What, Mama?
My own bud. My first alive seed! She’s spilling anger and hurt like a new bud. You betray Mama.
No, Mama. Not betray.
You vibrate leaves in air now too?
No, no, I scent. But really I mean yes. Because I’m thinking about following birds and seeing new mamafields. I feel ashamed. But I want her to understand. Leaver says birds take fruit and drop seeds and seeds become new brothers and sisters.
You believe Leaver?
Leaver has seen and smelled.
You defend Leaver. You defend birds. Birds kill my seeds. You don’t love Mama.
I do love Mama. This is truth. I love Mama and I love my brothers and sisters.
If you love Mama you will not go. You will not believe Leaver.
The scents are deep with challenge. This is where I tell her I will never leave. That I will dig in the mamafield until I am old and all my leaves are long and wide and have soaked in all their sun and my roots can no longer dig. Until my stalk shrivels and my eyes shut fast. And then my brothers and sisters will push me into the shade trees and I will sink slowly back into the earth and all my pieces will become dirt.
But that is not what I want. I want to look over the far hills before I become soil. I want to see the rivers and the stone mountains and dig in the fields that Leaver has found. Maybe I even want to vibrate my leaves and try to make talk that birds can understand.
My hesitation speaks. I have not said please Mama forgive me. I have not said Mama I will never leave you.
Her hurt and anger hang thick around me.
I know what she’ll spray at storytime. That I betray her, that I talk with birds. That evil Leaver tricked me to leave. And when the birds come again, she will say it is because me and Leaver told them to.
I want Mama to love me, I want her to say everything is all right. I want her to understand. I almost say I’ll stay just so she’ll stop the anger and hurt scents. Instead, I send roots out and pull myself away from Mama.
All my sisters and brothers give me path. They won’t let their roots touch mine.
When I reach the edge of the circle I keep going. Leaver is further out than before, but he is still. He is waiting for me.
I move and move until I’m outcircle. All around me is wide unworked dirt. It’s more difficult to furrow. But the soil is richer here. Even just a little ways out from the mamafield there are plants I have never scented before.
I feel so lonely for Mama. But I also feel strength inside me, new and free. Someday I’ll find new mamafields. Someday I’ll pollen. The sun is full out. My path is clear.
I feel the flowers inside me, waiting to bloom.
Copyright © 2010 Corie Ralston
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Corie Ralston’s writing has been found in Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, among others. She has a full time job as a staff scientist as LawrenceBerkeley Laboratory and is also the managing director for the Speculative Literature Foundation. In general, she works too much, daydreams too little, and always wishes she had more time. She can be found at www.sff.net/people/cyralston/ and on Facebook.
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COVER ART
“Into the Unknown,” by Kerem Beyit
Kerem Beyit is a freelance artist born in Ankara, Turkey. He started drawing in his early childhood with the influence of comic books, and he trained himself from great fantasy artists like Frank Frazetta and Gerald Brom. He has won Master and Excellence Awards from Exposé 7, and his artwork has been used for covers of European editions of fantasy novels by Tad Williams and George R.R. Martin. Visit his website and gallery at www.theartofkerembeyit.com.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
ISSN: 1946-1046
Published by Firkin Press,
a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization
Copyright © 2010 Firkin Press
This file is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 U.S. license. You may copy and share the file so long as you retain the attribution to the authors, but you may not sell it and you may not alter it or partition it or transcribe it.
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