To Love the Earth
Talia R. BarNoy writes about holloways and a creature made of earth
A holloway is a well-beaten-down path that is traveled so often that its travelers leave behind an imprint on the earth. A holloway is made through voices and shared experiences, travel advice and traditions.
There was one such holloway near my home.
I knew it was there because of the traditions of my little community nestled into the land a small distance from the Red Sea and because of the group of archaeologists who “discovered” it named it holloway. When they came, they didn’t excavate with holes in the ground; they combed through the tall grass and brushed past the trees. They seemed to be loving the earth and finding its treasures strewn across centuries rather than ripping a gash into it. They didn’t stay long after naming it.
Once the archaeologists had gone, I went to see what had been done. I liked this holloway; the smoothness of its path, the way the rocks curved and softened from so much touch and movement, the way the land loved the people and animals who journeyed across it. I saw that the archaeologists hadn’t changed the landscape at all. It was still the pathway where my ancestors took their livestock and loved the land for all it gave them.
I heard a distant crying somewhere off the well-worn path. I followed it, worrying it was a child from our village who had gotten lost. I approached the sound with speed and was met by a hulking figure made of clay that seemed to be as flexible in movement as if it were flesh. It shook as it cried, hiding its face in its enormous hands and causing the tree it was leaning on to quiver.
I stood still, my body failing me in every way imaginable. Through my body’s failure came a trembling I could not control; I stumbled slightly and fell onto my backside, alerting the creature of my presence.
The creature lifted its head up to reveal hollow eyes and a thin line of a mouth etched into its clay flesh, as well as a Hebrew word carved into its forehead that I could not quite make out. It had no real eyes, but I could tell it was searching. I dared not move or make a sound. Despite my efforts, it tilted its head, walked over to my strewn form, and reached out a thick-fingered hand towards me.
I stared at the creature’s hand until it began to shake it at me. Scared of what it would do, I put my hand into it. The creature helped me up onto my feet. This closeness allowed me to have a better look at the word on its forehead. It looked like something out of one of my family’s prayer books, the important ones that we kept hidden from neighbors that would not approve.
From my crude understanding of the language, I saw that the first two letters were the first two letters of the word “mother” but with a hard “T” sound at the end instead of the second “Ah” sound. My father, who was always angry that I showed no interest in learning things to make me different from our neighbors, would have been proud that I had retained something from his teachings. I felt a strange excitement that I could recognize what I was seeing. I tried to ignore the ebbing thought of my classmates and what they might say if they knew.
The creature opened its gash of a mouth into a sort of smile.
The word fit. The word was “truth.”
I returned the smile and started looking around for an easy exit, but the creature took my head in its large hands and gently shifted my gaze to look at it. It put its hands up as if to surrender and then pointed at the word. I cocked my head. It pointed at the word more furiously. I started looking around again. It guided my head to face it. Its shoulders slumped as if resigned. I relaxed.
Trying once more, it pointed at the word on its head and then made an X motion with its finger over the first letter. It walked back over to the tree it had been crying on, snapping off a medium-sized branch that would have taken me ages, but looked as if it had broken bread. It brought the branch to me and shoved it into my hands. The creature repeated the motion of signing an X over the first letter on its forehead.
I understood what it wanted, and I hesitated. I looked at the ground. Patches of dry grass brushed against my feet. I looked back at the creature; its clay looked brittle and worn, old and used. I guided the creature over to a rock so I could reach its forehead better. I took the branch and began scraping at the letter. This didn’t seem to hurt the creature. Once I had finished, and the letter was gone, I recognized that the word now spelt “death,” and in that moment, the creature smiled and began to puddle into a mound of wet clay. I stared in horror until all that was left was a tiny scroll amidst the small hill of mud.
I dropped the branch and took the scroll. Written was a name I had never seen or heard of before. I gripped it and ran back home.
My father was still awake, reading. I approached him and told him what I had seen.
“I’ve heard tales of this creature from a westerner, one of those European types. A ‘Goy-lem’ he called it. Or was it ‘Golem?’” My father mused. “This man was one of the archaeologists. I asked him what they were doing, and we got to talking. I’d never spoken to someone like us who hadn’t been from around here, someone who hadn’t left. He ended up telling me of the ‘Goy-lem,’ a creature made of clay formed to protect the Jewish people in a small town in the country of Poland many many years ago.” He leaned forward in his chair. “If your creature is the same as his creature, it must have been wandering for so long, seen too much, finished its commands, and then was forgotten.” He ruffled my hair. “I’m glad you gave it peace.”
I told him of the paper, and he asked to see it. He said it was one of God’s many names. He said it was a gift. He said to go to bed.
I did go to bed, putting the scroll on a table in my room. This had not felt like a gift to me.
That night I dreamt that I was journeying to the center of the earth to write the word “death” on its core. I dreamt that all the life across the earth shriveled into dust, and humans and animals alike dissolved back into clay.
I woke up, and beneath the scroll was one of the books my father hid inside the wood of our dining table. I opened it up and read about how man was born of clay and was alone until he was gifted another like him. I went downstairs to see my father making breakfast. We talked about the creature, the holloway, what I had read, about the stars in the sky, and about how lonely it was to live in a village where you had to pretend.
Talia R. BarNoy was born and raised in New York City and is currently pursuing a BA in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr College. Talia has been previously published in Nimbus Magazine. You can find Talia on Twitter @teateemple.
