The Forbidden Horizon

1.

Today is a very special day. We are going to see the forbidden Horizon. We waited for a long time for this day to come.

We are twins. My name is Ima and Yuma is my twin sister. Although we were born together as identical twins, but we are quite different in our characters. I am extrovert and Yuma is introvert.

I like the sunshine and Yuma likes the starry night. I like to sing and dance and she likes to play the violin. I like birds and butterflies and she likes the trees and grasses. We’re always close to each other, still we are as different as day and night.

We began our secret journey early this morning, right after the sunrise. Now it is almost noon, sun is high up in the sky and the air is nice and warm. The blue mountain which is known as the guardian of the Horizon, is far away. We have a long walk ahead of us.

Our land is called the Virtuanaland. It is surrounded by a mountain range which protects us from the forbidden Horizon. One group of our philosophers say that there is another land, very close to us, called the Realand.

We cannot observe that land, it is totally beyond our perception. We are also beyond the perception of the beings of the Realand, they cannot observe anything of our Virtuanaland.

Other philosophers from other school of thought disagree, they say that there is no such thing as the Realand, it is a fiction constructed by the Realand supporting philosophers.

There is only two possibilities: yes or no. Today we are going to see which one is correct.

Three years ago, we went to visit the Wise Woman in her cave in Red Hill. We walked through the forest known as the Sea of Trees for few hours and then reached the Red Hill at noon.

In front of her cave, the Wise Woman was praying under the midday sun. We sat and waited there silently.

After her prayer, when she opened her eyes and stood up, we went ahead and paid our homage. We gave her two sea-shells, a few pearls, seven fruits, handful of spices and nuts and seven candles, all nicely arranged in a wooden box. She was quite happy to receive that. She took us inside her cave.

Inside her cave, in front of her fire pit, we sat on the wolf skin she spread for us. She sat on her red stone. She asked, “What do you want to know?”

Yuma asked, “We want to know about the forbidden Horizon. We heard that some people went there in the past, but they never returned. What happened to them?”

The Wise Woman sat silent for a while, her eyes were glowing in the mysterious darkness of the cave. Then she broke her silence and said, “They disappeared from our Virtuanaland. All the twins who went there, as soon as one crossed the forbidden Horizon, the other disappeared from our Virtuanaland. Both were lost, forever, from Virtuanaland.”

I asked, “Lost forever? Does that mean they were all destroyed? ”

Wise Woman said, “Nothing could be destroyed. They lived, only in other worlds. Those worlds are beyond our perception, beyond our knowledge.”

We watched her with silence and awe. She was glowing as she talked. Her eyes were shining like two burning pieces of coal.

After a long pause, she spoke again. She said, “I have a twin sister, she is travelling through the land now. When she will return, both of us will die together. But we will come again, as we all come as new twins. We will emerge from the Blue Whale lake, or from the Black Shield lake or from some other lake. Long ago, we were born from the Blue Whale lake. Are you two also Blue Whale born? ”

I said, “No. We were born from the lake of Turtle and Hawk.”

Wise Woman laughed. The cave vibrated with the sound of her powerful laughter. Then she said, “You are blessed. The twins coming from the lake of Turtle and Hawk have great potential. I have heard many great and wonderful stories about the Turtle-and- Hawk-born twins of the past. Never lose hope. Never lose courage. Always follow your dream. ”

We remained silent. We listened with all our hearts. It was a great moment, the Wise Woman herself was encouraging us!

Then she got up from her red-stone, stood before us and put her two hands on our heads. She blessed us with her holy mantra for a few minutes.

Then she said, “You have come just in right time. After a couple of days, my twin sister will come back from her long journey. Then we will go to our birth-lake, to fulfill our last rite together. After that, well, this life will end and another life will begin.” She smiled as she finished her words.

After that, we got up, bowed her and left the cave.

2.

We came out in bright daylight. Then, for a few minutes we stood still in front of the cave to look at our vast valley.

From that high point of the Red Hill we could see the Blue Whale lake, far away on the valley. Indeed its shape was like a whale. Although we did not see any real whale, but we saw many pictures drawn by our sailors who sailed across the oceans and saw the big whales.

Yuma said softly, “Ima, let’s go home now. Otherwise it will be very late, the paths will be dark. ”

I agreed, just nodded without a word. Then we began to walk down the spiral road to reach the valley.

Once we were back on the valley, I wanted to talk about our birth-lake again. I said, “Yuma, we haven’t gone to our birth-lake for a long time. Last time we were there, it was quite a while ago. It was the spring equinox three years ago. Do you remember?”

Yuma nodded, she remembered.

The lake of Turtle and Hawk was on the other side of the great valley, beyond the black mountain range. It could not be seen from the Red Hill.

The lake of Turtle and Hawk didn’t get its name from its shape. It got the name from a legend.

The legend said, long long ago, everything was under deep, dark water. There was no sun, no moon, no star. It was thick darkness everywhere. Only the ancient ocean was dancing in total blackness, storm was roaring over the ocean. It was an endless night , day did not exist.

Then, a holy moment came, the black body of darkness cracked a little. Through that, a ray of light came to the formless water-world. A great hawk flew in through that crack. He flapped his mighty wings and the crack widened and widened until the blue sky appeared. The darkness melted and the Sun rose.

