I've recently started yet another book, and I've decided to start posting my work here on the blog. I'd like to hear what you think of the work as it proceeds, and I'm hoping that by posting it I'll stay motivated to finish it. I hope you enjoy the tale. I'm calling it Baree at the moment, a better title will make itself known.
Baree
Allow your humble servant to paint a scene for you: A woman sits alone of an evening, a single low-burning candle casting yellow light over the dull brown of her surroundings. The small house is silent around her save for the repetitive tick-squeak of a chair with cleverly curved feet, a cherished gift from her husband, long dead, tilting back and forth over dusty floorboards. Her face is remote, her dark eyes unfocused, betraying nothing of the tumult within, and is this not the state of all humans? If thoughts and feelings had weight she would be crushed where she sits, and her clever chair with her, but the gods were wise when they made humankind. The worst of what a person carries is invisible, weightless, and yet sharp minds will dull, strong backs bend, and hearts break or sink like iron under the constant pressure of pain and disappointment. She carries a raging torrent within her nondescript frame, expressed only through the movement of her legs as she pushes gently against the floorboards, just enough to keep the clever chair in motion.
She is called Baree, which means in the language of her folk “a gentle breeze”. She does not know that in a far off land there is a fire-mountain which shares her name, for in that land the word baree means, “blazing giant”. It is the custom of her people to give at birth a name whose meaning the parents would like to see the child emulate. Baree's parents wished for their daughter to be calm, peaceful, a draught of reprieve to all whom she should meet in her life. They did not know that her name held another meaning entirely to the people in a far off land. When words shape our lives in such a way, is it any wonder that our lives fork as they so often do? Who can say when a gentle breeze may become a blazing giant?
Baree barely moves, her eyes focused on nothing, but the energy of her existence is swirling inside her. All of creation is like this, energy swirling, eddying, clashing against itself, becoming more or other, never dying. Sometimes energies fight for dominance, in nature or in a human body. Betimes a steady current of water can wear away parts of a great mountain, and life has done this to Baree. All the shiny new parts of her have worn away beneath the current of life, leaving nothing but a whispering wind of her once gay breeze. Sometimes, though, the mountain booms like thunder, “ENOUGH,” and sloughs off parts of itself to dam the water, keeping itself for itself.
Baree does not notice as her legs become still, the chair becomes still, her thoughts become still. She is not aware that the slumbering giant within her has stirred to life, so she does not yet understand where the sense of a booming voice in her mind has come from. All she knows is that she is tired of sitting here, rocking another restless night away, waiting for the candle to burn itself out while she herself does the same. She doesn't recall moving, has no memory of her calloused hands pushing against the arms of her chair, does not remember her perspective changing as she rose, but now she is standing in the center of the house that used to brim with life, and there is nothing here that she cares to see any longer. The slumbering giant has spoken inside her, and it has said, “ENOUGH.”
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this so far. Please "follow" my blog to stay notified when I add posts!
Regards,
Allison
