Chapter 29
“Augustin!” the young man called to the person approaching, carrying the animal skin. “Come over here and meet my new friend!”
The skin carrier walked over and dropped the skin on the ground, spreading it out as smoothly as he could.
“Everyone is your new friend, David,” said Augustin.
“Well, everyone here is new to me, I want them to be my friend, so – yes – I guess that makes them all a new friend of mine,” explained David, laughing as he dropped on top of the animal skin the armful of fruits he had collected. He then walked back a few paces, and put his arm around another man approaching with his own armload of fruit.
“This is Nimuel,” David introduced.
The third man awkwardly dropped his fruits onto the pile and extended his hand, noticeably bruised from scrapes. “Pleased to me you, Augustin.”
“Likewise, Nimuel,” Augustin replied.
“Oh,” David said with another laugh starting to form. “I guess I didn’t fully introduce him. It’s Father Nimuel Acebado y ??” David hesitated, looking at the third man.
“Acebado y Bayani,” Fr. Acebado said somewhat embarrased.
“Father?” Augustin replied. “As in a priest?”
“Yes,” Fr. Acebado answered. “I’m a Roman Catholic priest from Caninguan, on Panay Island.”
“You mean you were from Caninguan,” David corrected him. “Now you are from, what are we calling this place today? Ah, it doesn’t matter. It’s our new home, so ‘bahay’ is what I call it.”
“A priest, hmmm,” said Augustin. “What were you running from?”
A few other people had walked over to their small gathering, and dropped their fruit onto the growing pile. They didn’t seem to take too much interest in the conversation.
“I’m glad you asked that,” David said as he bent down to pull up the fruit bundled in the animal skin. “My knuckles need a rest. I’ll take this load back to camp and you can hear his story. It’s quite fascinating!”
Augustin moved to take the skin, but David stepped out of his reach.
“Oh, and make sure he tells you about Mary and Joseph!” David said as he was walking away.
Augustin watched him leave and then turned back to Fr. Acebado, who was also watching their intermediate acquaintance leaving the scene.
The two men stared at each other for a moment, both looking uncomfortable.
“So, what was it, Father, that drove you from Earth,” Augustin asked in a slightly agitated tone.
“Please, call me Nimuel,” the priest said. “It seems people are more comfortable calling me that here.”
“Is that what you want?” Augustin asked. “We agreed on the first day here that everyone should be treated the way they want. No one is forced to act a certain way here.”
“Yes, that is what I want,” Fr. Acebado answered. “First names seem to be the norm here, and I want to be a part of the community as much as everyone else.”
“Good! I’m glad to hear that,” Augustin said. “We are a community and everyone needs to participate equally!”
“Umm, with that in mind, should we get our next batch of fruit before David comes back?”, Nimuel asked.
Augustin chuckled. “I guess so. We don’t want David to think the rest of us just sit around all day and talk as much as he does.”
The two started walking towards a gathering of trees with yellow, round fruits hanging from the limbs.
“To answer your question, I didn’t run from anything,” Nimuel said.
“I don’t believe you,” Augustin said. “We all ran from something. Pollution, bad relationships, poverty, mistakes too big to be forgiven or forgotten.”
“I honestly don’t think I was running from anything,” Nimuel replied. “Perhaps a psychiatrist might tell me differently, but the feeling I had was one of running to something. I felt a calling to come here.”
They reached a tree with fruits on some of the lower branches.
“A calling? Isn’t that what all religious people say?” Augustin asked as he began climbing up the tree.
The trees were noticeably taller on this planet than on Earth, so they needed to climb to reach them. However, everyone indicated it was easier to climb, to lift items they thought would be heavier, and people noticed they could jump higher than they recalled. Those that wanted to explain everything said this new planet must have less gravity than Earth. Most people didn’t really care how much gravity there was. They were just excited about their enhanced abilities.
Despite his enhanced abilities, Fr. Acebado pulled and struggled to get himself up to the lowest branch. “You sound like you have some familiarity with religion,” said, breathing heavily.
“No, not really,” Augustin answered as he began reaching out and pulling some of the fruits above the branch on which he was perched. “I was a good reader when books were a part of our lives. That is the answer I would have expected to hear from a religious person.”
He paused and looked at Fr. Acebado. “Don’t you think you’re a bit full of yourself?” he asked the priest. “Why is it you are called but myself and everyone else on this planet are simply going where fate decides?”
Fr. Acebado paused in his reach out to a fruit. “I never said that,” he said with a mixture of defensiveness and wounded feelings in his voice. “I just said I felt called.”
Then, after regaining his composure a bit, “All of us have free will. What someone assigns to fate is a lazy way of not taking responsibility for one’s choices.”
Augustin chuckled and nodded, “Well said, Nimuel! I very much agree with you on that point.”
He returned to his fruit picking. “So who called you? Did God reach out via his commblock?”
“I think he pays for Restricted ID service, since the name didn’t appear on the call,” Nimuel replied.
“Ha!” Augustin laughed aloud. “OK, Fr. Priest, you’ve knocked a hole in my barrier. Go ahead and tell me the story of your calling. If you don’t, David will when he returns and I’d rather hear it from the source.”
“There isn’t a lot to tell,” Fr. Acebado said. “The parish where I was at is located about one-hundred kilometers from the alien landing site at Pontevedra. That was still close enough that we quickly had hundreds of additional people coming to our parish each day.”
