Her.

Jessica Griggs. 20th of July 2008



What is this? This silence? The one that was not broken when she screamed and continued screaming. The one that seemed to swallow up the deep moans of her lover as she ripped trails down his back, trails that began in half moon pools of blood. What was the silence that continued on forever, and was so full that it thrummed with a beat and pulsed through the ears of a passerby. A man who knew not where he was, but only where he was going. And he was going toward the woman who screamed a pleasure so strong it became a sort of silence, one he wanted to hear, to feel forever. One that he felt he should at least be able to see created in the flesh. A woman with such a heated, welcoming passion that she should be available to any man, as to teach every man the value of such a possession. He hadn't thought too much about it, but he couldn't remember how long ago he had started walking off his usual track, how long ago he had started searching. He had left nothing to think of behind either, except maybe a favorite bar and a favorite whore. Now he felt something different. Not the same depression, the same bleak numbness he had learned to live with for such a long time. No this was something more, something healthy and alive. He was nearly there, he could feel it, smell it, hear it, his pace doubled in the anticipation of something new, something wonderful, something available. But as the man reached the crest of the hill that he was sure the woman would be at the bottom of, the scream stopped. Suddenly silence became deafening. It crashed upon his ears and caused his eyes to see dozens of bright explosions. As if silence itself needed her screams to be whole and pure. Before he realized what was happening, he had entered darkness. 



The screaming womans hands dropped away from her lovers neck and her lover laughed to see such beauty undone. His arms and legs shook with what he had done and his brain seemed to reverberate the screaming he had induced from her. Through the tremor of his thoughts he wondered, who is she? This lady, this woman with fine spider silk strands for hair? With skin that glows and never shines? Who is she to give me so much pleasure from such a deep place within herself and then to leave again, casting herself back within her shell? He had realized that was what her beautiful body was. A crafty gown and mask. Something to hide behind. Something used to become someone else. Her eyes had held the haunted look of a widow seen too much. He recognized that look in the maidens of war, the ones who had not only seen the very inner workings of front line battles, but had lost much within them too.

He himself had lost within those battles. But who had not? Everyone had lost something; husbands, wives, children, lovers, land, possessions, homes, happiness and hope.

This woman, not young, but not old, had shown him vigor again, had shown him an illusion of some other mysterious time. She had shown him a way to heal his pain. Even as he thought his deep thoughts her skin had begun to glow brighter. The man was stunned, as he watched her entire body gleam brighter then the moon, and then the glowing started to shrink pulling itself inwards until it was only a small speck on her belly. It was as if there was a hole in her costume, and the glow was what was underneath, like skin peaking through a lost button on a dress. Suddenly it became all too apparent that the man ought to leave, he realized he felt fully awakened, and filled to the brim energy and adrenaline. The dull tingle of unease had begun to put goosebumps on his arms and the back of his neck. The cooling sweat of love making tingled his skin in the cool air of the shack, and even as the man hurried he shivered. Something was not right about this all too perfect woman, whom he should never have been able to obtain. Something wasn't right with this all too perfect goddess. This all too perfect power.



So the man ran, he ran toward the open door and then he stopped. At that moment, like the dead claiming freedom from the ground men like him and unlike him were awakening from various positions in all areas of the land that surrounded him. They clawed their way up and forward. They pushed and moaned. Their jagged breaths filling the hollow sound of rusting trees and leaves. The man stood in shock. Staring up and around at the mass accumulation of starving hungry men, who were not so much hungry in lust, as for hope and healing. His mind raced with information as he tried to take in the horrifying scenery around him. He could see members of the eight different clans of the city. From clerics to farmers to philosophers, all men were represented. Each one was wild and every one was making their way toward him. In his minds eye every image was likened to a scenery of war, men crawling, desperate, determined to win to make their mark, to beat  whatever needed beating, they no longer cared to survive, just to be and take and win. The closest of the men stood, and stared at him, as if politely pushing for him to move from the door way, yet also stating with his eyes that if he did not move quick he would be forcefully removed. The lover blinked, and taking one small defiant step out of the shack he ran, the man ran and he never stopped.

For every lover the woman took, her belly gained one more speck of light. She screamed for every lover, and tore new scars down every lovers back. She opened a river of blood to dry like a tattoo for their efforts, something that would heal into a mark to be kept forever. In a passion filled frenzy the woman took every mans sorrows, horrors and fears, and she awakened a new hope within them, she laid a new foundation in them, even as they laid her. Building the beginnings of man, a leader for them all, a spark of light from each spark of theirs that they added to her womb. As she bled with the pain, and screamed through a throat locked tight with exhaustion, she smiled with the knowledge that she was giving their world a whole new gift. A whole new way to fight the dark within themselves. Made not only from the mind and body of a nation, but the soul too. This was to be the gods last gift to the human kind. The gods last hope for a people broken by pain and greed. In nine months time a man would be born with the blood of a whole nation torn asunder running through his veins. A baby with the minds of all enemies and allies in one. A baby with the power and heritage to rule to all. A baby who was the last hope for everyone everywhere.





An entire world away the goddess, the woman gave a tired groan. At last her baby was born. At last there was hope for the men. She could feel them as if they were around her. She could feel their pride and joy. Before she could consider another thought, another pain wracked her body, and she realized she was still under pressure. She wondered frantically whether or not she was dying. Whether or not her body was rejecting this position she had put it in. It was indeed a position no goddess was ever supposed to be. It was by some luck that the earth had allowed her to take seed, just as she'd asked it to, when she had planted the peach tree seeds all those months ago. When the earth had allowed her to retrieve so much for her baby to live off and grow from. She screamed as her body shook again and she suddenly the world became clearer. Not one child, she thought, but two. Just like the peach tree, which she had gazed at in such wonder when it became apparent that through some flaw in its genetics was growing two tree's from one trunk. It hadn't occurred to her what that might have meant for her, and for Haelwyd's child. She was so struck by the tree's beautiful leaves, it's beautiful flaws. The way it  bent and twisted its bark smooth reflecting whites and silvers in the moons light and glowing a yellow cream in the sun. She gasped and vanished all thought. It was time to deliver another baby.