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Oct 8, 2021 04:52
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 13:54 |
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Comings and Goings 1477 words The island was growing smaller. Or maybe it was just that Elisa felt that way. She gazed out at the ocean from her perch on the eastern bluffs, and wondered if there was really anything else out there or not. Her mother wouldn’t tell her, of course. But she thought that there must have been something. She heard a high whistle, and looked down at the beach where her mother waved at her. She wanted Elisa to come down, of course. It wasn’t safe on the bluffs, which Elisa was very aware of and also did not care about in the least. Danger was the only interesting thing the island had to offer her, at this point, other than dull the monotony of eking out an existence on its shores. Elisa turned her back to her mother and started climbing down the cliff face, choosing to ignore the nearby path that would have taken her back down to the beach. Her mother’s face was tight when she reached the bottom, but she didn’t say anything. She was a woman of few words, and she had already made it clear to Elisa what she thought of her adventures. Elisa smiled and unslung the woven basket from her shoulder, holding out the tubers she had collected from the top of the bluffs. Her mother took them, and they both made their way back to their hut. It wasn’t much of a hut, to be fair, although the passing years had seen many improvements to its initial structure. As Elisa grew in size, she was able to contribute more and more to the hut’s upkeep, and had helped her mother re-thatch the roof only last season. So far it had been standing up to the long rains much better than the previous iteration, and Elisa felt proud of the accomplishment. “What were you looking for?” her mother said finally, setting out the gathered tubers on a woven mat. She picked up a stone knife and began to peel one of the vegetables, her eyes on the work in her hands instead of her daughter. “Something else,” Elisa said simply, pulling out her own knife and sitting down to help peel. Her mother said nothing. She didn’t need to; Elisa heard the words in her head anyhow. There isn’t anything else. That was all her mother would ever say on the subject, no matter how Elisa responded. So neither of them bothered any more. They cooked and ate in a familiar, half-comfortable silence, neither bothering to voice the same well-trod arguments that filled their heads. When they were done, Elisa gathered the dishes and went to clean them in the nearby stream. “Elisa,” her mother said, and she paused in the doorway. Her mother looked tired, and Elisa noticed for the first time the growing wrinkles around her eyes. But her mother said nothing, and Elisa turned and left the hut. *** Three days later, Elisa’s mother collapsed. They had been collecting clams on the beach near the bluffs that Elisa loved to climb, when her mother gave a little sigh behind her. When Elisa turned to look, she had crumpled to the ground like a dropped length of cord, and nothing Elisa did would rouse her. Desperate, Elisa hauled her mother up - had she always been this small? - and half-carried half-dragged her back to the hut. She laid her mother down on the pallet, and started boiling water for the herbal brew her mother favored, but as she set the kettle on and looked down at her mother’s face, she realized that she had no idea what to do. Her mother had always seemed invincible, or at least unshakable; she never hesitated to do what needed to be done, if it was stripping a tree or setting a bone, but looking at her lying there she seemed… fragile. Like the steadiness and certainty she carried had all leaked out of her as she slept, and Elisa had no idea if she would ever get it back. She was entirely consumed as her thoughts chased themselves around in circles, and she came back to herself only at the bubble and hiss of water boiling over its container. Mad at herself, she grabbed the pot over the fire and set it down on the ground, slopping hot water over the sides and narrowly missing getting a nasty burn. Grabbing the dried leaves for the herbal brew, she threw them roughly down into the water before folding in on herself, trying to sob quietly but not quite succeeding. “Elisa.” She turned sharply at the sound of her mother’s voice, then scrambled over to where her mother lay, her eyes once again open and staring at her calmly. “Are you alright?” She felt foolish as soon as the words left her mouth. Of course she wasn’t alright. “I’m making you a drink, it will make you feel better. Here, I’ll get it for you.” She moved to get a cup, but stopped when she felt her mother’s hand on her arm. “Elisa, I’m sorry,” her mother said. “I thought that I could keep you safe here.” She gave Elisa’s arm a squeeze, and Elisa was shocked to see tears welling in her mother’s eyes. “But I am safe,” Elisa said. “And so are you! You’ll be fine once you’ve had some rest, I just need to…” She trailed off, the words crumbling on her lips at the look her mother gave her. “I can’t stay here with you any longer, not like this,” her mother said. “This body has reached its limits, even for one such as me.” Elisa shook her head. “I don’t understand. That doesn’t make any sense, you’re just-” “You need to be with your own kind,” her mother continued, her voice fading. “I can at least do that for you.” She gave Elisa’s writst another squeeze. “You just have to wait for me.” Elisa felt a caress, a whisper against her thoughts, and then her mother was gone. *** It had been almost a month since her mother died when the bird came. She had buried her mother near the hut. She couldn’t stand the thought of animals trying to dig up the body, so she built a cairn out of rocks from the bluffs and stood guard at night for weeks. During the day she slept and ate from the stores her mother had carefully laid in for the future. They would be gone soon, but Elisa didn’t care; she only bothered to eat because she knew her mother would want her to live, even if she didn’t. But then one day she woke up to a shriek, and she sat bolt upright only to come face to face with an enormous beak. There was, somehow, a bird standing over her. It was one of the huge birds she saw sometimes soaring out over the ocean. She’d never seen one up close, and she found that she did not enjoy the experience in the least. The bird pecked at her, pulling the cover off of the bed and trying to grab strands of her hair. She flailed her arms at it, trying to get it to leave her alone, but eventually was forced to make a tactical retreat out of the hut. The bird wasn’t satisfied with taking over her home, though, and chased after her, pecking and flapping its massive wings as it screamed its horrible call, herding her all the way up the path to the top of the bluffs. Elisa stared at the bird as it approached her, cornered at the edge of the cliff, wondering if the thing was bent on killing her after all. After her mother died, Elisa had thought often that she wished she was dead as well, but when faced with the prospect, found that she would actually rather live. She spread her arms out and screamed back at the bird, hoping to scare it off, but it didn’t even seem to phase the creature; with a flap of its wings, it launched itself directly at her, missing her only narrowly as she ducked beneath its talons. But when she whirled around to look at the bird, it wasn’t circling back to attack her - it was flying back out to the ocean, towards a strange shape on the horizon. It floated on top of the water like a leaf in a stream, and had great white shapes billowing out from tall trunks along its length, and grew steadily larger as it approached the island. She had never seen anything more fascinating. Elisa felt a familiar caress against her thoughts, and was filled with a sense of warmth, of love, and of hope. When she closed her eyes, she could hear her mother’s voice. I am here. I love you. You are not alone.
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Oct 9, 2021 03:54
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Okay, confession time: My story is a sequel. Specifically, it’s a sequel to a story I wrote for our own beloved show-runner Chili in a brawl wherein he asked us to write a story where someone is lost. Since I bounced off the first prompt entirely, and had already written something for the second, that was the only thing I could think to do.  Of course, I did my best to make the story make sense within itself, but two hours isn’t a lot of time. If you happen to have read the story and would like to see the original, you can do so here. Otherwise, please accept my apologies for the missing context. 
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Oct 10, 2021 20:18
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