“It was one week after the initial departure from Panay that I started thinking about coming here. Three visitors, well, three different visits that day each had a part to play. It probably was the last visit, from a young, recently married couple who were leaving to come here, that made me think hardest about all this.”
“Mary and Joseph?”, Augustin asked.
“Who? Oh, no. Their names are Rosario and Lorenzo,” the priest said. “Their enthusiasm for this new world was contagious! You know, they felt called to come here as well.”
“Anyway, they talked about bringing the faith here. Rosario even said she felt she would see me again. I prayed about all this and felt my calling as a priest was to come here and help people on this new planet.”
“It took me a few days to convince my bishop to allow me to leave. Thankfully there was a wonderful, retired priest who agreed to come out of retirement to take over my parish responsibilities. Between that and my insistence on spreading the faith on the new world where there would soon be hundreds of thousands of souls and the fact that there were no priests on any of the colonists’ ships – at least as far as we knew – were enough that Bishop Reyes consented.”
“You do recall, Nimuel, that priests coming to spread their faith don’t have a very good history with us Filipinos,” Augustin noted.
“I do,” Nimuel acknowledged. “But I’m not trying to convert people. I’m trying to reinforce the faith that people already have, and continue to spread God’s word.”
“You certainly sound like you’re trying to convince me, Nimuel. I don’t care for that, to be honest with you,” Augustin said. “How many people do you think you’ll find like your young couple? This isn’t the Philippines of the twentieth century.”
“I was hoping to find Rosario and Lorenzo here,” Fr. Nimuel said.
“You didn’t think they would drop off all one-hundred and thirty million Filipinos at the same spot, did you,” Augustin asked.
“Well, no. I hadn’t thought it would be exactly like that, but I thought there would be more than just our ship that was dropped here,” Nimuel said.
“I also thought there might be others here already,” Augustin admitted. “But I’m glad we are spread out. We’re less likely to have a destructive impact if we’re not all together. And besides, I think it’s better for everyone coming here to learn how to be self-sufficient. So now you get to learn how to pick ripe fruit in addition to ripe souls.”
“I’m not really sure I want to be an expert at…” Fr. Acebado started to say, but was interrupted by another person calling out.
“Augustin!” David was shouting from the ground below. “Hey, Augustin! Where are you, dammit!”
“Up here,” Augustin shouted back.
“Come down here quickly. I came across someone not looking at all good on the way back here,” David said urgently.
Augustin swung down from the branch he was perched on and dropped to the ground. Fr. Acebado slowly scrambled down the trunk and hurried after the other two.
“What do you mean you came across someone not looking good,” Augustin asked as they were jogging.
“I saw a lady slumped up against a tree with dark foam coming out of her mouth,” David said. “That doesn’t look so good to me.”
They arrived at the place where a young woman was sitting on the ground with her back against a tree trunk and her head slanted to the side, mouth slightly open with a deep blue-colored foam trickling out of her mouth. Next to her hand laying on the ground were some deep blue berries.
“What was she thinking!” Augustin said. “That’s one of the easiest to identify ‘don’t eat’ fruits around here.”
Fr. Acebado caught up, looked at the situation, and knelt down next to the woman, putting one hand under her shoulders to hold her up. He reached into her mouth with the other hand, and used his fingers to pull out the remaining fruit still on her tongue.
“Please, can someone bring us some water!” Fr. Acebado said.
“Why bother, Nimuel,” Augustin replied, as other people started gathering around the scene. “She’s clearly going to die. I say we help end it before she suffers more.” And with that, he reached for the stone knife he had strapped to his side.
“You can’t be serious! She has life within her!,” Fr. Acebado argued. “She is still breathing!”
“There is no movement of anything but her chest, friend.” Augustin countered. “Look at those eyes! No recognition. She isn’t hearing us, isn’t responding in any way. She’s already gone.”
Fr. Acebado looked frantically from one face to another of those gathered. No one looked like they were going to challenge Augustin’s conclusion.
He finally looked back to David, who was just staring at the woman.
“David!” the priest said. “Please! Bring us some water, or at least hold her up and I’ll go get it.”
The stunned man looked up and around at the others in the crowd.
“David, please!” Fr. Acebado said again. “Come over here and hold her up!”
David finally came over and put his hands under her armpits. Nimuel got up, moved David closer, and said “I’ll be back very soon. If she wants to vomit, let her. Just don’t allow her on her back.”
Fr. Acebado went running to the shallow well the colonists had created. Luckily some others had left a few empty gourds hanging from one of the nearby trees. He took one, filled it with water and began running back. Along the way, the priest saw a distinct plant that caught his attention. He went over, picked some leaves off the plant, and continued his run back to where the woman was found.
As he neared, Fr. Acebado could see through the trees the scene looked different than when he left. The woman was now lying down on her back, arms at her side. Augustin was kneeling down next to her with his knife raised.
“No! STOP!,” Fr. Acebado shouted, ran up to the crowd and shoved the knife-wielder away from the prone woman.
“What the hell are you doing, you crazy bastard!” Augustin said as he pushed himself off the ground, grabbing his knife in his hand, and gripping it tightly, as if debating whether to use it or not.
Fr. Acebado ignored him. Instead, he focused on getting the woman sitting up, and putting water as well as a crumbled leaf in the woman’s mouth. The priest was able to get her to swallow some of the mixture. After a few seconds of the mixture reaching her stomach, the woman began to vomit. A deep blue oily mixture came out of her mouth in a projectile fashion, with a noticeable amount covering the bottom of Fr. Nimuel’s arm.
