Chronicles from a planet that was blue: Chapter 4

Back in 2018, I wrote a book in my native Portuguese called Crónicas de um planeta que era azul (“Chronicles from a planet that was blue”), a collection of short stories, or sometimes something closer to images painted with words. These pieces are written, very loosely, from the perspective of an alien being studying our planet. Through that lens, they aim to draw parallels between human life and the lives of the countless other organisms that share spaceship Earth with us. This is the English translation of that book, which I will be sharing here on Substack, one chapter at a time.

Link to Chapter 3

A voice sang in the distance, melodic and proud, weaving everything and everyone into a deep sense of mysticism. The sound seemed to rise from the desert itself, spirits lifting over the deep indigo horizon where the Sun had set only minutes before. The few plants edging the settlement appeared to tremble with the chant, and the people, absorbed in its rapture, stepped out of their homes in search of the source of such ethereal singing.

It was a woman’s voice, yet a deep one, at once gentle and rough, barbaric and refined, calm and powerful. The singing unfolded in strange sounds; the words blended into a flowing current that resembled the running of water in a mountain stream more than any human language. The sequence of sounds felt refreshing, like the scent of crushed mint by a river, yet the voice carried an exotic blend of Eastern spices and African peppers. There was ginger in that voice, there was almond in that speech, there was chili in that tone.

The singing was accompanied by the soft chime of an unknown metallic instrument, while measured beats of something akin to an adufe lent the music a rhythm as exotic as it was intoxicating. At times, over this complex composition, a powerful male voice would emerge, exultant in tone, suddenly rising into a fleeting crescendo that quickly dissolved beneath the continuous melody of the first voice.

In that settlement, lost between the foothills of the mountains and the vast desert, there lived perhaps some twenty families. They were simple, hardy people who had come together to strengthen one another in the efforts required to survive in that remote and isolated place. They lived in scattered houses, spread across a small hill that, at daybreak, was washed in the deepest blood-red hue, where the small watercourse that ensured their survival began. At its feet, beneath their doors and windows, the first dunes of the immense desert took shape, stretching out at the foot of the imposing mountains.

The song was known to all. Since time immemorial, it had accompanied the onset of night in that settlement. No one knew its origin, yet everyone knew where it came from. It was the song of the ghosts, the song of the restless souls, of those who had perished in the crossing of the desert. It brought them the story of the countless caravans and adventurers lost forever in that sea of endless sands.

After a few minutes of fascination and exultation, the voice would wane. The rhythm of the sounds slowed, and the night seemed to crush, in its silent darkness, that outburst of beauty and colour. Like a lagoon that dries under the torment of long, blazing desert days, the song would come to its end. The dead would rest for now. They would return tomorrow to brighten, for a few minutes, the lives of those they had left behind.

The full book will soon be available on Amazon. In the meanwhile, you can support my work by buying me a coffee.

Buy me a coffee