Waking an Old God
by Sara M. Harvey
The dark stretches in all directions, soft and silent and eternal.
Then, uncurling, unfurling like a trembling first leaf of spring, not even tipped in green but translucent and pale and so delicate, something disturbs this peace.
Peace like a crypt, lonely and vast.
It tastes like a prayer, this wavering uncertain spark.
No more prayers
Pull the dark tighter around. The dark had edges now, boundaries pulsing faintly, limning the margins like the creeping dawn.
The prayer beckons, shining with the promise of danger like a fishhook.
No more prayers, that time is lost, I am lost
Awareness is a curse, knowing that the silent dark is not encompassing and expansive. It is not eternal, it is nothing but a forgotten corner.
The prayer beckons, shining with the promises of a new lover: I love you, this is forever I will never leave you.
No more prayers, they always leave me
The unforgetting is more painful than the forgetting, reminders of a power once vast and wielded with strength but now gone. Long gone. Nothing but darkness remains. Soothing, boundless, abiding, solitary.
But the darkness is smaller now, shrinking to the confines of a box.
No
So, then, the prayer.
One prayer.
One taste of amaranthine potential, reaching into the realm of mortals and bending that world on a whim.
Temptation stirs, hungry and relentless.
