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Safrine sat on a small comfortable sofa. There were several blankets on its arm for her to warm herself should the cold begin to bother her. In front of her sat a small table and on it a glass of water and a plate with some fresh food; potatoes, carrots and beans. Beside the plate was a single spoon that she could use to serve herself.
The rest of the room was empty, but it was a small room so it had a cosy appearance and from where she had just been rescued, it was rather comfortable and consoling to a young girl having gone through such a traumatic event.
Safrine sat on the small comfortable sofa and looked only into the tiniest flickering of dust that floated through the tiny key hole, moving to her, between liberation and bondage, but to the dust; an object of exanimation, but just one space to another.
For like a dog, dust was not bound by conscious plagiarism or self-defined imprisonment. No room was a cell, but merely the space it had to explore.
Safrine danced with her eyes as a tiny grain, a miniscule insignificant speck of substance, caught a slight breeze and fluttered about, coming into her room then rushing up into the air, vanishing in the dark and then just as she pardoned her focus, the tiny speck fell down in front of her sight, hovering again in front of the light.
It flittered and fluttered and moved up and down,
It then flew through the keyhole and hovered around.
She quivered and shivered and blinked of her eyes,
and then held of her breath as to will it inside.
She yenned and she yearned til the grain it returned,
and the sight of its flight quickly quelled her concern.
She watched the dust sail about with the same detachment as Marcos had; the swirl that had staged a performance in the surreal emptiness that gripped this cold grey August morning underneath his window.
The Mother walked into the room with her dress swishing about her feet. The Mothers never wore shoes. There was something ethereal and wholesome about the sound of a woman’s feet against a chilly concrete floor. The Mother too seemed to dance through the room, finally coming to a rest, like the grain of sand, by the young girl’s feet.
“Hello, my dear” she spoke, coming to one knee and resting a kind hand on the young girl’s leg.
“It’s so wonderful to have you home,” she said with a chestier smile.
The Mother’s eyes were large and warm. They made you want to keep looking long into them and when you did, you unhinged yourself and cast off your indecision, unbuckled your girded apprehension and became of influence; taught, learned and loved.
Safrine looked into the Mother’s eyes and almost instantly a state of relief and consolation took care of her unease. The young girl let go of her burdens and forgot of that insignificant speck of sand that she had willed into her conscious prison and instead swam in the opiated milky white eyes and the dreamy blue iris of the kind woman kneeling by her side. The Mother took both of Safrine’s hands; cupped into her own.
“Are you not hungry my child? You touched nothing of your meal” she said.
Safrine didn’t stray from the Mother’s eyes. She responded only in obedient silence.
“That’s perfectly fine my dear. Your hunger will catch up with you soon.”
The Mother lifted herself and sat beside Safrine on the sofa. The young girl curled up with the Mother and wrapped herself in her arms, never falling away from her stare.
“Your family was with concern. You were gone for such a long time. We are so happy that you are safe and home” said the Mother.
Safrine closed her own stare and asked, “Where is Dada?”
The Mother held the girl tight against her enormity, almost suffocating her in the process. She squeezed the girl rocking back and forth, shushing lightly as she did so.
“It’s ok my dear, you’re safe now. Those men can’t hurt you anymore. You’re with your family now. Nothing can hurt you anymore my love.”
“I want my Dada” sobbed Safrine.
“You wouldn’t remember the day you were born here in the Nest would you? How absurd of me, how could you? You were just a baby. You were such a wonderful baby. Everyone smiled when they saw you. They still do. You can imagine then, how bleak your brothers and sisters were thinking that you were gone” said The Mother.
“Dada,” said Safrine.
She was curled around The Mother’s waist and gripped her arms, massaging the inside of The Mother’s left palm with her index finger; something she did to help herself relax.
The mother ignored The Child’s triste.
She let the child exhale her sadness and vent this wasteful emotion and make space for collective love. Between every whimper, The Mother would shush The Child, each time more gentle than the last until eventually, The Child returned to serenity; too tired to mourn.
“I bet you’d love to hear a story, yes? What Child doesn’t love fancy? Let me tell you before you were born, we had such a terrible time in the Nest. The seasons had given us such poor condition and we were with at great difficulty. But then we found out your Mother was pregnant and straight away, the whole family felt love once more. As we focused on love, wouldn’t you know it, love focused on us. In each month of your carrying, the Nest grew more and more amorous and the seasons and the tides and the universe, they all reached out to your Mother’s belly for they knew that within her, the light of the world was waiting to be born. And my dear Safrine, you were that light. My dear, you still are that light.”
