S3E3: The Temple of the Foreign Prophet

Sapphire and John enter Oi, and the prophet takes Sapphire to a temple built for foreign gods and foreign prophets.

CAST
Timmy Vilgiate: John
Sophia Doss: Sapphire
C.j. Hackett: Oi'te'lotep
CROWD
Natalie Ruths, Elannia Lake, Joshua Leano, Daniel Rojas, Cindy Verzwyvelt, Christina Vilgiate, Marissa Burdette, Anthony Carlson, Priscilla Yip, Collin Estes, Erin Caitlinn, and Anthony Vilgiate.
MUSIC
Performed by Timmy Vilgiate on prepared mandolin, mandola, guitar, and analog synthesizer.
SOUND EFFECTS
From freesound.org:  "Italian village no traffic" by squidge316, "Highflow River" by Cagan Celik, "G52-05 Ox Cart" by craigsmith, "Crowd Drums" by dobroide,  "Dolen village July morning..." by mihal40, "street-market-2" by stevious, "chinese flute hulusi" by iluppai, "crowd yay applause 25 people" by Jesse Pash, and "crowd cheer" by Adam n.

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We reached the city with a tail of men, women and children following us close behind, eagerly reciting and clinging to the words of Sapphire, the foreign prophet. The local prophet walked in front of us, his head held slightly low, his lips pursed together, his face set in a weak grimace. His visibly tense expression eased into a hesitant relief as we grew nearer to the city—the city proper—the city of peace, light, and goodwill—and escaped the desperate, discontent buildings of the outer settlement. All activity stopped as soon as his feet touched the sandstone streets, streets that all the unclean masses filling up the alleys and rooftops around us knew they could not walk down. In a chain of fluttering noises, the conversations of men and women, the playing of pipers and drummers, the selling of wares, were all quelled by a shockwaves of whispers that resonated on down the street and through the alleyways. “The prophet has returned.”, echoing on down the pavement over and over, drawing attention to where we were until the whole city started to file into the street, dragging our cart again to a crawl. Behind us extended a crowd of workers from the city’s edge clothed in rough cloth and tree bark; in front of us stretched on a mass of people clothed in elegant yarns. Our cart occupied the frontier of this boundary.

