about
3,000 words
Shine On
The ripples chased each other across the silvery surface of
the tiny pond, eddying and swirling around his fingers. The thick coal dust
that covered him from head to toe clung stubbornly no matter how vigorously he
scrubbed. He couldn't remember the last time he had encountered such a place – a
calm little piece of nature amid the enormous piles of coal that were now
everywhere.
Coal hills, coal valleys, coal mountains… there was the promise
of pearls, moonstones and the ever elusive sunstone. Periodically, the earth
would rumble and slosh like the deck of a ship and all the piles would shake
and shift and grumble to themselves as they settled into more stable positions
until the next quake. The red roiling clouds would answer in kind with thunder
so loud and deep, he felt it as much as he heard it. The sky overhead looked
like a Bosch triptych, and truly didn't bear looking at, unless one enjoyed
terrible vertigo and nausea.
If he stopped looking for the stones or even stopped moving
for too long during the day, the clouds would begin tossing enormous bolts of
lightning the size of trains across the sky, and the earth would shake in
growing intensity until even the massive coal mountains themselves began to
rattle apart in slides as big as whole cities. The second time he'd
experimented, the experience had been so terrifying, chaotic and deafening, he
didn't dare risk it again. Somewhere in all these smothering mounds of coal
were deposits of those rare stones. He had to find them, or the end of the
world would rumble down around him.
He watched as the ripples faded from the surface of the
pond, then recoiled, nearly falling backwards as Death stared back at him with
its deep ebony sockets seeing impassively through him, ivory fingertips
reaching for him. He laughed at his own fear. It was merely his own reflection
mourning all the weight he had lost. All the bones in his face were clearly
visible now. He watched his fingertips trace the hollow lines of his cheek,
then trail along the edge of a bony eye socket.
The ground rumbled and the clouds above thickened, looking
like Pepto Bismol had been stirred in. They roiled even more and added their
throaty tenor to the Earth's deep bass. He had to get moving. He had to get
searching again, lest he trigger a storm of raging lightning screaming across
the sky, while the earth rolled like an ocean, the coal on top sloshing around
the surface like waves. All he could do was flail around on top, try to keep
his balance and, above all, stay on the surface. But as long as he kept up the
search, things stayed relatively calm.
He had woken up there one morning, lying propped on his
back against a pile of coal lumps the size of his fist, stacked in a hillock
the size of his house. All he had was what he was wearing – sturdy black
leather boots, not his own but they fit, and an eggshell blue heavy-duty
coverall of some unknown material, also not his own. It was thick and rubbery
and acted like armor against his many falls. He also had a hat of similar
material as the coverall, only a deep dark indigo blue. He couldn't
remember how many years ago that had been. One day just segued into the next,
blurring together until all that mattered was finding more stones.
It was the same every day. He woke and breakfasted on the
hardy, leafy green moss that sprouted around the occasional spring or stream
that bubbled up to the surface between the lumps of coal. He would have a few
handfuls of the surprisingly clear spring water, and then it was up to shuffle
along again the great hills of coal. His eyes would squint for a glitter,
straining desperately to see something shiny amidst the ebony lumps.
Occasionally, he would think he saw something. He would fall to his knees to
dig and pry great lumps out, tossing them away over his shoulder, trying to
locate the source of the shine. Most of the time it was just what he called
pearls – lumps that looked like the milky jewel, except they glowed from within
and gave off a small amount of warmth.
Sometimes, They would let him keep the smaller ones, taking
only the biggest for themselves out of spite. Pearls were not valuable to Them.
However, it was cold out there and the precious warmth they gave off was highly
prized by his icy fingers and toes. He would carefully stash them in his socks
and in his pockets, taking them out at bedtime to warm his hands and tracing
the tiny trails of color unique to each one that ran through the otherwise
unblemished identical pearl-white spheres. He thought them to be pretty.
Up above through the perpetual gloom, something glinted
amongst the coal chunks creating the top of the hill. He wearily approached and
saw a very thick layer of what looked like very colorful sand running up to the
crest and over. His heart began to beat a little faster. He knew what a trail
like that meant. During the course of one of the many quakes and lightning strikes,
a mountain had fallen, burned and crushed the thousands of moonstones and
pearls the lightning had created. The enormous temperatures and pressures could
potentially create a sunstone.
He forced his achy thighs to move faster up the steep
slope. As he reached the top, the sun briefly broke through the ugly red
clouds. He stood there, arms outstretched and eyes closed, trying to absorb as
much warmth as he could before the clouds swallowed the sun again. It never
took long, and this time was not an exception. As the gloom blanketed the world
again, the glow near his feet brightened considerably. His heart quickened
again as he slowly approached. He was reasonably certain from the glow that it
was a moonstone, perhaps even two, and also some pearls, if he were really
lucky.
