St Alia: rough test for sci-fi muses
There will be those that say, “A beginning is a time for taking the most delicate care…”
But I am neither delicate nor careful.
So let the voices carry on the wind instead the words from long ago;
“All movement consists of six stages, and the seventh brings return.”
As this is my beginning so it also my return.
It is said as well, that to fold space one merely stretches out an arm.
So let me stretch. I see my flesh against the darkness, translucent waves of skin, the bones unformed, the arm wriggles, undulates, moving like a worm across the desert, a worm under the sand. The deep desert of Arrakis shines gold, I see unwinding before me a golden path crisscrossed by bloody footprints.
No birth comes without blood, be wise and study the truth of this.
Arrakis, Dune.
One of the spheres that dance like baubles in the darkness of space, one of the planets spinning now in my vision as a voice in my ear whispers,
"How many Alia, how many discs?"
All of them.
The truth.
All of them.
I reach out a hand and fold space.
I pluck the discs from the heavens and throw them to the golden ground. I have no fear of their sharp and wicked edges, I have… no fear.
“How many this time Alia?”
I have been practising, training, satisfying myself in a test of dextrous strength against the murderous metal. And my brother has seen me, it is his voice I hear as he holds me in anger and worries that I am endangered, worries that I am mad. And he is embracing me unknowingly.
As all men will do.
I can see their faces, spinning like discs, my brother, his people, my family, those yet unborn and those that trail behind me, those that travel in my wake. For I shall wake indeed soon enough.
“The sleeper must awaken!”
I see the past and the future. I shall remember them both. I shall remember them both. I shall remember…
I reach out an arm - I fold space. I feel my flesh connect with other flesh, through the rent, through the ragged envelope I reach out and punch a hole to the other side. I feel my flesh, my hand in another. I hear the mid-wife cry out, “She has cut me! The child has nails - sharp nails! She has cut me!”
But of course, am I not St Alia of the knife?
And so I am born, and so all that I was, a thousand, thousand lives before, is come again, incarnated. I am returned.
St Alia of the Knife, the Heretical Scriptures.
But I am neither delicate nor careful.
So let the voices carry on the wind instead the words from long ago;
“All movement consists of six stages, and the seventh brings return.”
As this is my beginning so it also my return.
It is said as well, that to fold space one merely stretches out an arm.
So let me stretch. I see my flesh against the darkness, translucent waves of skin, the bones unformed, the arm wriggles, undulates, moving like a worm across the desert, a worm under the sand. The deep desert of Arrakis shines gold, I see unwinding before me a golden path crisscrossed by bloody footprints.
No birth comes without blood, be wise and study the truth of this.
Arrakis, Dune.
One of the spheres that dance like baubles in the darkness of space, one of the planets spinning now in my vision as a voice in my ear whispers,
"How many Alia, how many discs?"
All of them.
The truth.
All of them.
I reach out a hand and fold space.
I pluck the discs from the heavens and throw them to the golden ground. I have no fear of their sharp and wicked edges, I have… no fear.
“How many this time Alia?”
I have been practising, training, satisfying myself in a test of dextrous strength against the murderous metal. And my brother has seen me, it is his voice I hear as he holds me in anger and worries that I am endangered, worries that I am mad. And he is embracing me unknowingly.
As all men will do.
I can see their faces, spinning like discs, my brother, his people, my family, those yet unborn and those that trail behind me, those that travel in my wake. For I shall wake indeed soon enough.
“The sleeper must awaken!”
I see the past and the future. I shall remember them both. I shall remember them both. I shall remember…
I reach out an arm - I fold space. I feel my flesh connect with other flesh, through the rent, through the ragged envelope I reach out and punch a hole to the other side. I feel my flesh, my hand in another. I hear the mid-wife cry out, “She has cut me! The child has nails - sharp nails! She has cut me!”
But of course, am I not St Alia of the knife?
And so I am born, and so all that I was, a thousand, thousand lives before, is come again, incarnated. I am returned.
St Alia of the Knife, the Heretical Scriptures.