Folgers in my cup?  No, an entire universe!  Cup of coffee…cup of life.  I can’t believe what that girl created by simply swirling the cream in my cappuccino.  I wonder what I could create in my own life if I were as bold.  I think I’m about due for some swirling of my own.  Things have been, for far too long, static, merely mocha, murky, sitting in the middle.  It’s time to venture, at least, to the outskirts of my self-imposed circle.

Here I sit, alone,

while no one smiles in recognition

or nods in mere cognition

of my presence.

Here I sit, alone,

while a flood of faces runs its  course,

mindless of my pain, of course,

and I brood about my essence.

Here I sit, alone,

accusing those who dare not see.

amusing, no one’s handcuffed me

yet I withhold myself as well.

Fear and love too commonly dwell

in this same cell.

Oh, what the hell…

“This seat’s not taken…sit with me?”

The galaxy. A place like no other, my father used to tell me. He would always look up at the sky and say “Lookie there, my girl, meh-be someday you’ll be goin’ up there.” My father was…a hick, to put it kindly. A redneck hillbilly, if I do say so myself. Me, I was the opposite. I had always dreamed of something bigger than the small town of Hickory, Oklahoma.

The sky. The moon. The stars. Everything that existed up there, I wanted to be a part of. I wanted to fly there, to just magically gain the ability to fly. That had been my fantasy since I was a little girl. “Daddy, I’m gonna go to the moon, someday, right?” I had asked for the first time when I was barely old enough to even recognize the man who called himself my dad.

The overalls that my father always wore. The straw hat that was just as old as him. He claimed to have had it on while he and my mother had “conceived” me. Somehow, I didn’t believe him. Daddy always had something to chew on, whether it was straw or a piece of tobacco or a toothpick, something was always in those yellow teeth that he was so proud of. My father never once went to the dentist in all the years of his existence. Not once.

“My sweet baby Delilah,” he would say to me when I was real young, small enough to still sit on his lap, “I want’cha ta do me and your momma some good when you get outta Hickory. ‘A cause we never did nothing. But you. You, baby girl, can do somethin’. And you can do it…real big. And real fine. Ya hearin’ me, Delilah?” Smile and nod, smile and nod, I would always do, at first not thinking twice about what my dad was preaching to me. It was only when I got to be a real grown-up girl that I knew what my daddy had been telling me all those years. Why he had been telling me those things.

“Daddy, Daddy! I did it! I got accepted!” I remember running into the kitchen where Daddy, Momma, and my three little brothers were setting up the table for dinner.

“Got accepted to that fancy school in Cali-four-nee-a?” Daddy pronounced slowly.

“Yeah! They want me to go to school there in the fall!” I exclaimed, more than excited. This was my chance. My chance to get out of Hickory, Oklahoma and go live a real life. The life that I wanted, and that my entire family wanted for me.

“My sweet baby, Delilah, I told you that you could do it! You did not believe your daddy when you should have!” he exclaimed, giving me a rare hug. Daddy didn’t give hugs. He gave smiles instead. His wide, toothy grin was one of the most common things to see around my home.

Moving day. The day that I was to be leaving for Stanford. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just leave my family. Not for all the opportunities in the world, not for the moon and the stars and everything in-between. My family meant everything to me and I was the one that somehow managed to take care of all of them. I couldn’t just leave them. It was early in the morning that day. I was already awake, sitting out on our long front porch, looking up at the sky, once again knowing that I was going to be up there someday.

The front door creaked open and Daddy came down the stairs onto the porch, each step sinking farther towards the ground with each heavy step of his. “Daddy, I can’t go,” I proclaimed, knowing what his reaction would be as he hitched up his overalls and plopped into the chair next to me, beginning to rock back and forth as he always did.

“Whaddaya mean ya can’t go? O’course you can go! You got a full sca-ler-ship! They want ya, Delilah, they want’cha real bad!” Daddy smiled at me again.

