It didn’t take long to understand that the marks that had appeared on everyone’s skin weren’t going away. At first they looked like birthmarks, light-brown ponds. Some thought this a sign of age until we noticed them on the children. We blamed the sun and rubbed lotion on the skin of the affected and the unaffected. The spots were not painful or warm or raised or textured. They seemed benign, but they did not fade. Soon they became darker brown then went to black, narrowing into defined lines, squiggles, and shapes. No amount of washing or abrasion would take them away. It was as if they emerged from deep inside, marks awaiting maturity before they appeared. Then we observed something striking.
A group of us noticed that these marks, if put together, could form a letter, a word, possibly more.
The first letter anybody remembers was a C. It was formed by the left arm of a young girl touching the right cheekbone of her brother. Both parents denied that it was a letter, in part because they didn’t want people coming into their house, but also because of a suspicion of what their own eyes had seen. Word soon spread in spite of their objections, and entire neighborhoods went to see the letter: an arc of perfection when placed at the proper angle.
The next letter, an H, took a few weeks to appear, made by juxtaposing the calf of our fire chief with the pinkie finger of the oldest woman in town. Some accused them of copycatting, writing on their skin in marker for the attention it would bring, but those who saw in person knew the sheen of the marks in the light—the matte finish of a coffee bean—and all soon admitted it was authentic.
Someone is speaking to us, from without, some thought. Others: no, these are messages emerging from within. Or: no, this is just who we are. There is nothing to it.
After that, the letters came in a cavalcade. It was impossible to keep track of which letters had appeared first. Neighborhoods appointed official recorders to transcribe the most local messages. There were arguments. Some panicked. They thought that any misstep meant that the message intended for us would be garbled. Others thought that the messages were meant to come in fragments, that we should bring them to the town proper and stitch each unit together like a quilt.
The combinations were endless. Wherever people gathered, they formed words. One person’s marks could be used in several passages of the message. A belief overtook us that there was only one message, slowly revealing itself. For us to understand the message, all had to reveal the marks to each other. Those who wouldn’t reveal their marks were either forced to gather or they were shunned. Some left our village altogether. It wasn’t until later that we realized the loss.
Part of the message was gone.
Suddenly these people were considered more valuable than those who had stayed. We sent some to search for them, to try and bring them back into our community. But those we sent didn’t return, and we didn’t risk losing any others.
It was decided that a group should be formed to determine which parts of the message to write down as scripture, but immediately we discovered that half a dozen groups had already begun this process, unbidden. One group would interpret a fragment as complete, but another thought it was yet unfinished. Nobody knew whether the messages were isolated and intended for just a few, or connected and intended for the body of us. Some of us tried to remain true to the exact letters and words, in the precise order they were revealed to us. But others rearranged the letters into words that were already familiar to us, and the words into sentences that made sense to us. It’s only logical, they said, that the messages would come to us in a language that we would understand. These were the people who believed the messages were meant to be laws. No, said others, we are meant to learn something new about language. These were the people who believed the messages were poetry. Still others, those who believed the messages were prophecy, asked: If we are being told things we already know, then what is the point?
Sometimes the messages were funny. Silly jokes. We wondered if we were being mocked. Others thought it was a gift, the humor a respite from our suffering. For a time all of the messages lost their meaning for us, became absurd, hilarious.
Some of us began to drift from the marks altogether, obeying other impulses. The shyest woman, Analinda, began wearing tall, frilly hats because she believed she was being directed to do so. Another woman, Hoa, when she went for her daily walk, turned her torso at an angle toward the trees, blessing them as she went. She grew resentful because she believed a man named Fredric was supposed to walk parallel to her, blessing the trees on the other side. She left a pile of stones in front of his door as tribute to his neglect. One group of men shaved every hair on their bodies, to wholly reveal the marks. Another group of men threw their razors away, believing the marks should be read through obscurity. Some followed baser impulses, using the promise of the marks as an excuse to engage in the pleasures of the body.
No approach could be agreed upon. There were enough factions to sustain many groups, meeting separately. And the messages were so easy to interpret differently, we were comfortable with this new separation.
Then the marks began to change.
A line on a cheek slipped down the face like a teardrop. Some lines developed crooks like shepherds’ staffs; the jagged turned smooth. Some feared we had been using the wrong alphabet, that maybe we were being given a language that none of us could—or should—understand. We feared that these messages might not be meant for us at all, but for a faraway audience of the lost.
First the changes came monthly, then weekly, hourly. The marks would be clear, then melt, fade, and darken in a moment into a completely different character. In the middle of readings the marks would change, so we would scramble to rearrange ourselves, tracking the new meaning.
Some brought permanent markers to the meetings, to trace the lines of the original marks so they wouldn’t be lost. These originalists called themselves the Everlasters. Others called the Everlasters heretics, holding on to the messages of the past, ignoring the messages of the current time. But the marks changed so much that even the Everlasters could no longer determine what message was original.
It was during one of the Everlaster sessions that a child named Lily noticed the trees had a kind of mark, too. Those are different marks, some said, but others insisted they could be read as a message, too. Then we looked to the grass and animals and even that which was inanimate like steel or light—some saw marks in all of them.
Everything was marked.
We realized what we should have known all along: any moment was a gathering. It didn’t matter who was or wasn’t there to receive or interpret. Messages piled up like leaves. They couldn’t be recorded fast enough. Any time was a gathering, any time holy.
This marked our greatest crisis.
Some groups wouldn’t gather with other groups. Some people refused to read altogether. Others kept themselves hidden. If every gathering was holy, every moment transcendent, then some thought that all moments were the same and, therefore, not holy.
We stopped transcribing the messages. Soon, we stopped translating them altogether. We had been spoken to enough.
We passed the stories to our children. We taught them all we knew. Our children have always known our marks, so when they look upon them, they see nothing wondrous. Now when they see the marks on their bodies, these marks that assuredly still appear, they consider them, if they consider them at all, as ornament. They do not listen to us in the same way. The oldest of us believe that the marks have faded, that they were stronger in the older days. Some no longer see them at all, even those with the best eyesight. Some suggested long ago that one will come who will read the message to us.
People do not gather anymore. A few of us wait for the interpreter, alone, but most have given up hope. Most believe the answer has already arrived.
