Voicing It Out

Think about your voice…think long and hard about its tone, its pitch, inflections…think about it. Now write it in a sentence. It’s not very easy to lay your voice on a sheet of paper and now that I’m thinking about it there is so much left to expansion in a voice, so much of yourself up for grabs. There is so much vulnerability in that little detail. Your reader thinks they know you by how you write, what you say and how you say it.

I’ve been looking recently at the voices of some of the Caribbean writers I have come to adore and respect. Edwidge Danticat, Derek Walcott, Jamaica Kincaid and Erna Brodber all have distinguishable voices. If I chose to read an except from any of them without telling you who they were I’m sure u may guess right away. Think of writers like Naipaul and Lovelace, like Walcott, their voices are both known and undeniably distinguishable. I have compared all of these to my own voice. Walcott has a slow and deliberate voice, simple but learned with an almost Shakespearean intimidation. To me at least. Danticat seems relaxed and deeply connected . Her stories carry you with them. Her imagery is blow mind and subtly surprising you. I love that about her writing.

I don’t know what my voice is. I know I wish to have as calm a voice as Walcott, one that gives me an air almost “Oh that?...it came to me as I sipped my Jamaican coffee, looking out at the “galvanised” sea.” I’d like the carrying power of Danticat, so I can drop you in the middle of my story or poem and have you convinced that stories were braided into your plaits and slipped into your Saturday cowheel soup.

The novel “Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home” by Erna Brodber and the inspiration of this blog’s name, explores the finding of the voice and the self. I can relate to this completely, looking for my own. Something in me however, does not allow me to shout it just yet. I want to listen to my voice; simply hear it. I want to be able to hold it and nurture it till it sings my stories. I want to tell the same story someone else told you five mins ago and make mine distinguishable by MY voice.

“Voice” I have always thought comes naturally at first. Slipping out in the sentence you didn’t edit the life out of yet. Surprising even you in the re read. I admit (reluctantly) that the edit may help but how do you balance it? How do you change a word to one YOU would not usually use, doesn’t it perhaps alter your voice? Vocabulary is a major part of it.


Then as a growing “Caribbean writer” how do I know my voice is Caribbean enough? Kinkaid I think has an elegant Caribbean voice. Walcott in “Omeros” made me so admiringly jealous. He is the writer most times that cause me to kick myself and ask “Who you really tryin to fool? You? A writer?! Ha ha ha”. Maybe I should mention coconut trees more often.


There is a lot of thought that deserves to be allocated to your voice as a writer it can make or break a story and leaves an impression of who you are, where you’re from, what growth potential you may have, and you general though pattern on your readers. Everyday I think I may be ready to shout something shouts back from the inside…
“Pickney please! Go eena Kumbla!”

Listen...Learn

I’m just back from my “Earth” ‘Lunch’. Today I decided to read something new. I took with me an essay written by Stephen King called “Everything you need to know about successful writing in ten minutes”. What amazed me about it besides the simplicity, and here I tap myself on the back is that I was well on my way all along. The rules are simple, do it naturally, simply and enjoy it. I think I ask myself too often what I’m doing and where I would end up. Taking criticism to heart from anyone who appears to delve into a somewhat literary critique of my work and ignoring the nods of “It’s really good Krys.”


I have yet to write a serious piece where a number of people pin point a specific area they all have a problem with. One or two disagreements in the placements of words is not a bad thing. They are also not set-in-stone-end-of-my-career opinions. Giving up come too easily for me. Of course I disregard the “nonsense” pieces, the ones that were written as pure venting. However, the serious ones, the ones that came to me in dreams and whispered to me while I did something else unconnected in every way I re-read, re-write, take a black sharpie to, to make sure I’m saying exactly what, not so much me as the character needs to say.


