Photo: Sue Vincent
“Why is it this way, Mama?”
The woman let the small hoe drop from her hand. She straightened, hands over the small of her back, achy from the bending. The plot was spare, and the harshness of many a hard winter had stripped most of the topsoil off, leaving more pebbles than dirt. Still, it was better than nothing, and she was thankful.
The child had been sorting stones into piles. Larger ones. Medium ones. Smaller. There were repairs to make to walls and fences, and very little in the way of clay. Sizing stones helped make the puzzle of fitting the best bit in the best place, easier. It was a tedious chore that the girl somehow managed to make into a game. She had that magic in her, Margot did, the spark of joy that Annabelle spent every night praying would not ever have cause to slough off or be snuffed out.
“Mama?”
Annabelle nodded and turned her head toward the object of the child’s query. She’d had no option but to sit the child facing the chasm. One did not turn one’s back to the mist. Disrespectful. Ill fated. Even for children, who normally carried more protection by nature of their youth. Still, it was best to take precaution, and what the child learned early, she was less likely to forget later on and take a wrong step.
There was reason this plot was made available. Not many farmed so near the rift. Some claimed the uneasy air made foodstuffs grow small and weary.
Some did not have the luxury of growing theirs elsewhere.
“The light does not quite shine there the same way,” she said.
“What did they do?” the child’s voice was filled with pity, not fear, and Annabelle did not know whether in this particularity the compassion was something to celebrate or warn against.
“Some say they’d tied their soul to dark,” Annabelle sighed. The split and its reality was not something often spoken of. Yet unless some miracle happened and their circumstances changed, the child was destined to spend many days in close proximity to the Others’ side. It was better she heard truth from her mother, than distortions from those who felt more comfortable with lies.
She felt the child’s small hand slip into her calloused palm.
“They are not different than us, Margot. Not really. There was time before the split, before the earth heaved and the crack formed and separated this land into its pieces, where we all lived mixed together, if we even knew we were more than one kind. Now those who had happened to be on the parts that became the other side of this canyon, have the mountains dump the clouds onto them and the rapids raise a constant mist. It diminishes their sun.”
The child shuddered. Annabelle squeezed her hand to reassure her.
“There are those who chose to make their fear into a hatred, Margot. And that led to needing to make those one hated, be worthy of such ill-regard.”
“So they are good?”
“Most are. And some very likely aren’t.”
“And the big rocks?” Margot turned her head to inspect the piles she had just made. The stones balanced atop each other in formations mirroring the massive ones on the misty horizon.
“Put there, no doubt. No one quite knows why or how. Some say the ghosts of evil did it. The goblins that spit poison from the earth and crack the ground. I? I think it was people who’d arranged them. As you had the smaller ones.”
Annabelle had never shared with anyone the image that she’d seen nine months before the child was born. The figures scurrying on the impossible embankment, tucking what appeared to be smaller stones in the places where rocks nestled atop one another. The reverent silence of the people had her wonder whether they perhaps saw the rocks as headstones, memorials to those who had been lost to the maw that had swallowed so many when it had first sliced open the ground. A maw many did not believe anyone crossed.
She used her free hand to lift the girl’s chin so their eyes met. “Why did you put them this way, child?”
The gray eyes widened for a moment. In thought, not worry. “I wanted to respect the other stones, Mama. Their balance. How they don’t fall into the underside.”
Annabelle’s eyes filled. Her breath caught.
She smiled.
She never did find out who had forced her that night. She was blamed aplenty as it was, and so she never did tell anyone that she’d believed it had been someone who might’ve seen her watch them. Someone from the Others’ side.
A wonderful story. Allegory or prediction? Or just a fine tale?
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Thank you … and … it may well be an and/and …
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That last line has me shivering. As lifelessons asked, an allegory? I’d say so, and beautifully done. And I’m reminded of a life several times repeated in The Spinner’s Child (yep, my book). People fear those who are different, and in their fear they try to destroy .
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Thank you, Crispina. It may well be an allegory. And a historical replay of things repeated over lives in the past, and the present time, and a warning for the future. And yes, some fear those who are different, and instead of trying to learn, try to destroy. Human history is filled with righteous destroyers who came with their own agenda of dehumanizing the other so they benefit from what had been someone else’s.
May we do better.
May we know others as our own.
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First malign them, then destroy them. Just look at the news. And heave a sigh that it goes on, and on, and on…
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Yes. Indeed.
Now we have to contend with orders “from the highest places” that let to utilizing a medavac helicopter as a weapon against peaceful protestors, abusing the red-cross medical sign that is known for bringing relief.
It seems there’s no bottom to the depravity of those who need to ‘dominate.’
Sigh that goes on indeed …
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At times I feel like resigning from the human race.
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Oh, please don’t! We need all the humane humans we can get! 🙂
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Okay, I’ll stay.
I’m ever the optimist. I want to see what’s going to turn it around. Cos something will. This is a generational thing. It seems like an endless hell, but it’ll burn itself out. Soon, please, soon….
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Yeah. And hopefully more sane minds will do the right thing that insane minds do the wrong thing. I believe that good prevails.
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And so do I. 🙂
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I live in hope that such a divide need never occur.
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Thank you, Sue. I would venture to say that such divides had occurred too many a time in history, where some used fear to create hate and then the hate as ‘rational’ for explaining the ‘need’ for separation of the devaluing of others. One hopes it not happen anymore, though, yes.
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Sadly, on the smaller scale of everyday life, it is happening all the time and divisive prejudice is still rife.
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Yes, and hopefully, we can help remedy that. One person at a time. One interaction at a time. One election at a time …
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That’s all it takes to create change.
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xoxo
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Beautifully written, especially the concluding paragraph which leaves us wondering too.
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Thank you, Keith. These are interesting times we live in, aren’t they? The kind of stuff they dredge out of the subconscious is fascinating and, perhaps, mean to remind of what had happened and what we can watch out for …
And yes, one does wonder: how “other” is the “other”?
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Indeed.
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🙂
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What a wonderful read. And, I cannot help but think of The Dark Crystal…
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Oh! Thank you!
Now I have to go check it out and (it seems) close a gaping hole in my education! — I don’t think I’d ever seen it!!!!
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🙂
It’s a movie by Jim Henson – so muppets but way more! https://youtu.be/wW23YcaBHUg
It even has a link for you to watch the movie. We loved it…
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yes, I looked it up and it looks INTERESTING! 🙂 Thank you for the link!
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It really is good.
You fall in love with the Mystics and the Gelflings and even that witch-like character Aughra: Looks like gelfling, smells like gelfling, must BE gelfling! (the things we remember…)
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🙂 It’s going on my short list! 🙂
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🙂
Tell me what you think whenevs you see it 😉
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Will do! I read a little about it and saw the trailer and is is mucho intriguing!
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It’s a wonderful story. The boys liked it and they were just old enough not to be scared by the Sketskies… 😉
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🙂 I’ll try to be old enough to not be scared of them, either … 😉
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Oh, I think you’ll be good 😉
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whew … I was planning on watching from behind the couch … ready to duck … 😉
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He he he… You’ll be quite safe, I assure you.
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😀
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Such a wonderful piece, thank you! I really enjoyed this!
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Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it and thank you for reading and commenting! 🙂
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