Wheoo! It's been a while. Things have been crazy around here, and bad me, not writing as much as I should. I'm changing that. Here is my second short story for class. It's a rough draft but kicks ass. It came directly from a dream I had this summer.
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Where's My Angel?
By Jenny Beverage
The baby was created, a cute, very silent infant swaddled in a Moses-era rusty red blanket. The blanket's course wool conflicted with the baby's soft, ebony hair. The baby's eyes were as silent as its heart. Nothing moved inside of the baby. It was a switch, waiting to be turned on. The place around her was drizzly, dark, and ruled by the unjust. The clouds above unleashed tiny sprinkles as Ezera sat on her stool, bare feet making circles in a puddle. Her small hands gripped the stool; she was barren of fun and obedient to her given destiny. The stool was the lone piece of furniture that wasn't constructed out of stone, overkill when you looked at the long, stone paths and stone walls and stone beams that crossed thinly over the river.
The woman was beside her as if she had always been there, as if time stood unbroken in the blink of an eye but had been moving for eternity beyond Ezera's millisecond blink, people hurrying across paths, mothers laughing and smiling, fruit being consumed by the barrel full. Ezera's eyes opened and her hair moved slightly as a red wave fell onto her forehead. The clothed woman handed her the soft-haired child, body so still, in the land of the pre-born. The woman's dark intentions were there, dark as night, in the world. Ezera, taking the baby, was bright and young and could understand nothing but love, as that is what she's in this world for.
The woman directed the girl, words unsaid, to take the child across the planks to show her the river. This wasn't the true intent, of course, but the little girl scarcely even noticed the baby wasn't in life yet. There was no fear in Ezera's heart, for there was nothing dark inside of the girl. She was a more of a puppet, but had pure love at her core. She was a bright speck of paint on the dark canvas that stood before her- the woman in the dark cloak.
Ezera stood up and planted firm little steps, holding the child with love in her hands, until she reached the cobblestone plank above the river. She continued across it without hesitation, eager in step to show the baby the beautiful river. It didn't matter that it couldn't see yet. The river always absorbed a bit Into Ezera's soul.
She was above the river, the gurgling water planting bouncing streams 30 feet beneath her. The whole sky was a grey, dead color. The sweet baby, so helpless and silent in Ezera's arms was unknowingly about to have a dark fate dropped with her by the cloaked woman in form of an unstable path of a raised cobblestone patch in the middle of the river below. The river flowed around it at a fast pace. This was simply the way things were done here. The woman was a fate, the girl the angel, a mixture of good and bad in order to bestow a balance upon the child who was to be born deformed- this one, a hunchbacked.
Ezera reached the middle of the slippery path. With the next step, her feet moved forwards and upwards on the wet stone. No lightening flashed from an angry god or bad omen; this was simply a place that was. The baby launched out of her hands into its fall onto the raised cobblestones below, where water splashed violently around it. The baby reached the bottom the second after Ezera's butt made contact with the stone beam her feet had been on a second before. But then, there was sound in a world where there had never been any before. The baby landed not on her back, but on the back of her head. The beam beneath Ezera disappeared into nothing, just shimmered away. She fell, down towards the river, which lost its dull grey color, as did the skies above. Nothing can go flawlessly forever, even after eons of perfection in its own quiet, unknown way. Sometimes the fates glitch and scatter as the wind awakens, acting like a god, to send a spark into the world, for better or for worse, just as sparks are.
She saw the colors warm as she fell into the waters, awakened from her state, becoming truly aware as her senses were created. They had not been there before. She splashed into the water, plunging completely and drawing her first breath when she surfaced. She had never felt temperature before, but she knew that it was cold. She knew a lot about temperature all of the sudden. She was in front of the raised cobblestones, where the baby lay. It had now been born. Her eyes were open and aware. By a gift, whether from a fate or luck, the child could not feel the pain from a piece of its skull carved out by the misplaced fall. The child was not a hunchback to be hidden from society, but a child with a scar. Ezera quickly examined it and knew it would not heal without tending to by someone pure of heart in this land."Well," Ezera spoke for the first time, "This sucks."
Now wise beyond her physical years, her brain was growing with knowledge of this unfamiliar world by the minute. She picked up the child, who was babbling along with the brook, and swam lazily towards the red clay bank. She climbed herself and the baby to the top. The baby gurgled at her, its first gurgle, and waved its little fists at her. Ezera smiled, connecting with the black-haired child who was to soon become her sister in this world. They were alone in this great plain, two children with no idea of anywhere they had been or would be in life.
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Ezera and Eva, as she named the child, who rather named herself, stayed along the river for what seemed like a great amount of time. Eva grew and ate wild fruit from along the stream. Ezera played with her and both enjoyed the times of the quiet of only innocent humans, one happy to be a sister finally and the other taking her first step and chattering incoherently, smiling with her two teeth. They lived peacefully among the flowers on the river bank. Peacefully, except for the cloth strip Eva had tied around her head. This was the only time of despair for Ezera, who had painstakingly tended to her sister's head for the last 1.5 years, trying to help the patch grow together again.
She gently washed it every day, carrying the worry alone. She tied the patch and the skull piece she had saved with several different things and used herbs to attempt to merge it together, but the wound remained broken, simply covered by the sheet of pressed on skull and what was currently a bright yellow band the siblings had ever since their fall. Ezera smiled at Eva every day. "Soon, Eva," she said. "It will heal and you will be a complete, healthy child, as children should be. The black-haired child did not look or sound sick. She was still blessed, but Ezera knew that even blessings could run out at some point. They lived a peaceful life for two years along the never ending, curling river before Ezera knew it was time to venture out from the river bank that caressed them like a hug, and see what more they could do.
Ezera told Eva so that last day, almost wordlessly. They walked out among the tall strands of waving wheat and flowers, holding hands and wearing handmade bundles of clothes upon their backs. The two of them walked for weeks before they saw anything new besides the Earth. Ezera had just cleansed Eva's skull again when Eva pointed and said, "Look." She pointed at a group of men with light, sun kissed hair galloping towards them on horses. They heard hoof beats on the packed, fertile dirt.
"Sweetie, these are our friends," Ezera said.
"Yay!" said Eva, her sweet face smiling. Ezera quickly finished covering Eva's skull, pieced together, beneath another clean ribbon (there were nearly 100 of them now; they kept appearing as they slept) and they stood side by side amid the large field, beneath the blue of the sky.
"Hi, there!" The leader said in gentleness. The men approached, angels of destiny as well, and were rather clueless as what to do with the girls. They didn't have wives or villages to take them to. Nowhere close by, at least. The men were skilled in protecting, not healing. They did teach Ezera sword play that day. After the sunny day ended, the men left as quickly as they had come. But they left Ezera with more knowledge. As their horses created dust from the scorched soil, Eva walked bitty steps to pick wildflowers. Ezera absorbed all of the information of wealthy, far-off lands. She could see it now, all in her mind's eye, without stepping a foot forward. She looked across the plains with her hand shielding her eyes from the setting sun.
She could see a mother laughing with her child in her arms, without fear of the cold or hunger. People lived indoors for some reason, buying food faster than they could eat it, and children with debilitating diseases and injuries were healed by doctors. She stopped looking. Here, she knew here and Eva were alone in the world, except for each other. There would be no doctors for her. No salvation when luck finally ran out. “Where’s my angel?” she whispered.
