Letters arrive from home. I've stopped opening them as too I've stopped sending them. I'm tired of talking around the edges. How can I go home when I can't even write of it? How can I face those eyes when I've seen so many here? How can I want this child so much yet disown my own lineage?
And what do I say of his father? I feel a boy within me. Protected from this war by the membrane of my belly, by the fortune of eighteen years. To feel this life inside while seeing so much death outside is like standing in the dark of a full moon. And what of me when they know. What then?
__________
There is the sound of kicking, of my feet against the hull, my back in a life-raft. I see faces on deck, mostly disinterested and the muted sounds of a party, of laughter dissipating in the wind. The sun is setting and I'm drifting away. Sleepy on the lapping lullaby of the ocean. This is how it feels. Drifting away. Alone.
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8 comments:
I adore the way the story is progressing -- read every day.
Love Natalie Merchant, even when she was in the 10,000 maniac.
Smiles,
Sue
These things present themselves as universal truths, by the fortune of eighteen years, protected from this war by the membrane of my belly, it is as though you are filtering a truth that is out there. It doesn't seem like creation at all. Know what I mean?
Thanks Sue. Glad you are following. Got a lot of ideas of where this is going, at least in the short run. I think they may be crossing into Germany soon and I think there might be some interesting conversations between Mary and an older German woman who sent a son off to war. In this small hamlet, the nurses are garrisoned with the local population.
This song reminded me how much I love Natalie Merchant's voice. :-)
Erin, what a wonderful compliment. I keep reading it, your comment, like brownies that I can't get enough of, and though my belly is full, I want more. Thank you. Thank you Erin. :-)
As for universal truths, not sure about that. I simply become the character at the moment of writing and let them write whatever is in their head at the time. I literally don't know what they are going to say from one sentence to the next and I often prohibit myself from editing their thoughts, contradictory as they may be at times.
I love that you introduced Natalie Merchant's song into this piece. It firms up the center somehow, or centers me in the reading. A compliment to the view. Worthy of holding to.
S., I'm so glad Brett went back into the studio and rerecord Heaven as a duet. That he chose Natalie is genius. Tears come to my eyes when she starts singing, as if the words were written for her to sing, as if no one else should ever, could ever, sing them as she does. I feel no separation with her. Voice and lyric is one, as quaint as that sounds.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about the feel of this song fit perfectly with the feel I had for this post, for Mary, for her mindset and the scene as a whole. When I lose myself in the song, I lose myself in Mary, in her story, in her pain and need and desire and hope, in the pure agony of her darkness and I see her hands extended to the heavens, asking, pleading, begging for light, for help, for something more than what she has.
Hey you,
would you pass me a link to the song/video that you must have posted here, nothing shows up on my screen beneath your wonderful post, being saved for tomorrow, besides a big empty box. x
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKbLR3MEjAg
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