Imagine you’re a Sanlagitan. Things are as they’ve always been. You don’t know how your people arrived on this island. All you know is that you are here now.
Look at the pitched roofs of the flenka houses, covered with thick meha leaves. There is the water well, in the center of the village. And here is the schoolhouse, where boys learn to become men.
To the west is Mount Kahna—wide, dark, and looming. When you were little, the grown-ups told you stories of boys who went exploring there and were never seen again. No one dares to explore Kahna anymore—it’s believed the mountain is hungry and eats whatever passes. It may barrel down to the village and devour you all. So, in the morning and night, you whisper a simple benediction to spare your souls.
Something curious, though: men no longer explore Mount Kahna, but they continue sailing north, even though no one has returned from there, either. Perhaps because that legend is too hard to resist. Or perhaps because they discovered fortunes after all and chose not to return. But, no—that can’t be it, because you know about all the terrible things that have happened. Ziva, the lock of her hair, the men . . . No. You don’t want to think of that. Put that away. Stuff it in a box and close the lid.
There are plenty of other things to wonder about. Because even though each day is the same here—yesterday and tomorrow are today—you find time to wonder.
When did you first hear that there was a better place to the north? A place that held the answers to all your questions. Everything you ever needed. Everything you ever wanted (for those aren’t the same thing, are they?).
The place is called Isa, though no one remembers where that name came from or how they know it. Only that it’s been muttered again and again, like its own benediction.
When did you watch the first ship push away from the shore? You remember cheering, long ago. You remember dreaming of its triumphant return. What a homecoming it would be!
But that didn’t come to pass.
More ships left as you got older.
Only the smallest children cheered by then, because they had no memory.
You watched the boats vanish into the sea. You knew that they wouldn’t come back, but you hoped. Deep down, you hoped.
There was a light inside you and it filled you up. It said: Someone will make it. One of these men will be our hero.
The light faded each time a ship disappeared into the horizon.
But it shined nonetheless.