Thanks to Carlos-Quevedo for
permission to use his beautiful image, “Up to the Stars”!
There were stories among my
people. Stories of great balnyan
trapped on a distant planet by a thick layer of air between water and space.
Our fathers told it as a horror story, our mothers as a cautionary tale. Never
travel alone, never wander too far from home, lest you be trapped and never
return.
To most, they were only stories. But the balnyan in my dreams called me
to the search, the rescue, and I could not refuse. I knew I’d receive no father’s
blessing, no mother’s encouragement. They would call me a fool. Or worse. A
dreamer.
The balnyan
guided me to study the stars, to find their lost ones. Our kind grows slowly, and
the balnyan
would not have me leave before I was strong enough for a great journey. I
studied and swam the currents of space around our home until one night they
came to me. Not in my dreams.
Now we ride among the stars,
searching and singing their great song. Will it reach the lost ones before we do?
The journey is long, and sometimes I sleep, nestled in the wide wing of a balnyan, feeling the sweep of
their powerful tails pushing us ever closer to our goal.
I treasure all we find along the way. Space-faring dikya,
deep red, with long, slender tails. They school around us and share their
dreams of journeys past. Great flocks of zugunroy who escaped their boundaires
of air now soar across the constellations. Tiny glowing planctole swarm around
a moon, and the balnyan
soar through, mouths open wide.
Sated, they sleep, tails slowly pushing us onward. I rest on
a balnyan’s
broad back, and in the silence, I hear a familiar, distant song…
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Dogs in house
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Houdini
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Time writing
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20 minutes
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January word
count
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1,792
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