Done
A quiet morning and some coffee and music were what I needed to finish this: a short story that's one part Borges, one part track 2 from Jeremy Larsen's CD, and one part deployment.
solar powered girl
She told me that once she'd been a prow on a longship, a crudely carved legless beauty who faced the waves and tasted the salt of the ocean on her wooden lips every day. She had sailed the North Sea, the Atlantic, and even through the rivers of eastern Europe to Miklagaard where she had been sunk by one of the Emperor's galleys. An oilcloth wrapped ballistae bolt had run her ship through, setting the hull alight and consigning the longboat to a watery grave. For decades, she layed at the bottom of the Sea of Marmara, gathering mussels and watching the occasional corpse sway down to the ocean floor. She'd been raised by a Turkish salvage crew who was looking for Viking gold. Finding none, they sold the lady to an Arab merchant in antiquities, who smelled of figs and had a well oiled moustache that he would sometimes brush against the lady's cheeks. Following the sack in 1453 by the Ottomans, she was put in a mildewy cog and sailed across the Black Sea to Varna, and then overland in a wagon of valuables to Sillistria where she was trundled onto a barge and floated up the Danube to Belgrade. At the time, the names meant nothing to her: she was a wooden woman, uncomprehending. All she knew was that she was far, far from the sea. The smells and tastes were different, no seagulls keened to wake her in the morning. Only a succession of men, speaking in many tongues who traded and sold her as if she was only wood. Her lips were wooden, true, but her heart was red and and her breath was warm.
She was then modified, placed upon a dais and raised in a hall to look down on some noble's dining table. They even built a false ship for her to front, a few yards of curved wood nailed to her backside to complete the illusion of a longship coming through the wall. There she remained until a bomb from a bloodier war fought by great machines and small men tore through the roof of her hall, and failed to explode. The shock carried her into the rain, where she began to grow again. Slowly, over months, she ejected the nails and foreign objects that had been buried in her body. Like hair growing and falling out, ejecta. Like a statue crying, but she was very happy. She put down tenative roots in the cracked and wet earth, and by summer leaves had begun to sprout, covering her face. Years went by and a garden grew up around her, untended and uncalled for. Men walked by and paused in their chores, at peace for a moment, but soon to forget they had ever been there.
I was a child near the village of __________ which had been rebuilt after the bombs and boots had pounded it into the ground. The children used to play near the garden, but I was the only one that ever went inside it, ever dared to approach the strange and disturbing tree at the center. Her carved face was still visible, the swell of her breasts and the gentle curve of her hips...but she was like a mermaid planted in soil. We talked, for she had learned the language of our land through many nights in the Lord's hall here. She told me of far lands, and the travels and travails she had endured. Nails and bolts she could remove, but never her memories, and she never could regrow bark over the scars she had received at the hands of the sculptors who fashioned her. She once showed me some runes carved into her right breast that were the mark of a Norse woodcarver. He loved her for the thing that she was, and although he never understood fully what she was or what he had done to her, she could not or would not hide the markings. The Arab that owned her was always afraid of her, she said, because of the Quaran's prohibition on idolatry, the scars he gave her were hidden and secretive, flowing lines in Arabic etched into her hair, a sura from the Hadith about great beauty.
The day came eventually when I stopped going to my girl in the garden. She never spoke to anyone else, and I like to imagine she has never spoken to anyone else. I don't know why I stopped going, but it was like I had taken her life inside mine, buried it deeply, and walked away without remembering the girl herself. She became to me her stories and memories, and ceased to be a person. A person, yes, she had every quality of humanity, I am certain. Now I am very old, and I am going back to that garden to see if she still remains, as I remember. I have seen many things, traveled to some of the lands she saw, and remembered her occasionally at the sight of a sandstorm, or the flash of steel in the desert, or the sound of a seagull far from land. Now I am ready for another to tell my stories to, and I hope she will listen to mine and let me lay there with her for a time. Maybe I too will grow roots and leaves, and turn my face upwards into the sun and my legs into the warm earth.
