The Sky Above, the Rivers Below, Ch 9: Identity in Translation

Thomas Shepard often felt like a meticulously translated poem, all its original music lost.

He lived in a spacious apartment in one of Neo-Kyoto's nicer apartment towers. This comfort was thanks to the leftover money from his family's pre-war wealth. His mother, Margaret, had managed it with a grim, almost desperate skill through Chronic's confusing financial systems. He attended the respected Inter-Timeline Arts Conservatory. His tuition was paid without needing scholarships or Chronic's often-insulting "temporal integration" loans that burdened so many other second-generation migrants. By many measures of this advanced time, he was privileged, fortunate.

This privilege, however, felt gilded and enclosed. The comfort was a constant reminder of its source. The knowledge of his family's past - the Shepard plantation, the generations of enslaved people whose forced labor had built their fortune - was an open secret. It was a data point in Chronic's detailed profiles, and a whispered footnote to his name in the social circles of this "progressive" era. He walked the shiny, clean corridors of the Conservatory, a place dedicated to the highest forms of art, feeling like a fraud, an outcast dressed in fine, synthetic silks.

The people born in this time, those born into this 2040s world with its casual miracles of technology and its carefully made stories of moral improvement, often looked at him with a kind of polite, almost scientific curiosity. He was a living piece of the past, a relic from a "barbaric" time they studied in their clean historical simulations. Their acceptance, when offered, felt thin, conditional. It was as if they were extending a hand to a particularly interesting, if slightly unsettling, museum exhibit. Staring out at the breathtaking, uncaring cityscape, a thought, sharp as glass, would surface. Best schools. Best apartment. Ghost with a ball and chain. The money opened doors. The name slammed them shut.

The reactions from fellow migrants were often more complex, more deeply felt.

Some, especially those whose own family histories had been marked by oppression or colonial exploitation, viewed him with open resentment. His wealth, coming from such a tainted source, felt like an insult, a bitter irony in a city that preached equality while often maintaining subtle social ranks. Others, perhaps from times less directly hurt by similar historical wounds, treated him with a wary pity, as if he were carrying an infectious disease of the soul.

He'd tried, in his early years at university, to join various migrant support groups, hoping to find a sense of community, of shared experience. But more often than not, his presence would cast a shadow. His carefully chosen words about shared displacement felt hollow, even to his own ears, when set against the unspoken weight of his specific family history.

The question was a constant, unwelcome companion: fortunate son or cursed descendant? The two selves warred within him, inseparable. He was a Shepard, with all the comfort and all the shame that name meant in this new world. And he was Thomas, a young man who just wanted to breathe, without the air being thick with the ghosts of men and women his ancestors wronged.

He longed for a space where he could simply be, where the first thing people saw wasn't the shadow of a whip or the glint of ill-gotten silver, but just him. Such spaces, however, seemed to exist only in the fleeting, unreal worlds he was beginning to build for himself.

The only place Thomas felt the suffocating weight of his family history lessen, even if only for a few precious hours, was in the comfort of his art. He'd inherited a love for music from his mother. She had taught him the gentle parlor songs of their lost Carolina on a surprisingly well-preserved small piano they'd managed to bring through time. But in the advanced time, surrounded by a universe of new sounds and instruments, his musical interests had expanded, changed. He found himself drawn to the sad tunes of ancient stringed instruments from forgotten times, their melodies preserved as perfect digital copies in the Conservatory's archives. He was also drawn to the complex, layered harmonies of AI-assisted music software.

He began to compose. His pieces were often a strange, haunting mix of old and new - the sad melodies of an 18th-century folk song woven through with the airy, electronic sounds of the 2040s. His music was filled with a sense of longing, of displacement, of searching for a harmony that always seemed just out of reach. It was his way of speaking, of expressing the tangled knot of emotions that words often failed to capture. His fingers moved over the responsive interface of a synth-console, coaxing out a melody that felt both ancient and entirely new. Here, there was no judgment in the notes. A chord didn't carry the weight of his grandfather's money. It simply was.

Storytelling, too, became a safe place. He read all the stories available in the university's vast digital archives - epic poems from lost civilizations, interactive folk tales from times that had chosen peace over technological advancement, even the stark, unedited oral histories of migrants who had arrived before him. He began to write his own stories. They were quiet, thoughtful pieces that explored the in-between spaces of past and present, belonging and loneliness. They were often about characters caught between worlds, struggling to balance their heritage with their hopes - characters who felt, in many ways, like reflections of himself.

