original; song of prayer
TITLE: Song of Prayer
CHARACTERS: Echo, a girl, a mountain, a goddess, a statue.
RATING: PG
WORD COUNT: 2,862
*
The world was by no means young, when she had first lived, but it was smaller then; the tribes and villages spread across the flat plains and over shadowed even the Empires that would one day raze them to the ground. They meant more than the cities that would enviably imprint themselves upon the face of the earth, as if the trees and plants and footprints left by deer had never been there at all. What she knew of the world spread as far as the horizon she could see when dawn broke, where the sky bled purple and blue as if it had been painted like that, but none of that ever limited her in any way, for every time she took a step forwards, the point at which the earth and sky met took one step backwards, as if tempting her to come ever-closer. She trusted her senses wholly, sight least of all, and revered the earth itself. She felt its face make maps on the tough soles of her feet with every movement she made, heard the rustling of leaves speak back to the wind, and smelled the way the air turned from sweet to stagnate when another season slipped into nothing, and made way from the rumbling of storms.
Her village was small, neatly positioned between a winding fresh-water river and rough, steep terrain, which lead to a great plateau of open, fertile land, like a mirage amongst the jagged pillars of rock. Back then, before the land was struck by what some claim was a great thunderbolt, and others believe to be the fist of a disgruntled goddess, and split apart into separate continents, causing great borders to be scorched across the land, the world was, for the most part, pressed flat. Any hills that rose towards the sky or valleys that dug at the earth's heart were regarded with both suspicion and respect, any only even lived close to, never in or upon. Nobody ever set foot in such lands without first being blessed and praying to the sun, and those who did shoulder the duty of ploughing the fields and harvesting the crops were honoured by even their village elders, but thought of as outcasts by many.
Echo would set out each morning, clasp her hands together once she reached the village's limits, and ask the sun to let her bathe in light enough to get all of her tasks for the day done. She did not strap sandals to her feet, no matter how ragged the loose stones littering the ground were, and among the neighbouring villages, word spread of a woman who tilled the fields of her own accord, before the memory of dawn had yet to fade from the morning air; they said she had the strength of an ox, and perhaps the determination of one, too, but she kept to herself, and would never substantiate any of these rumours. In fact, so content was she with her life that she allowed the other hill-climbers to take much of the credit for what she did, and only asked that she had the first pick of the crops, so that she might distribute them evenly throughout the village.
When the ground froze over and no amount of faith would cause so much as a weed to grow, she would dress herself in thick furs from animals she herself had slain, and ensured that those around her would want for nothing. There was a girl she lived with, in her simple abode, and they had been like that since the sixteenth winter of her life. The girl loved her dearly, though she did not quite understand the bond that Echo had with the earth, or why she loved the harsh landscape so; but her acceptance of the way of things were outweighed all of this, and her affection towards her was not dimmed in the slightest. While Echo worked in the fields and ran through the forests, spear in hand, the girl would keep to the confines of the village, weaving clothes from cotton and the pelts of beasts, and collecting all manner of odd trinkets strewn around the village.
Echo would bring back peculiar shaped rocks and shiny stones, and there they would sit, on a hollowed out piece of bark next to the fire; the sort of set up that would later become known as a stove. They were happy, like that, each living their own lives that entwined perfectly, and they never caused offence to anyone. They were the most pious of people, for then believed that they had been blessed by their entire pantheon of gods. And even when Echo no longer had the strength to scour the sides of hills or cut across valleys, and the girl's vision flickered and faded away, long after her hands were made unsteady by the thought alone of using a loom, they were happy still, and never once cursed their fate or the gods, even as their lives drew to a close.
And despite what the rest of the tribe predicted, Echo was the first to go. They did not build a funeral pyre, nor did they wrap her body in cloth and let her float down the river; at her request, the earth was dug open, and there her body was laid, where the turned soil was piled back upon it.