Noting the jewels above the open doors, the lines cut into the clean, gleaming sidewalks, the poor nervously inched back, trying to stay off of the sidewalks, away from the houses, from the temples.
P: “Good people of Oi, this city at the heart of the world, the place where the gods walk among men. For seven days have I rested in the dwelling place of Amatep’oi, drinking only the blood of his kill, waiting for that great and powerful hunter to tell me the meaning of the vision he sent to me. The vision was a warning, which you all must heed. (Pause, anxious murmurs from the crowd) Already there have been cows fallen sick, as you very well know. And the custom prescribed to us by Shedali’Oi the Shepherd says that we must cordon off the sick cows, and slaughter them cows if they are not better after a fortnight. Indeed this custom must not change, but, I Amatep warns you, the cows must be burnt, not eaten, and must not be taken for leather, or the city will fall to a great plague. This is the will of Amatep. Anyone who violates his decree shall be chased into the wilderness by our cities greatest hunters and slain, their body burnt and cast into the doldrums, for they will have violated no law of man, but the law of Amatep, god of the hunt, and he will demand revenge.”.
J: Moans and whispers of dissatisfaction blended with mystified hums or acquiescent groans. No beef blood for the rituals, no cow hearts for the harvest festival, no leather to make fresh garments for the next Spirit’s Night. The price of leather, knew the merchants, would rise; the fishermen wondered if they could catch enough fish to satiate the hunger of the people. A trio of hunters, in jest, began to make jokes about what fun it would be to exact the punishment proscribed; an elderly priest in the temple of Shedali’oi nodded with satisfaction in hearing his god receiving some exposure; a drummer and a flautist took advantage of the momentary distraction to copulate in a temple dedicated to the Nyra, God of Death. Having given them time to process the edict, the prophet raised one hand into the air
Prophet: “Quiet! Listen to me, for there is more that I must tell you! On my return from the home of Amatep, I encountered a great and powerful foreign prophet, just as the one I foretold to you. Her name is Sapphire’oi, prophet of the Kingdom of 2017 Idols, a faraway kingdom. Wandering deeper into the Doldrums than any man has ever gone, Sapphire killed a ghost bird and stripped its bones of meat when it attacked her manservant John. The spirits have sent Sapphire as a blessing to the city—she is the foreign prophet, of whom so many have spoken, of which so many hymns and songs have been sung. She comes bearing a message of peace and love. Peace, in that men must know order and not backslide into quarrelling; love, in that men must show the gentleness of a father to all of lower station.”
S: “Well, uh, actually, what I meant was—”
P: “As the prophecy has demanded, Sapphire must be delivered to the temple which has been prepared for her, the temple of the foreign prophet. And so, on this auspicious occasion, I declare, in accordance with Amatep the Red, Nyra the Black, and Shedali the White, together with all the spirits of this city, that henceforth, this day, the twelvth day of the time of low waters, shall be known as the Day of the Foreign Prophet. All workers today must rest, save the shepherds in the fields, the streets shall fill with song and dance, our mouths should feast on the bounty of this city, and we shall bear Sapphire to her temple in a grand parade, that she may join the ranks of our city’s gods!”
J: The crowd burst into an uproar, as the piper and the drummer slid from the temple of death with disheveled hair and clothing lead the crowd in a song—the street erupted with dancing, and our cart slowly started to move like a boat down the crowded street (Lines assigned at random to members of the ensemble) “Foreign prophet, be welcome.”, said some of the people as we passed by, others, “May your manservant be well”, and a few, “I pray your temple will be to your liking, foreign prophet.” Sapphire began to tune them out, and turned to me to engage in a silent, telepathic conversation.
S: This is kinda uh…far out man. Where the fuck are we? Is this for real, or are we tripping?”
J: It was difficult to put to words. All of it felt real, but not tangible--the lingering traces of minds, real minds, stitched together every piece of the landscape--I could sense it, but couldn’t formulate a way to explain it. “We’re not tripping. But... I…I can’t say for sure. This place seems familiar…. Same with the people. And I know Ryan’s dead, but I can sense him here, somewhere, hanging in between the buildings, lurking in their minds, in our minds…it’s not just him though. It’s...it’s other people. Lot’s of them.”
S: “You don’t think I’m gonna get sacrificed or something?”
J: “No, no, from what I can tell,  Nyra the Black told them to stop doing human sacrifices a long time ago. Plus, I mean, you’re a ghost.”
S: “This sounds crazy but the prophet guy seems familiar to me. Like…I swear to God I’ve seen him before, but I can’t remember where.”
J: “In the lab?”
S: “Maybe.”

J: Our conversation was cut short when we reached the temple of the foreign prophet, a tall clay dome with a rounded chimney stretching high up into the sky. Over its entryway hung a semicircle of white and red gems. The crowd around us cheered, but knew that they could not enter—only the prophet could do so. He dismounted his cart and led us inside. The crowd’s voices faded to a dull roar from within the warm clay vessel—there were no windows, only a tall chimney. The air inside felt heavy, and smelled of mildew. Along the wall, there were carvings of foreign idols, idols made of wood, or stone, or thatch, or glass, each placed upon short wooden tables. Small golden bowls filled with a cow’s blood rested in front of each one. The prophet walked around them in a circle, his head hanging low.
P: A foreign prophet.
J: He pulled an herb from a bag on his waist, a dried up plant that once had bushed leaves and yellow flowers. Pinching it between his fingers, he made another circle about the room, crushing the herb over the heads of the idols, and then coming to Sapphire, to adorn her head with the herb. It smelt sweet—sickly sweet.
P: “The Juva flower. The flower of gratitude. Hospitality. I have longed for a foreign prophet to whom I could extend it, and here you are. Of course, you don’t think of yourself as a foreign prophet, do you? No. I’m probably a foreign prophet to you, aren’t I? (Chuckles) Maybe it’s all very suprising to you to find out that I exist. Once I thought I was the only prophet, and this was the only city. But one day, you see, when sitting by the river to talk with it’s spirits. I watched an idol—this one right here, with the hooked eyes—float past me in the water, an idol that I did not recognize. My heart lept in horror. I snatched it up. The idol, inscribed with alien markings, hewn of alien wood, must have come from another city. A foreign city.

