Prompt; Morning Star
Ok, so I started this, was distracted, had to go do something else, and came back. Oh and the dog ate my homework. And, and, and … I got the high score on bejeweled. Oh. I was abducted by aliens; they made me drink green tea. In space it has no flavor.
It’s not like we needed a Sherpa to take us over the white slippery path to Shangri-La. It’s not like we needed a sextant or followed the morning star across still Sargasso seas. The bus took us to Yakima, Dun hills in a verdant valley, and we caught a 59 International with room for two more in the broad flat bed. And though the girl, impossibly young, he hands impossibly scarred, shared her blanket with you, I gave you my dusty leathers for your bare shoulders. It was a shrine on the continuum of love, and though the shocks celebrated every scar on the road, every wind hardened face softened; no one would have traded that moment for any other.
We were left at the trail base, maybe a thousand foot from where the tree line gave way to rocks. The international bounced off towards Carson where both the hops and grapes would be ripe and pregnant with purpose. We took two days for a day hike. On the second morning we could see the brightly colored tents and earth-toned bed-rolls dotting the western face. I hadn’t been to St. Helens since 79 when it looked like any other mountain. The dome reminded me of a temple and the steady plume of dirty smoke into a gray sky looked like Jacobs’s ladder; an ascent and descent, directions of will. I asked you if you wanted to turn back. You smiled and kissed me, and buckled the strap loosely over your swollen belly. Our child; our trip to mecca.
“Balance” he projected into the wind, the plume of smoke rising hairy and mad beyond the tangle of stark white hair, “Is your life in Balance?” The faithful were gathered at his feet and we came up on the evening devotionals. I set my pack on a flat rock, the padding upwards so you could sit and I knelt beside you.
“It does not matter how well you sing, how many cars and women they lay at your feet. If you are not in harmony with the song of life, your voice is hollow and empty”
The loose circle of the devote nodded and swayed. I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. You smiled, found my hand and twined your small smooth fingers in mine.
He went on until the light disappeared over the pacific crest, maybe two hours, standing maybe ten feet above everyone else, windswept, projecting taglines with such charisma that the camp buzzed with assent.
I guess the next two days were like that. I didn’t pay close attention, I didn’t join the workshops. I was having my own spiritual revelations; you glowed, our child kicked against the pricks.
That third morning was a blur; smoke, chaos, shrieks. He had stood on the rim and the faithful jumped in with him. I looked for you. There is an image of a woman with tears streaked in dirt and ash and a look of complete anguish and horror, frozen in space and time, on her knees. It wasn’t you. I heard things, but like down a corridor, the only clarity was the furtive voices of those who didn’t want to be there when the cops and the media showed up. I could hear the chopping sound of blades against air.
I thought that’s where you go; to ground, to cover. It’s been three years. I turn my head when a child shouts “Daddy!” in a crowded market. I look for your face among the sea of faces. Sometimes I pray for the cold clarity of atheism; but it doesn’t come. I believe there is a god. The kind of god that would have my unborn child and my love jump into a smoldering pit after some mad prophet of doom. I’ve read the texts; it’s always the same god.
New prompt; Write a flash about discovering the streets of a place you’ve never been
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