Of Oceans and Stars

Once upon a time a man stood at the edge of the ocean.  A look of wonder played on his face, for he had journeyed far to witness the sight, and encountered many obstacles that would have barred him from it.
            It had begun when he had heard tell of a body of water that swept out to meet all the stars that had ever been.  It had been said that to see it was to see infinity proved endless.  Though the man had long struggled to act bravely, having denied himself all adventure in the name of fear, when the words fell from the lips of more than one passing traveler, a charge lit through him.  It was as though a tremor had set within him; a task from God.
            Thus, he had gone forth without trepidation, his goal fixed firmly in his mind.
            But a week into his journey, he was set upon by ravens who plucked at his clothes and his shoes leaving his body scarred and covered in nothing more than rags.  In the second week creeping thieves took advantage of his sleep and stole all his small wealth that lay in the contents of his purse.  Still worse, after many days had passed, a hag stopped his way and cursed his feet with boils so that each step he took felt of piercing agony.
            How he persisted, and indeed why, the man did not know.  But to put one step in front of the other had become more patterned habit than anything.  At the very least, he had the beating of his own heart to keep him company. 
But even that waned after a time.  For the fact came upon him suddenly that he knew himself to be so very alone it was as though even if he came upon a million people, he would never be able to find himself anything other than lonely.  And that was when his heart began to fail.  The beat slowed, becoming ever fainter, until he could feel almost nothing within his chest.
His head hung low with the weight of misery and despair.  He would take one step more, and go no further.
            And in that step, he crested a hill.
            There they were: the stars hung like bright drops of suspended dew.  There was the water, swelling into infinity.
            Suddenly the pain had passed, the burden no more, the awe all the covering, wealth, and balm he had ever needed.  It had been well worth the journey.
 

Popular posts from this blog

The Woman in the Tower

Once upon a time a woman sat alone, locked at the top of a stone tower.       When the people who had come to settle near the tower first approached it, they discovered her locked inside, and set about freeing her. The question as to whether she had been put there, or whether she had voluntarily ascended was to become a moot point, for when the door was finally unlocked, she refused to descend. Indeed, so often did those who wished for her liberty come to the door of the tower and try to remove her from the top most room in which she had once been locked, that, after a time, she discovered a way in which to lock herself in—and all others out.       It is unknown how long she remained locked in the tower room, for no one could get inside to see her until a sizable knight who happened to be passing was asked to go up and use his hefty shoulder to beat down the door.       But when he did so, it was discovered that the tower had ...
Read more

The Fae Wood

There were the haunted woods. You know them. The ones you walked through that night when the mists lit up with an eerie light and you knew you’d regret it if you didn’t follow the light to its source.       The source was the moon, of course. There was no surprise in that.       But the twilit pond did surprise you.       Not because it was a pond, but because of the faerie creatures that danced about it with their tiny bodies gliding about on shining wings, all gossamer and glow.       When you stripped off your jacket and dove into the pond, that surprised you, too.       Not as much as the Fae creatures on the other side who pulled you up as you gasped your breaths and told you that you would be there for the next hundred years.      Which was fine, you decided in an instant.        You didn’t mind.      ...
Read more

The Fairest

The whirlwind wasn’t chaos—at least, not quite. Too, the mesmerizing glare from the light around it wasn’t precisely destructive. But there was a rather foreboding quality to it, made all the more so by the woman dressed in black controlling what turned instantly into thick, shadowed lightening that danced in the palms of her hands.    She dressed in black with purpose. Long ago she found that color fades and white darkens. Black it was, to maintain the passage of time.    In her looking glass she sought the Fairest, as she was wont to do in a moment of weakness.    A woman agéd, hair as white as snow, skin as black as night, in a ragged cloak of many colors.    And a soul that glowed colorful, too.    The image in the mirror was a fool. She cared to serve the poor, the sick, those at the mercy of the law.    Haggard. Deluded. Powerless.    At peace.    That last was no more than a split...
Read more