Augustin began laughing. “It serves you right, crazy priest! It’s a waste of time.”
Fr. Acebado finally turned to his antagonist. “I’m crazy! What in the hell were you thinking of doing with that knife. Killing her? This woman needs our help, not a knife in the heart”
“She’ll be dead soon. You’re just prolonging her agony and wasting resources that should be given to the healthy colonists so we can have a stronger group survive and flourish!”, Augustin responded.
The woman heaved some more, with just a bit of liquid and spit coming up.
“Get out of here!,” Fr. Acebado shouted. “Get out of here, all of you! Leave her be!”
The woman turned her head so slightly towards Fr. Acebado’s voice and tried to open her eyes.
The priest turned back to his care. “You’ll be OK,” he said quietly. “You’re going to pull through this.”
The crowd looked at both men.
Finally, Augustin returned his stone knife to it’s makeshift holster on his hip, waved his hand dismissively at the two people on the ground, and walked away.
The others followed him, leaving only David with the priest and the woman.
“I’m sorry, Nimuel,” he said. “I didn’t know how to react. She had no life in her.”
“Why?” Fr. Acebado asked. “Why did you let that happen? She has as much a right to live as the rest of us.”
David looked at the ground. “I’m sorry. I know,” he stuttered. “Thank you for saving her.”
And with that, he left them alone.
The woman groaned.
“We need to get you to a place you can get warm and get something good in your stomach,” Fr. Acebado said. “Can you stand up?”
The priest tried to get the woman on her feet, but she was not responding at all. Finally, he picked her up in his arms and began the walk back to camp.
It took him three times as long as normal to make the walk back, as he had to stop multiple times to rest. Along the way, Fr. Acebado finally noticed this woman looked different than the others in the colony. Her complexion was a little darker, her limbs a bit longer than what he expected for the torso. The eyes a bit rounder and the nose a bit more aquiline.
“I don’t recognize you at all,” Nimuel huffed as he walked along. “Not that unusual for me. But I’m not sure if we’ve even crossed paths here yet.”
It was late afternoon. Many people were still busy with their jobs, with nuts and fruits continuing to be brought into camp. Some of the hunters that had returned with their prey earlier in the day had finished skinning and cleaning their catch, and the cooks were beginning to prepare this initial back of protein.
Fr. Acebado set the woman down and propped her sitting up, resting back on a tree trunk at the edge of camp.
“I’ll return,” he said to the woman. “Please stay here.”
She didn’t respond or move.
So Fr. Acebado went in search of someone else. He came across another woman stirring some fish and vegetables together into a soupy mix.
“Gabriela! Thank heavens I’ve found you!” the priest said.
“Hello Nimuel,” the woman said, looking up from her work. “Oh my! You look – – and smell – – awful! What happened? You’re all sweaty and – did you cut your arm? Is it bleeding?”
He looked at his arm, the tunic and his hand still stained from the dark colored vomit.
“Umm, no. It’s – uh – never mind.” the priest said. “Is any of that soup ready?”
“Almost, but we all agreed to eat together, Nimuel. Can’t you wait another bit? I believe we’ll be gathering soon,” Gabriela said.
“It’s not for me.” Nimuel said.
“Then your friend can wait,” she responded.
“I’m not sure she can,” he replied. “Please, can I take some? I have this gourd I can put it in.”
“What are you up to, you crazy man,” Gabriela said with a laugh.
“Please, don’t call me that,” Fr. Acebado said seriously, stopping any laugh.
“Give me the gourd,” she said with a hesitant tone.
Gabriela filled it as best as she could and returned it to the priest.
“Who is this person?” Gabriela asked.
“I don’t know,” Nimuel answered. “Would you like to meet her? Perhaps you’ll recognize her.”
Gabriela nodded and followed her friend who was quickly jogging away.
They returned to the tree to find the woman slumped to the side.
Gabriela helped Nimuel return her to a sitting position.
The priest put the gourd up to the woman’s mouth.
“Wait, let me clear her face,” Gabriela said, gently pulling the hair back from her eyes, nose and mouth.
Fr. Acebado put the gourd to the woman’s mouth and was able to get her to taste some of the soup.
Gabriela stared at her face. “This woman isn’t from our colony.” he said after a bit.
“What do you mean she’s not with our colony,” Nimuel said. “We found her less than a kilometer from camp.”
“I’m telling you, she’s not from this camp.” Gabriela insisted. “I have a wonderful memory for faces, and this girl is not anyone that’s been in our camp all week. If she came on our ship, she left with the others setting off that first day and just now returned.”
“Regardless, she is here and she needs our help,” Nimuel said.
He put the gourd back up to her mouth, she began to sip, and then quickly retched again, vomiting up the small bit of soup from her first sip, with just the slightest tinge of blue to the mixture.
“How do I help her?” Nimuel said. “She can’t keep this down, but it doesn’t look like she has anything else in her stomach?”
“I’ll get Diego,” Gabriela said. “I can fix things, but not people. He’s the nurse.”
Fr. Acebado, Gabriela and Diego spent the rest of the evening caring for the woman, giving her mostly water and rest. Fr. Acebado put her on his sleeping mat that night, and stayed awake watching her. The few times he saw the woman half opened her eyes, he gave her more water and some of the mild-tasting fruit that had been collected that day.
