Member-only story
Her.
The awful shadow of some unseen power, floats though unseen among us; Visiting this various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower;
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,
It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance;
Like hues and harmonies of evening,
Like clouds in starlight widely spread,
Like memory of music fled,
Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley
I sat on the ground, cross-legged, my fingers were buried in warm rice on the plantain leaf before me. Canvas rose on every side, shutting out the world, and only the sky above let its light fall in golden shafts. Around me sat both our families, row after row of leaves and folded knees: my father and mother, her father and mother, uncles, aunts, cousins, elders, everyone who mattered to me and her in this life. Beside me, eyes lowered to the plantain leaf in front of her, sat the girl I was to marry in one month. I inwardly smiled. Finally, acceptance had come to me. There was a single small opening in the canvas, like a door. Sensing something, I looked at it and through it I could see exactly one thing in the whole world.
Her.
She stood in the opening, on the threshold, panting like a hunted fugitive. Her clothes were torn, there was blood on her arms and her forehead, tears were streaming down her cheeks, cutting clean paths through the city dust on her face. I instantly knew she had been running, not just running, running for her…
