Artwork by Simon Stålenhag

This story is a continuation FROM, which starts HERE…

May 29, 2019

One day it dawned on me to ask, “how’d you grab it?”

“Grab what?” Gus responds.

“A good feeling in the rain? You’re always eventful…”

“Well, first I was told to keep my eyes on it. Because those around us who felt it first shared with the lost ones watching,” Gus says dead locked into my dilated pupils.

“So, what, you copied their moves?”

“…twisting torsos, raising our pitch, all while people watched. And they knew we’d grab them, too,” he explains.

He mentions during the nights the beacon spoke loudest. People witnessing from their positions of oath beneath lavish lights, as the wealthy unlike our crofters made it worthwhile. But what the wind blew was us. They were there to show them something they hadn’t felt.

“How’d you get the village’s attention?” I ask.

“We built their security.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I told everyone I trusted them. By everyone being there, it was my blessing. Death or breath. We lived for what we didn’t know,” he walks away with pun to a mystic.

My father cared enough to build my birthplace because he couldn’t trust home. The medicines only healed those who watched until infatuation ended. They had the means to recover; however, their souls, where did they go? Well, nowhere really. Those below them who looked up, understood money creates that illusion.

Although the people will look and be curious, at least they’ve seen how holy church can be. To an outsider, this too is possession. They must’ve practiced, because most panicked at the thought of letting go. Be louder than all nine villages, enough so their voices will be heard through Trenchport’s walls. And when the music stops, who are they? Just dancers? Anyways, it sounded like an outdoor night club to me.

Holding his index finger at his mouth, “Anu, just be quiet and listen. You’re human. You have a hum to you.”

“Huh?”

“C’mon, be the humming star you are,” urging me to get up from the gorilla pounding under my shirt, it presses at my sternum. Exhibition play starts in two days, and I hadn’t studied for Mrs. Hopper’s pop quiz tomorrow morning. I guess dancing would help so that space there isn’t silent, or empty.

Getting up, it’s gone. Where did space go?

-Budd

Continued here…