ANDRAS DEMYAN
who would believe the fantastic
and terrible story of our survival?
who would believe the fantastic
and terrible story of our survival?
It begins here:
Andras comes to the city on the heels of the king, days ago, and it is quiet.
Here and there he can hear chatter through an open window, or someone passes him in the street (and they say hi or they don't, Andras does not return the favor) but these are punctuated by long stretches of silence, nothing but the sigh of the wind.
In that silence he can hear himself, can hear the churn of his heart and the relentless bubbling at his core, like a caged animal, like a pacing animal, like an animal pounding the bars of its cage. Day and night, hour after hour, the drumming. Day and night, the high-pitched wailing of an engine releasing steam. It drives him mad.
Today, he is among the crowd gathered in the courtyard, a cluster of hopeful faces, as the sun peeks its face over the castle walls. Everything is gray, and hazy, and as Ipomoea weaves between them, breaths rise from their bodies in hot puffs.
This too is deafening.
Delumine, he says, come forward he says, and in spite of himself, Andras is thinking.
He is an arrow, shot without direction, sharp and fleet as a winter wind, singing without end through the air alongside the curve of the earth.
Andras breathes. The murmur of the crowd grows around him, questions amongst friends and sages, laughter in some back corner. He is grim, and motionless, fixed on the king as he moves. He grits his teeth.
All there is is the wind, rushing past him faster and faster, filling his lungs too fast. He is waiting for the 'thock' of impact, the moment of landing. It never comes.
The tree is rising, stretching, creaking with the effort of being alive. It seems so easy. It has never been that easy for Andras. Each second he lives feels like another clock ticking toward the end. Each second groans on for hours. Andras thinks, if only there were something. Andras thinks, if there were something to hold him, one dark pocket of the earth where the only thing louder than his heart is his purpose--
The moment of impact.
"I will," he says, and his bones rattle with the force of his raging heart, "I'll do anything."
Andras comes to the city on the heels of the king, days ago, and it is quiet.
Here and there he can hear chatter through an open window, or someone passes him in the street (and they say hi or they don't, Andras does not return the favor) but these are punctuated by long stretches of silence, nothing but the sigh of the wind.
In that silence he can hear himself, can hear the churn of his heart and the relentless bubbling at his core, like a caged animal, like a pacing animal, like an animal pounding the bars of its cage. Day and night, hour after hour, the drumming. Day and night, the high-pitched wailing of an engine releasing steam. It drives him mad.
Today, he is among the crowd gathered in the courtyard, a cluster of hopeful faces, as the sun peeks its face over the castle walls. Everything is gray, and hazy, and as Ipomoea weaves between them, breaths rise from their bodies in hot puffs.
This too is deafening.
Delumine, he says, come forward he says, and in spite of himself, Andras is thinking.
He is an arrow, shot without direction, sharp and fleet as a winter wind, singing without end through the air alongside the curve of the earth.
Andras breathes. The murmur of the crowd grows around him, questions amongst friends and sages, laughter in some back corner. He is grim, and motionless, fixed on the king as he moves. He grits his teeth.
All there is is the wind, rushing past him faster and faster, filling his lungs too fast. He is waiting for the 'thock' of impact, the moment of landing. It never comes.
The tree is rising, stretching, creaking with the effort of being alive. It seems so easy. It has never been that easy for Andras. Each second he lives feels like another clock ticking toward the end. Each second groans on for hours. Andras thinks, if only there were something. Andras thinks, if there were something to hold him, one dark pocket of the earth where the only thing louder than his heart is his purpose--
The moment of impact.
"I will," he says, and his bones rattle with the force of his raging heart, "I'll do anything."
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
