Behind the town, dilapidated but sweet, there are several temples; some with fresh offerings on their steps, some covered in moss, prayed to by only the animals.
This girl comes from a family of many; a family of loud, of love, of laughter, and fighting. A few have left the family; some have joined since. Sometimes, she is the youngest, everyone's kid sister, walking barefoot with milk creased between her lips. Other times, when some have died or drifted, she feels herself stretch into the eldest, her skirt pulling up to her thighs and her arms moving in deft designs. This is the way her family functions, or at least, she feels it is.
One night, she is out with them at the temples. There is a bonfire; it is beautiful, it is hot; it cooks warm foods for them that night and the smell of burned cornsilk and scorched fruits draws dizzy moths to death. Amidst the trading of bowls and stories, a piece of bread is dropped. It crumbles a small path along the hard earth out of the light and into the bushes and when she pushes through the foliage, she sees there is nothing larger than a crumb to salvage. She looks up, because that is what crouching, investigating things do before they turn around.
In front of her is a stone head; it does not look back, it's eyes are closed, but still, she feels watched. Six arms wind down the figure and into the earth, pulled down by the ivy climbing up; the seventh arm is broken beneath the shoulder. The monolith is quiet; her ears prick at the sound of breathing. It is her own; how strange she should not have heard it before, she thinks.
The way her chest feels, boneskinbridge, alarms her, then and now, though in different ways, each.
The ways her legs feel beneath her kid sister frock and woman's skirt feel strange, then and now, though in different ways, surely; she runs her fingers along the sides of her thighs and calves to try to find the meaning.
Every day for some odd time, she visits this peculiar place, away from her family and their love and their fire. When she returns to the house at night, she fills her belly with cold water from the well and the leftovers from the bonfire. In the morning, she cooks, and the pots and pans listen, and she shakes them all morning over the fire, filled with eggs, breads, birds, soups.
"Why does she move like that, Adda?" One of her siblings asks one day, peering around the cabinets at her swaying skirts.
"She is ill, perhaps," an elder says, staring at the marks on her neck.
"It is beautiful, I think," the child croons, watching her dark skirts sway and smelling the meat cook.
"It is not beautiful to be ill," the elder replies severely.
Good food is made that day.
A chicken, to be prepared for meal, is slaughtered; its brother is let loose in the forest.
The elders shake their heads in disappointment, perhaps. She doesn't know, or give a shit, probably.
Feathers are stuck in the earth for the fun of it.
One day the forest catches fire.
she is in it at the time.
There's a pond for her to hide in until it is over.
"You alright?" She spits up bubbles and surfaces.
And that's all, really.
The monolith remains; the scorched parts rub dark on her skin. Irritated patches of red wind up her arms.
She does not go back there for awhile, maybe
But eventually, she does
Weird creature
Another day
she is leaning against it, thinking of things. Small and boring, probably; but perhaps large and profound. A bit of the damaged rock falls and hits her. It stings. It teaches her something about rock formation, probably. But also gravity; also her own free fall speed; also conservation of momentum.
"What's your plan?" The golem asks.
"I don't plan," she mumbles, rubbing the sore spot on her neck. She tries not to, at least.
Another day, she is leaning, again, because she is tired. Or maybe she is trying to push it over, see if she can.
"I am pretty much invincible."
Something, anyways; she doesn't know anymore. She never knew many things, only what her hands and heart knew to do on their own, sometimes.
She says many things. Perhaps to it; perhaps just..just to the air around it. She wonders if it will breathe her breath and talk back sometime. But it does not answer her questions.
One day she places something small and warm along the shoulder of the monolith. Perhaps it is a chick; she still saves some from slaughter. She cups her hands around it as it walks precarious paths.
"Are you afraid it'll drop and break?"
"No. It won't break. But the sound it makes when it hits the ground is just so...ugly. It's the sound my head makes when it hits the pillow. And so it makes me tired, too."
Some days she goes; some days she stays at home and rubs her arms. Some days she is not aware of them, because someone in the family wraps them up in their own. Those days are her favorite; but so are the ones in which she wipes ash along them again.
She is much altered by this thing she cannot alter; strange, one way road, it is.
She says many irrelevant things and thinks even more of them.
Or something.
So there was this girl who almost did.
No--she did. She does. She's doing--awful, too-late-tensed things. Irrelevant things. Idealistic things? No, that's bullshit is what that is. But it might be true, too.
And then there was a fire, and a lot of water, and gravity.
But I hear this girl is still around, doin' stuff, I dunno, trying to stay focused but trying to lose focus of a bad habit, somethin' that don't need her as much as she seem to need it.
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