THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD

“Come, sit” said Mazzutshat to his younger, “the tale begins.”

Arzuchel fashioned the thin red sand into a bowl in which he sat, and waited.

Mazzutshat took one long haul from his hakloop - his pipe - and held in the heavy, razor-edged smoke. He exhaled purple fumes slowly, from his nostrils as he passed the hakloop to his younger. Arzuchel couldn’t hold in the acrid smoke as long as his older, but it was fine, because this was the day Arzuchel initiated olderness.

Once the hakloop’s final embers had been doused, the two sat on the red sandy hill together as two boneless piles of flesh sit. Perhaps Arzuchel felt more boneless, Mazzutshat had had all the practice between the two of them, and though his body was heavy, he was practiced enough to begin his tale in earnest.

“When the land was young,” he began, “and our people wandered wild, a noisy star fell from the sky.”

The smoke still clung to the air, stinging Arzuchel’s eyes. He closed them and saw Mazzutshat’s tale told in smoke.

“It landed here and cracked open like an egg, and from the star there emerged a host of horrible, pink-skinned creatures. They came bearing three gifts.

“But, at first, they found no one to give the gifts to. So they gave the first gift to the land itself in the hope that the free people of the land would see how generous they were and come to them. The first gift was fire.”

Arzuchel’s upper lip began to bead with thick salty sweat.

“The land glowed and raged with the fire, and before long, it had drawn many caravans of wanderers, who stared in amazement. The pink visitors knew then that they had the people where they wanted them and decided to endow them with the second gift.

“They erected a great city, the first seen in the world, a simple thing perhaps, but one with a very many complexities and accessories. It‘s towers rose above the clouds. The sides of the towers glimmered and reflected the heavens because they were made of glass, but strong and sturdy to stand up to the pounding of years and decades. The people were so enamored with the gifts that they became greedy and wanted to horde the precious baubles and trinkets that the city came along with. Olders and Youngers alike faught, fang and claw for scraps of worthless paper and discs of useless shiny metal.”

Arzuchel’s damp brow began to wrinkle now and though his body was still unbearably heavy, he stirred.

“Until that time, our people had never known battle, and with no one to mediate, there were no sides to take, everybody fought for themselves. It was anarchy. The pink-skinned ones held a competition of popularity to see who should mediate over the great city, and in no time it was done. The city had a king and order was mostly restored.

“It was then that the visitors, pleased with the work they had done, left this place, in the same star they had fallen from and shot back out into the heavens.

“But, before long, the king demanded payment from the people of the great city for the services he was giving them and not much longer after that, the king was the richest man in the city. With his newfound riches he was able to hire others to do the kinds of jobs he didn’t care for. People to cook his food, people to clean his house, others to guard his person against attack from jealous commoners, and the more bodyguards he hired, the more people tried to attack him.

“Knowing that if all the citizens were to attack him all at once he would surely be defeated, he put the entire city on wheels and moved it, at night, when all were asleep.

“But, the noise of the great city rolling away into the night was too much for some to sleep through and they awoke the rest of the people with cries of, ‘There goes the neighborhood! Look, it’s running down the road! Follow it!’

“When the people caught up to the rolling city, they sacked the king’s castle and left all his men for dead. And that is why, to this day, our people do not live in one place, we travel the land, for a city does not make a people great.”

Mazzutshat slowly and carefully got up from his seated position, and dusted himself off, rising fearlessly into the cold, purple night.

Arzuchel opened his eyes slowly, one by one, and found he had regained some control over his body. With some effort, he spoke:

“What about the third gift?”

Mazzutshat peered over the hill, opposite Arzuchel toward a small settlement of permanent shelters and pockets of fires in the distance, and said,

“I already said what the third gift was. War,” he pointed toward the settlement and said, “now go, Arzuchel! Today you become an older!”