With trepidation, I then realized there must be other prophets in these foreign cities, other priests building idols and dedicating houses to them, and endowing them with spirits--giving the spirits names so that the foreign prophets would know their names. I realized that these idols would from time to time drift down the river. Can you imagine my anxiety? What would happen when the next idol floated into town? What if it were not captured by another prophet and instead ended up in the hands of a thoughtless child, who might deliver it to his conniving mother, or his reckless brother, or, worst, a greedy king. Then, the people would all find out at once, all of them learn of the existence of the other prophets,with their foreign gods, inscriptions, and prophecies.

It was not so much a matter of pride, like you might think, but I worried that should the spirits I knew--spirits which, I felt certain, were the same as the foreign spirits only under different names-- should those spirits warn me of coming danger and impose on us a new law, the people would say to themselves ‘Certainly our prophet says one thing...but perhaps another prophet might have another point of view...’ And the people would refuse the will of the spirits. Worse still, as I pondered the existence of foreign prophets, I considered that some might be more malevolent than I, more willing to flatter kings or appease the whims of the people with hollow, unmeasured words. With all these thoughts I hunched there by the river and in white knuckled hands I clutched the invading idol; I squinted with unease at it’s face--a face carved into the likeness of a foreign animal, and I studied its hand, which clutched the branch of a foreign tree. It leered back at me with its pyramid eyes, and outstretched wings. A sinister creation.

Or perhaps this was a blessing. After all, the foreign prophet who serves this idol will one day arrive in my city, I realized. Before he could get to me, I decided to name this idol God of the Foreign Prophet. From time to time, I could relish the people with stories of this god’s character, its powers, it’s foreignness. I proscribed a small temple for him, and all the other foreign gods who washed up on the river bank, complete with rituals and rites to follow. That way, I knew that when that foreigner catches sight of me in his alien eyes, carrying in his alien hands his foreign prophecies, my people will have already met him. They will welcome him in with open arms and known him, for they’ve already seen him through the door of the temple: the foreign prophet. The people would have heard me, a prophet that they trust, introduce his idol to them, and they would have seen me place him here in this temple. They would already know what to think, how to behave, the rituals and celebrations that must be performed for the foreign prophet—he would already have a place at our table, though never at the head—the foreign prophet would never be my equal, for I had made him, named and drawn him before their eyes could see him crawling from the Horizon into the city.

They might welcome that foreign prophet; they might feel touched by her appealing yet impossible words. But if the foreign prophet steps out of line, perhaps the local spirits may tell me of her unfitness. They will tell me the idols of the foreign prophet no longer deserves welcome, that they deserve a quick dragging from the town square back into the river where they came from, and then there will be no more foreign prophet in this city. “Death to the foreigner! Death to the foreigner”, they will shout, once they realize it is the righteous thing to do. But hopefully, the foreign prophet would not take advantage of my hospitality, whenever they did arrive.

A pliable, malleable foreign idol this was, set adrift on the river from another city. A gracious and excellent idol it was for letting me pluck it out of the river, permitting me to make the prophet it foreshadowed into a useful god before he or she or it could make any trouble. Like a man anticipating a great flood, I cast a levybreak against his entry to harness his inevitable flood through the valley, reducing his advance to a slow and steady trickle, setting it at order, and using its force to do the work of a thousand oxen to keep the wheels of the city moving, to water the fields, and most importantly, to allow me to serve my people. As I am sure you feel in your Kingdom, my people are my god. I am their arms reaching out to heaven begging for rain, I am their hands that scour the floor of the forest, finding plants to cure their ills, their mouth prescribing burns of diseased bodies, their stomach, digesting the mystery of a splintered world. My people are my god, and my god cannot think that I’m replaceable.”
Sapphire: The prophet guy got super close to us and I could smell that he didn’t really brush his teeth that well. Or ever. I could see bloodstains from the rituals on his teeth, I could see a menacing and crazed look in his eye. He smiled and backed away, to look at another one of the foreign idols, this one in the shape of a huge wooden bird--he took a drop of blood and smeared it on the eagle’s face with his middle finger. So... that’s kind of fucked up right? What’s he even saying like, trying to scare me or something? Yeah, probably. He led me towards the door. I was still kind of like, uh…what the fuck man? But I didn’t want to incite some kind of riot or something with these people all riled up. On some level, it sounded like he almost had good intentions about the whole thing, as weird as that sounds, like he honestly knows that there’s microbes or something in the sick cattle but he can’t tell them not to eat the cattle without making up some shit about Amatep. But I felt shitty. I felt shitty cause I was being used, I was like a weird puppet without even realizing it. I started to wonder if…if I really should’ve killed that bird anyway. I heard it’s wings behind me, I heard it crying out in my mind, rising above the sound of the prophet as he lifted my right arm up over my head and shouted,
P: “Amatep’oi, Red God of the Hunt; daring God who sculpted the trees from red clay, who slayed the great dragon and from him carved the whole world. Shedali’oi, White God of the Shepherd in the Field; gentle God who led animals into the fields and hid jewels in the mountains; Nyra, Black God of the Grave; patient God who feeds the world with his broken body and cares for the ever burning flames in the sky; all you spirits of the town come out from your dwellings, for now there walks among us the Foreign Prophet, promised to us by her God, the river Ia; In the sight of most holy Oi, I bestow upon her this temple, and pray that she finds and keeps a peaceful home—I bestow upon her a godly name—Sapphire’oi, and present her to the people.”

