The Sky Can't Hold Them

There is a people set apart. Whether they were chosen or chose themselves, I do not know, but they live differently. They live in my village, in other parts of my forest, across the ocean, and in the plains. Everywhere they go, the story is the same. They live for something more and reach for something higher.

The rest of the world lives for today. They buy clothes and build houses and sit in luxurious furniture, but they don’t know the end is coming.

I feel it in my roots. Heat seeps up through the soil, and one day the world will burst into flame. It is not today, but the fire will come.

The Set Apart know this. They put their ears to the ground and hear the flames stirring there. They look up to the sky and know they will flee. These are the ones who listened to the messengers. They believed in the coming of dawn and never returned to the dark. Now, when they feel the heat in the earth they lift their hands to the sky.

“Pick me!” their actions cry, “Pick me, and don’t leave me when the fire comes.”

They look up to something beyond themselves, something they may never reach, and know the sky cannot hold them in. 

Fir tells me that in the final days, the Set Apart will be whisked away in a whirlwind. Their lives will be transferred to another planet. Maybe I see their planet in the night, maybe the moon is her friend, maybe they will go to a planet I cannot know. But they will be gone. The whirlwind will take them to another place, and the rest will die in the flames.

It’s true. The sky can’t hold them.