If on walking
back to your house, you look up and see the entire square-scaled back of the
regal lord of the hither-skies, you won’t be able to recognize what it really
is. All you will see will be oddly square-shaped dark blue clouds in the night
sky. The night sky in the hither-skies is not jet-black. Sprinkled with hues,
hues of dark shades of colours. Hues that look sandy and fluid at places. And
in that miasma of expanse called sky, the lord resting on his back.
Usually he
doesn’t do such a thing. He wouldn’t dare stop watching the scattered chaos
down below. But upon this night he dare not watch. For ominous words have
already been spoken and their utterance cannot be revoked. And to watch would
be a sadness incomparable for him; he knows so for the yesterepoch had led to
what they had now, and not the other way round, and now it was going to be the
other way round.
And that meant
the very worst for even the very best of children. If the lord had a single
regret it would have been not preparing the wisps he had under his care. At
least not in due time.
He could not be
entirely blamed for what had transpired. His citizens had not kept faith while
he had. They had foregone conclusions as to how strands would finally connect
and how the story would play out. He, on the other hand, believed in the power
of a wisp. How on taking flight and gathering momentum, the slightest of wisps
came in as a storm and left in their wake people looking upon each other anew.
He had sheltered
them, harboured the hope of preparing them, and had now given up. Let go of
futile exercises for the hope of salvage. There would be no salvaging. There
would be no refuge.
That great lord
with his bronze back leaving lookers in awe of the sky, he drifted in the
distance and let the trade winds scratch his great belly.
His worn
grayish-ochre skin wrinkled a lot near his eyes. His turquoise eyes glimmered
by the light of the moon, his heavy eyelids drooping because of their sheer
weight, as well as how tired he was with it all.
Presently, his
nose slits picked up on the sweet aroma of molted chocolate. He turned to his
right side and through one great eye saw a fingerling pouring out hot cocoa
into a cup for a wisp. The wisp had a smattering of red curls and she squealed
with delight as the hot cocoa warmed her throat, and filled her head with white
warmth. It soothed her, for she was a wisp in training. Gulping the rest of her
cocoa down, in between sips and sighs of ‘Oohs’ and ‘Ahs’ she quickly returned
her cup to the waiting fingerling, and took flight, soaring into the sky. The
fingerling watched with a palm under a chin, smiling gently. The lord’s chest
felt light and his belly tingled. He let out a great laugh and the wrinkles
around his eyes appeared wet, and the leaves of the cypresses rustled, the
trees themselves swaying as a sudden gale of wind came upon them. The
fingerling shut her window.