S3E2: Oi'te'lotep

John and Sapphire have an unexpected encounter while traveling along the vein of silver the discovered in the previous episode.
CAST

Timmy Vilgiate: John
Sophie Doss: Sapphire
C.j. Hackett: Prophet Oi'te'lotep

CROWD

Joshua Leano (Featured as an old man at a threshold), Daniel Rojas (Featured as a sculptor), Cindy Verzwyvelt (Featured as Gebbadali), Christina Vilgiate (Featured as the person Sapphire bumps into), Marissa Burdette, Anthony Carlson, Priscilla Yip, Collin Estes, Erin Caitlinn, and Anthony Vilgiate.
PRODUCTION
Theme and music by Timmy Vilgiate
Production by Timmy Vilgiate
Shoutout to speakers Silbo Gomero language of the Canary Islands, which was sampled in this episode to represent the language of the shepherds on the outside of the city.
Sound effects (mostly) from Freesound.org, including "weak clapping" by FreqMan, "Running" by Juandamb, "Woman in Pain by Coral_Island_Studios, "10 Slap_real" by stereostereo, "Filing coarse Hand Aluminum Panel" by markpSFX, "trowel, mixing mortar" by be_a_hero_not_a_patriot, "big crowd chatter" by Kyster, "Wood Carving Off Mic" benboncan, "Avoncroft Blacksmith" by phonoflora, "herd of cows, mooing", by Martin Sadoux, "Cow Scream" by gibarroule, "Cow2" by genghisattenborough, "Sheep bleating" by zachrau, "Chickens" by Dann93, "Marche ext. Soissons..." by loillieux, "market trader NL 02 1603..." by klankbeeld, "VillageLaughter1" by acclivity", "Dolen village July morning..." by mihal40, "Italian village no traffic" by squidge316, "Market Cerdanyola" by bitlab_coop, "Street Market 2" by Stevious42, "fishermen shouts India" by kyles, "Fishing boats in harbour" by Satoration, "Cows Birds Spring' by 4barrelcarb, "Highflow River" by Cagan Celik, "River Teign and birds..." by Philip Goddard, "Walking on stone" by tigersound, "Footsteps" by TheSoundcatcher, "G52-05 Ox Cart" by craigsmith, "Canarian whistled language" by FonotecadeCanarias, and "cicade at nighttime" by Eelke.

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About a mile and a half into the trail and Sapphire and I had reached two points of agreement: there was no sun here, and the place we were standing was definitely overlooking the edge of a steep white hillside, that extended downwards into a huge festering darkness. Down to the exact degree to which the darkness festered, we agreed on at least those details, which was a miracle, considering neither of us could reach an agreement on any of the other basic physical features of the place, like if the path had been going uphill or downhill since we started walking. A minor puzzle relative to the previous quandary of becoming a cloud, but still perplexing.

The two of us remained divided on the subject of the bird as well, and the topic seemed to hang over every break in conversation, even if I hadn’t brought it up since we started walking. Nothing I’d said had genuinely eased Sapphires guilt about what she’d done. I knew it needed to happen, but neither wanted nor could explain why to her, not fully. After all, I could only guess how true the words it said to me were. I didn’t want to say anything to her if it’d just freak her out. Whatever the truth was, I just hoped that she could find some peace.

