The Invisible Whisper
The Death of Master Enoch

After my sister died, my mother brought me to the master teacher Enokh. The loss of my little sister and the image I saw was the last push she needed.

The master teacher Enoch was a "teacher in many ways". He was impressed with what I foresaw at a young age, but most importantly he was able to make me accept that this gift was a part of me and a blessing.

Unknowingly I was heading back to the settlement. I walked down the tall reeds and looked at the trees on the edge of the meadow. The color started to change, the dark red slowly turned brownish yellow. Along its trunk gathers depleted foliage, which has lost its grip.

I noticed some movement between the leaves and looked at the place that had just moved. For a moment I could see nothing, and then a white viper, bigger than I had ever seen before. It slid past my feet and into the riverbed overgrown with reeds.

"Animals that cross my path tell of things to come. A snake symbolizes strength, but it also symbolizes danger. A white snake, this colored snake is extremely rare, but what does it mean?" I pondered as I climbed the stone steps and reached the dusty plateau. The rainy season is coming soon, that's for sure.

While thinking, I took the road up the mountain. My own hut was second last before the peak. The hut was accidentally built next to the hut of master teacher Enokh, but in recent years I have come to realize that I am taking over more and more of his duties.

According to him, it was no coincidence that we both lived in the highest plateau. “Those who seek wisdom must live with their feet on earth and their brains in the sky,” he once said.

Arriving at his hut, I knocked on the door, waited a while, then entered. Once inside, I walked to the back of the hut. There he lay on his stone cot, his head leaning motionless on a straw pad.

He had aged rapidly these past few years, yet his eyes were still emitting strength. A power that I thought was amazing when I was a kid, but the lines on his face showed the pain his body was now feeling.

His days of teaching were long gone, yet many still visited him as they struggled with questions. I probably visited him more often than others, he could show me a lot of things very clearly.

Over the years I learned how to take a step back, and break away from the crayons I used to color my world. I learned to see the world from a universal point of view, but this time there was nothing important but my little sister.

His arm lifted slightly from the bed and his finger pointed at the jug filled with water. I filled the bowl with water and knelt beside it. With one hand I raised my head, while the other I put the cup to her lips. After a few sips he coughed, wet his dry lips, and blinked his eyelids.

'You managed to keep that heavenly bird of prey away from my body for a while, son, but its claws have been stuck in my chest and its beak has gnawed at my heart. My departure is imminent, but that's not why you're here. So talk to me, my son,” his voice is soft and creaky.

I told my story and though it wasn't too long I had to wake her several times. After my last sentence, his sharp gaze was directed stiffly at the low ceiling.

“After several generations, destruction again threatens. It keeps moving, like the sea we once lived in. This time we have been warned and we have taken precautions for many years.”

Enoch fell asleep, I heard his breathing loosening irregularly.

No matter how much I shake her body, she is unconscious. A few minutes later I heard her breathing completely stop. The heavenly bird of prey has brought his soul to immortality.

With his breathing stopped, access to all his wisdom was taken away from me in an instant, without the answer I was looking for. I'm dumbfounded. With his departure, I lost a mentor, a friend, and the closest person I had with a father. My mother never talked about my father, he was his only secret as far as I knew.

I engrave our last moments in my memory. Then I lit a fire, burning incense until the hut was filled with sweet autumn air, pine trees, dried fruits, and flowers to drive away the black entity. Sitting next to Enoch I remembered the day he told me about the origin of this ritual.

When we retreat to the mountains, we can no longer send the dead by burning rafts to the sea, where evil spirits cannot reach them. It was not an option anymore, the river would immediately push the raft to its banks.

We therefore began to use smoke to ensure the souls of the dead could enter eternity peacefully. That they could not be followed or bullied by black people who had no essence. Those who still wander on the earthly level and like to seduce the souls of the dead to stay here with them, or try to follow the escape of the dead to enter eternity.