NOVEL NEXT 8: Reaching Through Fire
There's Graphics, and animations, and parodies, of course.
How can you tell a story without audiovisual?
With words alone?
That'll never work.
- Sibsil Creed, Stories of Shurwinn, (2772)
Dream Journal
All was dark except for the candle floating just out of reach in front of me. It was thin and long as my forearm. It was cream colored and warm and lit with a gently flickering flame. The light was a soft glow, and I wanted to reach out to it. As I stretched my hand towards it, I realized I was floating too. And then I was falling forward. And falling face down. Falling, falling, falling through fire. There was fire all around, and everything burned. It was scorching, and I needed to get away. I had to reach. I reached out. I reached and tried to grab. What could I hold on to? I was falling through fire and reaching, reaching. Then there was an arm around my waist, pulling my back against something cool. I was cool, and there was no fire. I was safe. I was safe. And the arm around my waist felt so good. So good. I was safe, and it felt good. I leaned back, and I woke.
I was in my new bed in Media Monastery, my heart racing, but my breaths slowed as I came alert. I was safe. I closed my eyes and remembered that arm around my waist. It had felt so good. So comfortable. So familiar. It had felt like I belonged to someone and was home. I reached for my spiral notebook and started writing in my Dream Journal.
Just before sunrise, I made my way to the large dojo behind the kitchens of the monastery wearing my usual black tights that came to mid-calf and tight tank. I had braided my long wavy hair in the Shurwinn fashion rather than my customary twist. I wondered what it would be like to be in a dojo where no one knew my martial art.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
It was my first morning at the monastery. I had arrived to my residence the night prior just before dark having resigned from my Garden Apprentice job in town, and had obtained residency at the monastery. My Work Acceptance had several months before it expired, and residency at the monastery counted as employment because residents were expected to do odd jobs around the campus, but not paid monetarily. The residence cost almost nothing, and the meals were included. I'd brought plenty of fresh produce with me and stored it in the kitchen in case their meals didn't follow my uncooked plan. No one had minded that I stocked the fridge with personal bags.
There were quite a few people in the dojo forming into lines. I didn't see a master or leader, but at some unspoken signal, everyone began to move in unison. I placed myself in the farthest back position so I could watch and try to follow. It was a clumsy affair, but I wasn't the only person out of my depth.
I noticed that the people directly in front of me stumbled a lot too, but the people towards the front and to the west were confident and capable. Breathing through the series of postures, I tried my best, but it was completely unfamiliar. It felt less martial and more dance. Or acrobatic. We were on the floor a lot more than I was used to. But as I watched the more adept students, I saw how beautiful it was.
At a certain point in the flow, most of the students in the eastern part of the room filed out, but the others—"the adepts," I called them in my mind—continued into a more difficult series of forms. Or "flow," as Glorian had called it. They flowed through all kinds of difficult balancing postures. It was a sight to behold. I tried to move with them. I was very limber and flexible, and I had strength from my own training. But balancing and twisting myself into pretzel forms was unfamiliar.
As the practice came to an end, I saw a kid I recognized mixed in with the adepts. It was the boy whose thoughts had been completely closed to me when I'd walked home to my casita with a basket of berries. He saw me looking at him and waggled his eyebrows. I shook my head at him and rolled my eyes. I wanted to talk to him, but he winked at me and ducked out the door.
Greeting the sun had been decidedly awkward, but it was a fascinating flow, and I wasn't going to give up. Even if I looked really stupid and out of place and there was no one to guide me into what to do and how to do it, I decided to go back. I'd keep going back every morning until I was an adept too.