But like I was saying. Despite our general agreement about the hillside, we still differed as to whether or not something was moving inside of the festering darkness at the bottom. Was it a creature in the darkness? Or was it the darkness itself? What did it mean? This is just the kind of idle conversation you have when you’re high on acid in a decomposing psychic hexateron. The conversation wasn’t just chatter, it was strategy. It was born out of a fight for survival, to look for meaning or order or patterns or anything coherent about the world around us. Anything that crossed our minds could hold the key to figuring it all out. It felt like Sapphire and I were both at least asking the same questions, which I hoped was leading us in the right direction. What do you think the darkness means? Huh. What about these mountains? Mountains exist, right? Geologists study mountains, don’t they? What got you into geology?

“...through the rock guide and seeing all the different rocks, where they came from in nature, then down at the info box—you see what that rock’s personality is like, where it came from, what kind of things it’s been through to get to where it is, and they’re almost like characters in a movie.”
“Right. Huh. I’d never thought of that.”

We sat for a moment, breaking into silence for the first time in what must have been an hour or so of conversation on the subject of festering darkness and the absence of true night here in this bizarre world. The silence grew great enough that I could barely perceive a faint metallic squeaking in the distance. I jumped up. “What is it?”
“Wait, listen...there it is again!”
“What do you think it is? It almost sounds like a...a mouse?”
“Maybe. Uh...no. It’s happening too regularly.”
“Let me see...”, Sapphire climbed further up the hill to look out around us, “Hey! It’s...it’s a cart!”
John: “A cart?”
Sapphire: “Yeah! It’s being pulled by an ox. Come look! There! Do you see him?”
John: “That’s...I wonder who that is. I can’t see his face behind his hat. And look. His ox...”
Sapphire: “I know, right, it’s so...”
John: “So...”
Sapphire: “Normal.”
John: “Yes. That’s exactly what an ox would look like in real life.”
Sapphire: “I know, that’s what I was just thinking.”
John: “Sorry, I thought you already said it.”
Sapphire: “I did. I think. Uh...What do we do?”
John: “We could wait for him to get to us, then maybe we can ask a few questions. Or...well if we keep walking he might never see us. He’s probably a while off.”
Sapphire: “What’s he got in the cart, can you see?”
John: “Something under a blanket. Not sure.”
Sapphire: “Um, he doesn’t look armed, right? I don’t see any weapons on him.”
John: “No. Maybe we should ask where this road leads to.”

“Sure, and maybe he can tell us where the fuck we are.” Sapphire grabbed me by the shirt sleeve of my arm and pulled me back down the trail.  “Hey you! Guy! Speak English? Got a minute?”, she waved her left hand. I walked right next to her, looking down the steep hill into the festering darkness. The man lifted his head for a moment, and I could see his face—weathered, brown, wrinkled—his skin drooped with age, making his features grave and unmoving beneath his baggy straw hat as he munched on a thick wad of grass out the side of his mouth. Blood stained the sides of his lips, and his hands. “Yeah! Over here! [she turns to John] Come on. I don’t think he sees us.”

I followed her as her pace quickened. The old man’s eyes grew wider as he saw her come near—he pulled on the ox and muttered something to it to make it stop. To his right side, I saw him reach for a knife, thinking we might be highwaymen out to rob him. “Hey man, nice ox. It’s real, like, normal. Do you know where we are?”. The man looked back and forth between us both, frowning, his hand gripping tighter around the knife. Why would we ask such a thing? Why would someone travel along a road like this and not know where they were? It was the only road for a hundred miles east and west, leading only to one place at the edge of the world, drawing only pilgrims and the occasional trader seeking exotic goods for the market. There were monsters here, horrible fanged serpents that spat venom, enormous tigers that lurked in plain sight stalking those foolish enough to stray from the road. The two travelers dressed in strange, foreign fabrics. Their skin looked near translucent, their faces pale white like someone starved of air, an almost inexplicable, sickly color. The woman in particular. The old man could see tight bruises around her neck, a bloodstain in her left eye, blood underneath her fingernails.

