Brenda - A Voice that Wonders - 1652, Cape Town South Africa, Thandi - a child looking through the bushes, watching the arrival of the first settlers.
The Aurora Archives: Day 9
ARCHIVE ENTRY: 1652-DEC-25 LOCATION: The Fort of Good Hope, Cape of Good Hope (Kaapstad) SIGNAL RESONANCE: Suppressed / Heretical OPERATIVE: Indigenous Riverine Unit (The First Contact)
TRANSCRIPT OF RECOVERED CORRESPONDENCE: (A loose page found hidden behind the leather binding of a 17th-century ship’s logbook)
To my cousin Wim in Amsterdam,
If Father finds this, he will burn it, and perhaps me with it. He says the heat of this wild land brings fevers of the mind, but I know what I saw. I know why I am not sick today, on our Lord’s birthday.
Yesterday, my gums were bleeding again. The ship biscuit is too hard, and the sickness makes my legs feel like lead. I sat by the edge of the company gardens feeling weak and useless, watching the fog roll off the great flat mountain.
About midday I saw the bushes move. It was a girl, one of the Goringhaicona people. I was afraid, for the soldiers say they are godless. But she did not have a spear. She had a rabbit instead.
It was not like the fat, brown things in our hutches. This one had ears as long as my forearm and a dark stripe on its cheek. It sat on its hind legs, tall as a dog, and it looked at me.
Wim, I heard a hum coming from the rabbit. A low, thrumming sound, like a cello string plucked in a cellar. The rabbit turned to the girl, and I heard it. Not with my ears, but inside my skull. It sounded like dry leaves and old earth, and it didnt make words in my brain, but I still understood it.
“The pale kit is dying. Give him the sour-grass.”
The girl understood. She pulled up a handful of yellow flowers and roots - wood sorrel - and threw them to me. I ate them, dirt and all. The sour sting woke up my mouth.
I wanted to thank them. I waved for them to come closer to the fort. But the rabbit stood up, stood up like a little man, and shook its head. I heard the voice again:
“No. They have the Iron-Teeth. They cage us.”
That night, I could not sleep from wondering about the words that I had heard in my head. I started to wonder if I was falling under a spell. Outside I heard the latch of the livestock hutch rattling. I crept out, thinking it was a thief.
It was the long-eared rabbit from before, but it was on its own. It had opened the hutch. One of our European does was shivering in the doorway. The wild rabbit thumped its foot, and a cloud of dust floated up into the air, hanging there like a shroud.
The wild one whispered to the tame one: “Run, sister. The stars are different here, but the earth is the same.”
The doe, the one we had brought with us on the ship looked at the open door, and then turning to the wild rabbit, she spoke in a voice that sounded like a rusty hinge. “Dank u.”
I gasped. Impossible! They both froze. They saw me.
I should have called the guard. I should have run for my dads gun and shot them. But I remembered the sour-grass. I remembered the sickness leaving my legs.
I opened the garden gate for them.
“Go,” I whispered. And they ran, two shadows against the white sand, disappearing into the fynbos. Just as I was about to lose sight of them, I saw the girl again. She stood up from behind a bush and raised her hand to me, before running away.
This morning, at Christmas prayers, I asked Father if the beasts in Eden could speak. He struck me across the ear. He said that animals are meat and labour, and to hear them speak is a trick of the Devil. He said we must close our ears to the wild, or we lose our souls.
I will close my mouth, Wim. But I will not close my ears. I left the hutch in our yard unlatched tonight. Just in case others wish to be free.
Your cousin, Pieter
ARCHIVIST’S NOTE: This entry confirms the silencing event. For centuries, the Rabbit Network attempted to communicate with humanity, but religious and colonial dogma, centered around Europe and the Mediterannean in particular, forced the interactions underground. Note the Riverine Rabbit’s ability to identify specific medicinal flora (Sorrel) and the string projection she used to bridge the language gap with the child.
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Ek kan huil. Oh this was more than good. This just brought back memories. I could place myself there. I love love love the old history.
You more than did my suggestion justice. The way you described the father’s reaction… spot on. Just brilliant.
Thank you!❤️
Oh man, the Layers to this one! Very well done.