The waterfall spoke for the only god the people knew, the god that was the Earth. And the water had been falling ever quieter during the drought that began six years ago.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Now they wait for the last drop from the waterfall’s mouth, when there will be no resolution left, but for someone’s blood to be spilled.
Drip.
Drip.
To trade one soul for the survival of the many.
Drip.
Image by Max Gindelle on Pixabay
It’s a Monday near the end of Q4 and the offices of Blackfish Intl. are empty. They shouldn’t be empty. Men and women should be scrambling over numbers too high and numbers too low, reports that don’t prove enough, stats that don’t hide enough. But Cohen has declared a holiday, evading the ritualistic frenzy that has the rest of the corporate world enslaved. That’s exactly how he puts it, enslaved, and he’ll have no part of it.
Impossible! Cry the bankers to the north.
Stupidity! Scoff techies to the south.
And that’s how Blackfish Intl. carries on at its mediocre revenues and its subpar profits. No one will be writing Cohen onto any of their top ten lists, or calling him for interviews on how to blind the world with his insatiable success. Everyone sends him their resume.
I come from the cave people who dwell in the dark, and once a year my day would come to fetch the water from the drinking cavern. I liked to feel the gnarled roots that snaked along the limestone walls. The mud never bothered me since I was barefoot. I sometimes forgot how the sucking mud fought with me for each step, pulling into depths too heavy to salvage both my feet and my shoes. The torch I carried cast long shadows around and ahead of me. What a strange phrase, casting shadows, as if light is the sinister creator of those dark, shifting lines.
The groundwater pooled under an exposed sinkhole to the sky. It was like a tunnel running upward, leading to a dangerous revelation of the outside. The rule was to bow our faces to the water, get in, collect, and get out before temptation drew our eyes toward the brightness above. But when a shadow soared across the surface, a form my torch had not cast, I did look up and witnessed for the first time a bird in flight, and I followed that vast, spell casting light into a totally new world.
Scour the pit to find the glowing ember.
Do not leave behind the trolling ember.
The hidden debris is a flowing heat.
A burn born from a small, knowing ember.
Spreading unrestrained as a mowing fire.
Cutting, destructive, destroying ember.
Flames are a distraction showing deceit.
Massacre our view by throwing ember.
Civilizations torched, bestowing ash.
You turned your back on lit, smoking ember.
Photo by Mafujur Rahman on Unsplash
The orbit of Clara’s family centered on the weddings, weddings that were filmed and edited with Oscar worthy devotion. Some weddings (with the five mariachi bands and professional dancers stomping across the plaza) centered on national pride. Other weddings (with the Cinderella carriage and the six white horses) prioritized outdoing the Jones’ over the Garcias. And of course, attending every one of those weddings was law.
Silently, Clara arranged the princess style gowns around the bridal dressing room. She didn’t know how to tell Sofia, the matron of the ceremony tomorrow, that no one would be coming to wear these dresses. She practiced in her head the safest way to say it. She considered asking Julio to inform Sofia. Julio was certainly the most resilient, being only six years old. Or she could ask him to ask his even younger cousin Manuel, who had just learned to walk and could easily deliver a letter with the news.
Photo by Cinematic Imagery on Unsplash