Photo: © Renee Heath
It had been a long night. It will be a long day and night still.
The old man sighed and watched the spirits paint the sky.
The youth had spent the night secluded in silent contemplation. The elders had kept vigil not far from the tent.
Some elders frowned at the arrangement. “Right of passage should require complete solitude,” they’d argued. “How else will there be quietude enough to hear the whispers of the land?”
“Times had changed,” he’d stressed. “The current world requires the tent’s protection as well as our watchful eye. Surely the spirits, in their wisdom, understand.”
For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers
