In the past, when I've written a chapter that did not measure up in either story or writing, I've posted it with the "aborted" label. What I'm about to post doesn't even meet that requirement but I don't want to lose the fundamental thoughts embedded, so I am tucking it here. I doubt I will revisit, much less rewrite this conversation:
Kyra to Von (a conversation of the porch of the cottage):
There are days when the darkness threatens the very breath within me and the only sensation is of falling. To be awake, fully conscious, yet watch the world as if a dream, to hear voices close as from a distance, well, this is why we can’t stay here. No more than water can remain still and fresh. Movement is our only chance. Otherwise, the interminable sense of loss, of everything we ever knew, stagnates, chokes, suffocates. Not I nor you nor any one of us can survive that burden. The others, well, they just don’t know it yet. Do you understand?
I said yes. Then she continued.
or (What is this darkness? I asked.)
That’s like asking of a kaleidoscope, or maybe from the reflections of a shattered mirror, what is this image, what was it? You sense a thousand points, none alone significant, some related, some not. (She paused. I said nothing.) Like now, when the wind blows, can you tell me of where? Where does it start? Show it to me.
She stopped and looked at me with the clearest eyes I think I’ve ever seen. I had been rocking on the wooden porch and the silence of stopping was so loud. The tick-tock of wood on wood was no longer in the air, yet clearly heard in my mind, as some echo, as if some aspect of reality had stopped but others had kept going.
You can’t.
Maybe.
You can’t. But that’s not the point. When we feel the breeze we only know that it is. Maybe it pours itself into our sail or maybe it chills our bones and we shiver. But of where, exactly where it begins, we don’t know.
And if we did?
Wouldn’t matter. The sand that has dropped to the lower eight is forever dropped, forever at rest. Yet is it? Like now. You hear it. You hear the rocking in your head but your chair is no longer moving.
3 comments:
Let's hear it for the boy :)
Well, I'd say it's good to hear from the boy again. :-D
In the past, when I've written a chapter that did not measure up in either story or writing, I've posted it with the "aborted" label. What I'm about to post doesn't even meet that requirement but I don't want to lose the fundamental thoughts embedded, so I am tucking it here. I doubt I will revisit, much less rewrite this conversation:
Kyra to Von (a conversation of the porch of the cottage):
There are days when the darkness threatens the very breath within me and the only sensation is of falling. To be awake, fully conscious, yet watch the world as if a dream, to hear voices close as from a distance, well, this is why we can’t stay here. No more than water can remain still and fresh. Movement is our only chance. Otherwise, the interminable sense of loss, of everything we ever knew, stagnates, chokes, suffocates. Not I nor you nor any one of us can survive that burden. The others, well, they just don’t know it yet. Do you understand?
I said yes. Then she continued.
or (What is this darkness? I asked.)
That’s like asking of a kaleidoscope, or maybe from the reflections of a shattered mirror, what is this image, what was it? You sense a thousand points, none alone significant, some related, some not. (She paused. I said nothing.) Like now, when the wind blows, can you tell me of where? Where does it start? Show it to me.
She stopped and looked at me with the clearest eyes I think I’ve ever seen. I had been rocking on the wooden porch and the silence of stopping was so loud. The tick-tock of wood on wood was no longer in the air, yet clearly heard in my mind, as some echo, as if some aspect of reality had stopped but others had kept going.
You can’t.
Maybe.
You can’t. But that’s not the point. When we feel the breeze we only know that it is. Maybe it pours itself into our sail or maybe it chills our bones and we shiver. But of where, exactly where it begins, we don’t know.
And if we did?
Wouldn’t matter. The sand that has dropped to the lower eight is forever dropped, forever at rest. Yet is it? Like now. You hear it. You hear the rocking in your head but your chair is no longer moving.
I smiled.
And if you sit too long, you will go mad.
Perhaps I am already there.
Then you are blessed among us.
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