(set: $displayFooter to false)(set:$displayHeader to false)**Forward to The Men'nai Tattoos**
This work is in loving memory of Dr. Chandra Roy, who passed away on Indra Station this past solar cycle. Dr. Chandra Roy was my mentor, thesis advisor, and friend; and, like many others who knew the good doctor (none of us would dare call him Santosh, even after years of friendship), I came to cherish the quick flash on my comms screen that preceded one of Dr. Chandra Roy's many midnight-breakthroughs. I remember the night he vid-called me to tell me about his re-discovery of the late Professor Wei Jin's work on the Men'nai peoples of pre-hyperspace Luna.
"Can you simply imagine," he said, mustache bristling, "A day under the same stars as the Men'nai?" The question preceded hours of excited musings, questions, and rants.
And I, dutiful student and friend, took careful notes on all of the doctor's thoughts. And it is a good thing I did, given the tragic attack on Indra Station only a short time after our last conversation.
So here, presented to you with some editorializing, is Dr. Santosh Chandra Roy's [[elegy to the Men'nai->Stanza 1]].
(set:$displayHeader to true)(set: $displayFooter to true)The Men’nai were scattered across the plateaus edging in the Sea of Tranquility.
Their progenitors had come and gone, which they remembered:
The last sight of the parent race beginning its slow march [[into darkness->Stanza 2]].
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The Men’nai believed in permanence.
They dreamt of it, worshiped it, and understood it in contrast to the vicissitudes and vicious caprices of the Progenitors
(click: "vicissitudes and vicious caprices")[And [[their cousins on Earth->Stanza 3]].]
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(track: 'wind', 'volume', 0.3)The Men’nai spread across the lunar steppes like brickle, black, and stubborn shrubs.
The first plateau – the Flat – was outside the domed cities of the Men’nai.(click: "the Flat")[
Away from wind, the Flat (click: "the Flat")[still showed the ripples of the First Steps the Progenitors took, and the Men’nai stayed away.
They did not worship the Flat. (click: "the Flat")[
It could not be separated out and made discreet for worship. It undergirded their entire existence.
It was that [[permanence->Stanza 4]] which gave the word meaning.]]]
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(enchant: ?Link, (t8n-depart: "blur"))Before a Men’nai child is born, its parents go out to the Sea of Tranquility.
They wait for a favorable wind (click-append: "favorable wind")[ before inducing labor.
And when that child dies, it is taken out to the edge of the Sea for the sun and wind (click-append: "sun and wind")
[ to bleach and wear until bone dust mixed with slippery, silver-grey lunar dust and the powder is sucked up into filters and recycled back to breathe,
borne on the [[wind->Stanza 5]].]]
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(enchant: ?Link, (t8n-depart: "blur"))The Men’nai are not an artistic people, but they are a contemplative one.
All Men’nai mark their skin with tattoos(text-style: "superscript")[1].
A Men’nai that has gone hungry has their lips tattooed black and thick curves outlining their gaping mouth.
A Men’nai beset with nightmares has silver crescents put under their eyes.
And a Men’nai who has known violence has their muscles outlined in red to show the calcifying plaque of fear and anger.
______
(click: "1")[1. Tattoos are the deposit of a foreign ink into the skin. The particles being too large to be carried away by a healthy immune system, they are left to sit in the skin, [[permanent->Stanza 6]].]
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(enchant: ?Link, (t8n-depart: "blur"))The people believe that one instant of suffering ripples out forever, and each subsequent moment responds to the horror and loss.
So they make the first mark [[permanent->Stanza 7]].
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(enchant: ?Link, (t8n-depart: "blur"))Oom, the legendary first and only artist among the Men’nai, watched the last Progenitor ship sail into the [[dark->Stanza 8]].
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(enchant: ?Link, (t8n-depart: "blur"))He gathered the polymer strings that fell from air filters like baby spiders’ webs when the ship went by.
He wove a zither from the strings(click: "zither")[, and combined with it a hollowed bone taken from the Sea of Tranquility. (click: "hollowed bone")[
Using both together, he called out to the ship. (click: "called out")[
He plucked the shimmering sound of sliding dust.
He hummed and moaned the low tones of the wind. (click: "the wind")[
And all the Men’nai stopped and looked up to the black sky and watched the [[emptiness grow->Stanza 9]].]]]]
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(enchant: ?Link, (t8n-depart: "blur"))The wind was sacred to the people.
