Her Commander [18+]

The Prophet

In the dimness of night she could hear the hooting of an owl in the distance, the dragging of feet across a sunbaked earth.

And the rattling breath of her mother’s lungs– a noise like shaking coins in a fist.

Mica slowed her steps and glanced over her shoulder at the figure bent low at the waist like a warped branch. The woman was clad in tattered rags of clothes worn from years of disuse and eaten through by moths.

She was swaying with each breath of wind that brushed past her.

Mica slowed her steps and waited patiently for her mother to catch up. They did not need any lights for the night was aglow with a full moon and stars that winked steadily in and out of sight.

She was cold though.

With the harsh dry morning came cool frigid nights in which they shelter under nothing but the open night.

“Don’t stop.” Her mother whispered, though haggardly, and turned her face to cough.

The sound was so violent it wracked through her body. Mica reached out to steady her by the arm, her own hand easily slipping around the bone-thin forearm.

She held her upright as the woman coughed and coughed then hacked up a glob onto the ground.

In the dark she could see the thick congealing mucus and she knew if the sun had been out it would be the color of blood.

Mica looked away.

She squinted into the distance against the sandy wind and, after a moment, began to peruse through the small satchel strapped across her shoulder. It was a piece of cloth held together with rope. Knotted with untrained fingers.

It took but a moment to find the flask inside. Mica twisted the cap open and held it out to her mother.

“Here,” she said, trying to unfurl the woman’s hand bawled into a bony fist. “Drink.”

But the hand would open if only to push the bottle away. “I don’t-” she coughed, “need it.”

“But ma-”

“I’ll drink it once we refill.”

Mica looked at the woman and the bottle. Something heavy had taken up residence on her chest and now it was rising up to her throat and swelling there.

When she spoke her voice sounded timid, far. “There’s no water nearby.”

“Says who?” The lady held a cloth to her mouth. “We’ll wait it out until the sun comes up. Light should help us see.”

Mica swallowed but the thickness refused to sink low. Instead she took a sip of the water cool from the night’s air, and capped it while nodding. “Okay.”

She didn’t know whether to proceed or not. Her mother was still bent over and swaying now and she feared she was only being held upright by her grip.

Mica dropped her bag to the ground. “Let’s stay here for the night.” She muttered while mimicking a low exhausted grunt. “I’m tired.”

She could feel her mother’s gaze on her as she stretched out her feet on the dirt ground and fished in her bag for the rolled up blanket. Since they would be sleeping under the stars there was no need for a covering, except maybe the blanket.

Mica kept her eyes on her hands which moved everywhere in the dark.

“Okay.” The woman lowered herself. She remained there as Mica looked into her pouch for something else.

Her tongue poked out in concentration as she groped about the items and stopped once her fingers brushed something familiar. Mica pulled out the match box and beckoned for her mother to make a covering with her own hands.

She pulled out the sticks found in the forest, now dried and ready to be kindled, and made a small pyramid at the center with deadened grass. Mica struck the match between her mother’s shrivelled hands and held it there long enough for the glow of orange to lighten up the streak of blood on those palms.

The ones which she had used to cover her mouth when coughing.

The woman noticed.

She began to pull her hands away but Mica was already lowering the flame to the twigs.

It caught slowly as if unsure of the materials used, the fire licked tentatively at the kindling.

Strands of curls fell across her visage as Mica lowered her face to the fire and blew gently at the flames, coaxing it to life.

The sat around the fire staring at it listening to the cracks and watching the sparks rise briefly and die in the cold night.

“Eat something.”

Mica looked at her mother.

“You’ll need the strength for the trip.”

The rock in her throat swelled. She tore her eyes away and reached for a stick using it to shuffle and rearrange the twigs. “I’m not hungry,” after a moment, “... you should eat something too…”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You haven’t eaten anything…” she reasoned and the woman exhaled with a tired smile pulling at her face. Suddenly she looked different if only for a moment– the pull of lines creasing her old face making it more youthful. A glimpse of someone different surfacing then disappearing.

