Friday Flash: And the Mysteries Knew Me

Going through an old notebook, I found this little piece.  I'd say it's circa 2008, though possibly as early as late '07.  I was a bit spotty with dating my work in here.  Uncertain time-line aside, I do remember that it was one of those things I wrote in a torrential flood of inspiration and then had no idea what I was going to do with it, especially since I didn't know about flash as a writing style at the time.  So I'm posting it here, with a little on-the-spot editing and a new title.

And the Mysteries Knew Me

She sat with me all the while, singing the songs we'd learned in the empty places. Her voice shone with her wings, both lit from some wondrous source. As I lay there, listening, I could feel it. The velvet night wrapped me up in its warm embrace and carried me up through the higher planes of its silence. When I sought to look, I found that my eyes were no more, nor was my body.

The song though, was a thing I could see, a thing I could touch. Her voice became my world and my world became the stars. Light came to the deepest shadows and dark engulfed where light had been. I was ecstatic. When I laughed, my voice was that of the stars which were bells, shimmering in the highest of the heights.

Then the skies became cold, so cold. The very marrow of my being shivered and ached. I found my body again and with it, I found agony. My laughter was no more. My screams ran at right angles to my being. Her song now was a keening, a wailing despair echoing in my existence. The world trembled, and I trembled with it.

Within eternity I wept, tears running hot over cold sweat. Her voice was softening, a whisper then. The chill became bearable, the kind found in a draughty winter shelter. The song slowed. My trembling eased. My breath ragged, I returned to myself, but I was changed. Innocence gone, I now knew the mysteries and by the gods, the mysteries knew me.

Friday Flash: The Seeking-Rhyme

Here's a wee bit of Friday Flash for you all.  A short little scene, really, it's something that was in the first chapter of my WIP.  I'm going to cut the chapter in the final piece but I like this scene.  It shows the kind of person Michael would like to be and maybe would be if his past didn't continually hunt him down to bite him in the ass.

The Seeking-Rhyme

“S'cuze me, mister?” A small voice called out. Michael turned to look out of curiosity, and was surprised to find that the small child had actually been addressing him. Nevertheless, he squatted down so that he was at the child's eye level.

“Yes, wee-one? What is it?”

“I lost my mommy,” said the child. “I was looking at something, and when I looked back, she was gone!”

Michael glanced up and down the street. “Well, she can't have gotten too far, I imagine. We'll find her, don't you worry your little head. Where was the last place you saw her, then?”

“Over there, by the window with all the shiny things in it.” The child was pointing at a bead store down the street, with many examples of beaded flowers and animals on display.

“All right, we'll start there,” said Michael with a smile. He took the child's small hand in his own and together they walked towards the store front. When they got there, he crouched down again and looked the child straight in the eye. “Now, I'm going to show you a little trick, and with it we'll find your mommy, easy as anything. All you have to do is close your eyes and spin around, all the while saying this little seeking-rhyme. It goes like this: Spin and shine/ Seek and find/ I have lost my mommy-mine/ Spin and shine/ Seek and find/ I shall find my mommy-mine. When you stop, whatever direction you're facing, that's what direction your mommy will be in.”

The child looked at him doubtfully and mumbled, “That won't work.”

“Oh it won't, will it? Well, there's no harm trying though, is there? Come now, I'll do it with you.”  He stood up then and started spinning, and the child reluctantly joined in. Together, they recited the words:

Spin and shine

Seek and find

I have lost my mommy-mine

Spin and shine

Seek and find

I shall find my mommy-mine

They opened their eyes to see a woman rushing down the street, frantically searching this way and that, calling out as she went.

“Mommy!” the child exclaimed, and started running towards the woman.

“Oh, my darling!” she cried, scooping the child up into a fierce hug. “Oh, I was so worried about you, where on earth did you get off to?”

“A nice man helped me, Mommy, we made a spinning song and then there you were!”

“Who helped you?”

“That man there, with the long coat,” the child replied, pointing towards Michael.

“Where..? Honey, I don't see anyone in a long coat,” said the woman, perplexed, then she shook her head. 

“Whatever, doesn't matter. I'm just glad you're safe!”

Michael smiled and nodded to himself, then went on his way.