It wasn't long until there was nothing but bones left, and in what almost amounts to the blink of an eye in all of time that had passed up until that point, those bones turned to dust; before long, nobody left upon the world's surface remembered that such a person ever existed. Everything that she had ever known in her life changed, from the way that people lived to the appearance of the landscape itself. The continent broke into pieces, and rivers that ran like scars across the earth became greedy, taking in so very much rushing water that they expanded beyond their limits, splitting open to become seas in and of themselves. The gentle currents gave way to great, roaring waves, dragged towards the shores of new lands by the ever-changing moon, and as men tried to head out further and further as a means of challenging themselves, the land fathoms below the surface changed, too.
As if caught in a perpetual struggle, the plates of the earth clashed together where cracks formed, and up from the seas and land already basking in the sunlight great mountains rose, inching upwards until the gods with their thrones in the sky, worshipped hundreds of thousands of years ago, may well have felt threatened. The land where Echo had once lived was no longer flat, and the valleys ran deeper still; a mountain range claimed its stake upon the northern most border of a recently formed country, and all around it, settlements blossomed and grew, and it seemed that more people lived in one temple alone than had ever lived in Echo's village.
War came in and out of fashion, and peace reigned for as long as it suited the rule of kings and emperors, and one day, the side of the mountain collapsed under its own weight. The great slabs of rock that fell landed upon farm land, and eventually, they were dragged away into the towns, to be used in the construction of buildings. One particular jagged piece of the mountainside was procured by a young artist, who chiselled and smoothed it down until it was no more than a perfectly rectangular column, at which point he methodically drew evenly-sized squares in a grid upon all six surfaces. The artist had never been a god-fearing man, and placed no stock in the myths surrounding the deities that seemed to govern his way of life, but understood the worth of appealing to the masses. He undertook a commission from a wealthy scholar, and gave life to the unremarkable slab of rock, in the form of sculpting out a supposed likeness of the goddess of the earth.
The people who lived in the shadow of the mountain had not long been worshipping that particular goddess, and the statue was the very thing needed to draw their attention towards her. Delicately painted with painstaking attention to detail paid, the goddess was draped in rich fabrics, and placed in the heart of a temple. The faithful soon forgot that the statue was a mere representation of their benevolent deity, and worshipped the never-changing stone face more than they did the concept itself. Sacrifices were performed in front of the statue, libations were paid, and offerings of fruit and meat went to rot at the goddess's feet as people starved in the streets.
There was a certain sadness in it all, because the goddess could only ever look forward, could never see anything of her own choosing. Poets would visit the site, and claim to be inspired in some divine manner or another, as if they heard music in the air, formed by a single voice. It was a tragic song, they said, though the lyrics were incomprehensible; and try as they might, they never could pen down the sensation that threatened to overwhelm the whole of them. They would say that they words did not fit, that the meaning was not properly conveyed, and in their anger, would burn beautiful sonnets and perfectly composed stanzas.
Decades passed, and then centuries, too, and a new order of gods claimed the hearts of those eager to believe. The goddess became nothing more than a statue once again, and even when the temple was raided, she was not taken, for who would want a great, hefty block of stone, when gold could be prised from the temple's vaults? They did steal the jewels that adorned her clothing, though, and amongst it all, the statue was knocked to the ground; the arms broke off, first, and then some tragedy befell the town, for the statue was entombed in the temple for countless centuries after that. The paint faded until nothing by dull grey stone was visible, and cracks formed along every grove.
When the temple doors were once again forced open, for a moment, the statue was revered once more. The men who came across it stood in awe, and had it transported away, insisting that the utmost care be used when handling it. Photos were taken, articles were written, and at the end of it all, the statue was placed in a glass cabinet, in the very centre of an expansive museum. Like before, the statue could only ever see what was placed in front of it, and though the statue continue to sing, its words were obscured by the glass and the footsteps of visitors and tourists alike. The people simply didn't wish to listen, in that day and age.
There was one girl who worked upon that floor of the museum, and watched over the finely woven tapestries; often-times, she would wander amongst the rows of artefacts, reading the information cards for the hundredth time, and occasionally stop to face the statue, hands behind her back, when some small, shiny trinket didn't distract her. The statue didn't know anything of her, but she knew enough to sing louder every time she was near, until the glass she was trapped behind almost seemed to shake, like it too was wailing.
