Taki was beautiful.
I use the word beautiful in the sense of the old Latin phrase ESSE QUAM VIDERII, to be is more important than to appear, the essence is more important than the video.
She was beautiful on the outside.
Her brown eyes were the color of the plowed earth.
Her black hair was the color of moonless, starless night.
Her dark skin was the color of the bark on the ancient trees below Point Hope.
But she was no video.
She was beautiful on the inside, too.
Her heart beat slowly and steadily in the arctic cold.
Her mind thought deeply and widely of ways she could help the world.
Her soul was undeterred by the frozen, rocky land.
At her still point.
In her essence.
Her family's house was made of yellow painted wooden slats with a red tin roof.
A small chimney rose slightly through the center of its ridge.
It sat on the edge of the pack ice beside the Chukchi Sea.
There were four windows, one for each side of the house.
She sat by the fire in the front room, warming herself against the cold.
She looked out over the sea.
The moon reflected off its surface.
Broken ice moved slowly with the tide.
Whales sang to each other in the deep reaches of the water.
She sighed at the beauty of it all.
She stared at the horizon.
She was silent.
She listened.
She heard a whistle from the sea.
It was the song of a bowhead whale.
"There is a boy," sang the great whale, "Who is coming to you."
"To me?" whistled Taki.
"How does he know where I am?
How will he get here?
How will he find me?
It is so far.
"He is listening," sang the mysterious whale.
"He is listening with his heart.”
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