When Jeremiah Joseph was a about 7 or 8 years old, he came to live in a village by a river. It was known that he was without a family, having no mother or father to speak of. He had been found wandering in the wilderness, surprisingly adept at taking care of himself. He had learned, apparently all on his own, how to make a sling and find the right rocks to hunt small game like rabbits and small rodents. Some suspected he had been abandoned or orphaned in a village raid or minor war. When asked about this by the village elders he said this was not what happened. When asked why he was alone and why he was wandering the wilderness alone, all he said was that that was how it always had been.
The elders pondered on this, skeptical, but they saw no trace of a lie in his face, mannerisms, nor his voice. How had he come to learn their language? He didn’t really look like most people from the surrounding area, and none of the women in the area had features which he could have inherited. But he was a good worker, helpful, respectful, so they let him stay. He wasn’t originally one of theirs, but he became one of them. Jeremiah was taken in by the women of the village, cared for like their own, but shared. He still remembered his mother, but he never told the women about her. He felt that some of them, especially the old babushkas enjoyed having another bird in the nest. He didn’t to burden them with the tale, nor make them think he was messing with them, nor make people suspicious of him. He knew of the cave from which he tunneled, how his mother had died, giving him the last of her strength, inside a cave with no way in and no way out. The way out he had to make and made sure no one else would ever re-enter. So, he was always the extra bird, the one who hopped nests. It wasn’t a sleight or a derogatory thing, they enjoyed his company, and having an extra hand. And he enjoyed a place to stay and food to eat and was always willing to help out to ensure he kept things in balance.
When Jeremiah was a teenager, the elders of the village had the teenagers gather around the fire in the center of the village. Late spring was a time when certain stories were told. Often, around the changing of the seasons, the villagers would gather together to socialize, exchange news, and tell the stories of their people. The Tale of the Two Cities was one of these. This was also a time for the folks of parent age to be free of their young folk for a bit, and to socialize and make merry amongst themselves. It was an unspoken agreement that the grandparent aged folks of the village took the youngins for a little while and entertained them.
Jeremiah and his friends, or brothers and sisters as he had come to see it, gathered around the bon fire in the town. Four times a year, at the changing of the seasons, the young folks of the village would gather to hear the elders tell the tales and legends of their people. Some of the elders enjoyed acting the parts out, dramatically, others preferred just to relate the tales matter of fact. No one would say it out loud, but everyone had an opinion. Some thought the dramatic ones hammed it up too much, treating them too much like children. Others thought the matter of fact relation of facts to be boring and a bit insulting to their intelligence. No matter, they all agreed, either way, these were their stories, what made them special among the other people of this land. At least, that is what the elders said.
One of the younger of the elders greeted the group of young folks, gathered them around the fire. “Come come, sit, and hear the tales of yore. Tales of the ancestors, tales of the beginning of time!” he said as they all took their seats. And settle in they did, little sitting on their teenage brothers and sisters laps. Some were caring for their infant aged siblings.
And so it was that the elders told many stories, but one stood out this evening to Jeremiah Joseph. It was the Tale of the Two Cities.
Two of the elder began the story, and so it is said that this was the story Jeremiah Joseph heard that night…
It is said, deep in the dark reaches of time, far on the other end of this valley, the place where it is now very dry, there were two towns. They were sister towns, the people there traded and socialized, ad they looked out for one another. The people here also had a distinctive look to themselves, one that they chose, one that set themselves apart from folks from other towns. The sages and the scholars tell us that this detail is lots to time, but that it isn’t what is important. The folks of these two towns saw themselves as different from the other towns in the region and saw anyone not from their towns as other.
The sages and the scholars record that the names of these towns were East River and West River. They were renowned in the land, some even went as far as to say: “wicked”. It is now thought that this was false word spread by neighboring villages who were covetous of the wealth and prosperity of East River and West River. There was also a rumor that nearly everyone from these two towns were related, the phrase ‘we take care of our own’ taken, by them, a little two literally.
So it was, one spring, that a man from a town far away, who had never heard of East River and West River came down the valley, having left his town due to a shortage of food and a flood. He said his village was wiped out, and that he was the only one to survive. He related to them the sounds of rumbling and crashing in the hills. They all looked up from their cooking fires, as it was early evening, and lo and behold, a wave of water engulfed them and their village. He said that their village had been located on a river at the edge of a narrow valley. He said that it had been a cold winter the year previous and it snowed a lot. The people of East River and West River recalled similar weather events. He said he was the only one to have survived, after riding a dead cow down the river until the waters slowed and receded. He found himself among flotsam and jetsam, disheveled, almost naked, wet, and cold. He said he had been walking for two weeks, foraging from bushes and eating water wild fruits and nuts he could find.
