COURIER IN THE BIRD MASK

TRIGGER WARNINGS child death, suicide, abuse, plague, sickness, breakdowns, first person, spouse death, starvation

There once was a town, alone and cruel, all alone and isolated. It was branded an outsider by the rest, sitting in the steppe. A town so empty, almost ghost-like despite the thousands that live there. Welcome to the cold dark, where the town breathes and feasts off the citizens, and the town-goers feed off the town’s resources, an endless feedback loop of parasite-like hunger. 

Prologue

I stopped talking when I was six years old, I didn’t feel like I had anything to say- I was happier being quiet. Being a rural town in the middle of the Russian Steppe, my parents couldn’t do anything but try and get me to talk, there weren’t any real doctors in town. To their dismay, none of it really worked. None of it really mattered, as I was happy. Happy being alone with me and Lady Loneliness, no one but my own thoughts and my dolls. With such a small town, a child that refused to speak was interesting to the townspeople who haven’t had an interesting day in their lives. The town doctor took an interest in me, though taking me under his wing didn’t work like it did with most children. I simply refused to talk. I simply refused to… not connect. This “phase” in my life eventually ended when I was around 13. But for the longest time, it was just me and my mind. It was because of my town.

The Town-On-Gorkhon’s a unique town that… you couldn’t really understand unless you lived there. It had a culture rooted so deep in mysticism, colonialism and solitude that would be impossible to explain to outsiders, especially those who came from the Capital City. 

That doesn’t mean I won’t try to explain it though.

Imagine a town, brown and dreary- a town in the middle of nowhere with only one way in and one way out. Do you know what a steppe is? It’s a vast wasteland, a grassy plains without trees, only separated by rivers every now and then. It’s muddy and disgusting and there’s no redeeming qualities. I hate this town, and I hate that it exists. It’s surrounded by twyre, a family of herbs very specific to the steppe. Every September, they bloom. They smell of musk, they smell of blood- and the headaches they cause hurt more than anything else. I hate twyre, the buzz of the bugs that conglomerate near the herb or the hunger it causes. The steppe is wild, it’s cold. It’s harsh, lonely, it’s not a place for the faint of heart. I’ve spent a paragraph talking about how much I hate twyre, which might seem like it’s overzealous, but it’s not. You could never understand just how important twyre is to my town. It’s the foundation of medicine. It’s the foundation of our culture. The Steppe and twyre… they’re why the Town-On-Gorkhon exists.

Standing in the steppe, you’d smell the murky swampwater, damp and musky, strong against your nose. A dirt film would be left on your mouth, the taste of mud and dust stuck against your tastebuds. You'd hear the distant, strong, throbbing sensation of the world’s heartbeat against your feet, like a form of tinnitus- but one so quiet it drove you near insane. You’d hear women dancing, their wails like a siren song coming from the rivers nearby. You would be uncomfortable, drowning in the thick air and heavy buzz. 

And beyond the rivers, you’d see the town itself. The elusive… town I’ve spent so long describing the outskirts of, and yet none of the town. 

How do you describe the town? The History of the Town-On-Gorkhon book quotes:

“It’s a small place, isolated from the world in the Eastern Steppe. The main source of income comes from the bull meat-making industry… approximately 17,000 people live in it… and 30% of them work inside of the factory. Due to it’s isolated nature, the Town heavily relies on outside sources to provide supplies- such as sugar or medicine. The Train Station is what keeps the town from ruin, as without it, the Town-On-Gorkhon would have barely anything. 

The town is separated into three parts, a river bordering everything. The three districts- 

The Earth Quarter- where the workers live and where the factory lies. 

The Knots- where most of the middle class occupants stay.

THe Stone Yard- Academics, and the rich.

What makes our town magical… is the Polyhedron. A beautiful machination of what humanity, science and the future holds. A place- free from the confines of earth. A building, betraying all laws of gravity and physics and what we thought humanity was confined to.

A miracle, humanized and gratified- existing beyond all comprehension. A testament to what humanity could be, is, and will always be.

[ID: on the right is a rough sketch of the Polyhedron Blueprints, provided to us by Peter Stamatin]”

And yet, this encyclopaedia explanation could never describe the town like I know it. I know it from the eyes of someone who’s grown up in it, silent, and observant. A historian know it from the facts, cold hard truth, but no one can know it like someone who lives there, knowing the people, the alleys. I hear the town, it speaks to me.

I see the mix of both traditional, indigenous traditions (no one shall pierce the ground- for it harms the Earth and makes her bleed, no one shall pierce a body but those certified to), and the architecture that comes from the colonization of the Kin’s land. 

Playgrounds, rusted and falling apart, signs of a town that despite the beauty of the Polyhedron, the town leaders ignore the people themselves. 

Ignore the history, ignore the facts, what the town IS objectively. Raise the hair of your necks, tune into the city, listen to the shivers. Imagine-

The Gale Wind blows through your hair, as the playground laughs with the children, the children are playing hop-scotch, trading buttons and useless knick knacks. Engaging in two cultures, the Kin and those who colonized them. They are like me, those who were born in a land colonized and torn- but fundamentally a different culture no matter how much you try and assimilate to a land. They- you, are uniquely from the Town on Gorkhon. Nothing will change that. The Town-On-Gorkhon is our home, and even our name comes from the Kin’s language. Gorkhon, river. The Town-On-The-River. Looking at the rust colored water of the river that traps you, a birdcage of humanity’s making- you see just you.

That’s how I know the Town, a place so alive it might as well be its own person. 

The Town-On-Gorkhon is old.

The Town-On-Gorkhon is the Kin.

The Town-On-Gorkhon was prophesied to be doomed. 

The Town-On-Gorkhon died.

The Town-On-Gorkhon rose again.

I am not the three heroes of the Town-Of-Gorkhon. I didn’t cure the plague, I don’t have magic. I am a girl with paper and pencil- I am a girl who knows how to write, thus I could speak to the dead and the dying.

My name is Angelika Zakharova, my path was that of The Courier in the Bird Mask. Invisible to you, and to the game they played. The play that they wrote.

I transcribed the final words of those in the hospital, dying and begging me to tell their family words they couldn’t tell themselves.