The Arrow 1
We began with a woman on horseback. She had a white veil that didn’t cover her face, but hung down to her waist. She had a crown on, and a red and black velvet dress on under the veil. She was sitting sort of side saddle, but with one knee hooked over the horn of the saddle. She was very strong. She had dark eyebrows. She was waiting for someone. She didn’t know who. She was slightly anxious but not too much. She was strong. She had something inside of her. A message. She was waiting for someone to give the message to, but she didn’t know who it was. The message was a gold hand inside of her chest.
The Arrow 2
Then an arrow is flying through the sky. Way up high across the stars. Coming down right over her. She looks up and it pierces her chest. She holds onto the arrow as it goes right through her and takes the hand out with it. It falls on the ground.
A boy comes by. He is a boy around 8 or 10, but he has the face of a young man. Maybe around 18. He is very strong. He has blond hair. He picks up the arrow and tosses it aside. He takes the hand and puts it on. Over his own right hand. His left hand is blue. Both his hands are now bigger then normal. He goes into town and to his surprise no one notices that he has these huge hands.
Sitting on the Bank
1
The boy is sitting on the bank.
Water moving from the right to the left.
And down.
But not as if from a waterfall.
The water is cold.
Behind is a high wall.
With no caves.
The water is too noisy to discern more than it’s speech.
So he listens into the water.
2
There is motion on the other side.
But the weeds are tall.
They had cut his skin when he had come through.
The wind stopped and a bird flew in front of the sun.
He used to know this bird.
Then the motion again.
Something was moving
at the back of the weeds.
When the water became still,
his breath stopped.
3
At times before,
when he’d been out,
alone in the wild,
pushing the edge of fear,
right up to the toe of panic….
and then pushing through.
It gave him a sense of power.
But here,
he was not alone.
And his heart jumped.
4
Something was moving.
pushing through the weeds.
close to the ground,
its breath heavy
as it moved closer,
closer to him.
He backs away
into the folds of the rock.
Then it appears
Pure blackness…
a shadow emerging from the weeds.
Part Three – I SAW A CAVE OPENING
I saw a cave opening
High up on the wall.
For days and days I climbed.
And when I got close
I could hear movement
Movement inside.
The entrance looked flat and shut.
But when I got closer, it opened to me.
I saw two hands
Working.
They were working on the outside
With wood
Sticks of wood
Cutting them, trimming them
Making them smooth and straight.
But they were also working on the inside.
It was as if each hand
had another hand inside of it.
An inside hand.
And this inside hand
worked and shaped an inner power
as the outside hand worked the wood.
One hand was rough, calloused, hardened.
It chose the sticks
and bent and broke the wood as needed.
The other hand moved quickly.
Picking up a tool
cutting and trimming the tail.
It was soft, that hand.
It would feel up and down the wood
Removing splinters and making it smooth.
I took a step forward
And loosened a rock that fell.
From there a blue fluid began to trickle out,
Staining the floor of the cave.
One hand stopped working for a moment
While the other kept going.
The hard, calloused hand was nicked by the blade.
And a shiny drop of blood oozed out and landed on the point.
Slow Fire
One night when the fire was slow, they heard a low breath outside. The youngest of them was building up the fire when it attacked. The suddeness of the attack caught her off guard, and she fought the best that she could. She was no match for it, however; her left shoulder crushed and partly open. It was trying to move into her throat, and she kept this from happening for quite some time with just her hands. She was dragged through the woods, and her strength began failing. She called for help from the others. It had been dragging her by one foot, and she had been trying to catch hold of it, or the rocks or ground below, to delay it. She called again and they all came. Rather then take them all on, merging his darkness with theirs, he decided to let her go. Once the two were completely separated, they brought her back and dressed her wounds.
Darkness
He stood in the rain
Absorbing it
As easily as the light
He was afraid of nothing.
As darkness, there was nothing to fear.
Except for the lightning,
That was horrible for him.
