My name is Rain. Some people would tell you that that is not my real name, but those people would be wrong. My name is Rain. I know because I found it all by myself. Well, maybe not entirely by myself.
When my father let me go live with my grandmother for a while, on the rez - I say 'let' even though he was so glad to have me gone that he barely took the time to say goodbye before he left, spinning his wheels in the rutted dirt driveway in his hurry to be gone. When he let me stay there it didn't fix anything about me that was broken. The people there just didn't mind as much. The men shook their heads and the aunties clucked, but mostly they just let me be because that's the way they are.
There was an old man there, maybe 200 years old or something, which I know is too much, but that's what he seemed to me. I used to go sit with him at night. Even on the rez I didn't like to be inside at night, I wanted to be out with the stars and the moon and the darkness. He never tried to make me come inside the way everyone but my grandmother did. He'd just come outside and sit with me on these old stumps he had there. Sometimes, if it was chilly, he'd make a fire. Which was okay, because he did it, but fires, well, sometimes they can be bad and people really shouldn't just go about lighting them 'cause they're dangerous, so only the right people should do that, okay? But anyway, he'd tell me stories. Wonderful stories. About Raven and Bear and that trickster Coyote. About how all the animals and things had meaning and how they gave our lives meaning, too. And I listened and listened so hard and sometimes later I'd write things down so I wouldn't remember them wrong the way I remembered lots of other things wrong. But the thing I liked most was when he talked about how people got their names, about how people might have all sorts of different names in their life. And about the Vision Quest. About how you could go way up into the hills and cry for a vision and if you were good and your heart was pure the ancestors would come and give you a sign - a bear, maybe or something else and then you'd go back and the elders would tell you what it meant and give you a name. Your real name. For then, at least.
So after he told me about it I decided one time I was going to do it. I mean, nobody needed a new name, a true name, more than me, right? 'Cause no one could have known when they gave me that first name, the one I'm not going to tell anyone ever again, no one could have known what I'd see or be able to do or how I'd end up so broken, right? So I went way, way up in the hills and I found me a good place to stay, but something must have gone wrong, 'cause from the time I got there it just rained. Rain, rain, rain. Soft rain, hard rain, thunder and rain. Rain. No vision, no animal, no sign from the ancestors, no nothing. I was so tired and wet and lonely and hungry, like you can't imagine hungry unless you've been up in the hills for three days with only water, crying for a vision. And I cried, believe you me.
Finally I went back to my grandmother's and even before I got all the way there I knew my dad was there and he was angry and I knew he was going to take me away for good and never let me go back. And he did, shoving me in the back of his car with just the blanket and a sandwich my grandmother had time to hand me before he started the shoving. I didn't even get to hug her good, just a start, and then I was in the back seat of my dad's car all wet and cold and hungry and so sad. I didn't get a vision and he was taking me away and if I hadn't been so stupid as to forget to say I was going for a vision nobody would have called him.
Actually… I didn't forget. I just didn't want them to stop the poor broken head girl from going. But I never thought they'd care or worry enough to call him.
Part 4: First Person RP
When my father let me go live with my grandmother for a while, on the rez - I say 'let' even though he was so glad to have me gone that he barely took the time to say goodbye before he left, spinning his wheels in the rutted dirt driveway in his hurry to be gone. When he let me stay there it didn't fix anything about me that was broken. The people there just didn't mind as much. The men shook their heads and the aunties clucked, but mostly they just let me be because that's the way they are.
There was an old man there, maybe 200 years old or something, which I know is too much, but that's what he seemed to me. I used to go sit with him at night. Even on the rez I didn't like to be inside at night, I wanted to be out with the stars and the moon and the darkness. He never tried to make me come inside the way everyone but my grandmother did. He'd just come outside and sit with me on these old stumps he had there. Sometimes, if it was chilly, he'd make a fire. Which was okay, because he did it, but fires, well, sometimes they can be bad and people really shouldn't just go about lighting them 'cause they're dangerous, so only the right people should do that, okay? But anyway, he'd tell me stories. Wonderful stories. About Raven and Bear and that trickster Coyote. About how all the animals and things had meaning and how they gave our lives meaning, too. And I listened and listened so hard and sometimes later I'd write things down so I wouldn't remember them wrong the way I remembered lots of other things wrong. But the thing I liked most was when he talked about how people got their names, about how people might have all sorts of different names in their life. And about the Vision Quest. About how you could go way up into the hills and cry for a vision and if you were good and your heart was pure the ancestors would come and give you a sign - a bear, maybe or something else and then you'd go back and the elders would tell you what it meant and give you a name. Your real name. For then, at least.
So after he told me about it I decided one time I was going to do it. I mean, nobody needed a new name, a true name, more than me, right? 'Cause no one could have known when they gave me that first name, the one I'm not going to tell anyone ever again, no one could have known what I'd see or be able to do or how I'd end up so broken, right? So I went way, way up in the hills and I found me a good place to stay, but something must have gone wrong, 'cause from the time I got there it just rained. Rain, rain, rain. Soft rain, hard rain, thunder and rain. Rain. No vision, no animal, no sign from the ancestors, no nothing. I was so tired and wet and lonely and hungry, like you can't imagine hungry unless you've been up in the hills for three days with only water, crying for a vision. And I cried, believe you me.
Finally I went back to my grandmother's and even before I got all the way there I knew my dad was there and he was angry and I knew he was going to take me away for good and never let me go back. And he did, shoving me in the back of his car with just the blanket and a sandwich my grandmother had time to hand me before he started the shoving. I didn't even get to hug her good, just a start, and then I was in the back seat of my dad's car all wet and cold and hungry and so sad. I didn't get a vision and he was taking me away and if I hadn't been so stupid as to forget to say I was going for a vision nobody would have called him.
Actually… I didn't forget. I just didn't want them to stop the poor broken head girl from going. But I never thought they'd care or worry enough to call him.