I was a bit shocked this morning to find that my piece for last weeks
Mid-Week Blues-Buster had earnt first place! I hadn't expected it at all. I liked the piece I had written, but didn't really expect it to rate much from others, especially not from the judge. It just goes to show how wrong you can be about your own writing, and what resonates with other people. For me this piece has a picture that relates to it, so I will put it up here too.
The prompt song was:
Long Black Curl, by Tuatha Dae.
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| Waterhole, Ayers Rock / Uluru |
As the dark, burnt orange colour of the rock turned to a
lighter shade with the rise of the sun, Ariel took in the magnificence of it.
She’d started out early when the sky was just turning into dark blue velvet,
and crossed the place where foolish people dared to climb it as a hint of light
broke the horizon. She wanted to avoid the tourists and take in the sacred
place, breathe its scent and hear its whispers without any manmade disturbance.
She watched its changing surface as the sun took up its
dazzling blaze, and paused in her walk every now and then to observe the different
markings etched into its fabric, wondering at their intention and meaning. A
part of her knew; they were engrained in her soul as part of a previous life,
but it was like a wisp in her memory, she couldn’t quite catch it. She saw the
tendrils of the idea and tried to follow it, but it disappeared in the haze.
Then she saw it, a waterhole right up against the surface,
washing it clean of the rust that had aged it and revealing its youthful silver
beneath; the gleaming reality of the mountains soul. Ariel stood mesmerised,
and a part of her opened inside, revealing the memories she’d lost as a child.
Then the sound reached her, the music of her childhood – but
not in this lifetime. She looked up to the sound and saw him standing on a shelf
in the rock, the didgeridoo deftly balanced close to the edge. He took a pause
from playing and looked down at her, waving. She waved back, filled with
eagerness and wanting. Then he beckoned and she looked around, wondering how
she could possibly reach him.
Ariel saw the opening, behind the tree, it looked nothing
more than a crevice, but when she drew closer she saw the ground had been well
trodden. She followed the path that led through it, the tunnel ever bright with
the light at the end, which turned out to be a clearing inside, an expanse of
ground enclosed by the surrounding rock, but open to the sky.
He was there, waiting for her. He held out his hand and she
took it, running into his arms, a daughter greeting her father from another
lifetime. She was home.