“I know I can go, I just don’t want to. I can’t leave you and Momma and the boys all by yourselves. You guys need me!” I exclaimed, upset.

Daddy didn’t reply for a few minutes. He was staring straight up at the sky. “Baby girl, I’s just remembering the day you was born. I knew yous was meant for something great from the very first min-ut that I laid mine eyes on you. Delilah, yous is meant for great things.” He pronounced every word with precision. “We don’t need you at this here house. We’s would love for you ta stay here, but you need to find yer-self before worryin’ about us. Think about yer-self fer once, okay, my darlin’?” I couldn’t help but smile.

“I’m gonna go to the moon someday, Daddy. And when I get there, I’m gonna wave to you from the moon. And you’d better wave back, okay?”

“Delilah, you knows that I will always wave back ta my baby girl.”

BANG!

Father! What was that loud noise?

Look down there , Son.

What is it?

I’ve just created another galaxy. Whew!  I need a rest. Been working six days straight.

It’s sooo beautiful., all milky, cloudy spirals.

That’s why I”m calling this one the Milky Way Galaxy. I’m putting Eden there. Probably make it a garden. If all goes well, civilization will evolve from it.

I like that idea, Father,  I’d love to visit sometime.

Oh yes, I was planning to send you later, my Son.

Posts on this prompt:

Watchful Eyes by Three

Homecoming by Kat

Bon(e) Voyage by BandE

Standing on the windswept sidewalk with the litter swirling around her feet, she peered upward at the faded sign. Missing letters made it read: M. Charon   _ M_ ORT   _ XPORT. Clutching her Hermes bag more closely, she thought to herself how dark, cold, and cloudy this street seemed in comparison to the others she had just walked.

Pushing open the door she squinted into the dark, shadowy interior of the shop. A faint smell of sandalwood, hemp rope and splintered packing crate wood permeated the air. The bell attached to the door stopped tinkling, and stillness settled over her shoulders as she stared at a grouping of iron figures depicting humans engaged in the everyday tasks of life.

Small and large, young and old, male and female.  They stood frozen, staring, powerless to avoid their fate. For each represented what had been a living being. The sign beside them on the table read ”NFS Display Only”.

“Mrs. Lott, Mrs. Pilar Lott?”

The voice, speaking her name, came from behind. ”I was told that you would be visiting us today. Do you have something for us to… do”?

Flustered, she quickly turned and faced the bearded little man, jostling the table and setting the figures in motion for a moment. “I…er yes…my husband… told you would …take care of him!” From her bag she withdrew a small parcel and a sum of money. Handing it over, she looked at the display again. “I suppose that he’ll …..?

“Oh yes, we’ve already created his figure and he’ll be joining our little display group tonight. The vessel will depart the harbor around midnight and he should be in the water by  1 a.m.”

Later that evening, Pilar whispered into her phone. “I”ve done it. His last wish was to have his ashes scattered in the harbor.”

“The old gods never left,” said the old man, nose in the air.

“Where did they go?” his granddaughter sought to humor him; It had been a grand family trip, a whole affair with aunts and uncles and cousins from all over the country, wedged in vans and pickup trucks through an itinerary that led them in and out hotels and beaches and mountains and parks, tracing their roots, old favorite spots. She knew it was not easy for the old man; today it was a tour through a village renowned for their local crafts, and the short walk from the car to the entrance had already exhausted him.

“They didn’t go anywhere,” he sniffed. He could not see, but by the smell he knew; The memory of it drove him beyond the sharp waves of wood varnish and rust, and he was a boy again, surrounded by a forest that was said to be as old as the sky. But that was a very long time ago, and very far away.

“We should buy something, don’t you think?” She picked up a statuette and the store clerk that had been eyeing her looked elsewhere. They had only entered the store for the wooden chairs and benches that stood guard by the entrance, an easy resting spot for her grandfather, and she thought to compensate for this intrusion by buying something, anything. It was an unspoken obligation.

