A Placeholder for Reason
The whisps of conciseness coalesced around her, creating a patchwork of thoughts, feelings, and memories that came in and out of focus. Those millennia of seekers and supplicants who brought with them pain and desire as if wearing a wedding train that soaked up the tears caused by their wake and deposited them at her feet. She could feel each one before it evaporated back into the vague mists where it existed.
Eventually, she became lucid enough to seperate the visions of her past from those being newly formed. As she began to breathe, those visions of the “now” began to take a more solid form. She could see into the visions as if they were windows into those moments. She could hear the sobbing and feel the aching needs to heal bone deep wounds caused by loss and lament. She could smell the desperation of those that desired wealth and power above the very existence of their fellows. Those that would crush anyone near them for just the chance to be something greater than they were.
But what was it that woke her from her oblivian. The world stung her and she had worked so hard to escape it. Now, she was here again. And with absence, the sting was so much worse. She wanted to crawl away into the dark again, but she couldn’t. Something drew her to this world. This time. What was it? She worked furiously to sift through the windows. Frustration mounted, which was not an emotion she was used to. It was uncomfortable. Soon, she thought she might explode into a million pieces if she did not find the one. And then she did.
It was a small child. Still in the crib, in fact. As she watched it, the baby grew. It stopped crying when it fell and scraped a knee or elbow. It grew long hair before it was trimmed short again. It grew into a little girl. And the little girl learned to read and write. Learned to sing loudly and with passion. Learned to have friends and enemies. And it was when the girl was growing into a woman that she saw it. Saw the time of need.
Why was this girl so important to the universe that it would stop the great slumber? How was it that this mortal being, so fragile and small, could command time and space in such a way that the old ones could hear it? Would have no choice but to heed the cry to action? What was it about this girl?
She was in a park. It was nearing dusk and the water in the lake was a beautiful mirror, unbroken except by the occasional cool breeze and the family of swans that paddled lazily around. The warm air was filled with the sweet scent of blooming wisteria. This girl lazed in the shade of a huge oak tree on the velvet grass near the water. She was nearly asleep as the warmth of the day seeped into her skin when a knife blade punctured her skin, cleaved her ribs and pierced her lung. She was not even able to scream. In her suddenly final moments, all she could see was the face of the man who held the knife. Confusion, pain, cold.
But this was life. Life was death, inevitable. Why was this one so special? She looked at the path of the girl. The path that would have been. But she could not find a path, out of the countless, that would lead to a better world. This seemed to be an ordinary being. Mortal and mortally wounded. But again, why had she woken her?
At once, she decided that the fact that she was awoken at all meant she must protect the girl. For that reason, alone, it was worth the risk of contaminating the world.
She moved into the frame which enveloped her and burned her with being. The onslaught of texture and sensation overwhelmed her for a moment. Slumbering in the void made her comfortable without the world and now it all pushed in on her at once. But as she gained control of her being, she was able to move again.
The girl was fading quickly. The world had already gone dark for her and her heart beat slower and slower. She destroyed the man and put a hand on the girl. The rips and tears in her body began to knit back together. Blood started flowing and replicating and soon the girl was physically normal again. And then she opened her eyes.
In the months and years after the event, she thought about that day a lot. What was the being in her vision? Had it been a dream? She had felt the most intense pain in her chest. She thought she was going to die. And then she woke up. There was no man. No wound. Only the being above her. And blood.
After that day, the girl turned into a woman. She sought the being, but never found it again. What she did find, though, was little patterns in some scars she discovered on her chest. These patterns were mathematical in nature and had been unknown, so far as she could find. They were important, though. What they unlocked amazed even the most optimistic futurist. And although she never knew it, she also answered a great question asked by a great and eternal being.
Wrap-up
Today’s story was much easier than yesterday’s. I intended it, as I do everyday, to be much shorter. My goal is 2 or 3 paragraphs. Micro stories. Maybe I’ll get there one day.
And like the other stories, this one evolved as I wrote it. I have not hard-core outlined any of these. Maybe I should start. But as a daily challenge, it seems like that will take more time. But maybe it’ll result in better stories. I’ll experiment.
I have a definite reason for all the events in the story, but I don’t like to add meta-explanations without a good reason. So I guess they’ll stay locked up in my head until they leak out, forgotten.
Character Motivation Seed
from Story Engine
— Character —
A Prophet
- Eternal
— Motivation —
Wants to protect
- Durable
— Object of desire —
A Kingpin
- Illusory
— Obstacle —
But a terrible secret will come out
— Possession —
A Compass
- Pensive