It erodes their homes and bodies; it deposits new hills.
The wind, the great agent of dispersal and chaos, is just a gap in air.
Air falls and wails as it rushes to be still and put things back (click: "put things back")[
The way they were [[before->Stanza 10]].]
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(enchant: ?Link, (t8n-depart: "blur"))When a Men’nai child is born on the Flat, midwifed by an impatient wind,
The parents stand and look out at the edge of the Sea.
(after: 3s)[The wind pulls at them to come down off the plateau, to come and tumble into the Sea of Tranquility and silver-white dust.
(after: 5s)[The parents stand in the wind, coarse-woven cloth whipped around their tattooed faces.
They hum to the wind and look up into the [[[sky->End.]]]. (set: $displayFooter to false)(set:$displayHeader to false)]]
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{(if: (saved-games: ) contains "Slot A")[(link: "Return to Previous Save")[(load-game:"Slot A")]] (else:)[(undo:)]}
**Music**
Song: "Yangstze River"
Arrangement, Mixing, Mastering: Lobo Loco (Wolf Schweizer-Gerth), 2017.
"Yangtzse River - Long (ID 757)" by Lobo Loco is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Song: "Teals Descending Upon the Level Sand"
Performed by Lo Ka Ping, ca. 1970.
"Teals Descending Upon The Level Sand" by Lo Ka Ping is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Slide Projector Sound Effect: <a href="https://freesound.org/s/102681/" target="_blank">Original here</a>
This work is licensed under the Attribution 3.0 License.
"Alien Planet Howling Wind": <a href="https://freesound.org/s/172178/" target="_blank">Original here</a>
by Tomlija
This work is licensed under the Attribution 3.0 License.
**Images**
Night Sky: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OrionTwinkle.gif" target="_blank">Tony873004</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0" target="_blank">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons
All illustrations are done by me, Sam Sanford, but inspired by the work of Gao Xingjian.
(if: $displayHeader is true)[ [[Credits]] | (link-fullscreen: "Fullscreen On", "Fullscreen Off", "Fullscreen Unavailable")]
<img src="Images/absence.jpg" alt="Four or five Men'nai people look up to the empty sky." width="100%" height="100%">
*Fig. 1.
A departure ceremony for a sick member of the tribe. A friend accompanies them as they make their way out beyond the bounds of the village. Impression taken from memory of An Kai Rui and pressed in silver, 2335.*
<img src="Images/crowd.jpg" alt="A large group of Men'nai gather for an unknown reason." width="100%" height="100%">
*Fig. 2.
The Men’nai watching the light from the Progenitors’ ships swallowed up by darkness. Memory-sketched by a Men’nai elder in magnetized ink, 2302.*<img src="Images/moonscape.jpg" alt="An artist's depiction of the lunar surface." width="100%" height="100%">
*Fig. 3.
A plain near the Sea. A lone Men’nai, unknown to the researchers, was photographed walking towards the expanse, 2335.*
<img src="Images/portraits.jpg" alt="Two Men'nai adults, one bearing the tattoos of hunger and the other bearing the tattoos of migraines and insomnia." height: "100%" width="100%">
*Fig. 4.
Two Men’nai adults. One bears the marks of hunger. The other, sleeplessness and headaches. Sketched shortly after first contact. Graphite on paper. 2289.*zither: ./audio/zither.mp3
wind: ./audio/wind.wav
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<h1>The Men'nai Tattoos<h2>
↶↷
Forward to The Men'nai Tattoos
This work is in loving memory of Dr. Chandra Roy, who passed away on Indra Station this past solar cycle. Dr. Chandra Roy was my mentor, thesis advisor, and friend; and, like many others who knew the good doctor (none of us would dare call him Santosh, even after years of friendship), I came to cherish the quick flash on my comms screen that preceded one of Dr. Chandra Roy's many midnight-breakthroughs. I remember the night he vid-called me to tell me about his re-discovery of the late Professor Wei Jin's work on the Men'nai peoples of pre-hyperspace Luna.
"Can you simply imagine," he said, mustache bristling, "A day under the same stars as the Men'nai?" The question preceded hours of excited musings, questions, and rants.
And I, dutiful student and friend, took careful notes on all of the doctor's thoughts. And it is a good thing I did, given the tragic attack on Indra Station only a short time after our last conversation.
So here, presented to you with some editorializing, is Dr. Santosh Chandra Roy's elegy to the Men'nai.