This growing artistic drive found a tentative, practical outlet. He started volunteering at a Chronic-linked community center in one of the newer, more chaotic Transition Districts. This place was full of disoriented children, freshly arrived from a bewildering array of pasts. He wasn't an official mentor - his "historical profile" made that a complicated idea for Chronic - but he was allowed to run informal "creative expression" sessions. He'd bring his synth-lute or a story-slate. For a few hours a week, he would play music for them, weaving melodies that spoke of shared sorrow and fragile hope. Or he would tell them stories - sometimes old tales from forgotten times, sometimes new ones he'd made up himself - about finding light in unfamiliar darkness.

The children were too young to fully understand the details of historical guilt or inherited privilege. They responded to the genuine kindness in his eyes, the gentle rhythm of his voice (his Southern accent, softened now but still present, often soothed them), and the universal language of his music. For those brief hours, surrounded by their wide, often fearful eyes, Thomas felt a flicker of something like purpose. He wasn't just Thomas Shepard, the boy with the heavy name. He was Thomas, the music-man, the storyteller. He watched a small girl from a war-torn medieval time finally crack a hesitant smile as he played a simple, joyful tune. The smile felt like its own language, one that needed no translation.

***

The small sense of purpose Thomas found in his volunteer work at the Transition District community center was like a delicate flower. It was easily bruised by the harsh realities of the identity he had inherited. While the younger children often responded to his music and stories with simple gratitude, their older siblings, or sometimes even their parents, looked at him with a more complex, wary gaze.

He'd tried to do more. He offered to help a group of teenagers from a time that had recently overthrown a brutal, caste-based oppressive government. They were struggling, understandably, with the confusing freedoms and subtle prejudices of the advanced time. Thomas, using his own experiences of feeling like an outsider, thought he could offer some understanding. Maybe he could help them navigate the system, or share some of the ways he'd learned to cope.

He approached their unofficial leader, a fiery young woman named Lyra with eyes that had seen too much. He offered his help, perhaps to help them write a petition for better school resources or simply to listen.

Lyra had looked him up and down, her face hard to read. "Shepard, isn't it?" she'd said, her translated voice flat. "From the… Southern Plantation Stack, I hear. You want to help us?"

"I just thought… I understand what it's like to feel out of place, to be judged for where you come from," Thomas had stammered. He felt the familiar heat rise in his cheeks.

Her laugh was short, without humor. "You understand? With your family's money paving your way, with your comfortable apartment far from the smell of these recycled-air dormitories? You think your 'out of place' is the same as ours? Our ancestors were property in a system not so different from the one your ancestors profited from." She hadn't been shouting, but her quiet intensity was more damning. "Your help, Shepard, feels… a little too convenient. Like you're trying to wash your hands in our suffering."

The accusation, though harsh, wasn't entirely new. He'd heard versions of it before, maybe quieter, but always there. It was the suspicion that his good deeds were just "performing atonement," a way for the "guilty descendant" to ease his own conscience. He'd tried to explain, to show how genuine his desire to connect was, but his words felt clumsy, not enough. Some days, it felt as if his very presence was a painful reminder of past injustices. His attempts to bridge the gap only made it seem deeper. Later that evening, the rejection still stinging, he tried to explain it to his mother. I want to help. But my hand, offered in friendship-they see it as stained. The words came slowly. How could he separate himself, Thomas, from Shepard, son of slaveholders?

Margaret's face was etched with a familiar worry that had only deepened under Elara's constant, subtle pressure from Chronic. She had listened with a heavy heart. "You are more, Thomas," she'd insisted, her voice fierce with a mother's love. "You have a good heart, a kind soul. Some people… some people will never see past the name, past the history. But you mustn't let their bitterness, or even their rightful anger, stop your own light. Keep trying, my son. Keep being who you are." Her encouragement was a comfort, but he also saw the fear in her eyes. He saw the anxiety that his struggles reflected badly on their "assimilation progress," that his inability to fit in seamlessly was another black mark against the Shepard name in Chronic's ever-watchful records. He felt, sharply, the added burden of not wanting to make her life, already so limited by their past, even more difficult.

He did keep trying. He poured more of himself into his music, into his stories. He hoped that art could succeed where personal interaction failed. He composed a piece, a sad song woven with threads of hope. It was inspired by the stories he'd heard from Lyra's group, before they rejected him. He called it "Echoes of Liberation."

As he worked on the composition, Thomas found himself drawn to the musical forms that had emerged from his own time's darkest chapters - the spirituals and work songs born in the fields where his ancestors had held dominion. The decision troubled him deeply. Late into the night, he sat with his synth-lute, listening to archived recordings, his chest tight with conflicting emotions.

