The Orin

Writer's note: So this year I decided to participate in Nanowrimo (national novel writing month). What I have to do is write a 50,000 word novel by November 30th. For this, I think I can be legally institutionalized. So, I decided it might be logical to post some excerpts here. This is the first bit here, the first bit I've typed. It's in journal-format right now. It will switch in and out. Enjoy.

It’s said that many thousands of years ago we never lived in these forests. We don’t know that, can’t know that, today. All we know is that the Orin are always there, always seeming to watch us. Judge us. They lost me my one and only Sama. So I’ve spent all my time trying to prove to the others that they are not alive and we do not need to lose our loved ones to them. Superstition dies hard though, and nobody believes me, except my daughter Lisha. That’s only because I’ve raised her to question the tribe’s beliefs, and those of those Priests, who only try to keep us in the dark without knowledge that has been proven. I have also not raised her as a proper woman but have instead allowed her to roam and explore the forests around us. Allowed her to gather bugs and lizards and birds and to let her keep and study them in our little home hut. It does not help us that the tribe has no knowledge that I am her father, just as she does not know. I’ve never wanted her to know. I have no wish that she know. Perhaps this is selfish of me but that’s the way of it. Sama has never bothered to inform her of the truth either.

Why do I continue to write these words? Why do I continue to live? Oh yes, for Lisha. For Lisah. Lisha. My daughter. How is she my daughter? Did Sama and I ever actually consummate our love? Was I ever able to bring myself to mar her beauty like that? I think I did, one night after a harvest feast. Could our one union be the reason for my beautiful Lisha? Sama, why did I have to lose you? I love you so much Sama. I must go out and be of use to you and to my daughter. My daughter. Not Das’s. Mine. I believe that fermented berry juiced worked all too well on my senses tonight. I apologize, DAUGHTER, for making you care for me. I do love you.


I don’t see what good comes of writing my thoughts, feelings and actions down but Mentor insists. At the edge of our forest were these yellow creatures. Long necks with big, shovel-like heads. They are all lined up, side by side, rank by rank in perfect rows. All of their heads are tucked down to their bodies, neck arched. The entire tribe, except for me and my Mentor, are terrified to go near them. They fear that one day the monsters will awaken and come in to finish whatever business that brought them there. They tribe’s people refuse to touch, look at, or even hunt by where they slumber. Every so often a Priest will convince enough people that there needs to be a sacrifice of some sort. Sometimes it’s some food, or some wood or some poor, dumb beast. Mostly it is the virginity of some poor girl to the Priest. It is a disgusting custom that anyone who is not made a Beloved believes in whole heartedly. It’s supposed to be some sort of honor. I see none in it. Yes, the Beloved lives a comfortable life and never needs to hunt or gather or make anything of herself. However she is always secluded from the rest of the tribe except for feast days. She loses her friends, her family and any man she might have been in love with all because she is a sacred object. Object, not human. Placed on a pedestal and taken down to dust every feast day so we can all pretend to honor her. And more often than not she is one of the most beautiful of the tribe and if the Priest who chooses the sacrifice has a grudge with any unwed man she is usually betrothed to him. I can not see how the Priests may make their choices.

Everyone else fears the creatures, the Orin, but we recognize the place for what it is—a bone yard. These monsters would never awaken again. Whatever had killed them did it quickly and efficiently. They just lay their great heads down and never picked them back up. I assume they’re extinct, but I can not be sure for I have never had the chance to leave my territory even though I year to. Instead I spend my days sketching the Orin for my mentor, who also believes there to be no threat from them either. He has been studying them since one of the Priests took his betrothed as a sacrifice. He wanted to know about the beasts he was paying homage to through his brutal loss. I also believe it gave him a reason to pull away from the rest of the tribe, become an outcast, so he no longer needed to pretend to love them and accept their ways. Because of him we know they do not wake from any sort of physical pain because of his rages. Every once and a while, when he sees one particular Priest, Das, enter the hut that we know to be the Beloved Sama’s he brings out his nasty drink and becomes—disoriented to say the least. He is no longer the Mentor I know, but a man of anger and uncertainty and death. He goes out to fight the Orin, to provoke them into killing him. I call it his “liquid destabalizer” because it only serves to throw him completely off balance both physically and mentally. Whatever it is that he drinks he refuses to tell me exactly what it is and how to make it. Whatever it might be he beats upon the Orin with sticks, weapons, fire and when all else fails, his own body. There has been many a broken finger. He screams curses at the gods he can not know.

Maybe this is what Mentor was speaking of. All of my words come spilling out onto the page, unorganized and cluttered. This could be what he was talking about with my reports on the Orin. Perhaps he was right and I do need the practice.