Mangina lifted the collar around
her neck and dried her sticky skin with her ragged scarf. She tucked the scarf
underneath to try to give her neck some relief from the heavy gold. It makes no difference what it’s made of,
she thought bitterly. She still was not free.
Sipping water from a copper ladle
as she sat cross-legged on the marble floor, she laid the amber stones in yet
another pattern around her. Closing her eyes, she listened for their song and
began to hum. She felt the power vibrate through her body, rattling the amber
pieces on the floor. Opening her eyes, she saw beams of light shooting out in
all directions from the stones. If only she could modulate their song and focus
the light, she would finally be free. But every time she tried to change the
song, the light scattered and the stones fell silent. Mangina wept.
A toneless voice from the
shadowed corner said, “Your tears are wasted. Sing. Again.”
Mangina sobbed. “I cannot! Oh
please, let me go! Let me walk outside in the sun. Let me see my family. I
promise, I will try again. Please, I am so very tired—”
The voice, unmoved, said only,
“Sing. Again.”
Mangina leaned forward until her
forehead rested on the cold marble. Swallowing her tears, she sighed with deep,
trembling breaths. Finally she sat up once more and gathered the amber, laying
them out in a new pattern. She closed her eyes once more and began to hum.
After awhile, the voice said once
more, “Sing. Again.”
Mangina chokes back her sobs of
despair. There was no mercy here. She scooped up the amber and tossed them in a
sweeping gesture across the floor, uncaring how they fell. Past caring, she
closed her eyes and hummed with the new amber song. Fueled by her anger and
frustration, she added her own harmony to the song. And felt the power shift.
Not daring to open her eyes, she built the harmony in her mind, complex
weavings of all her fear, anger, longing, loss. As she sang, she saw her
family, her home in a vision that grew so large and real, she opened her eyes
to find herself floating in midair, surrounded by a rainbow curtain of light.
The voice whispered, “Yes….”
Dogs in house:
|
Houdini, Bacon, Brindle
|
Music:
|
Jesse Cook, Free
Fall
|
Time writing:
|
20 minutes
|
July word
count:
|
13,573
|
No comments:
Post a Comment