So I have a glimpse of what my first novel will be. Ironic is that the story is about a writer being visited by her character, trying his best to get her to tell his story. To paint him the way he really is. Sound familiar? I started writing it 2 years ago and for some reason I can’t seem to finish it. I’ve lost it and written it over. It is cause of this stubbornness I’ve decided it has to be a novel. There was so much depth under that little story, so much to tell. The thought of a novel scares me so very much. It deserves the kind of devotion and discipline that I think I lack totally. In high school my cousin taught me art. I remember her saying in that slightly bored high pitch tone of hers “Who Krys? She just lazy. Anything she can’t do in 20 minutes so don’t do.” Sadly she was right. I’ve proven that to myself over and over as I grew older. Mrs. Brodber my short story writing teacher in Jamaica told me “Krys you need to concentrate you too lazy man.” We would sit in class, she would give us a topic, then 3 hrs to write a story. After 20 mins I’ll be done.
“Yuh sure yuh done?”
“Yes miss”
We’ll get the night to think it over, re-read and edit. I would nod knowing that I may change a fullstop, if so much, and come back the next day. It was a bad habit I developed. Now I know write it, come back, put it down for a month, read it again. Like Stephen King says “Only God gets it right the first time.”

Faith and Fates

Writing itself is an act of faith, and nothing else. EB White




There is a part of me that yearns for freedom. That loathes the morning and the routine that comes with it. There is so much more in the world for me to see. I want to know the speed the grass grows at in India or if Peppermint tea will steam, drifting up and slightly to the left as it does in a little dorm room in Jamaica, if I am sailing to Tortola on a Saturday morning. The world as vast as it is seems to be a trap, closing me off and limiting my growth. I used to dream of the transformation of the day I would step out of my Kumbla and be the best writer this side of the world would have ever seen. I wanted to read in the papers that “Krys-Darcelle Dumas is the female Derek Walcott and we expect nothing less of her.” I wanted to be able to nod my head confidently knowing that it’s exactly what I could be. I would be a successful writer with my secluded beach house, where my inspiration would come to me in whispers over lattice works. I would be able
These days my dreams of freedom are changing. I am losing heart and had made my mind up a couple months ago that maybe I am reaching too far with this writing dream. Perhaps I should keep my day job, work my 8 - 4:30 and write my stories as my vents. That is of course provided any story decides to be told by me again. I feel untrained to tell the stories; like they are skirting around me waiting for a crack in the Kumbla to seep in, to peep and watch me till they think I have matured enough to be given the honor. Of course it is this thought that makes me feel not good enough. It is this thought that causes me the panic. I am wrapped tight now. Changing slowly and I’m not sure for the better. Each day that goes by makes me feel weaker, less able to fulfil my duties to these stories. My characters float inside my head demanding I find the strength to give them the life they torment me for. If I open the Kumbla however, that is it. Today would have to be for today. The Kumbla will be ruined. Where will I find another?

Without End

I am choking. There are words in me pushing every which way trying to get out but for some reason refuse to be penned. Words that become embodiments of my fear, personifications of every mental obstacle I admit I may have put on myself. It hurts. "KumblaChild" was started with the hopes of making me write everyday. Something, every single day even if it was only a sentence it would be one less inner fight. Since I was a child, though some may argue I still am, I have been writing everyday. I kept journals of my rantings, angst filled and emotionally charged; huge books specifcally made for that purpose guarded with all energy from curious eyes. The important thing is that I wrote.

I have not written anything I think of value in over 8 months. The thought is nagging constantly reminding me of my writing goals, haunting me nightly sitting in wait outside my window.I am starting to panic now. Imagine thinking that as a caribbean writer u will not gain recognition or respect till you're at least 50. That gives me 30 years give or take a few, to fail at this.

I need inspiration to get these stories out. I have heard them but can't tell them. How do you lift a heavy tongue? How do u teach it to pronounce words it has never heard? I have written half stories. Stories of characters coming to life, fighting to be told. They stand just as they are, untold, unread, unwritten...