While he didn’t have his eyes on the woman the whole night, he did look her way when he heard her move or make sounds. At one point, he thought she might be calling out for him and bent low to hear her. He could tell she wasn’t calling out for him, but was instead in a dream. None of the words she said made any sense. “Gabriela must be correct,” Fr. Acebado said to himself. “But how did she get here?“
As dawn was arriving, the Fr. Acebado could hear the woman shifting again. He looked over and saw her eyes fully opened, with a scared look on her face.
“Onde estou?” she said apprehensively.
“I’m sorry,” the priest said, leaning in closely. “I didn’t understand that. What did you say?”
“Onde estou!” the woman said with more urgency, trying to shift away from the face she didn’t recognize.
Fr. Acebado leaned in a bit closer to try and hear better. “I’m sorry. I’m not understanding what you are saying.”
The woman was putting her hand up between herself and the man when another person’s voice joined in.
“Good morning, Nimuel. How is our silent stranger doing?” Gabriela said as she came around the corner of the lean-to.
Both faces in the hut gave Gabriela a worried look.
“Oh!” Gabriela said. “She’s awake!”
“I can’t understand what she is saying,” Fr. Acebado blurted out.
“Onde estou?” the woman said pleadingly, looking at Gabriela.
Gabriela tilted her head and gave a small smile.
“Você está seguro meu amiga,” Gabriela replied. Then, turning to Nimuel, “She is speaking Portuguese.”
“Really?” Nimuel said. “Are you a linguist along with all your other skills?”
“No,” Gabriela replied. “I worked as a cleaner for the Portuguese Embassy in Manila for two years after I got my Certificate of Competency. That’s where I started learning how to repair things, working with the maintenance crew.”
The woman interrupted them. “Como eu cheguei aqui?”
“Este homem encontrou você doente na floresta. Ele trouxe você aqui. Ele salvou sua vida!” Gabriela said.
The woman glared at Nimuel, who himself turned to Gabriela with a confused look.
“”She asked how she got her, and I told you found her in the woods quite ill, and you brought her back here,” Gabriela explained.
Fr. Acebado turned back to the woman, put his hand up to his chest and said “Nimuel.” He then pointed to his friend and said “Gabriela.” Then he held an open hand towards the Portuguese woman.
Gabriela giggled. “Would you like me to ask her for her name?”
Nimuel’s cheeks reddened, “Yes, please.”
“Qual é o seu nome?” Gabriela said.
The woman paused, looking at both of the others. “Brilha Diamantes” she said.
“Bree-la” Nimuel said slowly. “I’m happy to meet you.”
“She doesn’t seem so happy to meet you,” Gabriela said. Then, turning to Brilha, “Este homem salvou sua vida!”
“Obrigado,” Brilha said enthusiastically.
“É isso aí? Sua vida não vale mais que isso?,” Gabriela chided.
Brilha looked at Nimuel and gave him a weak smile, “Obrigado meu querido amigo.”
Nimuel looked at Gabriela again.
“I told her you saved her life,” Gabriela said. “She said ‘Thank you.'”
“Tell her,” Nimuel started to say. “Actually, ask her how she came to be on a ship from the Philippines.”
“I’ll ask her that, and ask for her story, since I’m not convinced she came with us,” Gabriela said.
“Tell us your story,” Gabriela said to Brilha. “How did you end up on a ship from the Philippines?”
“The Philippines? Is that where you are from?” Brilha said, rolling on her side and leaning on her elbow. “No, I didn’t come here with Filipinos. I came here on a ship from Sao Paulo. The first ship that left from Brazil all the way back on 9 May.”
“Do you mind if I translate for my friend?” Gabriela asked.
“No, you’ve got me. I guess you’re paying for my time, so you get to choose what you want,” Brilha said.
Gabriela gave the Brazilian woman a curious look.
She shared Brilha’s information about the Brazilian ship with Nimuel. Both of them were quite interested at this point, and Gabriela asked her to continue.
“Before I continue, I’ve got a few questions,” Brilha said. “How is it that you speak Portuguese and he doesn’t?”
“I worked at the Portuguese Embassy in the Philippines,” Gabriela explained.
Brilha nodded. “And why does he take such an interest in me?” she asked.
“He’s someone with an open heart,” Gabriela said. “And he’s a priest, so I suppose it’s part of his job.”
“A priest!” Brilha remarked, and flopped on her back, slapping her forehead with the palm of her hand. “My grandmother said I should go see a priest the last time I saw her.”
Nimuel was excited when Gabriela translated this part. “Your grandmother is a big influence on you as well? I’m so happy to share that experience with you!”
“A big influence on me?” Brilha chuckled upon hearing Gabriela repeat the priest’s words. “No, not really. She said I should go see a priest to confess my sins. I told her I’d rather fall over and die before doing that. She called me a whore, and I left without saying another word. I guess we both won. I stayed true to my words and fell over dead. And now the priest that brought me back to life gets to listen to my sins.”
Brilha turned to Fr. Acebado. “I’m a prostitute. I sleep with anyone who wants to pay me. And I’m good at it, too!” Then, looking at the sky, “Are you happy, Avó?”
Gabriela didn’t say anything. She just stared at Brilha with her mouth slightly open.
“Well, go ahead! Translate to the preacher man, please,” Brilha said.
Gabriela translated and the smile of shared experiences left his face. He wasn’t as shocked as Gabriela, but he definitely wasn’t expecting that response.
“Please tell her I’m here to listen to whatever she would like to say,” Fr. Acebado said.