“Please…can you understand what I’m saying? Comprende? Hey…sprechen-zie english?”
        Sapphire’s mysterious alien words frightened him. Was she trying to cast a spell? Was she a witch?
John: “Don’t be afraid.”
Prophet: (snarl) “Who are you?”
John: “Uh…my name’s John. This is Sapphire. We just wanted to know where this road leads. Uh…we found it by accident.
Prophet: “Where did the two of come from, hmmm?”
John: “Uhh…how do I explain it?”
Sapphire: “Uh…down the ways to the end of this road there’s a house, right? You know the place?”
Prophet: “Know of the place, yes...but only from afar. Only a fool would venture so far into the doldrums.”
Sapphire: “Well...like. It’s not about the destination man, it’s about the journey, right? Right. You know what I’m talking about. What about you, uh, where did you come from?”
Prophet: “Oi.”
John and Sapphire together: “What?”
Prophet: “Oi! [Pauses, disbelieving. He restates to clarify, in case they didn’t understand him] The city of Oi. [Cynically amused. He had always believed Oi’s fame was widespread and had never contemplated the fact that it’s name would sound alien to other people] You mean you haven’t heard of Oi?”
Sapphire: “That’s its name? Just, ‘oi?’”
Prophet: “Well, that’s what I said! Oi. A city of peace, light, goodwill.”
S: “Really gets right to the point, man, I dig it. Oi. Oi!”
J: “Oi.”
P: “Oi! A city’s name does not need to mangle the tongue.”
J: The two of us, he decided, must have been lost travelers, from some far away place, and we no doubt misunderstood his question.
P: “You two must have traveled from very far away to have not heard of Oi. Far and wide it is among the most renowned kingdoms in the world. Tell me, what is the purpose of your voyage?”
J: “We’re from..
S: “from the kingdom of…of…”
J: “2017.”
S: “What? Yeah. 2017 Idols. It’s very…very…”
J: “Rich. It’s a very rich kingdom.”
S: “Very Rich. We’re thinking of adding more idols. But then we’d have to change the name. And then you have to redo all the signs and reprint all the money...Know what I’m saying? It’d be a real bummer.”


J: “Yeah. Can’t have too many idols, you know. And...uh...we are charting the unknown reaches of the earth, looking for other cities with which we might trade.”
S: “Right! And we were blown off course.”
J: “Right. Blown off course in our…our enchanted…”
S: “Sailboat. An enchanted flying sailboat.”
J: “You can’t see it now because…”
S: (in unison) “It crashed.” J: “It’s invisible.”
J: “Right. It crashed because its invisible, which makes it hard to drive.”
S: “Live and learn, am I right?”
J: “Right”
The old man nodded, supposing that we were searching for some kind of idiom from the Kingdom of 2017 Idols in a tongue which we did not speak correctly.
P: “I see.”
S: “What about you? What are you doing out here?”
P: “A dream called me into the wilderness. I saw a hunter wound a catamount with a shot from his bow, but then the beast slew him. There is a place not far from here where grass breaks through the doldrum, and there it is that a woodsman planted the seed of a yew tree in a time before the forest melted into the endless white, in a time no one remembers—in the tree lives Amatep’Oi, the god of hunters, wanderers, and provider of shelter. I spent seven days and seven nights in the shadow of the yew, eating no food, drinking only the water given to me by the tree, waiting for Amatep to reveal the reason for his call.

        On the eve of the seventh night, as I held my mouth up to the sky in parched agony longing for water, I saw Amatep in a cloud of red mist, and, though the world for the entire time remained windless and dead, the tree shivered as though a storm had caught its branches. The catamount, said Amatep, was a plague which would befall our cattle and later befall our citizens. Oi, he said, was the hunter—he said for me to warn the people that when they killed the sickfallen cattle, they must not eat them, but burn their flesh in a place far from the city. It is this message which I must bring to the people. As I returned to where I had tethered my oxen, I took one up the hill, where I could slay it with my knife and share a drink and a meal with Amatep in thanksgiving.

        As I returned home, I saw a terrible omen. A huge ghost bird, colored white and red and black, cut a slow path over the sky, heading to the edge of the doldrums. I saw it in the distance. Perching on the house of which you spoke. But when I returned to the road, I saw it’s bones lying scattered off in the distance…”