Another View

Multiple eyes stared at me distorted in different ways. Peering at me through swatches of blood and lines stretched across their middles. Carving kisses passed across exposed skin. I laughed while tears mixed with blood, forming rivers in the palms of my hands as I tried desperately to grab at each piece of myself; each new image of me. The ugly red, sharp and cutting mess in front of me is not who I am. I swear. There is another me, remember? The one who smiled before, that's me...I swear...

..........

You...woman
draws my words from me
pulling both sides
you are my balance
you held my head
tilting my eyes to the heavens
wiping your tongue against mine
Spitting your words into me
till they flow with our essence.

You...woman
stand before me
my sex, warm, wet
caressing my lips till they cry
hmmmmmm
refusing to let me die
though many cast aside
my selves
like dry seeds ocean tossed
you...woman gounds me
I know now

you...woman
will be with me
are mine
The word catches at my lips
afriad to fall
not wanting to dirty you
my goddess of beauty
and natural love
to know as
I know now
you are
my woman
my muse.

© 11-05-09
Krys-Darcelle Dumas

The power of a muse

I have always wondered about the power of the muse. From the mystical holders and molders of the art of great musicians, writers and artists to the faded memory that forces a creative piece whenever it comes to mind. I had one for a very short time...a very confusing experience. I wasn't sure if I should name her a muse because to me the name somehow if mouthed would dirty the purity of the delegation. The thought of it and her in that way I guess empowered her even more. If poetry born of it is any indication. Anyway I wondered if I should call her that and her denying that she was and insisting that others would come when the connection broke between us didn't help anything. Robert Graves an English poet described the concept of the muse and the relation to the poet in this way...

"No Muse-poet grows conscious of the Muse except by experience of a woman in whom the Goddess is to some degree resident; just as no Apollonian poet can perform his proper function unless he lives under a monarchy or a quasi-monarchy. A Muse-poet falls in love, absolutely, and his true love is for him the embodiment of the Muse...
But the real, perpetually obsessed Muse-poet distinguishes between the Goddess as manifest in the supreme power, glory, wisdom, and love of woman, and the individual woman whom the Goddess may make her instrument...
The Goddess abides; and perhaps he will again have knowledge of her through his experience of another woman..

I have fallen in love completely and she was my muse. I did however see the spirit in her more than anything else. The differentiation of the Goddessness (if you would allow me that word) in her every word, smile, or movement was evident to me. It was the way our conversation silent or oral would create a new language within itself. She had something...something unearthly, that took me to a different and completely strange place, yet so deeply rooted in my own self that it was impossible to deny. Saying that now I realize that it may sound a bit egocentric, but it is the truth. I felt proud on recognition that this powerful spirit would touch my life and deeply depressed when I realised that it refused to be "captured".

I have not yet been able to let it go completely and I have to say that I am still waiting for the other one and have not written anything of real value since then. I've started to think that like "true love" a greatly inspiring muse is something that u happen upon once in this life. In the end however I settled that I would in fact call her that because that is what she was. I know that because thinking of her while talking to a friend, this came out.....

EXCERPT OF A CONVERSATION: THE MUSE


muse

…is the embodiment of inspiration
a good morning makes me over spill with first born words for poets
waiting to be molded
her touch plants
new sounds in my skin and kisses
water each one
her breath moves them in sway taking me
into her, into me, into us
somewhere between me and my muse
new language would be born
without trying
the thought
of a memory
of something that has not happened,
may not happen should stay with me forever
unchanging.

That is in fact as far as I'm concerned the power of a muse. Such difficult things to grab a hold of.