“Can I get something more to drink?” Brilha asked. “And if you have any more of that fruit, that was good. What do you call it?”
“Bananut,” Gabriela said.
“Bananut?” Brilha repeated phontetically.
“Yes, the American influence is still there. It reminds us of a banana fruit inside a coconut shell,” Gabriela explained. “And mixing the two American words together, … you know… Anyway, yes, we can get you some more.”
After Brilha had some more to drink and eat, she sat up to continue her story.
“Let’s see, where was I,” she said. “Ah, yes. I’m a prostitute! Well at least I was one back in São Paulo. Definitely not an easy life, but I managed. I had enough experience that I got by without a cafetão. But that has it’s own problems as well. This time, a Joe pulled a knife on me after my service. I misread his type, and took my attention off him while I was getting dressed. Anyway, he took the money he gave me, as well as my purse, the jewelry I had, which was all fake of course, and my Linc. Idiota! Who has a Linc that isn’t bioregistered these days?”
“Anyway, I was feeling really low and wanted to get completely away from the city for a while. I decided to go back to my hometown in Ito, thinking perhaps I’d make a fresh start. Now, I’d heard the news about the alien ship landing not far from the city, but I hadn’t paid close attention. It was actually good for business, as it made men – and a few women, I might add – decide to do things they hadn’t had the nerve for before the ship arrived. But after two weeks of nearly non-stop action, I needed a rest. I’m being honest, you two, I was really reconsidering things myself! So going back to my hometown made the most sense for me.”
“Along the way, the transbus I was riding had to stop at a roadblock. We had to wait while the Rodoviário got on board and argued with the dispatcher on the bus console. I got off when I saw the fencing and recognized the colonist preparation site. I wanted to see the alien ship in person.”
“So I went over to the fence, and up to the gate. They asked me what I wanted. I told them I was there to see the ship. They told me only people who wanted to sign up to leave could get in, so I told them I wanted to get on board the ship. They let me in.” Brilha said with a small laugh and a shake of her head.
“On the way to the check-in cabin, I thought I’d see how far I could take this,” Brilha continued. “It’s not every day you get to see an alien ship up close. So the first part was an interview.”
“Was I in good health? Yes, I just had my bi-annual physical and the doctor said I was in great shape.”
“Was I fertile? Check! I’ve had two abortions, so I know I can get knocked up.”
“What was my job? Surrogate wife, I told them. I’m not sure if the person taking my answers was going along with my jokes or taking me seriously. In any event, they wrote down ‘Mother for Hire’. That must have impressed the selection committee, because the next day they invited me in for their own physical. I let them touch and prod me wherever they wanted. Didn’t bother me. I did feel conflicted because I wasn’t collecting any payment, but I could tell they weren’t getting any jollies from it so I let the feeling go.”
“That next day, they congratulated me and said I was approved for the first departure. Now I was getting somewhere! I left my personal belongings in a locker, since I expected to come back after stepping inside the ship. Did they let people in the Philippines ‘reconsider’ after they boarded? Anyway, I got on as part of the second group to board.”
“Waiting with those people for two days of selection processing, and then spending our first night on the ship, I met so many people I normally would never have been exposed to otherwise. Mostly young people like myself. But they were all so optimistic and idealistic! Nobody asked me what my job was or anything about my past. It was all about people sharing their dreams for the future and their ideas about what the new planet would be like!”
“I bought into their dream, just like those guys that see me dressed up buy into the dream that I’m a sweet girl only interested in taking care of their every desire. Me! I should know better.”
“I talked myself into staying on the ship, saying to myself that if I truly wanted a fresh start, this would be the perfect and perhaps only way to do it.”
“And, poof, here I landed seventeen weeks after falling asleep.”
“Here?” Nimuel asked at this point. “Your ship from Brazil landed here?”
“No, not right here. But I guess on the scale of an entire planet, it must be pretty close. The problem is, it doesn’t really matter where the ship landed. Everyone else on the ship had an idea what they would do once we landed. Start their own farm. Join a commune. Become a hunter for the rest of their life. And everyone seemed to have skills they could contribute once we arrived. Hunters, cooks, builders, tree geeks, botanists, even medical workers. But not me.”
“Oh, I tried! I wanted that new start. I thought I could cook, but dealing with the raw fish and animal bodies made me nauseous. And no one liked my cooking. The crews I joined all came up with different reasons to move me onto a different team.”
“I got the hint after a week, and offered to become a builder. They wanted all the help they could find, so getting involved there was easy. But the sore muscles and the blisters were awful. And then I sliced my finger open with one of those stupid stone axes.” Brilha held out her left hand to show a scar at the bottom of her palm.
“Of course I got an infection! It hurt so bad and I got such a high fever the second night that I was afraid of dying. I won’t say I was praying, but I was asking for any help I could get. It took me five days for the wound to partially heal before I could grip anything with that hand. I tried going back to a building crew, but they said my hand wasn’t good enough to do that type of work, and said I needed to find another job.”
“So I thought I would gather the food. I couldn’t climb the trees to get any big fruit or to gather the sweet nuts. I wasted too much time trying to pull stuff out of the ground since I wasn’t any good at identifying which plants had vegetables under them and which had just roots. So I thought I’d stick with berries. I could grab the red ones and the blue ones well enough with the one hand, and used my left arm to hold up my blouse to collect them. There was no way I was going to use one of those lizard skins!”
