A work of fiction. Standard disclaimers.
Jerry and Zeke Weaver stood outside their wigwam, waiting, shivering slightly despite their heavy wool togas and sturdy animal-hide boots. These signs of high social status were not enough to protect them against the first frosty days of winter, which had turned the grassy fields surrounding Clan Cohasset’s wigwams brown, and stripped the leaves from most of the trees. Nor were they enough to protect them against the frost in their hearts.
Finally, their tutor Sisyphus emerged from his wigwam. If the day’s chill affected him, he showed no sign. He spotted the boys and waved, silently and imperiously, for them to come to and follow him. They did so, Jerry without energy, and Zeke with a sullenness that threatened to break out into open defiance.
They walked to the edge of the village’s cleared space, where a group of half a dozen Clan Cohasset girls waited, with baskets in their hands. Sisyphus came near and then headed towards a path through the forest, beckoning them to follow. They did so, silently, solemnly, with the boys in the rear. Two of the older girls hung back and walked with them, side by side when the path allowed, sharing the burden. Zeke stifled a sniffle.
They came to a group of small trees, bushes really, that clustered around the edge of a woodland pond. A few of the branches clung to the last of their small red autumn leaves. On most of the branches, there were small black berries. Sisyphus beckoned the girls to his left side, the boys to his right.
“Observe”, he commanded. “The trees are small, and are near water. Their leaves are small, they are single, and at their falling are red. The berries are black and in small groups. Take one and eat.” The children did so, and as each one did, each one’s face puckered.
“They are sour, but they are not bitter, they do not burn the mouth. They are safe to eat. They will keep through the winter, dried or stashed in the snow that will soon come, and they will protect you from the bleeding sickness. Collect them now, before the birds and the mice get them.”
The girls set to work. Sisyphus took the boys aside. “Heed the tale of the women, who keep the lore of the trees. Which of them bear fruit that is good to eat, which of them do not. How the trees have fared in their seasons. Are they flush with leaves? Have they flowered well? Have the fruit set, and have they ripened well? If there are no berries, then the survival of the village will depend on finding the wild roots and harvesting them before they wither and can no longer be found, which is well before the tree fruits ripen. The wise leader will read the signs and protect the clan, as best he can, against the chances of nature.”
“I don’t want to be wise”, Zeke spat out. Then, a wail. “I want my sister!”
“This would have been Naomi’s first year to pick berries”, Jerry said sadly. Naomi, younger than Zeke by a year, had gotten sick in midsummer, and never recovered. The clan had buried her wasted body a week prior. She was the third girl, and fifth overall, of their mother’s children to die. Sisyphus, hearing Zeke and Jerry’s distress, stood erect, rigid, silent, disdainful, apparently unmoved. He remained that way until the girls returned, baskets a quarter full, complaining that the trees had no more fruit that they could reach. Then, he waved them all onward, further into the forest. The boys had no choice but to follow.
They encountered more trees, some with the same black fruit as before, others with reddish or purple ones. At each one, Sisyphus repeated the drill, telling the picking team what to look for, introducing the taste of each fruit when it was edible and signs to warn them when it was not, and then commanding the gatherers to pick, or to move on with him. Slowly, the boys let go of their pain, became more engaged with the process.
Abruptly, as the party was walking along the edge of a clearing, Zeke pointed into the woods, shouted “What’s that?” and dashed off. At a nod from Sisyphus, the rest followed. They stopped at a small tree that, unlike all the others in that part of the forest, still held all of its leaves, broad, glossy, and green. And among the leaves was a cloud of brilliantly red berries.
“Wow, these are pretty”, Zeke exclaimed. “Are they good?”
“Try to pick one”, Sisyphus advised.
Zeke thrust his hand into the foliage, immediately pulled it out again, wincing. “Ow!”
“Observe the leaves,” Sisyphus said to Zeke, “and the needles on them. Prickles guarding the fruit.” He then turned to the rest. “Heed the warning of the prickly green leaves. These fruit are not for us. They may not kill, but they may leave you wishing that they had killed you. Even the birds will eat them only when there is nothing else, and then only when the first green grass of spring appears in the clearings.” He strode off once again, beckoning the children to follow.
At last, the baskets were full, this one of black fruit, that one of purple, the other one of burgundy red. Sisyphus led the group back to the village and to the elder women who would begin the process of preparing the fruit for winter storage and use. The boys were the last to return, Zeke apparently lost in thought, Jerry hovering over him as if trying to prevent him from falling in a hole. Sisyphus, having turned the girls over to the women, came back to meet them. He observed Zeke’s preoccupation, inclined his head; a question.
“Master Sisyphus, are not all these berries the children of the trees?”
“That they are indeed”, Sisyphus replied, a note of respect in his voice.
“Then why are we taking them?”, Zeke demanded. “Do they not have a right to life?”
“Did Naomi?” Sisyphus challenged. “Do you?”
Zeke shook his head, not so much to say ‘no’ as to admit that he was confused.
Sisyphus’s face took on a far-away, introspective look. “In Onenya, the people argued endlessly about their ‘rights’, so the lore-masters tell us. They had long lists of things that they thought should be theirs, without anybody or anything telling them that they could not have them. And they fought with anyone who tried to deny them any of those things. They forgot to ask whether any of them had a right to life, whether anything they could do would grant them life for ever and ever, life that could never be taken away from them, by anyone or anything.
“Had they asked, they would have realized that none of them had a right to life. That life is anything but a right. It is granted for a limited time, and can be taken away at any time, for any reason or none at all. Is that not so? For Naomi? For any of us?”
Zeke nodded, a tear in his eye at the reminder of his dead sister.
“And if there is no right to life, how can there be a right to any lesser thing? There cannot be. Is that not so?”
Zeke nodded again, not happily.
“Think back to the tree with the prickly leaves and red berries. How many berries were on that tree?” Sisyphus asked.
“Many”, Zeke replied. “Ten counted ten times, and ten times the ten by ten, and more.”
“And how many young trees with the prickly leaves did you count?”
Zeke started, astonished. “Why, none!”
“None”, Sisyphus echoed. “All those berries, and all the energy that the tree put into making those berries. And all for nothing. But consider if all those berries had made trees. Would there be room in the forest for anything else?”
“Probably not”, Zeke responded. Then, after a moment’s thought, “But if all the fruit of all the trees made young trees, the pile would reach to the skies! How could it be supported?”
“It could not”, Sisyphus asserted. “The trees put energy into the fruit in the expectation that the right number will survive and yield new trees. They make many fruit and cast them to nature, and nature makes use of them. People have few babies, but put much energy into tending them so that they live to have babies of their own; so we do not have to make as many fruit as do the trees but we have to work harder for the ones we do make. And still we cast them to nature, and nature makes use of them. Those creatures that do not put enough energy into the fruit that they make will die and not be replaced, and they will leave this earth never to return. Life and its patterns and processes can be explained in no other way.
“There are no rights. There is only investment, in the correct amount of energy spent for your kind to survive and reproduce. Or the incorrect amount of energy spent, which is death and obliteration.” A rare note of compassion entered into Sisyphus’s voice. “You miss Naomi, and wish she were still here to be with you.”
Zeke stifled a sob.
“The wise leader will feel the feelings of the clan and everyone in it, and share them”, Sisyphus concluded. “But he will also pay attention to what the people of the clan need to know, not what they wish to hear. He will guide the clan to survive and prosper based, not on useless fantasies, but on what is and what needs to be done. Even if he has to issue his commands through tears. Come. Your family is waiting.”
The two boys walked with Sisyphus to the Weaver wigwam in silence.
