Dangerously Genocidal: microfiction

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Showing posts with label microfiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label microfiction. Show all posts

Sunday, 1 May 2016

I Heard Mother Earth - The Literature of Music

May 01, 2016 0
I Heard Mother Earth
The Literature of Music Series Chapter One


The theme for this week is the song “Earth Sounds” by the amazing performer Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh – I have included the link, and I highly recommend that you listen to it while reading. He performs his music by utilizing amazing vocals to create a sound that seems to reach something deep inside you that you didn’t realize was there. In this case, listening to the brief but beautiful song repeatedly, a tale of remembrance, and of regret finally formed within my mind. I hope that you enjoy this week’s translation of music to words.



* * * * *
I walk now as I did then, with feet bare and long soft grass brushing against my ankle. The trees rustle in the breeze, filled with the sounds of life. I can hear them; the birds singing their beautiful songs, as if harmonizing with the rushing stream and the shifting leaves. So many voices, all singing the same song, the same words. The song of the earth, or Mother Earth. She who provided, cared and loved.

Her voice was always there, the undercurrent that guided the tones of all her children. Her music was an energy that fed me when I walked upon her soil. There had been those amongst the people who once called me a druid. They built religions around the great mother, but I did not join them. She was mother not god, and deserved not our worship but our love, care and respect. Others called me delusional. I cared not much for them, either. All I cared to hear was her voice, her song.

I have not walked with bare feet in many years, nor have I felt the grass against my ankle or the shade of the trees. To walk barefoot now would risk burning the very skin from my feet, the hard and cracked dirt baked hot in the merciless sun. The only shade I have known for a long time has been only artificial. I cannot even recall when last I had heard the wind singing in the leaves, the sounds of birds, or the rushing of a stream… sometimes I fear I might have forgotten the song altogether.

There had been a place, once, where I had heard her singing clearest of all. High at the top of a waterfall, the rushing water created a crescendo that was accompanied by every piece of nature, every child of the earth, that heard it. Atop this waterfall I had sat many a day, listening to the mother singing for hours on end. I had wanted no more than that, content only to listen. I had loved mother earth… but never once had I taken it upon myself to speak for her. Would it have been pointless? Perhaps… simply another voice amongst the ignored masses. But now I could not help but wonder… if I had, would mine have been the one voice that finally tipped the balance?

I would never receive an answer. I’ve made peace with that.

I sit here now, on the ledge of what used to me my place of communion with the mother. I have spent many months making my pilgrimage here, through the harsh conditions that was now my home. The world is silent.

I can almost hear her voice again, for the briefest of moments… a memory so strong that I can feel the shade, hear the sounds, feel the dampness of the river. For a moment… I can hear my mother singing, calling me back to that time so long ago lost…

With a final breath, I join her in silence.


Vex Vaudlain   

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Tuesday, 26 April 2016

Silence - #BlogBattle Week 59: Voice

April 26, 2016 7


Silence
#BlogBattle Week 59: Voice

This is my entry for the #BlogBattle hosted by Rachael Ritchey. I had a few ideas, but at some point the little comedy piece I had in mind decided it didn't want to be written, but it the end it turned out to be a Drama instead. I hope you enjoy reading it!

I just want to say thank you to everyone who voted for this story as the Week 59 battle winner! I appreciated it very much!

* * * * *
She’s crying again.

I know why she’s crying.

She’s been doing that a lot lately, ever since ‘The Accident’. She never cries in front of me, but I can always see the stains on her cheeks when she comes in. They're almost permanent now. I want to comfort her, but what would I say? How would I say it?

It was never meant to go this far, but... but there’s nothing I can do about it now.

It was all an accident. Just an accident.

We were young when we got married. We’re still young. We both have... had goals and dreams and careers; she once put a picture of me in the dictionary, right next to the word ‘ambitious’. It had been a joke then. Now… now it's not so funny anymore.

But I digress. We were young, and we were driven. The brief discussion we’d had about children and parenthood ended quickly with a firm decision from us both: ‘Not anytime soon.’ Neither of us were ready for the responsibility.

She told me she was pregnant that night. I’m not sure why she chose to tell me then; we were both more than a little drunk on wine, and I probably shouldn’t have been driving to begin with. I still hate myself for that decision. Things could have been so different. We were such a happy couple. Our friends always told us that if anyone in our group could become a ‘power couple’, we were…

I’m sorry, I’m wandering from my tale again. It happens so often these days, just can’t hold on to a single train of thought like I used too. Back to ‘that night’.

We argued, I lost control.

It was a stupid mistake. If things had been different… maybe I would have been happy to become a father. Or maybe the argument and the pregnancy would have damaged our marriage irreparably. Sometimes I think the miscarriage already has.

She still tries to talk to me. I know she still loves me – it’s one of the reasons why she hasn’t left yet. The other… well, she doesn’t really have anywhere else to go. Her parents died when she was young, and mine… let’s just say that they would have been happy to hear about the miscarriage. Once the slew of medical bills started coming in, our circle of friends quickly dwindled down to nothing.

Sad, really.

She’s still crying, quieter now. It means she’ll be checking on me, soon.

Sometimes I want to tell her to leave. To go and find a better life. She’s only twenty five, she shouldn’t be stuck here, in this life, because I made a mistake. She still has all that potential… and I want her to realise it. I still love her, too. I just don’t tell her that anymore. I don’t tell her much of anything.

Other times, when I can almost see her determination to just end it, I want to beg her to stay… and I feel guilty about that. But I don’t want her to leave me here, alone. I don’t say a word. Not even when she begs me to just speak to her. To say something. I wish I could, especially when I can see the beginnings of tears in her eyes again before she storms out of the room.

She always comes back, though. Always. She promises that she’ll stay, that she’ll never leave me. But I know she’ll beg again. She’ll get angry again. One day, she will leave.

So many times I’ve tried to talk to her, to give her what she wants. What she needs. But the words always get stuck, and I feel like I’m choking on them. Tears that refuse to be shed burn behind my eyes. We’re not living anymore. We’re barely existing. But it’s all we have.

Here she is now, coming into the room. Look at her. She’s a shadow of what she used to be. She looks half starved, with circles under her eyes, her hair in a tangled mess. I can see three stains on her dress. They were there yesterday, too. I see everything these days…

“Hey love.”

She always says that. I say nothing.

“Are you hungry?”

Her eyes are pleading with me.

Silence.

“Let’s get you cleaned up, and then we’ll get you something to eat.”

That’s how I know she still loves me. She takes care of me, and she never complains.

I watch her until she disappears behind me, grasping the handles of the wheelchair. She’ll take me to the bathroom now. She’ll bathe me, she’ll feed me through a tube. Then she’ll wheel me outside and sing to me. She sings beautifully, and she sings often… these days.

She’ll sing to me, for me, filling the silence with her voice…

…because I don’t have one anymore.

Vex Vaudlain   

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