Each day the statue saw the girl pass, and each day the statue began to question whether or not it had ever been a goddess at all. It seemed like an absurd notion, even to a statue, and it had long since learnt that people did not fear the gods as they once did. If the statue could remember ever smelling, it wouldn't missed the stench of sulphur and sacrificial oxen being burnt; if it could remember ever feeling, it would've missed the way that libations soaked into the ground; and it if could remember ever hearing, it would've longed for the sound of a voice that it could no long recall who the owner of was.
And though it had long since been carved away from the rugged face of the earth, the statue prided itself in being in-tune with it still. The plates once again moved beneath it, and the statue understood what would become to pass; distraught, it sang louder than its limitations permitted, every time the tapestry girl passed her by. Days faded away, and the statue had exhausted itself, but still it did not relent. When night fell and the museum shut, the girl stood in front of the statue's cabinet, and regarded it with a curious look, head tilted to the side. Louder and louder rang the statue's voice, and as the glass before it shattered, out poured centuries of repressed sorrow.
Despite the sound, the girl did not tremble. It overwhelmed her all too much for that, and it was as if she had listened to that melody every single day of her life, and not understood it until that very moment. The girl fell to her knees, sobs wracking her body, and when the cold marble floor could do nothing to console her, she turned and fled, leaving the building far behind.
In all the hundreds of years that the statue had stood, the next hour seemed to be the longest it could recall. The peace was unnerving, for the statue had never taken it upon itself to measure out the world in terms of silence, and for once, it could not muster the will to sing. Centuries of knowledge faded away into nothing at all, as the floor of the museum began to tremble, and the glass cabinets rumbled. The statue only wished that it were able to shut its eyes, for what happened next reminded it of what happened in the temple, of some destruction that had come long before that; soon enough, the floors were falling away as the walls around the statue crumbled. The whole earth seemed to tremble, though the earthquake barely swallowed more than a single city, and less than a street fell haplessly to the ground.
In the midst of it all, the statue turned to rubble, broken shards of rock becoming indistinguishable from the plaster that fell from the ceiling and the bricks that crumbled. The dust from the stone rose up in the air, and seemed to linger there, for a moment longer than time should permit; but then the rain came down, and washed everything away amongst a flood of sirens and panicked screams. The girl, eyes still red from tears, stood by the decimated museum with a heavy blanket draped across her shoulders, provided by paramedics that sped to the scene. Despite all the chaos and panic unfolding around her, the girl heard nothing that was said to her, nothing that was shouted at her as she began to scramble across the rubble, pulled in by a sensation that she couldn't explain. The loose piles of rock slipped from beneath her feet, and she stumble and fell, knees scraping against the rubble, but still, she didn't turn away, didn't stop moving.
Eventually, she came to a halt, and reached down blindly, throwing slabs of rock to the side as her bloodied her fingers sank into the wreckage, digging deep. And then she came across what she didn't realise she had been searching for, and in her palms, held what was left of the statue's face; for a moment, she was able to stare down at it, but as the wind picked up and she shuddered, the details that made up a face - the slope of the statue's nose, the shadows that made up its eyes - crumble into dust, and fell through her fingers. With the rest of the city in disarray, no one thought to clamber across what was left of the museum, to pull away the girl who fell to her knees against what was once a roof.
(And as the city mourned its dead, Echo stared straight ahead, mind blank and eyes clouded over as she pulled herself from beneath the ruins of the museum. She brushed the dust from her face, and walked on heavy feet across the debris, tough soles barely feeling the loose stones and shards of broken glass beneath them. It wasn't until she reached the girl that she finally stopped walking, and Echo too fell to her knees. And though she now had the freedom to glance and stare in any direction she pleased, Echo continued to look forwards, gazed fixed upon the girl's face, as she slowly looked up. Drinking down her first taste of air in millennia, she placed her hands against the girl's shoulders, and found herself steady and still.
Leaning forwards, the girl took Echo into her arms, held her close amongst the sea of stone, and in longer than even she could remember, Echo finally let her eyes flutter to a close.)
