Sorb Truce

dreamed 2008/9/1 by Wayan.

I'm standing on a world. A dry-grass plain. A few scattered people, each alone-- or so they seem. But these folk can absorb your mind, suborn your skills, enslave you for their own. So each lone figure on that plain contains a host of personalities but most enslaved. An organ called a sorb directs their power: rising from the forehead like the stalk of a crab's eye but tipped with a living satellite dish-- an anglerfish's lure. If it aims at you, beware! Better yet, stay far. A Sorb girl nears me, and I yell "I'm a foreigner! Not here to fight!" Her smile's bewitching as she aims her sorb. Though I lack antennae, I fight back, use my will to bind hers. Find I can--with pain. But I just need to bind her sorb-assaults on me. Yet can I stand aside if she sorbs Sorbs? It is their way.

And if I fully clip her claws, what of self-defense? Won't other Sorbians see fair game if she's truly bound? Ethics of half-slavery? Beyond me! So I say: "I'll unbind you fully. Let's just agree on truce! Leave my mind alone, and I'll leave yours!" Walking side by side, no mental leash? To her, mad as a dream. Among the rocks, more Sorbians. I cry my truce in the simplest slogan I can frame: "Freedom, not mastery." For I just want to wander, not to rule. I hike the crags and canyons, shout my peace at everyone. I make some inroads, too: slowly truce becomes exotic, then less rare; people now (alert, aware) convene for fun! No choice before, but now they know that war is a choice they can forgo. I think "Not peace, but I did some good!" I wake up proud I built a truce in hell. Hard shamanic work (some pay would help). About the best I could.