Village Story

The rain had finally stopped falling and Kimorra could see the steam rising off the recently paved road. She liked the smell of it but not so much the heat that comes with it. If she was sweating she could not tell, already dripping wet, a shard of her long semi soft hair had escaped and stuck to her face. Her tears had long been made part of the downpour. She kept on walking to the little house that appeared as she turned the corner. Madame Jean was expecting her.
Rain had turned the dirt yard into mud her feet sinking with every step she took; it soaked slowly into the front of her shoes where the rips that told of their age were. This visit had better be worth it. It had been four months since Michael left and she had not heard from him since. She wanted to get out of this village, off this God forsaken island and make something of herself. She was not quite sure what yet. School had never been her thing but she had heard of a nursing program in the states where she could practice. She could do that. She needed her ticket out and he had built her hopes sky high in the little time they knew each other.
She blamed most of this on her mother. She had not asked to be the eldest child, the eldest girl. “You have to get up there, just make him think you like him, make him marry you do whatever he asked.” The rain was falling that day too, beginning just as the money had changed hands “Do whatever he say.” Her little brothers had been outside playing then, the two month twins started crying just as he came to her that night. Now she was almost ready to show, Jason had come to her rescue and agreed that she should not have this baby. Michael would not be back she knew that. She would marry Jason. He was going to the states too, already had a job and a place to live. He was born there but grew up on her island. Her Romeo. Her mother tried to make her believe or maybe make herself believe that Michael would be back. The last thing he said to them was “I’m going to get a house ready for us. Don’t worry Baby, I love you.” Kimorra knew he would not be back.
There was a noise to her left as she drew nearer to the house that startled her. A wet chicken its feathers dirty and clinging sat looking directly at her. The fowl did not move even as Kimorra pelted after it. She was protecting her eggs she sat through the rain it seems and refused to move. Kimorra’s toe hit into something as she stepped onto Madame Jean’s stoop. It was a bible, a big black bible with “Holy Bible” written in gold letters. She remembered walking down this same street in earlier years and hearing Madame Jean and her church members singing loudly “Put mi bible in front ah mi door, no man shall enter in.” she always wondered what it meant surely a man could just step over it, as she did now.
“Madame Jean?” she knocked softly and whispered again “Madame Jean.” Slowly the door opened and there stood the little old lady the village knew as mother. She wore her long blue worship dress and her hair was tied in a bright yellow wrap done up almost a foot off her head. Inside was dark, lit only buy three white candles placed around the room. There was no rug on the floor and close to the walls the dirt floor was damp. There was a pan in the centre of the room catching the drips from the leaking roof. She could smell the fresh fish that mother no doubt gotten from the fisherman Froggy. His house was just behind hers. “Yes child, talk to Mother.” Tears were already streaking Kimorra’s face.





……………………………………
I did not feel how I thought I would. I was sick for a week but that’s all that happened. I didn’t expect the hot Guinness and blue soap to work. Madame said a prayer afterwards and put a hot cloth around my stomach. That was 3 weeks ago and my mother still has not looked at me. I thought she would not have known. The baby was little more than blood washing into the water in the toilet. I could see the body somewhat but it didn’t look like in the books it was more blood. I still feel sort of sick and there is a smell coming from me but most times I could hide it well enough. I have to bathe at least five times a day. I thought all of it would have been over by now. Jason I can’t wait to see you again I hope everything works out well for you there. Mammy thought that all our dreams were over I haven’t told her about you just like you asked. Write me soon Jason I’m waiting.

Kimorra things are not going quite as I had expected them to. I have a job. I spoke to a man here who told me he could get my songs sold his name is Darien, but everyone calls him Bishop, he was from the Caribbean too. He said that it would take a while and that I should find a job. In my building a met a man named Troy, he’s my age and he wanted to help me. All I have to do is carry packages for him. It’s easy money Kims and all I have to do is carry maybe one package a week. I hope you feel better and remember that you’ll come meet me one day. It was best that you didn’t have that child it would only hold you back. The girl I met is smart and young with her future ahead of you. I don’t know what to tell you about the smell though I don’t know what is supposed to happen. Maybe you should go to the doctor. I sent the book that you asked for, I flipped through it, didn’t get most of it but you are so bent on this nursing thing I thought it’d do you good to have a head start. We’ll have a good life you and me wait and see. Take care.