CHARACTERS: Echo, a girl, a mountain, a goddess, a statue.
RATING: PG
WORD COUNT: 2,862
*
The world was by no means young, when she had first lived, but it was smaller then; the tribes and villages spread across the flat plains and over shadowed even the Empires that would one day raze them to the ground. They meant more than the cities that would enviably imprint themselves upon the face of the earth, as if the trees and plants and footprints left by deer had never been there at all. What she knew of the world spread as far as the horizon she could see when dawn broke, where the sky bled purple and blue as if it had been painted like that, but none of that ever limited her in any way, for every time she took a step forwards, the point at which the earth and sky met took one step backwards, as if tempting her to come ever-closer. She trusted her senses wholly, sight least of all, and revered the earth itself. She felt its face make maps on the tough soles of her feet with every movement she made, heard the rustling of leaves speak back to the wind, and smelled the way the air turned from sweet to stagnate when another season slipped into nothing, and made way from the rumbling of storms.
Her village was small, neatly positioned between a winding fresh-water river and rough, steep terrain, which lead to a great plateau of open, fertile land, like a mirage amongst the jagged pillars of rock. Back then, before the land was struck by what some claim was a great thunderbolt, and others believe to be the fist of a disgruntled goddess, and split apart into separate continents, causing great borders to be scorched across the land, the world was, for the most part, pressed flat. Any hills that rose towards the sky or valleys that dug at the earth's heart were regarded with both suspicion and respect, any only even lived close to, never in or upon. Nobody ever set foot in such lands without first being blessed and praying to the sun, and those who did shoulder the duty of ploughing the fields and harvesting the crops were honoured by even their village elders, but thought of as outcasts by many.
Echo would set out each morning, clasp her hands together once she reached the village's limits, and ask the sun to let her bathe in light enough to get all of her tasks for the day done. She did not strap sandals to her feet, no matter how ragged the loose stones littering the ground were, and among the neighbouring villages, word spread of a woman who tilled the fields of her own accord, before the memory of dawn had yet to fade from the morning air; they said she had the strength of an ox, and perhaps the determination of one, too, but she kept to herself, and would never substantiate any of these rumours. In fact, so content was she with her life that she allowed the other hill-climbers to take much of the credit for what she did, and only asked that she had the first pick of the crops, so that she might distribute them evenly throughout the village.
When the ground froze over and no amount of faith would cause so much as a weed to grow, she would dress herself in thick furs from animals she herself had slain, and ensured that those around her would want for nothing. There was a girl she lived with, in her simple abode, and they had been like that since the sixteenth winter of her life. The girl loved her dearly, though she did not quite understand the bond that Echo had with the earth, or why she loved the harsh landscape so; but her acceptance of the way of things were outweighed all of this, and her affection towards her was not dimmed in the slightest. While Echo worked in the fields and ran through the forests, spear in hand, the girl would keep to the confines of the village, weaving clothes from cotton and the pelts of beasts, and collecting all manner of odd trinkets strewn around the village.
Echo would bring back peculiar shaped rocks and shiny stones, and there they would sit, on a hollowed out piece of bark next to the fire; the sort of set up that would later become known as a stove. They were happy, like that, each living their own lives that entwined perfectly, and they never caused offence to anyone. They were the most pious of people, for then believed that they had been blessed by their entire pantheon of gods. And even when Echo no longer had the strength to scour the sides of hills or cut across valleys, and the girl's vision flickered and faded away, long after her hands were made unsteady by the thought alone of using a loom, they were happy still, and never once cursed their fate or the gods, even as their lives drew to a close.
And despite what the rest of the tribe predicted, Echo was the first to go. They did not build a funeral pyre, nor did they wrap her body in cloth and let her float down the river; at her request, the earth was dug open, and there her body was laid, where the turned soil was piled back upon it.