It wasn’t the sound
But the brightness cutting through the black.
“It doesn’t belong there,” he thought to himself.
“These flashes of light.”
Splitting his darkness in half.
He didn’t eat like the others.
Food for them was the remains of life,
And that gave them life.
But food for him was when he could turn light to dark.
And the residue of that, nourished him.
Once he was cornered by them
Their luminous missles attacking him from both sides.
And he felt himself shrinking.
He tried to spread himself out.
But he couldn’t
Not this time.
So he retreated
To regain his strength.
And for as much as they hated him
He, still, could see what they shared.
He loved to make things
And would leave small artifacts behind where he had been:
Pieces of wood,
curious stacks of rock,
maybe bend some weeds into an unatural shape.
He knew they took these as signs of his presence.
And this amused him.
In one way his world was very large.
He could move about at night, or in the day if he was careful.
But in another sense it was very, very small. And he knew it.
He grabbed a shell, put it on a leaf and set it loose on the water.
Water Woman 1
He was a small man. Almost childlike with his round face.
We loved to follow him around. Not getting very close. There were always birds near him. Small little birds around him. Which most didn’t notice as strange. And many didn’t notice at all. But we did. Especially for how thin the air was up there. These little birds always surrounding him.
And sometimes a rabbit. And always the same one.
He lived up higher then the others. And we loved to sneak up and see what he was doing. Although no one could make sense of him. Moving things around. He would come down, break a stick, pull a flower, take some water, and go back up.
The older people told us to stay away from him. But no one knew why. “They should stay away” we often heard, even though it was commonly known that he was good luck for us all. So much so, that many people carried food up and left it for him. And yet, they were also afraid of him.
Water Woman 2
Second Part.
It came one day that a woman was passing by his spot. She stopped and asked him for some water.
We saw this because it was allowed to be shown.
He got a cup and brought it to her. She drank it and asked for some more. He took the cup. He went back, filled it up, brought it to her. She drank it and asked for more. He took the cup, filled it up, brought it back to her. She drank it, and again, asked for more. And this went on and on and on.
We were watching from a distance. But close enough to see, even before he did, at least so we thought, that she was starting to swell up. He didn’t say a word. He just kept going back and forth. Getting the cup, filling it up, bringing it back and giving it to her.
Water Woman 3
Third part
Eventually she started to swell to the point that there was no way he couldn’t have noticed. And yet he said nothing. He just kept trodding back and forth, the same path. Bringing cup after cup of water.
She began to become grotesquely swollen. And her face began to change. Her voice deepened and became repugnant and abusive. At first she just had a mean tone with him, but soon she started to speak unkindly. However, he kept smiling his round smile, grabbing the cup, taking it away, filling it up and bringing it back. The little birds chirping at his side.
He didn’t even seem to notice the beast being born out of this woman. She grew larger and larger. Eventually she started throwing the cup at him and shouting “MORE WATER, YOU STUPID LITTLE MAN!” And with his round smile he brought it to her.
Now… eventually, the birds began to become disturbed. And when he was off with the cup, one time, they gathered together and made a plan.
Water Woman 4
Fourth Part
And the next time he made his journey back with the empty cup to where the water came from, they snuck around behind her. She was picking at her teeth and didn’t notice them. Or didn’t care. She was drunk, now, on all of this. And as he brought back the cup, this final time, and handed it up to her, six of the birds came out from behind and stuck their little beaks deep into her skin. One in each hand, one in each ankle, one in her neck and one in her back.
The second they did, small leaks formed, and the fluid began coming out. A trickle at first. And then stronger, pushing the birds out of the way, as this huge beast deflated.
As soon as she became aware, her anger boiled, far beyond anything her rude manner had suggested. She began shouting, “WHAT’S HAPPENING? WHO’S DONE THIS?!?!?”
She turned and saw the six birds, and with a flash in her eye, incinerated them. Leaving small scars on the ground.
