Don Osorio’s hands knew more than his mind. While the events and moments of his life may have hidden themselves in the dark corners of his mind and seeped away when he wasn’t paying attention, his hands had long ago agreed to remember what the rest of him could not. Each morning when he woke, his leathery, callused hands led him to his tools and then slowly to the unmarked stretch of stone where he would work that day. That was how Don Alberto’s days were spent; painstakingly hammering events that his mind no longer remembered alongside his stony sole companions. He never stopped to eat or drink, for he had given up on all aspects of self-preservation years ago. He slept only to give his hands a chance to rest and forget, for he understood and appreciated the pain of memory that they endured each day. So while Don Osorio’s mind may have forgotten everything but the rocks and the sun and the tired solitude, his hands still remembered the cool ferocity of the swinging machete, the power and invincibility of a fist clenched in the air, the frenzied desperation they felt by his sides with nothing left to do.
Back when his hands still held the machete, Don Osorio was a hero. The men and women who followed him with their fists flying would later remember him as many things. To some, he had the face of a madman; with sharp black eyes that grew in size and high cheekbones that looked as deadly as his knives. The only aspect of him that could be agreed upon was his voice. For the voice of Don Osorio was the deepest, richest, strongest, loudest, most melodious sound that had ever been heard. It had the remarkable ability to awaken the people from the impenetrable exhaustion the Rulers had placed over them. It was an exhaustion that could never be satisfied and made using their brain too painful for more than a few minutes each day.  But the voice of Don Osorio was impervious to the fog and cut through it, giving the people back the energy that had been sapped for decades. And so they went, for where the voice of Don Osorio went; people followed. They formed a passionate group that lived in the woods, spending their days hiking through the mountains, staging small attacks against the soldiers of the Rulers, reveling in their mindfulness, and listening to and sharing the words of Don Osorio.
The forest became their home, and the children grew into adults that had their own children that became adults, all the while living by the side of the infinite Don Osorio. Word spread far, even through the fog of exhaustion, and it seemed as though a new bunch of tents cropped up in their group each morning. Don Osorio would disappear in his tent for days, weeks, months at a time and would eventually resurface with a wild look of inspirational madness in his eyes and a new plan of action. They never lost heart, defeat after defeat, for every life lost brought an influx of thousands more and it became evident that there wasn’t enough room in all the forests in the world for the followers of Don Osorio.
Each one of them fought tirelessly and their attacks and plans became grander and greater until came the day that the fog was finally lifted. The Rulers had fled, and with them fled the fatigue that had haunted the country for decades. The rebels ran in swarms down into the towns and the country was shaken alive for the first time in years. Music played day in and day out, children stayed up all night for nights on end, and the streets and rivers filled up with joyful tears. The ability to run without looking behind them, to speak without being shushed, and to live without the ponderous cloud of fear was so unfamiliar and overwhelming that many buried themselves in their houses and wouldn’t come out for days or weeks.
When they were finally able to emerge, they were shocked by the changes that had taken place. Don Osorio, his compatriots, and other skilled awakened officials had joined together to put the plan of the new world they had wistfully dreamed of into action. Those who had learned to speak with the wisdom and clarity of Don Osorio spread everywhere; teaching and inspiring everywhere they went. With the absence of the heavy exhaustion the people could use their minds for as long as they wanted, and schools opened and were filled by villagers clamoring to fill their brains with words and ideas. Don Osorio watched it all with the bittersweet pride of an old grandfather.
And so word spread, as it often does, of the brilliantly rising revolutionaries that had lifted themselves from the fog and made a new way of life. They were respected, they were envied and they were celebrated; but none of that mattered because they were also feared. A heavy fear began to weigh down the rich men who owned half the world. These men thought themselves to be Gods, and ruled not only their country but the entire world with a destructive superiority. They feared the other revolutions that could be inspired by Don Osorio’s words, they feared economic competition, and they feared a world led by ideals that weren’t aligned with their interests. Fueled by this constant and tortuous weight of fear, they made secretly sinister plans to extinguish this faraway breath of hope that so threatened them.
They sent their friends to Don Osorio’s land, their pockets full of a heavy exhaustion that was this time mixed with confusion and panic and despair. These shadowy figures seemed to travel and multiply faster than the speed of light, so by the time that the first ebbs of the fog began to be noticed again it was too late and the fight had already begun. Don Osorio’s followers fought back hard for the survival and life of their new world, but it was different this time and the heart began to go out of them as one by one, the schools and the communities and the strength that they had created was destroyed. They couldn’t keep up with the inhuman rate of destruction and the earth, as well as their bodies, craved a reprieve from it all.
For the first time in his life, Don Osorio’s hands could do nothing. On the night the new leaders came in and took control, silence was enforced throughout the streets. His thundering thoughts couldn’t take it and began to flee from his mind to escape. He absentmindedly followed them out of the town for days, across forests and mountains until he arrived on a rocky mountain cliff.  He leaned against the cliff face to rest, and looked out across the infinite forests and soaring skies with the calm appreciation of a man finally accepting to stay where he stood, and with that his last thoughts and memories left him. His hands led him out of his confusion, pressing themselves to a rock and hammering out the memory he had lost and in doing so started the beginning of his new life. His hands took care of him and each day they preserved another moment in the solid rock so that one day the ridges and slashes of a country over hundreds of years could be traced by a wandering fingertip.