| Xen: Ancient English Edition by D. J. Solomon |
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You open Xen and flip past the copyright and title pages. Though you don't usually
bother to do so, you read the introduction. (You are later glad to have done so—had
you not known about the Lexicon, you may have had quite a hard time reading the
book.) At this point, you proceed to read. You devour the nonpareil description of the
creation of wind, water and fire, respectively. It is bewitching, you think, to imagine Earth
and Wind as lovers, strangely satisfying to observe the sensuality of their relationship.
You find yourself mildly afraid of fire—no, not fire but Fire—that formidable, genderless
entity that could destroy not only you but Earth itself if not kept in check. Initially after
reading Book I, you consider the description of Fire to be at worst frivolous, at best
powerful imagery to be enjoyed but not analyzed—that is, you didn't consider it at all. It is
not until you reflect upon the novel that you realize that Fire was not insignificant. In fact,
had you paid attention to the presence of Fire to begin with, you may have understood
everything before even reading Book II. You may have received the message of your
race's fated doom right away.
The human race, as you know it—still in its early years of just north of 2000 rotations
since humans began counting in an upward fashion—is remarkably like fire, you think.
The human race evolved from Earth, but it is now, in some ways, more powerful than
Earth herself. You think about how so many members of your society abuse the earth,
ripping from her her innards in the form of natural resources, polluting the Wind above
her with chemicals, cutting down her Forests to build bigger houses, wasting her Water
on long showers and running faucets. If Homo sapiens continues at this pace, you
realize, the first to disappear will be Forests, then Water, then Earth herself, destroyed
by your rampant flames.
In the first several Books, you are shown—rather, you have your faced shoved into—
hatred that you didn't know (or didn't know you knew) could exist. At first, you are
offended and more than a little disgusted at the character that is, ostensibly, you. You
don't buy it, though. This author is trying to convince you that this character reflects you,
but you know he doesn't. Pawkey Seneschal is a lunatic, a rampant hater of everyone
and everything. He, like Fire, spreads his abhorrence indiscriminatingly—no one is safe
from the proliferation of his flames. He is not only a misogynist, not only a misanthropist;
he is an undiluted xenophobe. Surely, he is nothing like you. However, as you read on,
you begin to be less and less shocked at each reference to a "bitch wife." In fact, he
sounds a little like the buddies with whom you share a pitcher on Friday nights. You fall,
rather easily, into character and begin to realize that it wasn't Pawkey's views that
shocked you but the blatant, slightly hyperbolized presentation of your own.
You are jarred again later by the vivid descriptions of torture with which wind showers
Water. To them, it is merely a description of what has happened. They make a
psychological game of it, Water manipulating Wind. To you, however, the description is
sinister, for it describes not another life form, not ancient history that can be forgotten
because it doesn't matter. No, for you it is a description of who you are, or at least who
you have been. The torturers are your great grandparents, and if not, they are the
tortured. In fact, it wasn't a hundred years ago that such torture was bestowed upon
people you have seen, heard in interviews, at the hands of evil tyrants like Hitler. If you
allow yourself to consider it, you will find the existence of such sadism today, and you
won't have to look far. By the grace of your god, whomever it is that you worship
amongst the plethora of options, that torture isn't happening to you. That doesn't ease
the sickness that you feel upon hearing it, though.
For a period, you place the book on the arm of your chair and conjure all the racial jokes
you have heard. You consider, with shame, all the occasions on which you have locked
your car doors as you drove by homeless men. You hang your head at the thought of all
the times you grimaced disgustedly at a mother in a grocery store being trailed by a child
with no shoes. Your Mankind is carbonated, that's for sure—there is plenty of energy,
mostly negative, stored in energy bubbles in the form of humans, ready to pop at the
slightest provocation, ready to attack the weak in order to feed the strong. It burns
Earth's throat as Water washes you down. Your Mankind is also fattening—it engorges
itself with anger and loathing, becoming more and more obese from negativity. Your
Mankind is not sweet. There is little tenderness, even less compassion. Your mankind is
comprised of ever-flowing bitterness.
The newly acquired self-awareness leads to an initial feeling of enlightenment, but soon,
a sense of apprehension—what solution is there for what has happened to mankind?
What rectification can occur when only you can see the flames ravishing Earth and are
seemingly powerless to single-handedly stop it? What you have here is not something
trivial. It will not be easily reconditioned. What you have is something sinister.
Pawkey's solution for the problem of mankind was to wipe out over half of it. This is, you
think, genius. Certainly, you could weed out the scum of the earth and choose only the
purest and kindest of heart to carry on and repopulate. Pawkey effectively recreated the
human race to be perfect. In the new Utopia, humanity—that is, hufemity—is a beautiful
thing. It's no longer the cataclysmic, all-consuming Fire of hatred it once was. People are
sweet. People are carbonated in a different way—their bubbles are filled with joy, tickling
Earth as they slide down her throat. Women are not persecuted but respected. In this
society, women show their strength through height and beauty. In your society, you note,
a woman's beauty is gauged by her smallness, her ability to disappear when not needed.
In Pawkey's new society, humans do not have the capacity for hatred or inequality. You
wonder how you, obviously unable to exterminate the bad and create only perfection,
can possibly stand to live in your world any longer. Weather must be mastered as it has
for the Eartherians because you can't bear to be a flame anymore.
In a way, Wind won his bet. The Fire that is humankind did emerge into monstrosity. It
began to destroy itself. It began to destroy Earth more rapidly than anyone (other than
Wind, of course) could have imagined. Unfortunately, you fear that even an elaborate,
flawless plan like Pawkey's would fail. Your Mankind has made too big a mess of itself.
You wonder…who has the power to create a beautiful world? The president? The Pope?
Surely, there must be someone you can tell, beg, beseech to help you. No, you finally
realize; it is only you and those around you, your peers, the same people who hate each
other so much, that can forge schwelds-r. You realize, after reading Xen and doing
immeasurable thinking on your own, that you are responsible for creating a universe in
which your ancestors, far in the future, may be Water—sweet and carbonated, but not
fattening (of course.) Only we can secure our "exodus from xenophobia."
| Emily Fuggetta University of Florida Gainesville, Florida "To Be Not the Flame" |
| © Copyright 2004-2008 by Avar Press. All rights reserved. Copyright of the individual essays belongs to the respective writer and may not be reproduced in any fashion without express written permission from each author. Interested parties may contact the author via their high school or by sending correspondence to Avar Press. |
| Third Place $500.00 Scholarship 2008 |
