LJIdol write-off for week 25 - Wind
There are tales passed down in every family. Stories that tell us who we were, what we have become, and how we got here. Every family's tale is different. Many share certain similarities: an important event; a revelation; a change; a moral.
But they all share one thing. A beginning. Ours begins with wind.
--
The family gathers at the edge of the desert, facing into the wind that brings all things. Heat. Rain. Life. Death. Change.
And sometimes, hope.
Today, in the presence of only a meager breeze, it is this last they search for. The family is dwindling, and lately the wind has brought no respite from their struggles. The family matriarch, clad in a massive shawl, kneels on the sand beside a naked, young mother-to-be. The child's father crouches behind them, hair almost touching the ground, wearing only a satchel. The other family members, fully clothed to protect themselves from the elements, gather in a semi-circle behind him.
The old woman's hand glides over the ground, lightly brushing the loose sand. She carefully scoops a handful and spreads it in front of her, humming softly. The wind has shifted slightly, causing her dark hair to cover most of her right arm. It moves like an additional appendage as she continues her hand movements. Before her an image begins to form in the sand. Slight depressions become contrasting shapes. Lines solidify. Patterns emerge.
A circular weave. A line that curves at one end. An oval that flattens the sand inside it.
The young mother-to-be sits transfixed, apparently staring at the design forming in the sand. In reality, her eyes hold no focus, blurring the emerging pictures in the sand. Her mind concentrates instead on the child inside her. Who will he become? What does he mean for their future? What will the wind bring? Redemption? Retribution? All will be laid out in front of her soon enough.
The father stands and scans the ground over the shoulders of the two women. As he rummages through his pack, his hands touch the objects inside, feeling their shapes. When the shifting oval in the sand takes its final form, it finds its way to him.
The cylinder.
A gasp escapes another family member as he pulls it from the bag. It has been many years since the cylinder was the container of choice. It holds great influence. A potential harbinger of change, but to what end?
The wind begins to gain in strength, causing the ground to glitter as it moves. More patterns crystalize in the sand. A rectangle with repeating florals. A hand with no thumb. Two more still trying to finalize themselves under the ever-moving hands of the matriarch.
The father lays the cylinder beside the mother of his child and turns it slowly in his hands. There. The floral pattern from the sand is imprinted near the center of one end of the cylinder. Slowly he turns the chosen end.
The mother closes her eyes now as some of the sand has taken to the air. The gasp still echoes in her mind. Not the sphere then, and not the cube. They are too common for such a reaction. And not the statue, for no one had snickered. Which one then?
The father slides the two ends of the cylinder apart, briefly lengthening it. The half with the flowered end slides out to reveal six panels, each covered in symbols. He opens the one with the hand and removes the basket shape from among its contents. Its sides are etched in a tight circular weave.
The woman gathers the final pile of sand and pours it over the images. The motion of her hands forces sand from one area to another, completing the previous designs, but creating nothing new. Two shapes remain unformed.
The mother recognizes the cylinder without looking. The sound of sliding metal. She has heard it once before. A lifetime ago it signaled the end of all she knew. Her eyes begin to tear. No one else had been there then; they can't know why she is crying. When they ask, she will blame it on the sand.
If she is ever allowed to explain.
The father opens the metal basket carefully. Inside are a dozen small carved shapes. He lifts them one at a time and places them on the ground before him. Some he recognizes. The long hooked pole of the hunter; the tree of the mother; the eye of the loner; the intertwined rings of the lover; the pyramid of the builder.
His smile fades as he recognizes two more shapes. The crown of the king. The skull of the destroyer. One might save them all. The other cannot be permitted to live.
The woman stares at the remaining indistinct shapes in the sand. Her hands slow and then finally stop their fluid motion. She sets her hands palms down on the ground beside the swirling sand as if to hold the world in place. The wind stalls. Silence fills the air as the last of the sand settles to the ground.
"Breathe, my dear."
The mother's eyes open but remain unfocused as she responds to the woman's words. Deep inhale. Long, smooth exhale.
The sand in the last two areas ripples and settles into shape. Intertwined rings. Pyramid.
The old woman closes her eyes and nods her head, her hands continuing to hold the ground still.
"A most promising reading. A hunter and builder comes, with love in his heart."
A sigh of relief escapes the father, breaking the tension. Hands are clasped, foreheads meet in greetings of joy. The metal shapes are imprinted upon a small clay pendant. Afterwards, the father gathers the shapes and rebuilds the cylinder. The mother is swarmed by her sisters, and laughter is heard for the first time in many moons.
As the family gathers to leave, the old woman slowly rises to her feet, raising her hands to let the sand move again, allowing the wind to erase the last symbols now uncovered, unseen by the rest of the family.
A crown.
A skull.
She stares out over the desert, watching the wind swirl in the distance and smiles.
A most promising reading indeed.