Then she turned to the man and bellowed soooo fiercly… Her fiery breath burning his body. Charring it down to the bone in an instant.
All but the hand that held the cup. It fell against the rock. Smoldering.
She reached down and grabbed the cup and threw it away. But she couldn’t stop the wounds from leaking. Her bellowing turned into pathetic cries, as everything that held her up, oozed out onto the ground and into the earth.
Once there was complete silence and everything was still, we came out of hiding. And moved onto the scene.
It was as if a great battle had taken place. And yet, it seemed, no one had won. And then we noticed the rock with a burn on it. And we saw the hand. Shining in the sun.
First Sign
The first sign was that the wind had stopped.
The second was when, even though he knew the water was flowing, he didn’t hear it anymore.
The third was when he found he was holding his breath.
The fourth sign came in the sense of being watched.
At the fifth he knew he shouldn’t stay.
There was a darkness moving towards him.
He’d felt darkness before.
But not like this.
Coming directly at him.
He saw the weeds moving on the other side.
Weeds taller then he was.
The movement was erratic.
As if it was searching for something.
Was it lost?
No, it seemed to be
looking for something.
Almost as if in a panic.
What was it looking for?
He’d walked through there
and knew how thick it was.
Thick and thorny.
The welts and scrapes on his arms still stung.
And now something was coming towards him.
Pushing the weeds out of the way.
This flow through the weeds
reminded him.
Of something he saw when he was young:
just barely a child and
never really told anyone about.
He tried with his grandfather once.
But the old man wasn’t receiving it.
So he stopped
and kept it for himself.
“I woke up late one night. Some feeling pulled me away and I slipped out from my family. The moon was so bright. Like a blue sun, silvering all the land. Our corn shifted in the breeze. The animals were still”.
“And once outside there was something huge standing there. So huge I thought it belonged”.
“ my memory, as I go back over it, it’s shape was not quite an animal, not quite even an insect, or a machine. I walked closer. It seemed to not notice me. To have no concern for me. And when it did notice, it seemed to ignore me. And that caused me to want to push myself even closer”.
“And then I felt my presence almost become an irritation. As if I was distracting it from something. It moved its attention from its unseen task for a split second. I could tell it was looking. A mixture of feelings confused me. A complete fear that I was about to be obliterated by its power, which overwhelmed my own. Or was I to be given something, something of its power… a gift?”
“But this small child’s arrogance didn’t last. And then, in between the space of two breaths, it was gone”.
“I saw the blur of the movement. It clearly didn’t vanish. If it had, it would have meant it was not of this world. At least to me. Back then”.
“I didn’t move for a long time. Just stood there in the light. Watching the shadows shift around me”.
He hadn’t thought of this for years.
And here he was, now, with this dry cliff to his back.
And the water, in front, moving from his right to his left.
And the weeds on the other side.
And here was a darkness moving towards him.
He could hear it’s low breath.
The thing pushing through.
Pushing the plants out of it’s way.
He backed up,
slipping into the rocks to hide,
as its shadow
came out
to the edge of the water.
Walking into the Stars
After he leaves the village
The boy will feel like he’s been seen for the first time.
Recognized in a unique way.
He will walk off into the distance.
Sensing within himself
All the power given to him as a small child
Mixed with that power which he built himself.
As he walks, he will see nothing behind him.
And he will begin to move faster.
He will begin to leave the ground.
And the light of the Sun will be in the distance.
He will go past that
And move upwards.
He will begin to move very fast.
All his vision pointing forward.
Seeing only blackness, for a time.
But a blackness he will not fear.
And he will go higher and higher,
travelling far, far, far
Into the distance.
Small luminous punctures
will appear in the black.
And he will feel himself even stronger.
All the strength that has been added to him, over time
Pushing right up to the front
As he soars
Into the stars.
And when he gets to where
he’s been moving to,
He will spread himself out.
Spread himself out
Wide across the stars.
And when he does this
He will feel even more within himself.
Though not unlike what he felt
at the very beginning.