“We didn’t cut them down,” and his hands trembled. “Some trees were so, were so old that even our…our great-great-grandfathers would recall them as they are: huge trees with the dark wood, covered with vines. They looked like curtains, even walls. We were only allowed to take fallen branches, or the younger ones we planted ourselves…but you would have to wait for many years.”

“Are those the trees with the Nunu?” her childhood ran rampant with stories of the Nunu in their little mounds by the foot of old trees, giggling and tricking travelers into taking different paths, putting curses on people who trampled them. She turned it over in her hands. It seemed carved to the likeness of a shadow, dark and slim and smooth. Her fingers found the price tag and she blinked. “It’s expensive!”

“They’re made from the trees cut down to make way for the hotels and restaurants.” The store clerk said meekly from her counter, “hundred-year old trees.” A park had been made, for the few old trees that remained. There were only a handful of them left, the vines trimmed and strung with rubbish, names and hearts etched into the roots.

“I’m paying for a relic, then.” She showed it to her grandfather, put it in his hands to feel. “We’re buying a relic, look.”

“Ah.” but the old man had tired of talking; instead searching, searching among the overlapping smells for the past, for more hints of home. Only when his granddaughter had taken him by the arm and guided him slowly back to the car did he say, “Ah, even gods would always return to something. They would make homes in those trees. Gods lived in trees. They always have.”

“What happens if the trees are taken down?”

“A terrible thing. A terrible thing, to be trapped. They would be trapped in the wood, bound to it, wherever it went. Farther and farther away, as it is. A terrible thing to be so far away from home.”

“A terrible thing to be so far away from home,” she echoed quietly as she went for a stroll on their last morning in the village. “A terrible thing too, to be lost but so close to home.” It was not even sunrise. People had hardly stirred in their beds with thoughts of waking.

She pulled apart the vines, found a space between knotted bark and put the statuette within. She knew no prayers to the old gods, no ritual to awaken them, not even the language sung them, only the longing for home.

They watch him again. They don’t take their eyes off him. Annoying little monsters.

He wishes he could just step on them. Crush them. Like the little bugs they are. Like bugs who deserve to die.

Every night they perform their evil rituals. Unholy little beasts. The chants and whispers keep him awake. Distracted. But necessarily vigilant. Oh well, he has that to thank them for.

But oh the horror! The wickedness of their very presence. The rites that purge this sanctuary of all its goodness. This place is supposed to preserve all that was held sacred of the past, the present, and in the future, the future. Not stain it with these unholy beings!

He only wishes he had the power to oppose these little gods. These little devils masquerading as gods. To cast them into the fire they worship. Where they rightfully belong.

But every time he decides to face them, those stone cold grey eyes lock right on to him. They stop their corrupt ceremonies as they silently turn to glare at him accusingly. With their evil distorted dark faces. Monsters. Blank zombie-like expressions. No questions asked. Their eyes say it all.

You have a problem?

He disrupts their rituals. They know he is the blasphemer. The traitor. The one who will betray them. He knows that they know this. But they only silently watch with their stone cold grey eyes.

It’s a game of who makes the first move. Graciously they deliberately peeve him into considering the first move. No, he will not give in. If they can act all righteous, so can he.

After all, he is only a powerless sentry. A subordinate. He can only follow orders. His very job is to keep watch and maintain order. He cannot participate, he cannot rule, and he most definitely cannot oppose. Only watch. And obey. Helplessly.

His hands clutch at the pendant hanging at his neck. His last hope of remaining sane in the presence of these sinful wicked beings. He wears it like a talisman. He opens it and glances at the pictures of his two children – a boy and a girl – closes it and decides once more that he needs to send them to college one day.

“If you want to keep this job, don’t do anything stupid,” he speaks out loudly. To himself, of course. Staring at the statuettes with his watchful eyes. They just stare back.

“Yeah, just another night at the museum, move along now,” he tries to convince himself.