It wasn't long until there was nothing but bones left, and in what almost amounts to the blink of an eye in all of time that had passed up until that point, those bones turned to dust; before long, nobody left upon the world's surface remembered that such a person ever existed. Everything that she had ever known in her life changed, from the way that people lived to the appearance of the landscape itself. The continent broke into pieces, and rivers that ran like scars across the earth became greedy, taking in so very much rushing water that they expanded beyond their limits, splitting open to become seas in and of themselves. The gentle currents gave way to great, roaring waves, dragged towards the shores of new lands by the ever-changing moon, and as men tried to head out further and further as a means of challenging themselves, the land fathoms below the surface changed, too.
As if caught in a perpetual struggle, the plates of the earth clashed together where cracks formed, and up from the seas and land already basking in the sunlight great mountains rose, inching upwards until the gods with their thrones in the sky, worshipped hundreds of thousands of years ago, may well have felt threatened. The land where Echo had once lived was no longer flat, and the valleys ran deeper still; a mountain range claimed its stake upon the northern most border of a recently formed country, and all around it, settlements blossomed and grew, and it seemed that more people lived in one temple alone than had ever lived in Echo's village.
War came in and out of fashion, and peace reigned for as long as it suited the rule of kings and emperors, and one day, the side of the mountain collapsed under its own weight. The great slabs of rock that fell landed upon farm land, and eventually, they were dragged away into the towns, to be used in the construction of buildings. One particular jagged piece of the mountainside was procured by a young artist, who chiselled and smoothed it down until it was no more than a perfectly rectangular column, at which point he methodically drew evenly-sized squares in a grid upon all six surfaces. The artist had never been a god-fearing man, and placed no stock in the myths surrounding the deities that seemed to govern his way of life, but understood the worth of appealing to the masses. He undertook a commission from a wealthy scholar, and gave life to the unremarkable slab of rock, in the form of sculpting out a supposed likeness of the goddess of the earth.
The people who lived in the shadow of the mountain had not long been worshipping that particular goddess, and the statue was the very thing needed to draw their attention towards her. Delicately painted with painstaking attention to detail paid, the goddess was draped in rich fabrics, and placed in the heart of a temple. The faithful soon forgot that the statue was a mere representation of their benevolent deity, and worshipped the never-changing stone face more than they did the concept itself. Sacrifices were performed in front of the statue, libations were paid, and offerings of fruit and meat went to rot at the goddess's feet as people starved in the streets.
There was a certain sadness in it all, because the goddess could only ever look forward, could never see anything of her own choosing. Poets would visit the site, and claim to be inspired in some divine manner or another, as if they heard music in the air, formed by a single voice. It was a tragic song, they said, though the lyrics were incomprehensible; and try as they might, they never could pen down the sensation that threatened to overwhelm the whole of them. They would say that they words did not fit, that the meaning was not properly conveyed, and in their anger, would burn beautiful sonnets and perfectly composed stanzas.
Decades passed, and then centuries, too, and a new order of gods claimed the hearts of those eager to believe. The goddess became nothing more than a statue once again, and even when the temple was raided, she was not taken, for who would want a great, hefty block of stone, when gold could be prised from the temple's vaults? They did steal the jewels that adorned her clothing, though, and amongst it all, the statue was knocked to the ground; the arms broke off, first, and then some tragedy befell the town, for the statue was entombed in the temple for countless centuries after that. The paint faded until nothing by dull grey stone was visible, and cracks formed along every grove.
When the temple doors were once again forced open, for a moment, the statue was revered once more. The men who came across it stood in awe, and had it transported away, insisting that the utmost care be used when handling it. Photos were taken, articles were written, and at the end of it all, the statue was placed in a glass cabinet, in the very centre of an expansive museum. Like before, the statue could only ever see what was placed in front of it, and though the statue continue to sing, its words were obscured by the glass and the footsteps of visitors and tourists alike. The people simply didn't wish to listen, in that day and age.
There was one girl who worked upon that floor of the museum, and watched over the finely woven tapestries; often-times, she would wander amongst the rows of artefacts, reading the information cards for the hundredth time, and occasionally stop to face the statue, hands behind her back, when some small, shiny trinket didn't distract her. The statue didn't know anything of her, but she knew enough to sing louder every time she was near, until the glass she was trapped behind almost seemed to shake, like it too was wailing.
