Monday, June 20, 2011

SocNoc, Day 20

Today's Wordcount: 1,703
Total Wordcount: 45,377
(includes the part written before SocNoc - 4143 words)
Percentage: 82.5%

Woke this morning to my alarm - once again set for the "wee small hours" of 5.30 am. Looked at my story. Felt no motivation to write.

So I coloured in a parrot instead, had breakfast and went to work.

After work, feeling a bit more motivated, I rustled up 1703 words then a further 438 or so when I decided that I really should at some point have Aurelia visit her mother's tomb.

So here's the scene, rather early in the proceedings:

Karazana paused for a moment. “Would you like to see your mother?”

“But she's dead,” Aurelia said.

“The dead are never really gone,” Karazana explained, nuzzling her. “When we die, our spirit soars out of our body and becomes a lemures. It joins with the other lemures – the ancestors of times before, and they watch over us and guide us. But we must keep them safe. Although they've no use for their mortal bodies anymore, they are still bound to them and it is their bones that bind them to a place. Follow me, ny fitiavana.” Karazana trotted off, into the spiny forest. Aurelia bounced along behind her, jumping onto her back the moment she paused. Karazana continued past a spindly tree and around a squat baobab, disturbing a coua. The blue bird fluttered off with a sharp call of surprise.

“Because your mother is not our kin, we could not place her in our tribe's tomb,” Karazana explained. “But this one was built for her.” Before them stood a low wooden fence. It surrounded a slight mound. Two poles stood at either end, both tied with pieces of cloth and strung with shells. Aurelia slipped from the maky's back and hopped over.

“She's buried here?” She asked.

“Yes,” Karazana said, standing beside her and wrapping her tail around her small form. “She's buried here.”

Aurelia slipped over the fence and placed her hands on the mound. It was warmed from the sun. She rested her head against the sand, as though trying to listen to her mother, entombed in the dirt. She could feel nothing, hear nothing, except for the shells clinking together in the wind. She studied the skies, trying to see her mother's lemures. But all she saw was a solitary buzzard, soaring high above.

“I can't see her,” she said. “I can't hear her.”

“But she's there,” Karazana said. “She's there watching you, proud of the strong kit you've become. You can't sense her – not with eyes, nose or ears, but you can feel her. In your heart.”

Aurelia struggled to feel something, anything, striving with all her senses. She shook her head. “I can't,” she said, and slunk back to Karazana, tail drooping in dejection.

“Never mind,” Karazana gave her a rough hug. “Maybe you will, with time. You can come and visit her again, any time you like.”

Aurelia stared at the lonely mound of dirt, the scraps of ribbon flitting in the breeze. She felt nothing but a dull ache in her heart.

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