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In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. And it was good. Or at least that’s what we were taught. Like all boys, I was educated in the school by the elders of the village. When I was thirteen, I started to have doubts about God. At first, I questioned His goodness. When I voiced my doubts, the elders would punish me and I would do penance. The priest gave me forgiveness, telling me that all young men doubt but, as a man, I would grow in faith and wisdom.

But my faith did not grow. Instead, I learned to keep my mouth shut. My father made sure to teach me that. Someday, like him, I would be an elder, a leader of the twelve clans. But as a young, able-bodied man of my village, my duty was to go out into the forest and bring food back for the other villagers.

My father was in the later stages of the sickness now. Like most hunters, he first became sick when he was thirty, after hunting for fourteen years. As he grew older, he became thinner, and would probably die before reaching forty. Until then, he was an elder, a teacher.

One of the first things we were taught as boys was that our village had not always been isolated. The human race had prospered in ancient history. Hundreds of years ago, there had been billions of humans. They had lived in villages and cities spread across the whole face of the earth. But they were evil and God had punished them for their wickedness. They fought against each other and fire had fallen from the sky, destroying everything they had created, especially their cities. Villages like ours were saved and it was supposed that there were other villages in the Earth.

But beyond the forest, there was only desert, a dry wasteland where almost nothing lived. Anyone who went too far into the desert had either died of the sickness or disappeared. The desert was a deadly place, and the only thing that lived there was evil. And like the Bible stories I had been told when I was young, I began to have my doubts.

I was baptized Thomas of the Stephen clan. I was named after my grandfather, who, as an elder, became a historian. My father was immensely proud when I laid my first kill, a six-point buck, at his feet. He boasted to the other elders that it was the largest first-kill he had seen in ten years.

The following night was the Feast of Saint Mark. My father told me that now I was a true hunter and was eligible for marriage. My mother spent most of the evening in negotiation with the matrons of the other clans. Just before ten o’clock, she came to me and told me that she had found me a bride. She was a sixteen year-old girl of the Leo clan. Her name was Tamar and we were to be married on the next Sunday.

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I remember my wedding vividly. It was a sunny May afternoon. Following the regular Sunday Mass, Tamar and I were brought together in front of the priest. With our clan elders and matrons looking on, we were joined together in holy union. My beautiful bride shed a few tears but smiled bravely at me. Her kiss was soft and wet and I held her trembling hands in my own.

We were assigned a small cottage not far from the edge of the village, as is traditional for newly-married couples. We would be given a larger house nearer the village center after our first child was old enough to be schooled. Like most cottages, this one was well-kept, secluded, and romantic. When I was out hunting, she tended to the gardens and orchards with the other young brides.

When the young hunters returned at the end of every evening, we were greeted with the smells of the kitchens. Our women had the responsibility of cooking, not only for us, but for our elders as well. Cooked vegetables, meats, and breads were picked-up and delivered by household children, many of them our younger brothers and sisters, not yet of hunting or marriage age. In this way, our community formed a network of kinship and dependence. When I reflected on what I learned in history class of the competitive cities, I wondered how they had ever survived. The world had been so plentiful back then, yet so many were hungry. Then I remembered the fire from the sky: they had not survived. For all anyone knew, we were the last humans on Earth and we had a duty to take care of each other.

Tamar, my beautiful wife, was the pride of my existence. Every hunt, I thought of her and our future family. I worked hard for her love and she rewarded me tenfold. The hunt was stressful and oftentimes the other men could be competitive and harsh but her embrace was my refuge. Every night, I fell asleep with her arms wrapped around me. I felt her warmth and knew her secret heart. We were young and in love.

The day soon came when she became pregnant. My mother rejoiced and my father looked at me with as much pride as he had on the day of my first kill. We promised if it was girl to name it Pearl, after my mother’s mother, a strong woman of the Pius clan and, if it was a boy, to name it Peter, after my father.

Γ

Three seasons had passed since my marriage to Tamar. Nine months went by, each more wonderful than the one that preceded it. As spring changed into summer, the hunt became easier for me and I often came home early. Of course, I usually had to wait upon my wife’s duties in the kitchen before I could be alone with her. The other wives would chase me out of the kitchen or give me a task to fulfill, such as a delivery, so that I would stay out of their way. We were young and still madly in love. It was a joyous day when she told me that I was going to be a father.

