LJ Idol Week 29: Portfolio Challenge #3
Bannister Effect
The ground came up to meet my heels in a lover’s rough encouragement, propelling me along at a speed I never achieved before. I’ve been running my entire life; if the women in the songs can achieve the impossible feat of escaping an impending fate, then so could I. If a nymph can sing and dance without chastisement, then so can I; if a nymph can give her heart freely, then so can I; if a nymph can achieve radical freedom, then so can I.
I knew the day would come when my future would be sealed with hands that were not my own, with decisions I never would make for myself, by gruff men with gold coins in their eyes and pliant women with nervously wringing hands. I did not intend to endure the unendurable. I could be the women in the songs, with strong legs, expansive lungs, and industrious hearts. My desire for freedom would be met, so mote it be.
When I was just a slip of a thing and naïve, I thought I could escape across a meadow, throwing up my desperate wishes to any deity who would listen, but the men on their steeds always caught up with me. The thunderous hooves reminded me of my Keeper’s feet and I would retch on the long ride from whence I came, bound hand and foot, to my lush prison, with heavy curtained windows and enclosed courtyards.
Everyone rejoiced the day of the hand fasting, but I did not. My Keeper played his reed pipes skillfully and my companions smiled widely, wet eyed, looking at me expectantly with quivering lips. I could feel my voice being pulled from my throat and my eyes stung with the cruelty of it. I was congratulated on the match, hand after hand enthusiastically grasping mine. I did not answer, my voice was as soft and raw as a newborn rabbit, hairless and abandoned. My Keeper’s voice was not as melodious as mine; he bleated like a goat, louder and louder every day.
As time marched onward, so did I, my legs became stronger, so, I took to the mountains to reach the cold stream, where I could submerge myself to become as one with it, as stoic as the spring frost, like the nymphs. My bare feet were ripped by the unforgiving rock, and still no deity answered my desperate wish as I heard the pursuers and their howling dogs gaining on my determined trail. I remembered the dancing before my confinement, but the only music I hear now is my Keeper’s reed pipes, with my stolen voice howling, and my arms are too heavy with the grief I carry because of so many failed attempts to escape.
Before I gave up on the aid of a deity, I wished to feel my bones crack and expand into broad shoulders and swollen haunches. I pleaded for a heavy fur pelt, I begged for my teeth to grow long and sharp and I implored those indifferent forces to take my long fingers from me and give me the claws of the bear. My anger sat like a furnace in my gut, fueling my desire to rend and tear. Later, after I felt the darkest despair of aloneness, I lay prostrate for days. I entreated those same deities to allow me to waste into something weightless. I did not wish for my freedom, or my strong legs, or powerful jaws. I asked simply to be like the woman in the song who became an echo, ephemeral and unseizable.
This is when I started having the underwater dreams, then I knew what I must do to become like the nymphs in the songs. In those dreams, I do not have legs, but my thighs are still powerful, and instead of feet, a great fin fanned out below me. I moved through the water like an arrow shot through a clear sky. The ocean surrounded me in a comforting embrace and I am impossible to follow or to snare.
I stood in the gardens with my face tilted up into the sky every day afterward. I practiced stillness, which mimicked reservation. I practiced groundedness, which mimicked calm. I imagined my toes growing strong roots into the soil, deeper and deeper into the dark until they broke through to the underworld. I imagined my limbs growing up towards the sun, my skin turning into rugged bark. I sprouted thorns. My branches bloomed with enticing flowers, and I bore poisonous fruit. My Keeper began taking me with him short distances to test my stability. I was a tree. He looked forward to showing off his pet to the kingdom across the sea.
I practiced, I imagined, and I feigned complacency, until finally, the salty air from my dreams hit me full in the face one early morning after a long journey across the hard land. The sun’s rays were thin and sharp on the horizon. My Keeper dozed and his attendants swayed in their seats. It was nothing to open the door and land nimbly. I was already running.
My legs were stronger than tree trunks, my feet were more sure than roots, my lungs were dizzy with the last breaths of air I would ever need. My hair streamed behind me like a banner proclaiming my impending freedom. I was almost to the cliff’s edge by the time the travel party began to shout and exclaim. I heard their hooves, and my Keeper’s bleating voice, but it was so far behind me now. The waves of the sea drowned out all sound but the air whooshing past my ears, and my heart thumping in my temples.
I leap. I bend my torso forward, my arms above my head reaching for the crashing waves below me, my legs are straight, and my thighs are already itching into their scales. I soar from the cliff edge, across jagged rocks. The pristine blue of the sky and ocean is above and below me, offering the quiet promise of freedom.
***
So concludes my third story for the Portfolio Challenge.