“I actually did pretty good for a few days, and people weren’t yelling at me for not contributing. But then two things happened on the same day. I saw these purple berries that looked pretty tasty. I thought I remembered seeing them on the alien ship when they showed the survival images, so I threw a bunch of them in with the other berries I had gathered that morning. I took the collection back to camp, dumped it onto the pile of berries the cooks were cleaning and went back out for another load. The next time I came back and was about to dump my next bunch, someone ran over and said they needed to look at what I brought back before I could add it to the pile.”
” ‘Here’s the one that did it!’ I remember the cook shouting out. A few others ran over, looked at what I had in my blouse, and began yelling at me and telling me to dump it far away. They said the purple berries were poisonous and that I had ruined the entire pile I dumped my last collection on, since the juice from those berries had gotten on the good fruit. I told them I remembered seeing the image of the berries on the ship. They said I did, but that it had a dead human next to it. Blackness berries, they called them, since you eat them when you want to see nothing but blackness. They said I cost them five loads of berries, and I had to make up the difference that day, or else I wasn’t eating that night.”
“That scared me, as I hadn’t gone without food yet since my arrival on this planet. I rushed back out and began grabbing red and blue berries as fast as I could. On my second batch, I saw a bunch of berries inside the plant and didn’t want to leave them behind, so I used my bad hand to push the branch out of the way. That’s when a thorn jabbed into my wound and opened it back up.”
“It could have been a combination of seeing the blood come out, dehydration since I hadn’t drank any water yet that day, and the worry from everything, but I fainted. I know it was nearly mid-day when that happened. And by the time I woke up, it was getting dark. I couldn’t see well enough to find more fruit. My hand was throbbing, and I was thirsty and hungry, so I went back to camp.”
“I got water to drink from the spring along the way, since I wanted to wash off my wound. Thankfully it had almost healed again, and no infection, so perhaps that wasn’t a bad plant to run into. But when I got back to camp, all the food that had been brought in that day was already cooked, distributed and eaten. I asked where the leftovers were, and they said they had none. They said I didn’t deserve anything anyway, since I ruined so much fruit earlier and didn’t bring anything back the rest of the day.”
“I was frantic. I started yelling at the cooks about how unfair they were, and how I was trying as hard as I could. They didn’t care.”
“But one of the hunters heard me. He came over, put his arm around me, and said he had some extra food to share. I was amazed how kind he could be compared to the cooks. Sometimes I can be so stupid!”
“We went back to his hut. He actually had a hut with walls and a roof! He had me sit down and gave me a handful of berries to eat. I ate them all at once. He said he had some dried meat along with the fruit and asked if I wanted more. I was still hungry and said yes. He then asked if I had anything to share in return for the food he was sharing with me, and he began stroking my hair.”
“It took me five seconds to decide. I stood up, grabbed his crotch with my good hand and started rubbing his dick, and gave him a big wet kiss on the mouth. I let him pound me for fifteen minutes, and when he was done, I had my fill of the food he had in the corner of his hut.”
“I guessed it had been almost twenty weeks since I turned my last trick. I’ve never gone that long since I got into this business. Even if you take out the trip while I was asleep, nearly three weeks of real time since I had traded sex for money, jewelry, or anything else. That never happens, since I need money to survive, and I’ve got one way of earning it.”
“I did sleep in his hut that night. Or at least the first part of the night. My thoughts and his snoring didn’t allow for a very good sleep. So, before dawn, I got up, helped myself to some more fruit and dried meat, and went back to camp.”
“That day, I went out to pick more fruit. It took me twice as long, since I didn’t want to open the wound that had mostly healed. I was able to get two small batches back to the collection point. Both times one of the cooks came over and insisted on checking my batch before I could drop it in with the rest of the fruit. Did they think I was too stupid to not make the same mistake two days in a row? I’ve felt demeaned plenty of times in my life with my job, but this seemed worse in some way. So when I went back to get my third batch that morning, I just found a quiet spot and cried myself to sleep instead. I slept til mid-afternoon since I hadn’t gotten any sleep the last evening.”
“At the evening meal, I got in line with my shell and went to get some soup. One of the head cooks came up and whispered to the person serving the soup as I got to her. She nodded, and gave me barely even a spoonful of broth. The head cook told me to hold out my hand, and she gave me six berries. She told me I was getting what was due to me based on how much I had worked. I called her a bitch, dumped the soup on the ground, and threw the berries in her face.”
“He must have been watching for me, because the hunter got my attention, motioned his head towards his hut, and walked that way. I followed him. I was hungry and I was going to get by the best way I knew how.”
“That night, the hunter got a little more adventurous with me. I must not have been paying enough attention to him, because at one point he slapped my head and told me to make him enjoy it more if I wanted to keep getting fed. But a half-hour later, he was done and snoring on his mat. I ate my fill again, slept as best as I could for a few hours, and then left in the middle of the night.”
“I had heard there was a group of people leaving the village to set up their own small community. So, after three weeks from the time we arrived, I decided it was time for me to leave also. This group had people I had barely seen since the arrival. Some of them had gone out on a week-long expedition, and others were part of the hunting or building crew. No cooks, thank heavens. And no one that seemed to know my relationship to my most recent patron or my history with the other builders. There were just over a dozen people, myself included. It was all I could do to keep up with them, which was fine, since that way I didn’t need to talk to them because they were far enough ahead of me. But on the fourth day after we left the main colony, they decided I was a moocher after I never caught anything to eat, didn’t bring in enough from the evening food gathering walks, and didn’t seem to have any other useful talents. I told them they couldn’t abandon me on my own. They pointed me back towards the main colony and said I’d better start walking so I wouldn’t be alone for too long.”