S: “A bird…I think that…I think I saw that bird.”
P: “Did you now?”
S: “I…it tried to bite John, so I….I killed it”
J: The eyes of the wandering prophet grew wide, and he reflexively took a step back, jolted by her claim.
P: “You…you killed the ghost bird?”
S: “Y…yes…I grabbed it by the legs…and I…I spun it around until I’d snapped its neck”
J: Suddenly, the disheveled face of the woman now made sense. She had come face to face with, killed, and skinned bare the ghost bird. With her hands alone. What tremendous force she must have had to do such a thing. What incredible power, bravery, resolve. He realized the gravity of his mistake. She was a foreign prophet—certainly a powerful and fearsome one at that. He thought of...he thought of a temple. I couldn’t quite understand why. No words came to his mind. Only the image. An idol he plucked from a river. His chest filled with a mixture of terror and ecstasy, and he prostrated himself on the ground.
P: “Oh, Sapphire’oi. Please have mercy on me if I seemed rude, understand that I did not realize what you were, that I had not known your name or your power till now.”
S: “It’s…uh. It’s fine. Yeah. You’re…uh. Uh, John…?”
J: “He thinks you’re a demigod. Or a some kind of foreign prophet, I guess. Something like that.”
S: “Uh…what should I do?”
J: “Just…uh…go with the flow, I guess?”
S: “Right, yeah. You really uh, angered me, and stuff, man, that wasn’t cool. But uh, like, you can stop bowing, we’re fine now. You wanna just uh…show us the way to Oi?”
P: “Of course Sapphire, prophet of the 2017 idols. Yes. And this…this must be your servant. What is he called?”
S: “My servant. Yeah. His name his John.”
J: “Oh, okay. So I’m your servant now. Cool.”
S: “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, man, I’m just going with the flow.”
       

J: We walked for two more hours, winding through canyons and mountains and strange alpine meadows. The sound of a river emanated from far away, at first barely a whisper. As we neared the sound, a faint green grass consumed the austere white and blue wilderness. The closer we grew to the city, the scarcer the tiny patches of rusted and warped graph paper became. Oxen, huge and bulky creatures with long horns, waited on the outskirts in fields that stretched for miles. Shepherds smoked pipes atop tall chairs with high ladders—as we passed, they would look down their noses at us, fearful and submissive eyes half sheltered by baggy straw hats not unlike the one worn by the prophet. Some of them whistled to each other to relay coded messages, blending with the sounds of birds perched in alien looking trees and the barks of cattle dogs with ragged, wolf like hair.

        As we grew nearer, we saw a city filled with tan houses shaped like overturned pots. The quaint, almost Seussical city perched beside the crook of a huge river so big it could have been a small sea. From the rooves of each house sprouted curved chimneys. Their round windows, ornamented with crisscrossing bones, all opened to the humid, warm air outside, and let a cooling, peaceful breeze waft through the rooms. Each house had a triangular opening that served as a entryway. In place of a door, a semicircle of jewels over each entrance indicated the status and the roles of the people with the right to go inside. The streets of the city, cobbled from sandstone and lined with neat mica sidewalks, heaved sporadically through the mess of round clay buildings, and ended haphazardly at the city’s edges, giving way to rows of plain brick and wood houses. People hawking snacks, trinkets, gods, drinks, curses, feathers, magic items, animals, herbs, baskets, tools, weapons, and garments made of fresh leather lined the streets, bellowing out their wares in a constant battle to be heard. In between them weaved sagely women engaged in conversation, circles of adolescents playing flutes and drums, old men telling stories to younger men and debating with them the meaning of the prophet’s dream of the catamount.

But before we could reach this city, we passed through the houses of brick and wood, where the smell of leather tanning in the heat of the open, sunless air mingled with the sound of hammers pounding against hot metal. In the fronts of the houses, women carved idols, weaved baskets, and baked snacks in their yards that spilled into the road on which we walked. Our presence in the neighborhood of brick and wood brought a solemn, mystified silence. A child reached out to touch Sapphire’s hair, and the prophet hit him with the back of his hand, making the boy cry out and run back to his mother. Sapphire winced. The prophet looked back at her and apologized,
P: “I am sorry. This is the only way into the city.”
J: Taking advantage of our momentary pause, a crowd gathered around us, keeping cautious distance as they speculated about what the prophet had learned in the wilderness, and who he had brought back with him. Eventually, the crowd grew so massive that the prophet could hardly move, and he, begrudgingly, helped us up onto the top of the wagon. A hush fell over the mass of people.
P: “I return from the edge of the world with news, dear people of Oi—not only words from the great god of the hunter, but a great hero, the child of spirits, who ventured beyond the doldrums, and slayed a ghost bird with her own two hands. A foreign prophet like the one I have foretold. She walks among you today—know her, and fear her, for she has great power. You who work in the inferior trades, you sculptors, metal workers, tanners, those who work with clay and with stone, with wood and with filth, do not let your hands soil her.”
S: [Hushed aside to the prophet] “Uh—actually—do you mind if I say something?”
P: “Surely. Please, forgive me.”
S: [Clears throat, speaks up so that the folks hear her] “Yeah, hi! Uh, so…uh. Thanks man for saying all that nice shit, but you guys don’t really need to freak out or anything. Alright? Like, it’s okay if poor people…uh…touch me, man, that’s really fucked up.”
P: “I—I did not realize. Perhaps I misspoke…”
S: “Yeah, like, it’s cool, but uh…like, if I’m being honest, you’re being kind of a dick. You want to apologize to that kid?
[The kid looks up, realizing Sapphire is talking about him]
Yeah, you.