Please check back after the weekend for voting information!
The ground came up to meet my heels in a lover’s rough encouragement, propelling me along at a speed I never achieved before. I’ve been running my entire life; if the women in the songs can achieve the impossible feat of escaping an impending fate, then so could I. If a nymph can sing and dance without chastisement, then so can I; if a nymph can give her heart freely, then so can I; if a nymph can achieve radical freedom, then so can I.
I knew the day would come when my future would be sealed with hands that were not my own, with decisions I never would make for myself, by gruff men with gold coins in their eyes and pliant women with nervously wringing hands. I did not intend to endure the unendurable. I could be the women in the songs, with strong legs, expansive lungs, and industrious hearts. My desire for freedom would be met, so mote it be.
When I was just a slip of a thing and naïve, I thought I could escape across a meadow, throwing up my desperate wishes to any deity who would listen, but the men on their steeds always caught up with me. The thunderous hooves reminded me of my Keeper’s feet and I would retch on the long ride from whence I came, bound hand and foot, to my lush prison, with heavy curtained windows and enclosed courtyards.
Everyone rejoiced the day of the hand fasting, but I did not. My Keeper played his reed pipes skillfully and my companions smiled widely, wet eyed, looking at me expectantly with quivering lips. I could feel my voice being pulled from my throat and my eyes stung with the cruelty of it. I was congratulated on the match, hand after hand enthusiastically grasping mine. I did not answer, my voice was as soft and raw as a newborn rabbit, hairless and abandoned. My Keeper’s voice was not as melodious as mine; he bleated like a goat, louder and louder every day.
As time marched onward, so did I, my legs became stronger, so, I took to the mountains to reach the cold stream, where I could submerge myself to become as one with it, as stoic as the spring frost, like the nymphs. My bare feet were ripped by the unforgiving rock, and still no deity answered my desperate wish as I heard the pursuers and their howling dogs gaining on my determined trail. I remembered the dancing before my confinement, but the only music I hear now is my Keeper’s reed pipes, with my stolen voice howling, and my arms are too heavy with the grief I carry because of so many failed attempts to escape.
Before I gave up on the aid of a deity, I wished to feel my bones crack and expand into broad shoulders and swollen haunches. I pleaded for a heavy fur pelt, I begged for my teeth to grow long and sharp and I implored those indifferent forces to take my long fingers from me and give me the claws of the bear. My anger sat like a furnace in my gut, fueling my desire to rend and tear. Later, after I felt the darkest despair of aloneness, I lay prostrate for days. I entreated those same deities to allow me to waste into something weightless. I did not wish for my freedom, or my strong legs, or powerful jaws. I asked simply to be like the woman in the song who became an echo, ephemeral and unseizable.
This is when I started having the underwater dreams, then I knew what I must do to become like the nymphs in the songs. In those dreams, I do not have legs, but my thighs are still powerful, and instead of feet, a great fin fanned out below me. I moved through the water like an arrow shot through a clear sky. The ocean surrounded me in a comforting embrace and I am impossible to follow or to snare.
I stood in the gardens with my face tilted up into the sky every day afterward. I practiced stillness, which mimicked reservation. I practiced groundedness, which mimicked calm. I imagined my toes growing strong roots into the soil, deeper and deeper into the dark until they broke through to the underworld. I imagined my limbs growing up towards the sun, my skin turning into rugged bark. I sprouted thorns. My branches bloomed with enticing flowers, and I bore poisonous fruit. My Keeper began taking me with him short distances to test my stability. I was a tree. He looked forward to showing off his pet to the kingdom across the sea.
I practiced, I imagined, and I feigned complacency, until finally, the salty air from my dreams hit me full in the face one early morning after a long journey across the hard land. The sun’s rays were thin and sharp on the horizon. My Keeper dozed and his attendants swayed in their seats. It was nothing to open the door and land nimbly. I was already running.
My legs were stronger than tree trunks, my feet were more sure than roots, my lungs were dizzy with the last breaths of air I would ever need. My hair streamed behind me like a banner proclaiming my impending freedom. I was almost to the cliff’s edge by the time the travel party began to shout and exclaim. I heard their hooves, and my Keeper’s bleating voice, but it was so far behind me now. The waves of the sea drowned out all sound but the air whooshing past my ears, and my heart thumping in my temples.
I leap. I bend my torso forward, my arms above my head reaching for the crashing waves below me, my legs are straight, and my thighs are already itching into their scales. I soar from the cliff edge, across jagged rocks. The pristine blue of the sky and ocean is above and below me, offering the quiet promise of freedom.
***
So concludes my third story for the Portfolio Challenge.
Please check back after the weekend for voting information!