Zaar memories #???
Dust hung in the air like a wordless prayer.
Hands — in lime.
Fingers — in the dawn.
They worked in silence until the heat began to twist into loops at their feet.
V lifted blocks.
T hammered in pegs, as if driving signals into the earth — so the earth would know something was growing here.
Then — a break.
A clay mug. Water. The shadows shift.
And — a silence that asked for words.
V was the first to break it.
She watched him shift his feet, as if listening to the soil.
— What planet are you from?
T smirked.
— I'm... from a noisy one.
— Hm?
— Where everything is loud, fast, linear. Where if you don't scream, they don't hear you.
V nodded.
— It was the same for me. Before... all of this.
She took one of the bricks and set it on the row.
— Everything here feels... wrong. The people are… quiet. Calm. Normal.
Without pretense.
Without filters.
As if they've stopped selling themselves.
T glanced toward the valley.
Children there were kicking a dried gourd — instead of a ball.
— Did you try?
— What?
— To sell yourself?
She laughed. A rough sound. Almost malicious.
— From twenty to thirty-five. On every shelf. With labels and discounts:
"Genius."
"Discipline."
"Independence."
Zero clicks. Only burnout.
T was silent.
— And you? — she asked after a pause.
— I… wanted to change the world. And then I realized that the world is me. And everything I do on the outside, it does to me on the inside.
V looked at him.
As if he were a lunatic. Or a saint.
— Did you just make it up?
— No. The earth told me.
When I was crawling on it.
Jobless. Nameless.
With no one.
V wanted to reply, but took the next block instead.
— Alright, philosopher. How much is left?
— Three layers.
And then — the arch.
It will require precision.
Almost like surgery.
— Surgery is what I did. Before all this.
Well, almost.
T froze.
Watched as she wiped her hands.
— Do you have a name?
— V.
He nodded.
— I'm T.
— I know. You're strange.
— And you're blunt.
— But alive.
— And that's good.
We need people like that.
Here.
In the evening, as she was leaving, V turned back.
T was sitting alone.
Looking at the full moon as if it were an answer.
She suddenly thought:
he isn't human.
And at the same time — he's the only truly human person she had ever known.
In a corner of the camp, by an old tree, a small child was scratching symbols onto a stone with chalk.
One of them — was the exact diagram of the arch they had not yet built.
A Grey walked past.
Noticed.
Stopped.
Watched for a long time.
Then — smiled.