Each day the statue saw the girl pass, and each day the statue began to question whether or not it had ever been a goddess at all. It seemed like an absurd notion, even to a statue, and it had long since learnt that people did not fear the gods as they once did. If the statue could remember ever smelling, it wouldn't missed the stench of sulphur and sacrificial oxen being burnt; if it could remember ever feeling, it would've missed the way that libations soaked into the ground; and it if could remember ever hearing, it would've longed for the sound of a voice that it could no long recall who the owner of was.
And though it had long since been carved away from the rugged face of the earth, the statue prided itself in being in-tune with it still. The plates once again moved beneath it, and the statue understood what would become to pass; distraught, it sang louder than its limitations permitted, every time the tapestry girl passed her by. Days faded away, and the statue had exhausted itself, but still it did not relent. When night fell and the museum shut, the girl stood in front of the statue's cabinet, and regarded it with a curious look, head tilted to the side. Louder and louder rang the statue's voice, and as the glass before it shattered, out poured centuries of repressed sorrow.
Despite the sound, the girl did not tremble. It overwhelmed her all too much for that, and it was as if she had listened to that melody every single day of her life, and not understood it until that very moment. The girl fell to her knees, sobs wracking her body, and when the cold marble floor could do nothing to console her, she turned and fled, leaving the building far behind.
In all the hundreds of years that the statue had stood, the next hour seemed to be the longest it could recall. The peace was unnerving, for the statue had never taken it upon itself to measure out the world in terms of silence, and for once, it could not muster the will to sing. Centuries of knowledge faded away into nothing at all, as the floor of the museum began to tremble, and the glass cabinets rumbled. The statue only wished that it were able to shut its eyes, for what happened next reminded it of what happened in the temple, of some destruction that had come long before that; soon enough, the floors were falling away as the walls around the statue crumbled. The whole earth seemed to tremble, though the earthquake barely swallowed more than a single city, and less than a street fell haplessly to the ground.
In the midst of it all, the statue turned to rubble, broken shards of rock becoming indistinguishable from the plaster that fell from the ceiling and the bricks that crumbled. The dust from the stone rose up in the air, and seemed to linger there, for a moment longer than time should permit; but then the rain came down, and washed everything away amongst a flood of sirens and panicked screams. The girl, eyes still red from tears, stood by the decimated museum with a heavy blanket draped across her shoulders, provided by paramedics that sped to the scene. Despite all the chaos and panic unfolding around her, the girl heard nothing that was said to her, nothing that was shouted at her as she began to scramble across the rubble, pulled in by a sensation that she couldn't explain. The loose piles of rock slipped from beneath her feet, and she stumble and fell, knees scraping against the rubble, but still, she didn't turn away, didn't stop moving.
Eventually, she came to a halt, and reached down blindly, throwing slabs of rock to the side as her bloodied her fingers sank into the wreckage, digging deep. And then she came across what she didn't realise she had been searching for, and in her palms, held what was left of the statue's face; for a moment, she was able to stare down at it, but as the wind picked up and she shuddered, the details that made up a face - the slope of the statue's nose, the shadows that made up its eyes - crumble into dust, and fell through her fingers. With the rest of the city in disarray, no one thought to clamber across what was left of the museum, to pull away the girl who fell to her knees against what was once a roof.
(And as the city mourned its dead, Echo stared straight ahead, mind blank and eyes clouded over as she pulled herself from beneath the ruins of the museum. She brushed the dust from her face, and walked on heavy feet across the debris, tough soles barely feeling the loose stones and shards of broken glass beneath them. It wasn't until she reached the girl that she finally stopped walking, and Echo too fell to her knees. And though she now had the freedom to glance and stare in any direction she pleased, Echo continued to look forwards, gazed fixed upon the girl's face, as she slowly looked up. Drinking down her first taste of air in millennia, she placed her hands against the girl's shoulders, and found herself steady and still.
Leaning forwards, the girl took Echo into her arms, held her close amongst the sea of stone, and in longer than even she could remember, Echo finally let her eyes flutter to a close.)