Signals

Roland sat on his porch watching the night sky because it was his family’s month to watch.  Every February for the last fifteen years he stayed awake all night watching the sky for a sign.  He often wondered what he was looking for because even the old books gave only brief and cryptic accounts of the summoning.  The wisest of his order were far from convinced that it would ever come.

            It was a constant battle of will to stay aware amid all of the doubtful talk.  Roland’s watchfulness rarely wavered in spite of these battles.  Alone he sat and thought, always aware that the sign could come.   His father had waited every February his entire life, just like his father before him for as long as the family had reckoning.  None had seen any kind of sign at all, but the family remained vigilant.

            To his regret, Roland did not see the sign in the night sky when it began, rather he felt disquiet.  A cloud stood alone in the deep purple of the moonless night that he did not notice float by.  It began to swirl within itself in dark colors that seemed to glow against the blackness behind it.  Roland felt that all of the lights from all of the stars were drawn to the cloud, which seemed to absorb everything in it’s swirling.

            There was nothing to prove that this indeed was the sign that Roland and his family had waited for all these generations.  But he felt it was in the very least some kind of sign, and that had meaning of its own.  He thought it was better to honor what he saw as real, and as what he was waiting for.  So he thoughtfully went inside and started to boil some water.

            He fetched the bottle of herbs that had been preserved in the cellar and brewed the tea he never thought he would taste.  Roland and his family had gathered this set of herbs every ten years to set aside, just in case this day would come.  Whenever they gathered a new set the old bottle would be burned while the counsel of the watchers took place.   It was in the fifth year since the last counsel.

            After the tea stooped for some minutes, Roland took it and drank it down as best he could.  The flavor was mild, but the odor was foul.  He wanted to call the other watchers and let them know that the time had come, but knew that it was forbidden.  Sometimes he felt the old ways were useless traditions that needed to be thrown away.  He would have liked to alert the others and have their help now, since no one really knew what was supposed to happen next.

            Too bad he thought, they never would have answered his calls anyway.  The tea had made him too drowsy to think anymore so he laid down on his bed and fell asleep.

 

            He dreamed.