Forgotten and Hidden

We are forgotten. The shame is on the ANC! They hide us away from the rest of the world, only telling success story's to the foreign media.
We must make ourselves heard. We are no longer the silent voices. We are alive!

The Hidden People

They are the forgotten ones, the hidden people. Once they were honoured by our ancestors, in the days when people still walked the earth with respect and remembered the old ways, but there is no room in this new world for their old magic. They have been forgotten. But they wait amongst the trees, and their magic has power still.

Walking through the forest one still quiet evening I listened to the birds sing their sunset songs and felt that all was right with the world. My work was going well, my marriage was happy, my eldest daughter had just started school. I felt totally at peace and found it hard to believe that anything could ever go wrong. The forest's cool silence perfectly suited my mood and I felt the hustle and bustle of the everyday world slip away from me. But as I passed along the familiar path I began to feel as though someone was watching me.

A cliché I know; who hasn't had that feeling when they're walking alone? I dismissed it as simple paranoia but as the sun dropped further behind the trees and the darkness gathered I couldn't help but speed my footsteps, suddenly anxious to be home with my family. As I hurried along the path I noticed a circle of toadstools growing across the route in front of me. Thinking of nothing but my sudden desire to be home I stepped into it. Then the world disappeared.

I came to in darkness. For a second I lay still, wondering what on earth had happened. I must have fallen and hit my head but the daylight had disappeared completely, how long had I been unconscious? Then, as I began to get more of a sense of the place surrounding me, I realised I was no longer in the forest at all but somewhere altogether different. For the air smelt different and instead of leaf mould I was lying on a floor of compacted earth. In fact all my senses were indicating that I was in a large underground cavern, which defied all logic. Just as I was deciding that I must still be unconscious and dreaming tiny little lights began appearing all over the cavern, illuminating the earthen walls. They weren't like any electric light I'd ever seen but they stayed steady, not flickering like a flame. The lights grew gradually brighter, until at last I could see the beings that held them.

Now I knew I was dreaming. For behind every one of those steady lights stood creatures that I can only describe as being out of a fairytale, albeit one drawn by Salvador Dali. Blue pixies with iridescent wings but mouths full of sharpened fangs, grizzled gnomes who might have been carved from stone except for the expression of hatred on their faces, small men dressed in green who must have been leprechauns but with long claws that the greetings cards never showed. All these and thousands more creatures from out of the old stories, elves, dryads, nymphs, fairies, sprites, each just as the pictures show them except for small details that changed them from cute fairytales to terrifying nightmares. They filled the cavern completely, surrounding me, and without exception stared at me with utter malice.
‘Who are you?' I stammered, trying to remember when I had ever had a dream that felt so real.
‘We are the hidden ones.' The reply came
‘The small people.'
‘The fair folk.'
‘The fae.'
‘The spirits of the forest'
‘We are the myths, the legends, the fairytales.'
‘We are the old power...and we are real.'

