The time Before is not something she remembers, at least not consciously. It’s just a tickling in the back of her brain, a half-hidden memory that only surfaces in disjointed patterns.
Before being the time before she was locked within this dusty tower looking out across the sea of sand. Every so often, she thinks she can see green in the distance, but knows it is just her brain creating something out of nothing, for her tower is in the middle of the desert, and the sand stretches as far as the eye can see.
Inside, however, is another story.
She grows roses out of death, using bleached skulls as holding pots, creating life from the ashes of someone long gone. It is not an easy task, coaxing something so delicate from dry, craggy ground, but she has more than enough time to entice the colorful buds. If she knew the fleshy version of those white, gleaming skulls she used as flowering pots, once upon a time, that knowledge has gone the way of hazy recollections.
She has taught herself many things since coming here; things that the outside world would char her flesh for. While most things from Before have passed, things of this nature remain. Perhaps this is penance; living in this tower year after year. Atonement for wanting things a woman should not want.
Yet these things did not come until After, when there was nothing to do but watch the sand shift in the wind.
Now she knows the power of letters, the squiggly little things that the priests use to shield from unworthy eyes. God speaks through letters, as does man; and now so too does woman, or at least this woman. It took a long time to decipherer, but as she had nothing more to do, other than to coax the flowers, she twisted her mind around the illegible markings until they made sense.
Deep within her breast, she fears that this is hell. How else to explain everything within? Temptation for even the most worthy of individuals. There are treasures abound inside the walls, pieces of fable long forgotten in the capricious memory of men; their sparkle, these days, goes unnoticed by her working fingers. Yet, as the sky darkens, daylight dying in a colorful glory, she is drawn to the ornately carved slabs of rock, dusty scrolls, and tomes that line the inside of her domain.
Sometimes, if she remembered to mark it down on the dry crumbling walls, she reads the history of her time within. Strange as it may seem, almost a thousand years have passed, if she's marked things properly. Since it is entirely probably that she has not, then the record of a thousand years is far less than her actual time here.
The only life within the round walled courtyard, besides thorny flowers she cultivates like children, are the black vultures. However, they only come when company calls, and that event becomes less likely as the years tick by.
Her wall records tell fantastical tales; the fact that they are true doesn't make them any less wondrous. At one time, her scribblings were plentiful, for men quested, always searching for her lone tower and the treasure within, though those days of seeking glory seem to have faded from the earth.
Now the walls just have single etching marks, slants of stone marring the rock instead of graceful carving words. For how much can be said about a day that is the mirror of the last?
Her roses know her plight, they hear her whispered words; she talks so she doesn't forget the power of speech, though sometimes she wonders if the world outside still speaks her language.
Before being the time before she was locked within this dusty tower looking out across the sea of sand. Every so often, she thinks she can see green in the distance, but knows it is just her brain creating something out of nothing, for her tower is in the middle of the desert, and the sand stretches as far as the eye can see.
Inside, however, is another story.
She grows roses out of death, using bleached skulls as holding pots, creating life from the ashes of someone long gone. It is not an easy task, coaxing something so delicate from dry, craggy ground, but she has more than enough time to entice the colorful buds. If she knew the fleshy version of those white, gleaming skulls she used as flowering pots, once upon a time, that knowledge has gone the way of hazy recollections.
She has taught herself many things since coming here; things that the outside world would char her flesh for. While most things from Before have passed, things of this nature remain. Perhaps this is penance; living in this tower year after year. Atonement for wanting things a woman should not want.
Yet these things did not come until After, when there was nothing to do but watch the sand shift in the wind.
Now she knows the power of letters, the squiggly little things that the priests use to shield from unworthy eyes. God speaks through letters, as does man; and now so too does woman, or at least this woman. It took a long time to decipherer, but as she had nothing more to do, other than to coax the flowers, she twisted her mind around the illegible markings until they made sense.
Deep within her breast, she fears that this is hell. How else to explain everything within? Temptation for even the most worthy of individuals. There are treasures abound inside the walls, pieces of fable long forgotten in the capricious memory of men; their sparkle, these days, goes unnoticed by her working fingers. Yet, as the sky darkens, daylight dying in a colorful glory, she is drawn to the ornately carved slabs of rock, dusty scrolls, and tomes that line the inside of her domain.
Sometimes, if she remembered to mark it down on the dry crumbling walls, she reads the history of her time within. Strange as it may seem, almost a thousand years have passed, if she's marked things properly. Since it is entirely probably that she has not, then the record of a thousand years is far less than her actual time here.
The only life within the round walled courtyard, besides thorny flowers she cultivates like children, are the black vultures. However, they only come when company calls, and that event becomes less likely as the years tick by.
Her wall records tell fantastical tales; the fact that they are true doesn't make them any less wondrous. At one time, her scribblings were plentiful, for men quested, always searching for her lone tower and the treasure within, though those days of seeking glory seem to have faded from the earth.
Now the walls just have single etching marks, slants of stone marring the rock instead of graceful carving words. For how much can be said about a day that is the mirror of the last?
Her roses know her plight, they hear her whispered words; she talks so she doesn't forget the power of speech, though sometimes she wonders if the world outside still speaks her language.
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