A Sort of Piece
Glistening in the light of the midday eclipse a tiny one watches from the dirt. Land ploughed for the first time in generations gives birth to old secrets. A coin, a forgotten seed, lays across the soil. Benygys stands over his pit lopsided. Unfocused eyes forced through the clay earth to the shining burial. A coin, encrusted, yet shining. The clacking and rending of the plough his father and ass pulls marches on into the untameable as Benygys follows behind like a crow. With his new coin in hand he looks up with his tired eyes and mumbles through an agape mouth a sighing prayer to the ring with two gems: “Why me?”
A hard day's work. Tilling. Father and son sit down on their wooden floor. A sick mother hands out bread and soup, more water than soup. The heavy breaths of Benygys’ infant son rattles more than any boiling pot. His wife was dead, his son was dying, soon his mother too. His body was too tired to ache. If he had the energy for pain it may even be unbearable. His father chews his bread like spitless cud, his mother leans against the wall and sweats. Between his thumb and forefinger Benygys rubs his coin. His parents are fading, his child is dying, his wife is dead. A coin in his hand, a promise for something to come, a value to be redeemed at a later date. But there is no future. The dirt gives way to the mint. A king long gone looks up from his hand. The world had ended decades ago and now it was back, looking up at a child born in its shadow, a revenant in a house with no wife. A dead mother, a dying mother, and two fathers that for some reason persist. Two sons that are dying.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
When Ped’nryth began trotting the footprints shook the world. Something had begun and was now in process. A king of cats would wander in folly, narcissists would clash, and stillness would wrestle forth from all of the gaps. So who is to blame for all that is? The inspiration? The inspired? The initiator? Or is it the one that curdled. Stillness is the universe, the gods are fluid, the gods are light, but we sit here in stillness. A stillness that moves nonetheless. A beginning with an end but with everything in between.
When night set in, Benygys could not sleep. He held his son in one arm and his penny in the other. Now scratching it against the wooden floor of his family’s hovel he traced the steps of his life. He traced the steps of his fading child's life. A beginning, an end, with everything in between. A spiralling knot, one that loops longer than the other, but with a shape in common. The moonlight snuck into the house. The coin was too precious not to draw it close. A dull flash from its metal as Benygys traced circles in the wood. A mocking glimmer would emerge; fool’s gold. That night was colder than usual. Another soul may find the coin again someday.