Dear friend,

        When I first saw it for myself in person, I was equally humbled as I was in awe; for I lived my life previously in rejection of grandeur, that same quality and approach that brought our lush-green home to a subdued defeat of grey---a fate in which we owe directly to such grandeur. Yet still, as I laid my eyes upon the rough wall of the Fifi’s Cave, the strength of its name found its weight in me. Not in my heart, not my brain nor my soul, but somewhere else in between, where its presence proved impossible to ignore.

        Stretching nearly ten times my height, and even taller as I got closer---clear engravings that at one point, long before my friends, mothers, aunts, and cousins; and long before their mothers, aunts and grandaunts, ordinary people of our kin consulted this grandeur as the sole guide of every and all things. And now here I was years later, alone. And then the weight pushed down further into that in-between-place, and I finally understood. I finally understood what it meant to be alone yet somehow, kept firmly in company by everyone whose path I had followed, whose ground I shared, whose stories I’ve sung. All this, because of a 5-pointed circle, an inscription of a message, followed by indecipherable scribings below it. All of this, grand revelation inaccessible, yet hidden it remained, barricaded in that in-between place. Thus, I returned to the only source of guidance I could think of that didn’t come in the form of gravestones or old clothing stashed in vacuum sealed boxes; these were last-resort options for our then-ending world, as if the final particles of scent preserved in those boxes would give us, would give me, one final realization, or at the very least, some closure.

        I remember when I made my first Zemi. I believe you remember yours as well. It was the earliest memory I had, as it was for many of us. A celebration more so, it signaled not just the beginning of our memories, but also the unicum symbol of the first of our many selves to be.





I dug around everywhere for it. I must have looked through each and every familiar house I’ve ever been in, all of which were dusty and messy, yet fully inhabited by the belongings that you all left behind before your flight. I was hurt, sure---I didn’t actually think you would all fly away for good, leaving all of this. But I had no use for that grief then, I kept digging and finally I found it, my very first Zemi.

        It had no name, for it was always called a Zemi to everyone who had one. I carved it out of clay, using the two colors I had to distinguish its circular face from its pointy 3-spike hair. For eyes, I used the shavings of crayons, colored pencils and any other finely ground remains I could find---and there it was. My own little, me. When my mother was still around she would tell me that the Zemi was the vehicle to the next world---that it didn’t matter what happened on Earth, our Zemi would be our tunnel, our stairway; or any of the numerous allusions she made. But I never thought my mother’s Zemi, as well as that of nearly every other elder, would be with invisible wings, as though they were never here, leaving no traces of movement, but stagnation in the form of belongings.

        That next world, drawn in several icons on Fifi’s Cave wall, repeated to me by my mother and repeated to her by hers, could not have been more different than the reality outside the stagnant houses. Below the 5-pointed circle, the only piece of text whose decryption survived, read as follows:

       

        And below, meters and meters of undeciphered instruction, of which I spent my last years of Earth attempting to crack, until finally I decided I ought to write this letter, for you, to help you, dear friend and reader, if you should meet the same fate as I. I added more and more to my Zemi, following whatever I could find from the sacred instructions, but nothing seemed to change, no flight was taken with my absent wings; no passage opened for my gallops, and no glimpse of this next world gave audience to me. I remembered feeling defeated after every attempt---each time more defeated than the last; and surprisingly, after years of attempts, a part of me---in that in-between place, lit up with hopeful excitement just before repeating the deciphered sayings.

        My last unsuccessful attempt at flight back then, brought a resemblance of 15 years prior, just before the rest of you all took your journeys, and I decided to abandon grandeur for good, and with, leaving behind its relics. My mother told me, the day before her flight, that the Zemi is sacred and I should protect it with all I have---and in return, it will protect me. “If you are scared, just remember it’s there with you.” She would say. But back then, back when I carried it with me everywhere---to the school playground hidden in my backpack, to the bathroom, to the kitchen during dinner, to the birthday parties, weddings, funerals, holidays, and all everywhere else that felt foreign, the fear never left. It didn’t leave when I crossed the deafening streets of the central town on the way home; it didn’t leave, even in the peaceful serenity of silent dusk at the Fifi Avenue Park; in which the monocult of fresh-cut grass surrounded our people’s second-most

sacred relic: the statue of Fifi and his Zemi. But no, the fear remained, and as much as I protested against my mother, all that came to a halt once I saw the regality and reverence of the town Mayor disappear, when laughter accompanied his decision to remove Fifi’s sculptor. Only in that memory then, I understood; that the reason I was still scared was not because our Zemis weren’t strong enough, but because this land of ours was no longer ours; and we were condemned to be scared, for as long as its defilers remained laughing.