At first the people were sympathetic of his plight. His story was compelling, but they thought “at least we didn’t put our village at the bottom of a valley where the snows are known to melt and rush”. The people of East River and West River thought themselves to be a bit above the rest, smart enough to recognize a dangerous threat to their existence like this. But they took him in anyway.
But as the weeks went on, the longer the stranger stayed, the more odd occurrences piled up. A dead sheep here, a sick child there. The people became suspicious, as before this dark haired, dark eyed stranger showed up, nothing like this ever happened before. Or so they told themselves. As it happened, these things happened all of the time. But now they had someone to blame. No longer did they have to take responsibility for not making a sacrifice to the ‘gods’ or being careless. This guy wasn’t one of them, he looked different, came from somewhere else. They knew he wasn’t the reason, but it relieved them of the burden of holding themselves accountable.
Over time as these two towns grew, they eventually merged, having grown into one another, much, as some said, they did into themselves, growing insular both in interactions with the wider region and within their own familial ties. It became frowned upon to seek a mate from outside the city. They protected their own, and it was not unheard of for outsiders to be held accountable for the transgressions of the city dwellers. And unknowing passerby or traveling businessman or woman, it was said, should be wary, lest they become victim of this one sided justice system they had set up. Often, folks unknown were targets of crimes committed by the people of the city. The protected their own, forgave each other, and pushed the blame onto the folks who came from outside.
“You ain’t from around here” was often heard, right before they disappeared into a dungeon or an oubliette. The person might try to plead their case, but “you ain’t from around here” wasn’t so much a question as a statement, and a sentence. And so it went and as the city grew, so did its reputation, and so did their habit of keeping it in the family. In the early days it was a matter of pride, they wouldn’t mingle with their lessers outside the city, though as it became known that any stranger or foreigner would often succumb to their warped view of justice, they looked inward to maintain their population because no one from the outside dared to venture into a marriage with the folks of what they were now known as, Kleistopolis. The name was originally a badge of honor, reflecting their rejection of the other due to their superiority, but now the name was inverted, a rejection of them by everyone else.
And so, the city waned, its population suffering from the effects of a closed economic system, their fields over worked and producing less and less. Salt began to build up on their fields, washed down from the hills, left behind when the rains evaporated. While they had figured out the salts of certain substances made their crops grow, eventually they built up and concentrated in the soil, slowly reducing their fertility, much like their own fertility as a people. They had too often gone to war with their neighbors as their economic and food situation worsened, their insular nature combined with failed campaigns led to a declining and weakened populations. Their offspring were sickly, and that was in addition to the malnutrition. But they always maintained their protection of their own. They didn’t hold each other to account, but always forgave their kin in favor of conviction of the other. Eventually, they ate each other.
“Literally” said one of the elder. “The sages and the scholars say that the people of Kleistopolis starved, inbred and fearful of outsiders, they look inward, and when their crop failed for the last time, they resorted to cannibalism.” A gasp went through the crowd of young folks. The elders had only hinted at the true cause of their demise.
“And what is the moral of this tale? Anyone, anyone?”, a different else asked looking around.
“Don’t use salt as fertilizer?” one of the snarky teenagers said.
“Well, no. I mean, yes, but that’s not the main take away” said the eldest elder, slowly, his voice a croak, but a bright glint in his eye.
“Be a little nicer?” said one of the girls.
“Yes, sure, we’re getting closer” said another elder.
“We don’t know, just tell us” a few of older kids yelled, knowing full well this story and it’s moral. It was a common practice for the older one to not give it away, to let the younger ones figure it out or be told the correct answer after trying.
“Okay, okay” said the youngest of the elder. “The moral is this: look out for one another, defend your brother, but keep each other accountable. Don’t just blame the outsider, just because someone is from your family, just because they’re from the same town, don’t just give them a pass. Treat everyone equally, fair and just, regardless of where they’re from or who they’re related to.”
Other stories were told, but this one it is said stuck with Jeremiah Joseph. He was different, yet he was treated as an equal.