DECAP CHRONICLES: MONROE RETURN circa 5,200 AD

THE UNIVERSALITY OF EXPERIENCE: 5200 AD PART II

The hustle and bustle of Eiyouian morning village life elevated to a crescendo of activities around preparing meals, farming, hunting, and following the traditions of the Ancients. The priestess Wyoua was the convergence of past and present and her council laid sway to legislative, judicial and executive communal decisions. Although she currently exercised those duties as high priestess, at the age of 50 years, her 74 year-old predecessor and her 24 year-old successor were also part of the process. In the egalitarian community, Wyoua duties were the most defined, while everyone else collaboratively completed daily chores.

Ayesha and Sheila approached the village's thatched meeting center outside Wyoua's home. From the distance, they both overheard Wyoua's holding council over the dispute of two families. Ayesha and Sheila waited nearby in ear shout until Wyoua was free.

"Paysi, for the good of the community you must share with Heida and her family your bonus food rations. Yes you have earned those rations through your hard work over the year, but Heida is aging and have missed meeting her share of communal responsibilities. How can I make it right for you?"

"It's unfair that I with the largest bonus should be asked to share the most. To pursue this is to discourage me from working. Can Heida be helped from the community reserves?"

"The outlook for the community store is not good. For the last four seasons we have consumed our reserves and expect a turn-around next year with the changes we have made to irrigation, seeding and our livestock. We have had bad years but the changes of this year would only yield their results next year. "

"Can you promise me a repayment of my bonus next year for what I give Heida?"

"The wisdom of the Ancients does not permit me to obligate the community for the future. It is the nature of life, that some of us would be in need some day. The Paseli family has been blessed. I ask that you return some of this blessing. The least of our community should be no less off than the excess of our prosperous."

"That encourages the weak to remain seeking handouts and not bettering themselves. The prosperous should be allowed to prosper without expense of the weak."

"Do you remember when you were a boy?

"Yes," Paysi response finally reverting him from the abstract of business to being empathic.

"It was Heida who was your communal mother until the age of five. She has been a communal mother for twelve generations for that is her calling. Because her current physical limitations, the community now takes care of her as she once took care of us. That is the way of the Ancients. We believe that individuals are independent and have the right to be free, but fundamentally we believe that we must take care of our own."

Paysi paused, recalling his earlier days as a child when separated from his 16 year old mother. It is not that he had not forgotten his first years with Heida, but she was only one among many other surrogates according to Eiyouian tradition. The path to Eiyou maturity was through a sequence of adoptions into families that reinforced communal ties and was expected to foster a sense of shared security among extended members in times of need. This has been the teachings of the Ancients, "But why am I so intent on holding on to my wealth?," he wondered.

"The promise of security..."

"... is shared by the majority," Wyoua completed his sentence. "Resources for farming and our normal activities were directed this year towards solving our current problems and our security reserves are low. We are calling on you."

Paysi further reflected. He had amassed several years of bonuses in livestock, grains and land and was expecting a comfortable senior living for himself and his family. Now he was called upon to give up his earned rewards of years of sacrifices for the common good. He and his other senior Eiyouian would have to continue working to replenish their wealth beyond the Eiyouian years of transition into lighter chores. This was at a time when younger Eiyouians were taking over the workload of their elders. There would be an ensuing glut of too many people working with not enough to do. Peysi saw the quality of Eiyouian life deteriorating with less socializing and enjoyment of the surrounding nature replaced by a need to replenish wealth. He left Wyoua disheartened.

Wyoua greeted Ayesha and Sheila with smiles and warm embraces. She had met with other droids as a junior priestess thirty years before. She was aware of Ayesha diva status and Sheila's business skills in the outside world. Wyoua was curious about their interest in the Eiyouians.

"Wonderful meeting with you ladies. Sheila maybe you can help us put together a plan to solve next year's harvest."

Wyoua had weathered her 50 years well. Her toned-body attested to laborious duties during her twenty-six-year priestess apprenticeship. She wore the traditional floral necklace that extended over her breast. Her skirt bore priestess markings, a series of multi-colored inscriptions and sacred words. Without waiting for a response she continued, "Let's walk through the fruit field, maybe I can offer you something. But then again you droids don't eat while you are with us. Keep me company?" Without waiting on a response, Wyoua lead the way.

Sheila was the first to respond, "Wyoua we are thankful for your warmth and hospitality. We cannot intervene with our own plans but we can offer suggestions to your own."

The trio walked among mango, orange, sapadilla, guava, chenep and pommerac trees. Wyoua reached for a pommerac the color of the bright red markings on her skirt, just within her grasp from a low-hanging branch. The puncture sound of her teeth piercing the fruit veneer startled a bird in the upper branches. Ayesha interrupted the brief silence that followed the flutter of wings.

"We would like to know more about your Ancients and End of Days. Why have you remained tribal all these years yet you have access as droids to the outside world? Is this in keeping with the Ancients and End of Days?"

"That's quite a mouthful Ayesha, but first we must contrast our worlds. We were once a mighty nation that covered the territory from the Essequibo to the Del Fuego some three thousand years before our first discovery. The history of that time saw the decimation of our Ancients, through disease, enslavement and war. We retreated into the interior in small numbers two hundred years after our first discovery before being discovered four hundred years later. The history of our Ancients has lived with us for several thousand years. We have come to accept the struggle of life as the eventual preparation for death, knowing of a day the sun will set on the Eiyouians. Such will be the End Of Days, when the Eiyouians life force dissipates to the collective consciousness, when dawn's break for the birth of the last Eiyouian child. We have survived the challenges for centuries but surely as the sun shines, the End Of Days will arrive, a time each Eiyouian diligently works towards delaying, but which eventuality is collectively accepted." Wyoua eyes were closed through her last few words as if signifying the transference to another realm.

"The acceptance of death in our culture is more at a personal level," Ayesha responded. "Individuals feel invincible from an early age and only in later life is a sense of death's eventuality entertained. Your early resignation of death and the acceptance of death of your entire people as an eventuality departs from the eternal hope of the outside world. Sometimes that sense of invulnerability can lead to a sense of limitlessness in all that there is; what nature has to offer, what we can take from her, what we can waste. It seems that your acceptance of an End of Days in contrast with the excessiveness of the outside world's decadence would converge to the same end. Maybe we can find some common ground here to change course." Ayesha last statement was more of an internal thought than a question to the others.

"Maybe?" Sheila refrained.

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