He fell to his knees and began to scoop up material, pushing
it aside so wearily at first. But then, the adrenaline began to flow and he
picked up the pace until he found himself in a small depression where the onyx
coal battled for dominance with the sparkling rainbow of the remains of the
pulverized pretties. He was left with a scintillating puddle of colored sand. It
flashed brightly as it refracted the lightning overhead. He quickly sunk his
hands in the rainbow pile up to his wrists, swirling his fingers through the
warm sand and feeling for patches that felt warmer, migrating to them and
sifting for the warm round stones.
He had only found two sunstones so far. He was sure that he
had been there for many years now, but in all that time, he had found only two.
In that same time – he paused as he carefully remembered each one and counted
them on his fingers – he had also found seven moonstones in total. And then
there were the pearls. He had found countless. They were in their own way as
pretty as moonstones, only smaller and ever so fragile, they often crumbled to
dust if he only so much as looked away. It was the only time he ever bothered
to keep track of the days. He counted the days until They came and searched him
and took his hard found prizes. He found it easiest if he labeled the days with
the old days of the week and just counted from there. For example, if he found
moonstones or sunstones right now, then today would be Monday. In seven days,
it would be Monday Two, and in another seven, Monday Three.
He never saw Them. He suspected They showed up after he was
asleep, and then somehow drugged him to keep him from waking so They could rob
him of his warm lovelies. He only knew They existed because the sunstones were
always gone when he woke. They also took the moonstones if they were decently
sized or if They were feeling petty. If he had nothing at all, his pearls would
all be dust, crushed out of spite. He knew They did it. He always woke
immediately afterwards, perhaps because of the cold. He would nervously
scramble around the immediate area, desperately searching for his stones,
hoping this time was different. It never was. The stones were always gone because
They were always thorough. Every time, he would shed a few bitter tears as he
clambered up the sooty hillside to begin his search anew and start all over again.
That was how he found it. They had taken his most recent
find – twin moonstones nearly the size of his fists. The milky orbs were streaked
with brilliant chrome veins and gave off so much warmth that he could put one
against his front and one against his back, and he would barely feel the chill
of the night, only waking up a few times instead of every ten minutes because
of the cold. He had been stamping around what had been his campground for the
night, looking feverishly for the twin stones. He knew they were gone,
but felt he couldn’t give up without at least looking to make sure they indeed
hadn't rolled away anywhere.
In reality, he was stomping around and kicking lumps of
coal as hard as he could, not minding the agony of his bruised toes and trying
to overcome the rage that They had taken his prizes again. Those twin
moonstones had been really nice ones, too. He kicked out again. It barely
registered as his boot connected with something that was soft and fuzzy instead
of hard and crumbly. He kicked a few more lumps before stopping short. What was
that he had just kicked?
He crawled around on the ground about where he thought the
soft thing had landed. It was difficult to see much of anything in the little
depression where he was searching. One chunk looked the same as all the others.
He relied on his sense of touch, gripping around in the shadows for something,
anything soft. All he touched were cold, dusty lumps. But then, there it was!
He hesitated to bring it into the light, just in case They
might somehow be watching. He felt around for it, using his fingertips as his
limited sight. It appeared to be a small pouch, woven out of some unknown, very
soft, very deep grey, nearly black fabric. It seemed to absorb what little
light there was. It was open on one end. It had loose drawstrings of the same
color and had a large main pouch and two smaller pockets sewn into the inside
edges. He cautiously upended it and out tumbled a medium-sized very exotic
looking moonstone, a shiny brass key of an ancient-looking style, and most
importantly, a brilliant violet sunstone that was big enough to fit comfortably
in his palm. It glowed soothingly and warmed his hand.
He gasped and in desperate haste tried to stuff everything
back into the bag. He managed to get the stones in but dropped the key.
Furtively, he tucked the fuzzy bag into his coveralls and bent down to pick up
the key. His eyes darted around but there was no one there. He hadn't seen anyone
else in what felt like eons. It was just coal – hills and mountains and valleys
of coal.
Picking up the key, he yelped at what he saw and fell
backwards, landing hard and jarring his tailbone. He barely noticed the pain. Holding
the key revealed the world to him. As far as he could see into the gloom, he
saw people shuffling along, hundreds of them, heads down and kicking at the
coal. Some were digging for stones. Some were sleeping and some were just
shuffling along, each roughly 40 or 50 meters from their closest neighbor. They
were all oblivious to anything but their desperate scrabble for fresh stones.