Safrine nestled closer to The Mother. Now she stared out into the dark room away from the white of The Mother’s eye drifting further from her paternal desire and more unfamiliar to its sound. She still held in her mind, the image of her father, but the image was becoming clouded; it was also becoming harder to make out the definition of his face.
“The day of your birth was glorious. I remember you came into the world so fast and with such ease. Everyone was so surprised, especially your Mother. I believe when her water broke and you were determined to arrive, your father was out patrolling the Nest. Your Father was such a brave man. One of the bravest, mind you. He was one of the most respected Fathers and the by far the most valiant White Heart ever to defend our lives.”
The face in Safrine’s mind; once grand and clear, was gradually fading into the outskirts of her imagination. The face of the man who had taken her was now unfamiliar. The more she listened, the more she thought of someone new. The Mother stroked at The Child’s hair, took a long gentle breath and continued;
“Your Father was away at war. We had been at battle for many years and your father led an army of White Hearts into the dead city to fight for our continuity. He fought for you, my dear. So you could be born without fear, knowing only love; the love of the Collective, of your family, of your brothers, of your sisters and of your Mother. He died so that you could have life, my Child. He died so that we could give you life. He, the rapacious warrior, the gallant leader and your enamoured Father, died at the exact moment you came into the world. At the fall of his sword, light came into the world and the dark kept where it belonged, in the company of night.”
The Mother ran her fingers through the girl’s hair, her eyes lit and her smile etched wide as she told the story. A tear came to the young girl’s eye as now in her mind, she could see her Father’s face more clearly.
She imagined him falling to one knee, his sword in his hand holding his heavy bloodied body, that even in death he was aboding and emanated an indomitable strength.
In her mind, her Father looked up to the sky, at the millions of dead souls that lit the night and shone down upon him, that would guide him to eternity to forever gird upon the night, keeping the dark within reason, within control.
When he looked up to the sky, his hand gripped his sword, a tear rolled down his face and a baby’s cry echoed through the night and into his ears. As he fell over onto the cold wet dirt, she imagined herself falling into her Mother’s arms, being pulled to her breast and feedi
ng on her love and life. As the infant’s eyes opened, so too did a dying man’s close.
His face was strong in her mind; his large commanding eyes that seemed to pin one into submission, his thick blonde hair that carried in the wind and his chiselled face; a work of symmetry. She felt a wave of love wash over her and as she did, she envisioned her Father; as dictated in the Loving, imprint in her subconscious.
Her mind was clean.
The Loving was done.
The girl lay down on the sofa with her little legs curled to her body. The Mother swished back out of the room carrying the plate of food and after she had long gone, vanishing through the maze of winding corridors; in her place, a man in a white coat came into the dim light and kneeled beside the girl. He took her right arm gently by the hand turning her palm upwards as he pulled her arm closer to his chest.
The Man in White pressed his index finger against the pale white of her arm until a tiny blue vein came to the surface of her skin. He then took from his coat a long syringe with yellowish liquid and ever so gently; so as not to rouse the girl from her slumber, eased the needle into her vein, drew back and injected the fluid into her arm.
The Man in White put the syringe back into his coat and re-positioned the girl on the sofa so that she sat upright; her arms hanging ineffectually beside her still body and her legs; like molecular jelly, completely paralysed.
The Man in White then attached tubes to the girl’s arms that connected to dripping bags that hung above her head. A clear liquid slowly passed from the bag through the tiny tube, drop by drop, travelling the length of her body from above her head to the tips of her feet as it fed through the tiny tube that stretched to the floor, over her feet, up her left leg, taped to her open palm, and buried in her left arm.
Each drop could tell its own tale as it slowly wound around her body and eventually poured from the tip of the needle into the contours of her arm, swimming through the girl’s vein, excelled by her beating heart from her wrist to her brain where neurons fired that hadn’t fired before.
The door opened and from behind a man walked in.
It was The Behemoth.
“Is it working yet?” he asked.
“Not yet,” said the man.
“How long” replied The Behemoth.
“Come back in fifteen minutes,” he said.
A Rising Fall Page 22
