Drifting

Some live their lives from the view of a fantasy existence, looking down from an ivory tower upon the world. To use themselves as the standard for all others. Distant, unobtainable though judging in all things so they are more than even their own measure. For some there is no imagining other than the starknesses of base nature, to live, to breed, to die. Their joys and sorrows are sculpted in sharp detail as their life's only true depth. Yet for some of us, there is an in-between where hope holds us aloft and in some ways protected. It is that place that I wished to be ... safe, numb, amidst it all and still unaffected.

I didn't even acknowledge Deenyet as I passed her. It was our way. It made it easier. I had no wish for her to be any part of this ritual. My ritual. One that had transpired on the fullest of the moons for several seasons now. She would be as she had been since its beginning. Within my wagon a dark cloak was grasped to swirl over my shoulders and I attained one more item. My entrance there lasted only a few ihns. The elder woman fell in step behind me, a mirror of every stride despite the stiffening of age in her joints. She carried the rest.

Before I could hear the bubbling of the water, the cloak had fallen away. It was the beginning of a trail that would leave not just my feet bare to wade through the frigid barrier. At its deepest I sank to my knees then stretched forward beneath. My breaths felt frozen in my chest. It was a hoar frost that made me gasp and exhale in stutters. The chatter of my teeth eased as I willed myself to relax and roll over to face the sky. I wanted to be able to see her in all of her midnight glory.

I wanted her to see.

There in the shadows of the clouds that danced over the moons, Deenyet would not be able to witness much except the lurch of my hand across my mouth and even from that short distance on the bank, she would not see the rise of scald on my cheeks or the cup of my hand squeezing as if it could rip the tender parts from my face. She would only be able to see my hand roll quickly until the back of my fingers flattened against my lips in an effort to clamp them shut. I was covering my mouth so that the bitterness and bile, the internal scream could not escape. I was choking. Choking back a flood of pain. I lay there in the chill of the water until it all began to float away. Was I not in these moments Sleeping Beauty? Was there somewhere in the back of my mind the belief that the kiss of a true love would waken me and bring me back to life?

No. I knew it was none of these things. Not fantasy, not stark detail. It was the reality of my life .. my life here and how it must be for now. Jeweled blue refractions cascaded off my palm as my fingers loosened their grasp of its contents, letting it gracefully slip away. I simply waited and watched the moons, watched the rays of their light course the night. I lay there until the grip of icy chill became a sedation and the waters turned to blood. I was drifting ... in-between.