The gloom was noticeably less while he held the key. He noticed that the clouds
weren't as angry either, and the ground barely grumbled under his feet. It was
just a light tremor now and again.
But what really caught his eye, what he couldn't help but
stare at, were the ghostly figures that flitted across the sky like vultures
over a battlefield. They were ghastly things composed of filmy tendrils of all
the grey in the spectrum, ranging from the tar black of the coal to the airy
grey of a cloud debating on a storm. Where their heads should have been were
swirling storms of black and the deepest indigo. The occasional buzz of pale
blue lightning cracked across what passed for their faces. The closest one
seemed to feel his gaze and floated closer, revealing glowing yellow orbs and
electric cyan teeth that were shaped like cracked and broken stalagmites and
stalactites. It peered around, looking right through him as he held his breath.
His one hand clung to his coveralls over where his valuable little treasures
were, and the other held the key like it was a ward against evil. The wicked
looking creature soon lost interest and floated off to torment a withered
looking older woman. It floated near her and he watched as the woman slowed down,
stopped, laid down, stirred restlessly, and then fell off to sleep. The
creature’s posture changed a little and seemed to incline towards her.
He watched with baited breath as first one, then two, and
then a shocking third moonstone floated out from wherever she had been hiding
them. The creature's maw gaped open and its misshapen teeth gestured and
articulated. The moonstones slowly floated up and were swallowed. All of her
pearls floated up, too. He thought they also would be consumed. So that's what
happened every time he fell asleep. He felt a rush of burning anger at these
monsters, whatever they were. The ghastly apparition seemed to examine
the pearls briefly. It inclined backwards, made a very loud and sickly belching
grumble, and then gently drifted off. The pearls floated in midair for several
seconds. They began to vibrate violently and flashed momentarily with
brilliant, warm white light. They then shuddered and exploded into a twinkling
poof of frosted sprinkles that were embraced by the gentle breeze and entombed
by the coal.
The creature, meanwhile, had moved some distance, floating
toward a young man on a distant cliff. He realized that when he held the key,
he could see things. He could see that there were other people, where before he
was always so alone in the frigid miles of empty solitude. He could see the
monstrous creatures, the one he'd just witnessed and several more of them on
the far horizon. The light was much better as well. The clouds have calmed and
lightened in tone, if not attitude. The earth no longer rumbled in ominous
methods, promising worse was available.
He bent and squatted, placing the key on a pile of crumbles
and long splinters of shiny ebony. He braced for the worst and was not disappointed.
The clouds roiled and lightning blitzed again. Deep in the earth, he felt the
machinations for a mammoth quake. He stumbled and nearly fell. He squawked
in fear and desperation as the key began to tumble away. He immediately lunged
for it, wrapping both his hands around it like the life preserver it had
become. The world was instantly still, with only a basso thunderous boom fading
into the distance.
He stood there, pressing the key into his breast, his heart
thumping wildly. The prizes! He had to make sure he hadn't lost them. Careful
not to drop the precious key, he gently fumbled inside his coveralls until he
found the pouch. He cradled key and pouch in one grubby paw while the other
used two fingers to open the drawstring and tugged the sunstone out. It flared
into warm, indigo light and wrapped his whole body in a toasty envelope. Oh, ye
gods! He had forgotten what being warm all over felt like. It was truly
delectable.
Something told him to look up. What he saw was truly
terrifying. Every single one of the monstrous creatures was looking right at
him, floating with disturbing fluidity towards him. Immediately, he put the
stone back in its protective pouch. Oh, the oppressive cold! He quickly held up
the key again as a ward. The creatures looked confused and milled around
uncertainly before gradually dispersing like chaff on a cool current.
To experiment, he lowered the key and pried the sunstone
just a little out of the pouch. Only one or two of the beasts turned his way.
He dropped the sunstone back into the bag, and again, there was confusion. He
tried again, this time pulling the sunstone all the way out just to see what
would happen. All of creatures came his way. He quickly dropped the sunstone
back into the sack, and again, the result was the confused milling. He decided
not to press his luck. Instead, he would use the key to put as much distance
between him and the monstrosities as possible.
He held the key ahead of him and clutched his precious stones
in their soft fuzzy pouch. He moved off in the direction that had the least
people and monsters. He walked an entire day before their numbers began to
diminish and dwindle. He walked farther still, pressing on until exhaustion
numbed him. Only then did he stop, falling to the ground and sprawling amidst
the coal. Only then did he retrieve his precious cargos from their pouch.
Resting the key on his chest, he delicately placed a stone on the palm of his
hands. He reveled in the delicious, precious warmth that blanketed him from
head to toe. He knew then that everything from now on will be so different.
END
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