“I ignored them. I didn’t go back towards the colony, and I didn’t follow them. I went a different direction, just walking. Ten days I was walking. Thankfully I did learn a few things while gathering the food and being around the colony campsites, and I was able to find enough things to eat along the way. Water wasn’t a problem, as I decided to follow a river most of the time. But each night I’d go to sleep a little hungry and feel a little weaker than the day before. I couldn’t find good shelter, which was really a pain the past few days when it was raining most of the time. And almost every day, I’d pass a bush full of the blackness berries, just daring me to eat them.”
“Yesterday I decided I was done walking, done scavenging, done trading favors for food, and just done with it all. I stopped at the next bush I found and had something to eat. Fr. Goodheart must have found me not long after I had swallowed the blackness berries.”
Brilha stopped talking.
Gabriela stopped translating.
And all three sat there in silence for quite some time, each deep into her or his own thoughts.
Finally, Nimuel spoke. “This is a new world, and a life we’re all trying to learn. It can be hard to leave an old life behind, but it’s possible.”
“Really?” Brilha questioned, after she heard Gabriela translate. “You’re still a priest. I don’t see you leaving that behind.”
“I’m talking about those things that people want to leave behind, or have to leave behind,” Nimuel said. “I’m trying to leave my pride off this planet. I realized how full of myself I was before, and how I felt I was different, even better, than everyone else. Here I’m low on the ranking order. I don’t hunt. I can’t build or cook. I don’t remember which are the good plants or animals to eat. And you can see from my hands how good of a bananut picker I am.”
“Maybe we do have a bit in common, Fr. Goodheart,” Brilha said.
“Please, call me Nimuel,” he interrupted.
“Ok,” Brilha responded. “So neither of us is good at anything of use on this planet. So we need to learn to start over. I don’t think I’ll make it long enough to learn.”
“Stay here with us,” Nimuel said.
“Why? So the Filipinos can pick on me as much as the Brazilians? I would think your neighbors expect you to work for your food, and I’m not much help with that right now,” Brilha said, holding up her injured hand.
“You can stay with Diego and I,” Gabriela interjected.
“That’s nice of you to say,” Brilha said, “but who is to say your husband will feel differently?”
“I say,” Gabriela said confidently. “I know him well enough that he would have made the offer quicker than I did. We’ll share our food with you. Your hand can heal, and you won’t have to worry about working until then. While it’s healing, I’ll teach you what I know about cooking. And Diego will teach you about the plants.”
Brilha didn’t say anything. She just gazed at Gabriela with a questioning look.
“I’ll gladly share my food as well,” Nimuel said. “I still have extra weight I need to lose, so you’ll be helping me.”
Brilha looked at them both and started to tear up. “Just eat less if you want to lose weight, you stupid man,” she said, trying to control her emotions.
“Maybe we’re not meant to be here,” she said as she took in a deep breath. “I mean, we weren’t born here. If God wanted us to be here, he would have plopped us here like Adam and Eve.”
“Who is to say we aren’t like Adam and Eve in the sense we’re to bring humanity to a new planet,” Nimuel countered.
“God didn’t create Adam and Eve with sin, my Grandmother told me. And from what you said earlier, we’re all sinners, so why put us here?” Brilha noted.
“Adam and Eve learned how to sin after they were created. They didn’t populate the world until they had committed a grave sin,” Nimuel explained. “But God still allowed them to live and to create his people.”
Brilha paused. Then, “Grandma said I need to have my sins forgiven. But there are too many for that.”
“Jesus died on the cross for all of the sins of all humanity,” Nimuel said. “The sins of one person can be forgiven by God whose power created the world we were born on, the world we live on now, and the entire universe that surrounds them both. His power and, more importantly, his love and mercy are so great that no amount of sin can keep someone from Him if the person wishes to repent and be forgiven.”
“I want to be forgiven,” Brilha said softly. So softly, in fact, that Gabriela had to ask her to say it louder so she could understand. “I want to be forgiven!” Brilha said loudly.
She looked at the priest, “Can you do that for me, Nimuel?”
“I cannot, but God can. But you need to be sorry for your sins. You need to be sorry and try and not sin again,” Nimuel explained.
“I am sorry for them. I am so sorry for them. I’m tired of them, and want to put all that in my past,” Brilha said with noticeable exhaustion in her voice. “Can you do it now?” she finished, looking the priest in the eyes.
“Do you understand what…” Nimuel started to say.
“My grandmother took me to church with her until I turned eleven,” Brihla interrupted Gabriela in mid-translation. “She had me go through confession and communion. I know what this means.”
Nimuel looked at Gabriela, who gave a supporting nod.
“Normally this is between just the two of us, and God, of course,” the priest explained. “But that is also in a situation where the two people understand each other. If you will allow it, I will need Gabriela to remain here so she can translate for us.”
Brilha nodded.
Fr. Acebado then knelt next to Brihla. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Um, how long has it been since you made your last confession?”
“I only made the one before my First Communion,” Brilha said. “So, many, many years ago.”
There was silence. “OK, um, you need to confess your sins,” he said.
“I just told you my story!” Brilha said.
“You need to confess your sins during the Sacrament,” he said.
“Holy shit! You are unbelievable! Really? OK, well, I lied, I stole, I sold my body for money, for food, for fun, really just about for anything. I cussed at my Grandmother, and, I don’t know, what else did I mention this morning?” Brilha said.