Hey,
I feel worse everyday I don’t know what’s happening and I can’t go to the doctor. Mammy has her eye out for me now so I have to sneak around to get the letters. The post lady told her that a letter came for me, I didn’t know and I lied. She won’t let me go for the mail again. I’ll figure it out. I can’t go to the doctor I wasn’t supposed to do this remember. I feel so horrible and the smell keeps getting worse. I’m scared Jason. I feel like I’m going to die just like the rest of me that I killed she wants me to come to her. Last night I dreamt that a baby was calling me. She wasn’t crying just calling my name over and over. I know it means something I know. I can’t wait till I can get up there. I love you so much. I want to get away from here. Write soon Jason.

Kim,
The police have started hanging around the apartment and so I haven’t been able to go out. I can’t work and so I have no money. Troy keeps telling me that everything is ok and that soon everything will die down and I can work again. I’m starting to wish I don’t have to do this though. Bishop came to see me yesterday and said that there is no market for my type of music out here. He does not think he can help me Kim. What am I going to do? He said that the only way I can get my name out there is to work with someone. He put me on to a girl, just starting like me. Danielle. She does not sound very Caribbean but I think that’s the point. I met her and she’s really very nice I hope you can meet her when you come.
Kim I need you to go to the doctor that smell thing seems very serious. My grandmother used to tell me that the dead never forget their roots. Maybe the dream does mean the baby is calling you but I don’t know. I’ll try to write again. I hope you can get it.

The nurse looked at the child in front of her and her heart swelled. She did not feel pity or anger anymore. At first she hated them, now she knew it was not the way to feel. She did not know how to feel and so felt – nothing. The child’s insides were beginning to rotten; the infection had started eating away at the little left of her womb. Why did they not come to the doctors? She did not know how the child had done it but the placenta remained. Kimorra Sanders she read on the chart, only seventeen, so young. What a pain to imagine what her death would have been.

………………………………………
Kimorra sat at the window re-reading the letter she could not believe what she was seeing, Jason loved her he said so, and they would have a life together away from here. She had finished reading the book, cover to cover, and she understood most of it. She was going to be a nurse. Everything was already planned and although everything happened she was going to be a nurse. Jason loves her.
“I think he said so.”
Everything will be fine she would move out and go to America to meet Jason. Kimorra stared into the far corner at the shadow covered arm chair. The cries were heard coming at her again. The constant crying, almost like a screech but she can shut it out now she knew what to do.

“Hush little baby
Don’t say a word
Mommy’s gonna bye you…”

Finally with the stars barely shining in through the menacing black of the leafy trees outside Kimorra’s head slowly fell onto her own shoulder.


Kimorra,
We have been friends with potential all along and I think you are a great girl with your whole future ahead of you that has changed as of now. Daniella and are engaged to be married with the wedding planned in October. I am sorry for all that’s happened but I know you’ll understand. If you ever do get to America feel free to write me.
Your friend
Jason.

© Krys-Darcelle Dumas

Caribbean literature used to really get me angry when I was younger. I thought it all a waste, waddling in the pains of the past, reiterating the hurt and anger of anscestors and claiming Africa though hardly any of us would actually see it. It meant nothing to me. Africa was supposed to be this place where my skin tone and the shape of my nose would identify me. Where even if I found my "place" the tongues would be so different it would not have been worth the journey. There would be no story to claim and that is what I wanted most of all.
Now things are different and I'm starting to feel a yearning to want to know my past. I'm not talking back to Africa I mean, my grand mother's grandmother kind of past. Each generation has a story to share. Women learn to remember their stories, To share them through generations, to plait them into the braids of their daughters, to leave them on the tip of a pot spoon. To share that tongue as much as they can. It was thinking of that a while ago, I wrote this...

Spirit Voices.