With each statement they crept closer, until finally I could feel the breaths of those closest to me.
The tallest only came up as far as my waist but somehow I knew I would never be able to overcome them.
‘You are not real. I hit my head, I'm dreaming. You're just products of my imagination and any moment now I am going to WAKE UP.' I shouted the last into their faces but they just smiled.
‘We are real. Your people used to know us, used to honour our power and beware our places. We thought it would always be that way. We believed that humans would always walk with respect, would remember the old ways forever, but we were wrong. Other men came, with their foreign gods and their arrogant disrespect, and they killed the wise ones, the Druids. From then on the people began to forget what they had once known so well. Gradually, generation by generation, they forgot what should never be forgotten. The old customs began to die out until eventually they were gone and no one remembered that we are more than a nice story. We waited, we're good at waiting. We trusted that this insanity would not last, for how could an entire race forget what they had once known in their blood and bone, that they are not the only ones to walk this earth, that there are others, stranger and more powerful? We waited but they did not remember. We were reassigned to myth and superstition. And now we are bored with waiting.'
‘This is crazy, I'm crazy. The first thing I'm going to do when I wake up is go and see a shrink. I've obviously lost my mind.'
‘Wake up? You are awake. Want us to pinch you and prove it?' A leprechaun brandished its sharp claws at me and smiled wickedly. I shook my head, pinched myself in the arm. It hurt.
‘Alright so I'm awake. I must be hallucinating. I've hit my head and now I'm seeing things that aren't real.'
‘If you hit your head then why doesn't it hurt?' I stared at the malevolent faces in front of me, turning the question over in my mind. I raised my hand and felt all over my head. No pain, no bump, not even a slight tenderness. Suddenly I began to laugh hysterically. I laughed until my sides hurt and I was gasping for breath. The creatures just stared at me, expressions never changing, waiting for me to be done. Finally I lay back, panting for air.
‘Fine, fine. Let's for a moment put aside everything which is logical and true and suppose for a moment that you are real and I'm not hallucinating. What the hell do you want from me?'
‘Want? We want you to wake the world back up again, remind them of what they've forgotten. We want the old customs restored, we want the old ways to be followed and honoured once more.'
‘This is insane. Why me? Why not pick someone else for your crazy mind-trip?'
‘You walked into a fairy circle.'
‘A fairy circle? Oh of course, the toadstools. Don't step into a toadstool circle or the fairies will get you, isn't that what they used to say?'
'So you do remember.'
‘A fairy circle. How wonderful. Something to tell the grandchildren. Now if you excuse me I must be going, my family will be wondering where I am.' I started to get up.
‘He's hysterical' a gnome observed.
‘Needs more convincing' a pixie agreed.
‘So it shall be' said a sprite, baring its teeth.
You will help us, human. You will help us or live forever in nightmares.' And with that it waved its hand across my face.

Darkness. All light had gone. Silence. All sound vanished. I tried to open my eyes but had none. I opened my mouth to try and scream but had no tongue. My arms were gone, my legs, my eyes, my ears, my tongue. I was a prisoner in my own body, unable to move or speak or see or hear. Fear rose up, threatened to choke me, I fought it back down, struggling to remain calm. It's an illusion, I told myself, just an illusion. This isn't real. But it felt realer than anything had ever been. It was as though I had had a dream, and that dream was my life, and now I was awake and this was reality. This had always been reality. I had never been able to walk in the sunshine or see the bright blue of a summer sky; I had never heard my children laugh or hugged my wife. All that had been only a cruel dream, the fantasy of a man unable to live but unable to die, trapped inside a useless hunk of flesh. Fear rose again and this time I could not suppress it. It ran through me, overriding everything else, and in my head I began to scream and scream and scream, shaking my head from side to side, desperate to escape.

Suddenly I was back on the cavern floor, surrounded by the small folk. My entire body trembled as I sat up and began to check myself over, overjoyed to find all my limbs where they ought to be. Never again would I take my senses for granted. Finally, tears in my eyes, I looked up and met the eyes of the nearest gnome.
‘I'll do it. I'll tell people. They'll never believe me but I'll do it. Just don't ever make me live like that again. Not ever.' The gnome nodded, its expression solemn.
‘Find a way to convince them. Tell everyone. Even if only a few believe that will be a few more. And tell your family. Bring your children up to follow the old ways. We will convince more people and they will bring up their children to believe. Bit by bit the old customs will be restored. The world will be put to right. Now go, but never forget what will happen if you break our trust.' I nodded once and instantly the cavern and everyone in it disappeared.

I woke up lying on the forest floor, just outside the toadstool circle. My wife was bending over me anxiously, our youngest in her arms.
‘What happened to you?' She asked ‘I've been so worried. You didn't come home and it was getting dark so we came to look for you. You were out cold. Did you hit your head? Should we take you to the hospital?' I sat up slowly, feeling as though the whole familiar world had become strange.
‘Alice,' I said ‘You're never going to believe this but the most incredible thing has just happened...'

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