With the summer, I grew into a skilled hunter and was adept at shooting long-distance shots accurately and effectively. My wife was proud of me but I began to feel that to be a better husband, and soon, a father, I needed to be a better hunter. So, I spent longer and longer in the field, trying to become the perfect marksman. My wife seemed to understand my feelings. At first she begged me to come home earlier, whether or not I was successful. She told me I was a great husband and would be a good father and that God would provide for us. After some weeks of this, she gave up and simply kissed me warmly when I did return home. And as always, her arms held me tight at night, soothing my worries of the future.

In turn, my mother worried over her, often stopping in to check up on her physical condition. First pregnancies could be difficult, she said, and most often the baby could be lost due to the simplest of problems. She begged my wife not to overwork herself, and especially not to worry about about me, since I could manage myself anyway.

As winter grew colder, her belly began to show the full evidence of the life that grew inside her. The hunts grew more difficult and the skills I had learned in the summer could not be as easily applied in the winter. In the summer, I felt I had proven myself to my wife and the village, taking home kills more often than most of the other hunters.

Now it was winter and I had to work harder. I no longer had the benefit of hiding in the shadows of trees and the camouflage of the green. The trees had shed their leaves and the snow seemed to crack loudly under every one of my footsteps. In the summer I could make up for this by shooting a long distance. But now it seemed the animals could sense me even before I could see them. My heart sank lower every day that I returned to my wife empty-handed. She soothed me, telling me that the other hunters were having a hard time, too, and that when the snow melted away, I would again be the best.

Indeed, it was a lean winter in the village. My father re-assured me, telling me that some winters were tough. That’s why the village kept store-houses of vegetables and preserved meat. It was the way of things. In the summer, the cycle would turn again and the Lord would provide for us. I told him he was right and I would try to trust in God. But the words I spoke were lies and perhaps that is why I paid so dearly.

Δ

Spring returned, just as it always had before and would again. At first the snow melted, then the trees began to regain their lost green coats. As the rain began to fall in April, I began to prepare myself for an addition to my family. Whether my child was a son or daughter, I knew I would love it dearly.

My mother’s worries seemed to ease as the day of childbirth rapidly approached. My wife was relieved of her duties in the kitchen as she could no longer keep up with the other women. Most of the day, she stayed in our cottage, tending to our small garden and reading. She loved her azalea. They were bright and beautiful and reminded her of the house she had grown up in. They had been a gift from her mother, who visited almost as often as my own mother. The two mothers did not get along at first but became more amicable as time passed on. I wearied of the presence of the two matrons and longed to spend more time alone with my wife. But, the baby would arrive soon and, when it did, I was sure to be useless. So, I focused my passion on hunting, any day expecting the cries of a newborn baby to greet my ears when I returned home.

But I did not expect the events of a bright and starry May evening. For weeks now, I had passed on my kills to other hunters. They could bring the dead animal to the butchers while I went home to check up on my wife.

That day, my little cottage was silent. I went inside and there was no one at home. I immediately began to run toward the house of the midwife. I burst through the doors and was immediately greeted by silence. I begged to see my wife and was answered by the midwife’s assistant that I was not allowed to enter. Her grim look and the silence of the house distressed me and I immediately knew what happened. I fell to my knees and my mother emerged from the delivery room and put her arms around me. My wife had died in childbirth and my baby was stillborn. I was not yet twenty and already I was a widower.

My mother begged me not to return home. She said I should stay with her that night, under my parents’ roof. I answered that I would but first I would go to church and prepare for my wife’s funeral. The traditional three-day vigil would begin as soon as her body was prepared and delivered to the church. As husband, my duty was to prepare the church and pray for her soul to be delivered to God and the angels. My mother silently nodded.

I made my way to the church, where I lit a prayer-candle and fell to my knees, crying. A few hours later, someone touched my shoulder. It was Tamar’s brother. He was there with her body. I went to the casket and kissed my bride on her already-cold lips and made my way home.

There, I slept a few hours and woke early with the daybreak. I packed my hunting bag and prepared myself for a journey. No one had ever survived the desert beyond the forest. I left a note for my family, saying that I hoped I could find peace in death.