Marie looked towards the window trying to discern where the sounds were coming from. She knew it was not outside but there some instinct causing her to believe in her own false reality. The lies of her imagination were easier, perhaps, to accept than the truth. For three months she heard the voices at night. Just as she was about to close her eyes in her dark room, she felt the coolness of the sheets against her bare skin and the warmth of the pillow as she made her final turn. Then one by one they would start. First it was always a low moan, whispery so she wasn’t sure that she was actually hearing anything at all, then they would trail into the room through the lattice work of the balcony and in through the window.
Fear paralyzed her growing worse when she realised that she would not be able to run if they did become threatening, they had not seemed to want to hurt her though and with time, because they came every night, she began to listen. They spoke to each other it would seem, sounding like the Babel banshees, she could not understand a thing they were saying but knew that it was important that she understand. What she knew was that these women were trying to talk to her. Tonight the noise was louder, she heard them just outside drawing nearer slowly but coming.
The balcony to her room over looked the garden below and during the day she would sit out there enjoying the breeze coming up the hill to kiss her cheeks. There was a glass door separating her from the cold night air at night, though she preferred this time. The glass shone and the room was flooded with light at different times as moons peeped in at her sleeping figure. She would undress in front of the moon allowing the light to bathe her skin, to soak into her hair causing the brown strands to catch it and shimmer it back around the room. She liked to look at herself in the mirror while she did this. Her reflection looked like a different person and kept her company her eyes knowing, and Marie swore that if she looked hard enough she could spot slight differences.
Tonight was a full moon and she could feel the magic of some sort in the air around her as she undressed earlier. Usually she would don a white night gown before settling into her bed, tonight she wanted that full moon lightness to wash into her all night. She wanted to grow in it while she slept. And now her eyes closing slowly to that light, the voices drawing nearer she made one last effort to see. She was not sure what there was to see but the goose bumps on her skin told her there was going to be something. Her eyes rolled towards the glass doors and for a moment a shadow stood at the door. Marie stared at the figure waiting for movement, wondering if she really was seeing it and trying to decide if it were something alive or dead.
The darkness lurked at the doors it’s back turned to Marie, seeming not to even notice her trembling figure crunched up on the bed. It began to dance. At first it was a simple side to side sweeping but it added a swirl here and a twirl there. Marie stared still not knowing what to make of this strange happening. She could still hear the voices. There was calm about them, the babbling was a whisper now floating around the room drawing Marie to it. Marie closed her eyes for a second trying to follow the whispery conversations through the lattice work. Still a strange language; always a strange language. It was like something she knew, something she heard all the time, but could not listen to it, could not understand.
She opened her eyes and found the glass doors to find the figure staring at her. The eyes were dead. There was no light there, no joy. It was a woman she could see, but her lips were sewn together, she had Marie’s nose, and hair. Marie recognised her but like the strange language, she did not know who she was or what she wanted. The skirts around her swayed in the breeze and flapped off to the left, showing Marie that she wore tattered shoes like she had been walking a long distance. There was a tear running down her cheek, her mouth quivered like she was trying to say something. She raised a dark hand to the glass, it bore cuts and bruises, the palm had corns at the base of the fingers that squashed down as he pressed both palms against the glass doors.
Marie was afraid now but she found herself slowly taking her sheets away from her body. She sat in the bed looking at this figure, her own eyes filling with tears. Marie recognised its face as her own, it was not a relative of some sort as she had thought but herself. She was looking at herself in the face and could not understand. She walked towards the glass doors. With every step she made the figure peeled off a piece of clothing. They were both completely naked. Marie was shocked to see the skin of this reflection caked with dirt. Her nails were torn off her hands, her stomach sagged like an empty sack and blood ran down her legs.
Marie gasped and placed her hand on her own stomach, she looked down at it quickly not wanting to take her eyes off this woman looking back at her. She felt a pang of pain at the bottom of her back. She grabbed at the pain, her eyes widening and unable to say anything she fell against the glass bracing herself with her hand as she fell forward. The figure raised her hand also and met her against the glass palm to palm. As their fingers met Marie’s sides pinched relentlessly like needles pushing through her body coming together for a great explosion of pain at her stomach’s centre. She looked up through the pain to realise that the figure was no longer alone.
