Page 10

THE brIGHT MOMENTS

WREN

T he Councilmembers retreat from the Ancestors’ Wall, faces churning in black fury.

If they can find a way around their given permission, they will, and as soon as they are able.

But until then, the space has been granted, and with no guidelines, an unusual failure on their part.

If I can speak to all the bones at will, they can’t keep me from hidden pockets in the village; no excuses need to be made for my presence anywhere.

Raek is too busy physically dragging Nickolas away from the small jut of land to think of his rare misstep, followed closely by his supporters in the group.

Sinking to my knees, I begin to gather the broken pieces from the ground in front of me.

Logically I know that there is no value left in the empty shards, but it feels sacreligious to just leave them in the dirt.

She was not Exiled, is not Sleeping, was not lost to the Storms, did not pass without a Keeper…

I am not sure what has happened to the bright, singing soul.

In my lifetime I have never known Living Bone to just… just…cease to exist.

Bending my head, I listen as the bones around me recite the names of Raek and his followers as though committing them to memory. Nickolas, Killian, Malik… A weary sigh from one of the bones as the list continues. Corbyn.

At the sound, I find the weather-marked curve of an occipital bone, and trace gentle fingers along its surface.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper to her, and she echoes the apology back to me, shame thick in her voice.

She is embarrassed to claim Corbyn as her grandson, a funny word for an older man, but most bones don’t see age as the flesh living do.

Their memories don’t move forward in the same way as the people who still walk the earth.

Everything from their time on two feet is bright and vivid, and is like seeing the world through my own eyes.

Taste, touch, sound, smell — it is all fresh and new, and I can feel each recollection on my tongue, on my skin, in my nose.

Anything from after they are woken in bone, though, is like watching the world through a heavy veil, or oil smeared window.

Nothing in their recent memories is quite as clear or vibrant.

So two Corbyns overlap in her thoughts — one a clear, gleaming-eyed child with chubby fingers and a loving smile, the other a grey-shaded man, face lined and lips sneering.

They ebb and flow into each other, one picture surging to the front then fading into the other.

And the pain for her seeing the boy she sang to sleep slip into the Councilor who didn’t even greet her bones is overwhelming.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur again, but she does not respond. There is nothing more to be said, and the wall falls quiet.

Once I finish collecting the empty bone, I place it carefully at the base of the shrine, and consider where to go.

None of the ancestors offer advice; all refuse to speak, as though it drained everything inside them to argue against the Council.

I wait for a time to see if they’ll relent and give me some guidance, but they may as well be carved from stone, so eventually I offer a blessing, then go back to the main square.

It has emptied completely by the time I return; even with the threat of half-silos, life must continue, and there is work to be done.

Chickens and sheep don’t care if you are hungry.

Crops, however scant, won’t plow themselves.

In any case, now that the morning chill has faded and the air warmed to midday, it is harder to hold onto the frantic fear of the morning.

Here is a truth only those who live constantly at the edge know — when your cup is already full of fear, and sorrow, and misery, eventually it overflows, the excess running off and falling, uncared for, onto dry ground.

You do not have the capacity to add to it for longer than a moment, because life pushes through, even in the darkest moments, dulling the pain so you can breathe, and walk, and laugh.

If you drink too long from the cup, trying desperately to keep it from overflowing, give weight to every sadness, eventually you will forget to inhale, and you suffocate.

You drown yourself because you are unable to focus on the tiny sparks of joy in the blackness, on the real now instead of the maybe then .

When you are always starving, you eat the bread you have before it goes bad, or is stolen in the night.

Borrowed pleasure and borrowed pain are mirrors of each other.

Neither is real, just a shadow of emotion. I know that better than most.

The Harvest Month holds the brightest sparks of our golden seasons, the flames of shimmering moments that help us as a people get through the winter Storms. Panic will not make the silos produce more grain.

Sadness will not give the hunters more game.

But taking every drop of pleasure from the time we have, well.

Those moments, however brief and seemingly meaningless, can pull you through the cold and endless hours of the coming months.

Offer hope. And hope, in its own way, is more powerful than an empty stomach.

H is for Hasten, when thunder is done. Take the bright moments when you can.

With that thought, I know where to go. And, with a smile in my soul, I leave the square.