The hawk flew and flew over the ocean. But there was no place for him to sit. For nine days and nine nights he flew over the ocean. He became very tired and cried for help. At that moment, a great turtle came out from the ocean and offered his back for the tired hawk to sit. From that moment, the hawk and the turtle became very good friends.

The lake of Turtle and Hawk has an island in the middle. The island looks like the back of a Turtle. There is a hill on east side of the island, from the lake shore, the crest of the hill appears like the head of a Hawk. The legend said that the great turtle and the great hawk became an island and a hill in the new world which they made. They became a part of the new world and will remain there till the end of time.

“Yuma ”, I asked, “Do you want to see our birth-lake again?”

“Yes. I do, Ima. When do you want to go?” Yuma came to the point. She was always like that, taciturn and to the point.

I smiled and said, “What about the day after tomorrow? It will be the first day of summer.”

She nodded and said, “Ok. We’ll go there the day after tomorrow.”

I felt excited and joyful and began to talk like crazy. I was singing, too.

Yuma listened silently for quite a while and then smiled. She said, “Ima, you are crazy.”

I jumped in joy and said, “Yes, yes, yes, you are correct. I am crazy like a crazy bird who sings and flies, sings and flies, goes round and round, till the end of time.” The last part was the lyric of a song and I was singing that with my own tunes.

Yuma laughed out loud. Then we began to walk fast towards our village. Sun was near the horizon, about to set. We had to reach home before nightfall.

3.

As we planned, we went to our birth lake on that first day of summer. It was three years ago. From home, we began our journey a few hours before the sunrise. The night dawned when we were crossing a vast, green cornfield. We reached the lake in early morning.

The lake of Turtle and Hawk looked very serene and peaceful. Sky was clear blue. There were a few silky white clouds floating by.

Thousands of large trees on the bank of the lake were singing in the morning breeze. Flocks of birds were flying over the water from the shore towards the Turtle and Hawk island.

We knelt near to waterline to pray, as was the custom for every twins visiting their birth lakes. We recalled the day when both of us came out of the lake together. We were very young then, looked like three or four years old. We were adopted by our twin mothers who were doing their water rituals on the lake shore that day.

That was the custom of the Virtuanaland, every newborn twin sisters are adopted and raised by elder twin sisters who become their twin mothers. For the twin brothers, it is exactly the parallel, they are adopted and raised by their twin fathers.

Although this age-old custom is being changed these days, after the kick-off of the great symmetry-breaking movement, which began few years back. Some of the twin-girls are adopted by twin-fathers and some of the twin-boys are adopted by twin mothers. But the change is very slow and rare, social taboo is always very strong.

Our childhood was over before the movement. We were adopted by our twin-mothers, Joana and Zeana. The first festival after adoption was the name-giving festival. Joana and Zeana gave our names, Yuma and Ima. We called Joana as Mom and Zeana as Mumma. Those names were their first gifts. They were wonderful mothers.

Our prayer was over. We got up together and looked at each other. Then we began to walk slowly towards the stone-bridge. The bridge connected the lake-shore and the Turtle and Hawk island.

Yuma said softly, “Ima, Mom loved you very much. You know that, don’t you?”

I remained silent for a while, then said, “Yes, Mom loved me more than anyone else. I was too young to understand. I loved her, too. But I never told her. I loved Mumma, too, never told her. Now there’s no way to tell them. They’re gone, gone forever. ” I sighed. Tears welled up in my eyes.

Yuma came closer and hugged me. She whispered into my ears, “They’re not gone, they’re here, and they’re in us. They’re in our hearts. Ima, don’t be so sad. ” She said those kind words to console me, but tears were streaming down her cheeks.

We kept walking. The bridge was still far, but we could see it through the green trees. The bridge was made of white stones.

A large group of blue butterflies passed us. They were going to the island, too. They flew over the water like hundreds of blue petals. Bright sunshine glittered on their wings.

Yuma watched them in complete silence, her eyes were overwhelmed with their beauty. I, too, was silent. I didn’t want to damage that moment of pure joy and beauty with my words.

Then we reached the stone bridge. There we met our friends, two sets of twins, John and George and Flora and Stella. They are also Turtle and Hawk born. John and George are two years older than us. Flora and Stella are just one year younger than us.

We used to play together when we were little. Then John and George began to take music lessons and stopped coming to the playground. Flora and Stella started to go to painting classes, they also stopped coming to play.

Yuma and I still played with the other kids, but we were outgrowing the children’s’ playground. At some point, Yuma found her passion in violin. She began to go to a violin teacher. I started to take my dance lessons. We knew that our childhood was over.

When we reached the end of our teen years, Mom and Mumma told us that their end was near, we should be mentally prepared for that.

They were Blue-Whale born, they went there together to jump to disappear. We were not allowed to go with them, as was the custom. The last journey is deeply personal, nobody accompanies the twins.

It was October, full of fall colors. The leaves of deciduous trees were all red, orange, brown or yellow before falling to Earth.

We only accompanied them up to the end of our village, then bit goodbye. It was five years ago, but sometimes we felt it was just yesterday.

And today, we are going to see the forbidden Horizon. What is waiting there for us?