I answered. “I’m sure she is not angry with you my angel. Try to sleep.” Mesha was right to be frightened. The Mountain People had never experienced such a storm. We had never had an outburst of such magnitude and length. There had always been a season of storms. We counted on it to replenish the earth and calculate our years. However, the worst storm we had ever witnessed in our village, prior to this, was a few hours of heavy rain combined with excessive winds and some frightening thunder and lightning. We were accustomed to hearing severe thunder and lightning to the west and north of us. However, that was in the land of the Ancients. A land still affected by the evil behaviours of the People of the past. We treaded in that land rarely and cautiously, under strict regulations. We only entered that volatile territory to salvage supplies from the material wealth that the Ancients had left in abundance. We never stayed there long and we were usually chased back from the salvage expeditions by the black clouds that would form in the sky of that foreign land and frighten us away from their territory. These regions sometimes had mudslides and the weather and climate conditions were far more volatile than in our village. However, now it seemed we were experiencing a storm like this in the village. It had been over a day and it didn’t seem to be letting up. The wind had blown down some of the dwellings and people were gathered in large numbers in the more secure huts. No one had been able to venture far from the village to assess the damage to the orchard or even to see if there had been any mudslides in our region.