[His mom and he share a nervous glance]
Yeah, come here.
[Sapphire gets down from the wagon and approaches him. She sounds very compassionate and motherly towards him]
Are you doing okay? Yeah? No, don’t be scared. Hey…I’m sorry that dude hit you. Yeah he’s scary right.  Here…bring it here. Peace and love man.

[Thinking that she might be able to rewrite the course of human history by introducing them to these concepts, she shouts this to the crowd, sort of hoping to start a revolution]

Peace and love. You got it, guys?”
Crowd: “Peace and love”
S: [The crowd shouting along with her is giving her energy and making her feel more confident]

 “And don’t let prophets shit on your art, okay?

[She suddenly feels awkward to be challenging the prophet in front of the people and gets self-conscious]
I mean, this guy’s a pretty cool guy, I’m not like hating on him or anything, he’s got some really important shit to tell people, right? Guess he made a sacrifice to Imhotep.the hunter God. He’s cool. We’re cool. It’s all cool.

[Trying to get herself back on track]

But yeah, just to kind of riff off of what he said, uh, my name’s Sapphire. Like, uh, this guy said, I’m a demigod. Killed a ghost bird. Uh. My servant John and I came from a faraway kingdom called the Kingdom of the 2017 Idols, it’s…

[she wants to say something cool]

...got lots of idols. And I’m here to tell you uh…Tell you about peace and love, alright? Right. Peace and love. That’s like, the most important thing for people to understand, right? Like even in the Kingdom of 2017 Idols, they don’t have that figured out, but like...if you can figure that out, you’re basically gonna be set. Peace is like, everyone should come together, don’t fight each other, don’t go invading fucking Vietnam cause you think you’re the world’s police or whatever, like, just chill out, go with the flow, be cool, okay? And then love, like, that’s kind of like peace, but like, I mean, no, it’s kind of different. Uh, what do I mean? Just don’t act like you’re better than anybody, cause we’re all basically just the same deep down. Even if you’re a prophet. Okay? Does that make sense?

[She is feeling like Jesus but trying not to be too full of herself. She decides to be nice to someone to set an example]

Like, come here, dude. Yeah, you. With that groovy cow sculpture.

[He presents her with the groovy cow sculture. It’s groovy]

Is this an idol or some shit man?

[Yes, it is]

Right on. So I guess you pray to this?

[Yep]

Yeah?

[Sure do…]

 Cool. It’s really far out, man.

[She hugs him]

And look, see, I’m hugging this guy, right? It’s no sweat. No sweat!

[She is now walking through the crowd with her hands up feeling like a baller]

Oh! Sorry, did I bump into you?

[She did. The person is now inspecting her skin]

Don’t freak out. Oh, my shirt? Yeah, uh…. it’s a demigod thing. Uh.

[She turns away to look for something else to Jesus about, eventually noticing a basket]

This thing too, hey John! Look at this basket.

[To the basket maker]

I really like this. What’s your name?

[Gebbadali]

Can I call you Ali? Okay. Yeah, this is a really nice basket... I don’t know if we’re in Babylonian times or something and I’m like changing human history, but this is a nice basket. It’s gonna be in a museum someday.

[He doesn’t know what a museum is]

A museum is like a place where we put cool shit like this basket in the future, or that cow, or those pots! No...not yours...his...yours are really cool too... Alright, man, I’m done.”

J: A few meager, bewildered claps came from the audience. The prophet avoided looking at her, seeming sorrowful.

P: “My lord, I hope you understand, I did not strike the child out of malice, only to teach it respect.”

S: “Yeah, I know, sorry if that came off a little harsh... I just felt like it was a good time to, kinda like…speak my mind, I guess. See ya guys! Bye! Peace and love!”

P: “Peace and love…”