These weren't his melodies to claim. They belonged to people his family had brutalized, music forged in conditions his blood had profited from. And yet - wasn't this precisely the point? To honor rather than ignore, to witness rather than forget? He told himself he wasn't appropriating; he was acknowledging. He was weaving these threads of pain and resilience into a larger tapestry, one that also included the liberation songs of Lyra's people, the defiant anthems of a dozen oppressed timelines. He was creating a bridge, a conversation across centuries of suffering.

His mother would have called it penance through art. He preferred to think of it as testimony - his way of saying, I see you. I hear you. Your pain matters, even to the descendant of those who caused it. Perhaps especially to him. If he, with his tainted name and guilty inheritance, could create something that honored these voices rather than silenced them, wasn't that a form of healing? A way to transform his privilege into purpose?

The naivety of this hope - its earnest, well-meaning blindness - would only become clear later. For now, in the solitary hours of creation, it felt like the most honest thing he'd ever done.

The performance of "Echoes of Liberation" at a small, independent arts venue in the multicultural "Cross-Temporal Zone" felt like a breakthrough. The audience was a mix of people born in this time, long-settled migrants, and a few curious newcomers.

Thomas's hands were surprisingly steady on the strings of his synth-lute. He poured all his empathy, all his understanding of inherited pain and longing for freedom, into the music. The melodies soared. They were a fusion of sad Southern spiritual echoes he'd researched from his home time's oppressed peoples, and the complex, hopeful rhythms of a future still trying for true equality. For those twelve minutes, he wasn't Thomas Shepard, the descendant of slave owners; he was just a musician, sharing a story of pain and strength that connected across times.

After the performance, several people approached him, their eyes shining. An elderly woman from a time that had endured a century of brutal dictatorship gripped his hand, tears streaming down her face. "Your music… it spoke to my soul, young man. It understood." Even Lyra, who had unexpectedly been in the audience, approached him. Her expression was softer, less guarded.

"It was… powerful, Shepard," she admitted, a grudging respect in her voice. For a fleeting, precious moment, Thomas felt a genuine connection. He felt a sense that his art had bridged the gap, that he had been truly seen, perhaps even understood. The inherited label had, for an instant, faded.

The hope was thrilling, but it didn't last long. A few weeks later, the Inter-Timeline Arts Council announced the winners of their annual "New Voices" grant. It was a respected award that provided significant funding and exposure for new artists. Thomas had submitted "Echoes of Liberation," along with a detailed proposal for a larger multimedia project exploring themes of historical trauma and healing. He'd allowed himself to dream, just a little.

The rejection came via a polite, standard message on his slate. It was disappointing, but not unexpected in a competitive field. The real blow landed a few days later. A sympathetic contact within the Arts Council, a fellow musician he'd worked with, reached out to him privately.

"Thomas," his friend had said, his voice tinged with regret, "I shouldn't be telling you this, but… your piece, 'Echoes of Liberation,' it was shortlisted. Highly praised by the first review panel for its artistic skill, its emotional depth."

"Then… what happened?" Thomas asked, a low, acidic heat pooling in his gut.

"There was… an intervention. From higher up. Someone from Chronic's Cultural Oversight division flagged your 'historical profile.' Concerns were raised about… 'appropriation.' About whether it was… 'appropriate' for someone of your specific family history to be addressing such themes, to be potentially profiting from stories of oppression." His friend sighed. "It's politics, Thomas. Ugly, but there it is. The grant went to someone… 'less complicated.'"

The words seemed to hollow out the air in his lungs. Appropriation. He had poured his heart into that piece. He had tried for empathy, for understanding, for a way to acknowledge the pain of the past without claiming it as his own, only to honor it. And now, his very attempt at connection, at artistic healing, was being twisted, used against him, all because of a history he couldn't change and a name he couldn't shed.

He thanked his friend, his voice hollow, then disconnected. The joy of that one night, the feeling of having truly connected, now felt like a cruel joke. He had tried to translate himself, his experiences, his hopes, into a language the world might understand. They had not only rejected the translation but condemned the translator.

That evening, Thomas didn't go to the community center. He didn't compose. He sat in his silent apartment. The glittering lights of Neo-Kyoto mocked him from beyond the window. He picked up his synth-lute, but his fingers felt heavy, lifeless. The melodies that came out were broken, tinged with a deeper, more personal sadness than ever before. His mother's quiet, anxious footsteps in the next room were a soft, constant reminder of her love, but also of the burden he felt he was, a constant source of worry in her already difficult life.

Keep trying, she'd said. But what if trying only deepened the wound? What if his mother was wrong-not about his heart, but about the possibility of being seen for who he was rather than what he came from?

The advanced time, for all its wonders, felt like a beautifully designed maze with no exit for someone like him.

***