Words: Tom Cran (he/him)
I write of the quiet, the conversations, and the people that made it the place I miss. A place not purified and molded to what others see fit.
The room is as grey as the sky itself. Every day, I dread the same feeling. The walls shrink in on me. Oppressed by unfamiliar, artificial sounds. The only sound that feels real is our language, Gaelic. But even that can only be spoken in hushed tones in the corners of rooms, choking on dust and dirt that they’d happily throw us in with. The few of us who are here are kept separate on the factory line. We’re told that us being together causes problems. Spoken about like a pack of animals rather than human beings.
We used to work for each other. I used to know who my work was for. Now I spend hours labouring for a man who never says thank you. The reward for our efforts was once to know that those around us, those we care for, would be alright. Now I spend all day here to go home, down filthy streets full of the needy, to a family that barely has the food to make it through the day.
I keep the words of home close. Forbidden to speak, I write. I write of our home before the flames, the starvation, and the rushed departures. I write of the quiet, the conversations, and the people that made it the place I miss. A place not purified and molded to what others see fit.
Our croft was up a hill. When I had done my work for the day, safe in the knowledge my family were warm and fed inside, I’d sit. I’d sit and look down into the empty valley, only populated by crofts with flickers of fireplaces doing the same job as mine inside. The only noise was the faint grumble of fed yowes settling down for the night. I didn’t have the strain of anything to worry about – content in my peace. I never imagined someone would feel the need to take this away.
Some days, I would write about the idle conversation as we worked. While not of any real intellectual substance, looking back at it, the beauty in our conversation was found in the beauty of being together. Every day we’d do nearly the same things, but we did them for people we loved with people we loved. We spoke freely with the same words that are now policed in the streets.
Whatever I write about, I write it in Gaelic. I write in Gaelic in the hope that one day someone from the part of the world I am in now will read and understand. Not necessarily understanding the exact translations, but rather understanding that we’re not some filthy barbarians, we’re simply people. All we want is for what we once had to be returned. However, politeness has fallen on deaf ears. Instead, I shout and demand using the only voice we are still privileged in our native tongue: the written word.