“The abortions. Los abortos.” Nimuel said quietly.
Gabriela didn’t say anything.
The priest looked at the translator.
“Don’t worry,” Brilha told her. “I understood what he said. Portuguese and Spanish have basically the same word.”
Then, turning to Fr. Acebado, “Yes, the abortions too.”
“And are you sorry for these sins, and will you attempt to avoid the occasion of sin in the future?” the priest asked.
“Yes, I already said that. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry! And this place doesn’t give me any, well, as much opportunity to sin, so I certainly hope I can avoid it,” Brilha said impatiently.
“For your penance, I ask that you spend some quiet time in prayer and ask God to guide you in your new life here on this planet. This is where you, and all of us, can be reborn in his name,” Nimuel asked.
Then he concluded, “God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
When Brilha saw Nimuel trace the sign of the cross in the air in front of her, she followed and made the sign of the cross on herself.
There was quiet again for a few moments when everyone had their heads bowed. Then the sound of sniffling and short breaths, and Brihla lunged forward and hugged Fr. Acebado so hard his breaths were shortened.
“Thank you, Fa… Thank you, Nimuel,” she said between sobs, with tears streaming down her face. “Thank you so very much for treating me like a human.”
“My dear Brilha, you are more human than anyone can imagine, and more than any of us will ever know,” Nimuel said, starting to tear up himself.
Brilha got up, brushed the tears from her eyes, and began walking out of the lean-to.
“Where are you going?” Gabriela asked.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Brilha said.
“When you come back, find me by the fires. We’ll be starting preparations for the noon meal before long,” Gabriela called after her.
Brilha nodded and continued walking.
Gabriela turned back to see the priest still kneeling on the ground.
“Nimuel?” she asked. “Are you OK?”
“Yes,” he said, slowly rising from his position. “I’ve heard thousands of confessions. But none like that one.”
“This may sound strange,” Gabriela said, “but thank you for letting me be a part of it.”
Their exchange was interrupted by one of the cooks. “Aren’t you helping today, Gabriela?” she asked as she walked past.
“I’ll check in on you both at lunch. I should get out to the trees now. I have some other fruits to harvest,” Nimuel said with a smile.
The smile stayed with Nimuel the rest of the morning. This was the first time since his arrival that he felt his priestly calling truly put to use on this planet. It reaffirmed his choice, made the challenges seem easier to handle, and strengthened him for whatever lay ahead.
He returned at noon and went in search of Gabriela. Brilha was not with her.
“Nimuel,” Gabriela said urgently as he approached. “Is she with you?”
“No, I thought she was coming back here?” Nimuel replied.
“She hasn’t come back,” Gabriela said. “I thought she found you and decided to stay with you this morning.”
“I’ll look around camp to see if I can find her,” he said.
Nimuel went back to his lean-to, but it looked the same as when they left this morning.
He went around camp looking for her, even asking others if they had seen a new, darker skinned woman around. Nobody had seen her that morning.
“No sign of her,” Nimuel shared when he returned to Gabriela.
“Maybe she’s lost out there,” Gabriela said with a worried tone. “Or maybe she got hurt again.”
“I’ll look for her,” Nimuel said. “Please stay here in case she comes back. If she does, you can send Diego out for me when he returns. I’ll just make ever widening circles until I come across her.”
“Please bring her back,” Gabriela said.
Nimuel first went back to the location where they found her yesterday. It looked like nothing had disturbed the site since the day before. He then went to the latrines, and to the watering hole. No sign of her nor did anyone he came across recognize her.
Eventually he started his circular search. Hours passed with no change in status. Finally, he heard someone calling for him.
“Nimuel!” It was Diego.
“Fantastic,” Nimuel thought. “She’s returned to camp.“
“Nimuel, are you out here?” Diego said again.
“Over here, Diego,” Nimuel called back.
“Thank heavens I found you,” said the hunter.
“Brilha has returned to camp?” Nimuel asked.
“No,” Diego answered. “No, she hasn’t. I was hoping you may have found her.”
Nimuel’s shoulders and face both dropped. “Nothing,” he responded. “No sign of her. Why did she run away like that? We had a beautiful talk! She sounded like she was able to get years of anger, frustration, and other feelings off her shoulders. And a wonderful Reconciliation to conclude it all.”
“Gabriela told me it was an amazing experience,” Diego said with as much comfort as he could put in his voice.
“I don’t know what to do now,” Nimuel said dejectedly.
“Let’s make one more loop before returning to camp,” Diego offered.
Nimuel agreed and they began another circular loop but farther out from camp. Circular was a rough guide, as this was undeveloped ground and it was hard to tell exactly what direction the main colony camp would be, but they knew how to follow a path that kept them reasonably oriented based on where the sun was in the sky.
The two men had just about finished their route when Diego stopped.
“Do you see that?” he said to Nimuel, pointing off in the distance.
“See what?”, Nimuel said, looking to where Diego was pointing.
“It looks like it might be someone. I’ll go find out,” Diego said, and he dashed forward.
Nimuel tried keeping up, but Diego was much more nimble and sped ahead.
Diego stopped in front of a tree and was looking down as Nimuel caught up. There, Nimuel saw Brilha lying next to the tree trunk. Her eyes were wide open but lifeless, and her good hand held another bunch of the darkness berries, this batch much bigger than the one she had held the day before.