Fantasy Magazine, Issue 83 (September 2022) by Arley Sorg

Author:Arley Sorg
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Adamant Press
Published: 2022-08-29T15:39:13+00:00

To learn more about the author and this story, read the Author Spotlight

The Hole is the Beginning

Angel Leal | 329 words

Whenever a mother does not have a child

but needs a child, she goes to the hole

and there is always a baby

waiting for her.

She who needs them knows instinctively

where to find this hole. Once they have,

and the child is rolling in their hands,

they understand that the child cannot be ordinary.

They may clothe it with an ordinary love and sing to it

their most common lullaby. But the child drank

from a mountain instead of their breasts. Rather than

from their bones, the child ate desperately the nutrients

of a pond. This child, despite their surroundings,

will have a drop of river water in their blood,

and it will make them a bit quieter

than the children romping around them.

You may catch them too, now and again,

smiling with the others and enjoying

the same warm sand.

But you will also see them suddenly

swimming too far in

with the wild face of someone

searching for something they need.

It will frighten you to death some nights.

But the child needs to look,

will always need to look.

When they’re older, they will start to find it.

Sometimes, they’ll find a kind of gift:

a voice, a tender pliable voice,

that can make hardened men

feel boyish enough to look at the stars.

Other times, it may not seem like a gift:

the child with a sexless beauty

whose face somehow reminds you of the rain.

The child whose voice is like thunder

but whose hands are like hummingbirds.

These children may not feel connected,

but it’s their otherness that connects them.

When they do go out into the world

they feel an odd loneliness

almost immediately.

Before they go, hold them.

Before they leave, touch their ears

with the same lullaby you sang before.

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