            Upon this realization, I placed my nearly-unrecognizable Zemi on the floor, and took a walk outside, deciding I had given up trying to escape this world that wasn’t my own. I took a walk, just before dawn and I swore never to attempt to fly again. But what was left now of the grey metropole? I walked and pondered, crossing far past the inner ridge of the Greenwald Public Park, once-named The Janisyatoko Forest, named after the Janisya’s, who for long had been kin to our own. I came upon an open field, where the wind was determined to keep me held in place and observe its might. When a low rumbling sound travelled in my direction from a distance, I caught sight of a single, white horse gliding through the field effortlessly; it was both cathartically vigorous and stoically submissive to the blows---surrendering not just to its unrelenting force, but to the resilience of the field itself. I felt a deep respect for the field, even though its ground had once housed the many creatures and crops that held their place in nostalgia. I digressed; the same ground it still was, whatever happens, the same ground it will remain.

        I crossed through the field and reached the outer edge where a small hill led up to the Winwood View, once named, Zikinza’s Hair, after our folk hero’s prolifically sandy hair, of which was said to bring him shapeshifting abilities---and a quality in which ascribed all harmony between creatures, and whose name we honor, when we respect a life sacrificed for food, or a life taken as sacrifice for that of another’s.

        A sudden peace came upon me, and as I stood there at the top of the hill, and imagined myself as our folk-hero’s most prominent manifestation: the majestic Wara Wara. The wind that high was somehow less forceful, less intimidating. Instead, it whistled a tune---and a tune it surely was; as though a symphony was performed, though not with me as its audience, but rather as its medium, much like how to concaves of a woodwind are not instruments on their own, but the only mechanism that allows its sound to take life. That feeling within me, in that in-between place, lit up once more. How was it that I had hope? What was the message? Certainly not to try another attempt at flight---that was long past. This was something else, a sensation that remained firm and unrelenting, staying with me well after I walked down from the hill; but not before I took a deep breath, embracing all that Zikinza’s Hair had to offer, and I felt it; somehow, I had felt it without even being able to place it in words---but alas, there it was, and there it remained.

        On my way down the hill, I saw in the distance a glimmer---the salty coast of Akrisuku, a name known to all of us as one of our wonders. Said to bring direction to the lost travellers around the forest, Akrisuku would hear the call of a traveller before they made any sound, and whether the moonlight had been dim or vibrant, it reflected against the salt---which aimed its glimmering rays back to the lost path of traveller. Lost--I certainly was not, but I heard a call, which I thought was perhaps the same whistle from the hill, until I realized this sound was sharpened by the low vibration of a bee colony, who trailed behind me with a patient distance---moving when I moved, stopping when I stopped. So they joined me to the glimmer, and even joined me on the rough coastal floor whose off-white calcified stones struck my face with a dense beam. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed the bees grew quieter and quieter, making

room for both the whistling of Zikinza’s Hair, as well as the rhythmic gallops of the lone white horse. They spoke, and the language I could understand but could not repeat or recreate---for it had come from that in-between place, lodged within the mothers of my fathers, and the theirs before them, each were there, right there with me, and I finally wept, and realized how long it had been since granting myself that---for fear that the cause of their trickles would be too heavy to remain neatly contained in individual drops, but would turn into a rough sea; heavy I thought it would be, to remember my home and the absence of what made it my home---such a speculation was an ocean of tears awaiting my voyage, of which I believed it would be too late to return once I surrendered to it. But instead, my tears stirred themselves with gentle and welcoming strides; tears not of grief, but of celebration, for I had finally heard what you and the rest of our ancestors have been speaking all this time. Finally, I had understood the awe of Fifi’s Cave, and the instructions they sought to give.

        I dove into the salty sea of Akrisuku, floating effortlessly, held gently in place by the hands of my kin and their kin before them. With my streaming-tears aimed directly up towards the grey sky, I began trembling in anticipation, excitement---feeling as though the blood in my body had disappeared, leaving behind the distinction of ocean, air, and I---and I had now been one part of the glimpse I saw up there in the sky; a grey that had slowly dissipated into a warm hue of that next world. But I was not ready yet, so I sank down into the sea, dropping all contact with the whistles, gallops and hums of my companions, and introduced myself to a new set of friendly ears. One, whose spores shone bright red along its dark-green, rough exterior. I needed not to touch it, for before I even thought to reach my hand out, it held out its own and told me what I could only understand as “I missed you.” And I knew instantly that I had missed them too. I sank lower and lower, until the Coral Mushroom’s red spores escaped the light rays from above, and turned away into itself, leaving only a translucent trace---one that was both present and absent, as if to say, I will protect you---and I will be here when you need me, and gone when you need me not. Words that echoed into me; into that in-between place where once long ago, a dear friend of mine I called my Zemi, offered that very same comfort.

        I was ready now, for that next world--Amongst the egg-shell veil of the ocean, I had returned, or perhaps I had finally arrived, at the prophesied land of our folk, and as bits and pieces of the surroundings turned to conflations and contortions of the old world, I began to see the future, and brought with it the warmth of my home, of our home. I write this letter to you, unknown reader, to remind you of our story, of our people. I am writing to you, in words perhaps undecipherable to you now, but they will not remain so, for one day you will embrace me as I embrace you, and on that day, you will be prepared. And on that day, we shall reunite. On that day, you will arrive as I did long ago: safe and sound.

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Published May 1, 2026
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.