“Mica.” She began but her daughter was already rummaging through the pack again whilst mumbling under her breath.

“We have some dried beans. And apples. The ones we found in the farm, remember? But I think the apples give me gas…” and she was pulling them out and holding them like an offering towards her mother.

“You can have the apples or the beans.” Mica mumbled finally gathering enough courage to lift her eyes. “If we’re going to make the journey.”

And it had to be the look in Mica’s eyes. Something that only her mother could see. Perhaps the swelling in her throat had risen to her pupils and swelled there.

Was that why she was suddenly feeling pressure behind her eyes? That spreading heat?

Mica watched as her mother opted for the beans and a dried core. “Don’t go farting on me.”

A look of confusion briefly muddied her face, and then she laughed low and sudden as if only just realizing the joke. “I won’t.”

They ate in companionable silence.

She nibbled the apple to the core, chewing it thickly and mushing the beans with a dried slice of tortilla whilst keeping her eyes focused on the horizon. As I expected someone – or something – to appear all tall and dark with the moon behind it and a scythe wielded in its right hand.

But nothing came and the wind guttered the flame until it too gave out.

“Try to get some sleep tonight.” Her mother muttered as Mica kicked the ground just enough to create a hole for her mother to place her shoulder in. She rolled up the blanket and placed it where her head would lie.

“I’ll try.” Mica said, sitting on her heels and watching as the frail woman curled up on her side.

She loomed there crouched in the dark like a guard keeping watch over something precious. Something that could be easily stolen if she so much as looked away for a breath.

That’s what it felt like.

Her mother was watching her. She knew it despite the moon rising behind and casting a dark shadow over her features. “You don’t ever sleep.”

“Do too. When you sleep.”

“You know, when you were a baby I used to stay up all night trying to get you to sleep.”

Her mouth twitched upwards, “You say that all the time.”

“Really. I thought you would wear out eventually with all the fussing and crying and staring but you never did get tired.’

A breeze blew against her arm marbling it with gooseflesh. Mica tugged at her sleeves and shifted on the ground. “I get tired.” She said at last. “I just don’t feel tired right now.”

“I know.”

She rubbed her eyes and tried for a smile. “Maybe I’ll sleep once we get there.”

There.

The place that began as an incomplete thought. A sudden silver lining in the horizon of a world forsaken by god.

It was a feeling that had niggled the back of her mind since she turned twelve and only grew in bits and pieces.

There.

It came as a glimpse of an incomplete vision.

The feeling of something warm and safe.

Some days it would appear as a single thought when she was feeling low and nearly giving up. A sense of hope that something better awaited. That relief held its arms out to her.

It had neither form nor shape.

Yet.

But somedays… in moments when she was lying on her back meditating in a tranquil state of mind– there would appear a curve.

At first she had thought the brief glimpse of it was a corner of something. Maybe the crest of a hill.

But it was far too defined to be a hill.

Those striated lines were not gulleys caused by erosion but the striated definition of muscle.

And the brown of it was not dirt but skin the shade of burnished bronze.

Mica blinked and looked at the night sky. She didn’t know how far off they were to reach the place, but her mother had stopped asking questions and followed like an obedient disciple.

Mica was glad she didn’t have to explain herself or the pull.

She waited awhile watching her mother sleep before rising and walking a few steps in a random direction.

Mica counted her steps and looked back every now and then and the motionless form of her mother curled on the ground. She continued on to the right until something began to tug at her from behind.

Like an invisible thread attached to her back or the sudden pull of gravity drawing her in the opposite direction.

It wasn’t forceful nor did it stop her steps. Yet it felt wrong. As if she was intentionally breaking a rule.

Mica stopped walking and turned around.

The pull loosened its grip on her and, with each step in the right direction, the weight lifted as the false sense of autonomy returned.

She stopped at her mother and crouched low until her face was inches from her mother’s mouth.

Mica listened to the shallow exhalation so weak they seemed drawn out forcefully. She smelled the rancid stench of sickness on her breath.

Exhausted yet unwilling to fully let herself sleep, Mica lay on her back beside her mother close enough to feel each stirring breath.