This was written for the 25 July Flash! Friday competition. The prompt was “freedom” and Waterhouse’s painting.
White Horses
Lenie gazed at the waves and imagined Adriaan beside her. In one hand she grasped her hair; broken red strands caught on her wedding ring. In the other she clutched a gold locket her mother found after a tempest ripped apart a merchant ship.
She wanted to believe in happy endings. Like her Adriaan who would become a doctor after almost dying in a shipwreck as a child. Like the tall man on a horse riding into the waves to free those drowning amidst a wreck in roiling waves while clouds poured like devil’s smoke down the mountains.
But other endings also needed remembering.
Like those who nursed broken survivors while the rider grew weary and floundered unseen.
Like brine stinging mortal wounds.
Like shallow graves in fine sand.
Like a body never recovered.
Like those once saved returning to the sea.
Like a figure trapped on horseback dragging Adriaan’s ship beneath the waves.
Like the briny taste of tears.
Miranda — The Tempest. Painting by John William Waterhouse, 1916. Public domain photo
First, here’s the story (if you’ve already read it, scroll down for Behind the Scenes and some music).
Shells
The first mushroom cloud held a sick beauty. We watched as billowing death darkened TV screens. On the beach white foam sparkled between shells. I wanted to hold your hand, but tousled your hair to make you laugh.
More mushroom clouds. More cities turned into mass graves. More people huddled together to survive. More lashed out violently. I wanted to hold your hand, but made a silly joke.
Darkness consumed the world as we fled to shelters. Death spread in ash and clouds and black masks. I couldn’t see your eyes behind the fogged lenses. I promised you I wouldn’t leave.
One by one millions of voices fell silent to be remembered only somewhere in the midst of the dead or the fearful memories of the living.
Only broken shells remained. Shells of cities, shells of people, shells of souls, shells of prayers for forgiveness whimpered into the dark sky.
Like most of the other Flash! Friday pieces, I wrote “Shells” during my Friday lunch break. I’d been playing around with the theory that a nuclear winter will affect the northern hemisphere to a much more severe degree than the southern hemisphere. The first draft was someone describing how an unnamed nuclear war started and how the media slowly came to an end as the winter moved across the face of the earth and communication was interrupted as people died, leaving only a fading digital footprint.
I felt that this was too impersonal and tried to get a way to bring one person to the forefront and show the emotional impact on that one person. Lucky for me “Verwag my terug” by Die Heuwels Fantasties was next on my playlist. The first line: “Ek onthou dat ek net jou hand vas wou hou” (I remember that I only wanted to hold your hand) suddenly gave me the idea for the love story and how the rest of the nuclear war remained almost in the background for the character who only wanted to show her affection without quite knowing how to do it under the circumstances. By then the lines “Only broken shells…” had already been written, so it seemed logical to put them at the beach at the start of the story.
Here’s Die Heuwels Fantasties with “Verwag my terug”
When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World’s
Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge by K.
David Harrison
Harrison starts his book by giving a short
overview of the rate at which languages are dying: “We do not even know what
exactly we stand to lose – for science, for humanity, for posterity – when
languages die” (Harrison, 2007:3). Its chapters cover ways in which different calendars,
methods of time reckoning and counting, traditional agricultural practices, and
immediate surroundings are reflected in different cultures’ languages. For
example, the number of months in a year and their names in different languages
and cultures are given with a description as to how these names came about. Explanations
of the way in which a dominant language is taking the place of these endangered
language speakers’ mother tongue is also given.
When Languages Die. Oxford University Press.
Various case studies are also included, as
well as some of the mythology, legends, and folklore of a people which are
almost forgotten or lost. The current knowledge of speakers show just how eroded
their folk knowledge have become as only snatches of stories and songs are
remembered. For me this held special interest. The way in which the use of
dominant languages are causing smaller languages’ extinction are at the
forefront of this volume.
However, even though it is quite a
fascinating book and Harrison is clearly extremely passionate about his
subject, the tone of the book (along with the repetition that dominant global
languages are causing the extinction of vast amounts of knowledge) is in some
places off-putting and almost patronising. Moving past this, I can recommend
this book to not only those interested in linguistics, but also those
interested in mythology, legends, and cultures in general.
I got this book from the library, but it is
also available from bookshops and online.
“Who’s this?” Jamie sighed and tossed Margaret the grainy photo of a uniformed man.
“No idea. He came with the book.” Her wrinkled face burst into a smile. “I had quite the crush on him.”
The house was nearly packed up, but the family insisted on going through the books before donating them. Margaret sat surrounded by a gathering of half-forgotten bookmarks, bits of paper, and photos.
“Why’d you stuff this crap into books?” She tossed Margaret a photo of girls practising gymnastics.
“This is Scarlet and me. She always won – I was too clumsy.” Margaret took the photo and wrote on the back. She shook her head. At her age there were too many stories and too few to remember them.
After Jamie left, Margaret slipped the ephemera back into the books. Random photos and memories here and there for others to find and keep. Between the pages their shades would live on forever young.