Over the lattice work more women floated towards her. They were white and seemed to carry a light with them, giving the impression that you could see right through them. They came towards the figure and held onto to her. Women of all shapes and sizes floated constantly over the lattice work. They all had some part of Marie and she recognised these as relations, there was one an exact likeness to the picture that hung on her mother’s kitchen wall. It was her grandmother; she had died years before Marie had been born. Every one of these women was part of her in one way or the other.
Marie felt her head lighten, the pain was too great and she was terrified. How could she have this child here? The full moon looked in through the window and seemed sad in some way to Marie, she was tired, the jolting needles came closer and closer faster and faster each time. She tried to regulate her breathing staring into the eyes of herself. Then she noticed the voices again. They were singing. She did not know the song but it was the same sound the first time they were actually synchronised, they were harmonizing in a way she had never heard. She felt herself drifting up and out of herself but reaching out to the other Marie beyond the glass.
The moon shone through the circle of women catching on the end of the figure hair at first then spreading throughout her head and face. As the light passed through her skin changed. She was shedding it in flakes, each piece falling from her and hitting the ground. To Marie’s tired ears it resounded louder than it possibly was. Each thud awoke her a bit and the pain seized her body. She could feel her child pushing its way into the world. She did not want it to come, not now, not like this; she was supposed to do it on white sheets in a private hospital, knowing it was for her alone to bear. As far as she was concerned there was no father. She would have to bring this child in herself and ensure its safety alone.
Marie fell to her knees grabbing at the air trying to steady herself and the pain encompassing her so completely. The figure too was on the ground crouched but still their hands connected. The moon light was shining through spaces in the figures skin. It was screaming in pain also as the thread on its lips burst open ripping her mouth, she was gushing blood down her legs and skin was thudding against the floor of the balcony, leaving a light behind. She was becoming translucent, somewhat like the others but new. There was just a difference now, she was crying and her wounds were ripping and closing only to rip again as the moonlight tore through her. Marie’s creams matched the figures and she too felt like she was being ripped from the core. The child’s head was pushing through her, she pushed to match too far gone to remember her breathing.
She looked up to meet the figure’s eyes staring at her bleeding as hers ran tears. They did not touch or stop screaming into the night. The child’s shoulders came to the opening and Marie felt like she was going, she was drifting out of herself again, tired and fading into nothing, into darkness. The moon’s light broke away the caked skin and tore through the figure turning her completely like the others her light faded into and out of her. The women circling around her opened more for this light to reach her completely, renewing her, making her. Marie felt herself gone now, she saw herself standing among the singing women, looking at her tired self on the floor in the room. She felt too the child still pushing out of her, coming whether she wanted it or not. Till eventually it was all out.
The women were over her body now looking down on her sadly, shaking their heads. She moved in flashes between the ground and looking at herself. She walked towards herself laying on the floor. The women had stopped singing they were babbling again. Marie heard snippets of what they were saying but they seemed to not know that she was there. She pushed through them to see herself when she heard the baby’s cry. Her head popped in to the circle, almost jumping back out as the intensity ion this little girl’s eyes met hers. She could see her. This child, her daughter was looking directly at her, or more at her soul. The women moved aside allowing them the meeting.
“….told her.”
“….new language…”
…teaches the others…”
She looked down into the face of her daughter smiling into her eyes. The women pushed her now and she felt the urge to hold her; to overcome the tired feeling and kiss her daughter. The mothers came to her; they leaned over the child one and one and breathed into her mouth. She had stopped crying now and lay on the floor of the room looking at each of them in turn. Marie could feel her physical self again. She felt tired, she felt the pain, and she opened her eyes to the gurgles of her daughter. She could still hear the voices though she no longer saw them. Understanding was starting to fade from her again and as they drifted off towards the moon and into the night she pulled one phrase before closing her tired eyes again
“Teach her.”