I’ve decided to begin posting the work that I’d submitted for this term’s final assessment.
My grades have been received and I am quite pleased with the results. However to the marker to who looked at my prose – I do not actually have a background in poetry, so that doesn’t actually explain my unrelenting attention to the individual importance of every single bloody word, (or however they said that). Haha! My background in poetry consists of a lot of intimidation to the pros, leaving me with very scattered attempts that make me smile. Although, according to the poetry feedback, my attempts are successful, so yippee!
Anyway, these posts will consist of poetry, prose and a few acts of a play. It’s also important to mention that some of these posts will involve updated work from this blog, but I think it’s cool to see the impact my courses and classmates have had on my writing ability – which has been a very positive one!
So for those interested, the first one is an updated version of Three Nights – a piece still in progress, as writing is really never done even if it is published.
xx, Kristin
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Three Nights
A rare breeze caught the cloths as they dangled from poles of her makeshift tent. Tied together and knotted to the warn branches, they provided a thin shield from the sun. Heated rays burnt the earth, and through the cloth, with precision. The assault was beautiful. Colors rained through the cloth’s silk thread, casting shadows of yellow, red and green inside the tent. With a groan, she sprawled on a thin blanket between her and the sand. Eyelids fluttering, the light sound of the fabrics rustle could be mistaken for waves brushing against a sandy shore. It was an ocean dreamed of by desperate searchers lost in the hot sun. She dreamt of home. Of a gemstone sea that flooded her subconscious. It woke her into a moment of confusion.
There’s no water here.
The sun had never been told of mercy.
The sun’s proudest desert.
Blinking against the colored beams collecting on her face, she rose. For three days this tent was all she knew, and the few granted supplies had been depleted. Earlier this morning she’d cast the worn, leather pouch from her tent as the last drop of liquid bit her tongue. Now, hunger and thirst pushed her towards surrender. With a glance through the fluttering cloth, her eyes skimmed the horizon. Soon, the sky would turn red.
To orange.
To pink.
To blue.
To purple.
To the royal darkness of a desert night.
Weight on one hand, she twisted a small ring around her finger. Its pale, blue stone jolted with occasional light and depth when the sun found its surface. Pulling her cracked lip between her teeth, she turned the ring for a fifth time lost in the gentle reliefs of the silver band, and the eight pointed star which held the stone. There was nothing more enchanting than its glimmer and shine. She twisted it once more to hide the stone under her finger and wrap it in her palm. With little thought, her thumb stroked the ring.
(Click Continue Reading to Keep Reading the Story…)
Three days had passed since she had been left in this tent.
Three days since her family expressed their pride and grief.
Three days since he had touched her hand.
Three days of solitude.
But it was not the distance the days put between her and these memories. They were a small pillow between the first night of awareness and the last night of involuntary acceptance. There was nothing left. No time. Swallowing, she stood and stepped into the sun. Without a glance, she knew how the ring would appear. She held it to the sky. The horizon became red as the sun gave a passing nod. It was falling closer and closer to the rolling dunes.
Any moment now.
Any moment.
Her thoughts called home. The look on her grandfather’s face when the twelfth year came and his only granddaughter alone stood ready for the sacrifice. He held a few strands of her red hair, the only one with such locks in the village. It was right, there was only ever one. Her father’s explanation left a burning in her heart.
“You are chosen to save us all.”
He had said.
“The honor is great.”
He had insisted.
And yet, her grandfather stared at her with wetness building around his eyes. He did not speak, only stroked her hair, braiding it into knots in silence. He squeezed her hand. They all knew what it meant, the sacrifice. Her father walked her down the village street with his palm pressed on her back. She eyed him but he never looked down. She never saw his face. They all knew. Every twelve years the one with the red hair would be cast into the desert alone. When she walked into the desert with the ornamental blue stone, she knew another would be born soon with hair like her own. She knew she would never meet the child, but that in twelve years the child would face the same unknown fate. Well, unknown until the third night in the colorful tent of cloth between the dunes.
Now she stood.
Arms stretched to the sky, she watched the horizon change. The sun slipped from sight. A chill broke down her spine but she did not waver. The world was blue, navy and grey. The moon sparkled against the sand, casting a pearly light onto her face. The sand glinted, shifted and rose. Great beasts formed from the crystal slivers of the landscape. They groaned, pushing against ancient gravity to rise. Their eyes matched the stone of her ring. They bent to see the red-haired child before them. Snorting, sand dusted the night. She fell to her knees. “The honor is great,” she repeated. They stepped forward shaking the ground. “The honor is great.” She bowed her head. They bowed their heads.
“The honor is great.”
He had insisted.
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