I hope you read and like it.
solar powered girl
She told me that once she'd been a prow on a longship, a crudely carved legless beauty who faced the waves and tasted the salt of the ocean on her wooden lips every day. She had sailed the North Sea, the Atlantic, and even through the rivers of eastern Europe to Miklagaard where she had been sunk by one of the Emperor's galleys. An oilcloth wrapped ballistae bolt had run her ship through, setting the hull alight and consigning the longboat to a watery grave. For decades, she layed at the bottom of the Sea of Marmara, gathering mussels and watching the occasional corpse sway down to the ocean floor. She'd been raised by a Turkish salvage crew who was looking for Viking gold. Finding none, they sold the lady to an Arab merchant in antiquities, who smelled of figs and had a well oiled moustache that he would sometimes brush against the lady's cheeks. Following the sack in 1453 by the Ottomans, she was put in a mildewy cog and sailed across the Black Sea to Varna, and then overland in a wagon of valuables to Sillistria where she was trundled onto a barge and floated up the Danube to Belgrade. At the time, the names meant nothing to her: she was a wooden woman, uncomprehending. All she knew was that she was far, far from the sea. The smells and tastes were different, no seagulls keened to wake her in the morning. Only a succession of men, speaking in many tongues who traded and sold her as if she was only wood. Her lips were wooden, true, but her heart was red and and her breath was warm.
She was then modified, placed upon a dais and raised in a hall to look down on some noble's dining table. They even built a false ship for her to front, a few yards of curved wood nailed to her backside to complete the illusion of a longship coming through the wall. There she remained until a bomb from a bloodier war fought by great machines and small men tore through the roof of her hall, and failed to explode. The shock carried her into the rain, where she began to grow again. Slowly, over months, she ejected the nails and foreign objects that had been buried in her body. Like hair growing and falling out, ejecta. Like a statue crying, but she was very happy. She put down tenative roots in the cracked and wet earth, and by summer leaves had begun to sprout, covering her face. Years went by and a garden grew up around her, untended and uncalled for. Men walked by and paused in their chores, at peace for a moment, but soon to forget they had ever been there.
I was a child near the village of __________ which had been rebuilt after the bombs and boots had pounded it into the ground. The children used to play near the garden, but I was the only one that ever went inside it, ever dared to approach the strange and disturbing tree at the center. Her carved face was still visible, the swell of her breasts and the gentle curve of her hips...but she was like a mermaid planted in soil. We talked, for she had learned the language of our land through many nights in the Lord's hall here. She told me of far lands, and the travels and travails she had endured. Nails and bolts she could remove, but never her memories, and she never could regrow bark over the scars she had received at the hands of the sculptors who fashioned her. She once showed me some runes carved into her right breast that were the mark of a Norse woodcarver. He loved her for the thing that she was, and although he never understood fully what she was or what he had done to her, she could not or would not hide the markings. The Arab that owned her was always afraid of her, she said, because of the Quaran's prohibition on idolatry, the scars he gave her were hidden and secretive, flowing lines in Arabic etched into her hair, a sura from the Hadith about great beauty.
The day came eventually when I stopped going to my girl in the garden. She never spoke to anyone else, and I like to imagine she has never spoken to anyone else. I don't know why I stopped going, but it was like I had taken her life inside mine, buried it deeply, and walked away without remembering the girl herself. She became to me her stories and memories, and ceased to be a person. A person, yes, she had every quality of humanity, I am certain. Now I am very old, and I am going back to that garden to see if she still remains, as I remember. I have seen many things, traveled to some of the lands she saw, and remembered her occasionally at the sight of a sandstorm, or the flash of steel in the desert, or the sound of a seagull far from land. Now I am ready for another to tell my stories to, and I hope she will listen to mine and let me lay there with her for a time. Maybe I too will grow roots and leaves, and turn my face upwards into the sun and my legs into the warm earth.
I hope you read and like it.
How very Gaiman. And very lovely.
Posted by
Hannah |
3:20 PM