(Concise version to be published by TWIG magazine) Emergent layer She drops her ring, a thin jade band with a vine of glistening diamond twisting all around it, beneath her. We watch it tumble down, surely it’ll be caught in one of our nets, maybe land on one of our wooden bridges, maybe we’ll find it in someone’s hammock of […]
I still live in the very first body I was ever gifted. I only had it repaired once, aged thirteen, when I fell off a tree in our garden and landed onto my arm. It took a month to heal, a month I spent living in my emergency body. It might as well have been a sack of potatoes. No […]
It took us around three trains to reach Luzern, a city in the Germanophone canton of Luzern, located in Switzerland. We departed from the Lausanne station bright and early only to reach a rainy Luzern. First order was a boat ride to cross the lake, to then reach a funicular station. From then on we reached a snow-covered Rigi Kulm […]
‘Clemence, our stellar pupil, you shall receive this new ordainment first to guide your class into this new phase of your lives.’ He offers me his hand to rise from the ground, my legs shake surely due to the effort of kneeling for so long, I feel my blood roar in every inch of my body when I take his […]
I begin my story as my mother, my teacher, and even the assistant priest have, all in different occasions throughout my life. ‘In the beginning Helianthus created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of Helianthus was hovering over the waters of dewdrops.’ ‘Over […]
The beginning is a story I know well. ‘And Helianthus told Valentine: “take your son, your only beloved son, Soraya, and go to a grove I have chosen for you. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a nest I will provide for you” ’ Our altar. ‘Valentine rose early with the Sun, to then wake Soraya. They set […]
I watch my parents head to the grove every morning from my hammock, far up into the flowers. I brush a dew soaked strand of hair away from my face as I watch them climb down the stems that make our home. I see all the adults in our community file into the grove. They will return later, with peaceful […]
I come of age not when I turn eighteen, but when I get to step into the grove for the first time. The rest of my covenant, girls I have grown with and known for my whole life, gasps when the curtains of ivy are pulled away, to be tucked behind arms of thorns. A singular strand of light runs […]
I don’t think there is anything beyond the forest. Not that I have ever wondered about it, or that I’m curious. It is simply a fact. We live among the flowers; we always have and that is it. ‘Who can tell us about the origin of the forest?’ I am also told that the sun shines above us, beyond the […]
By the glory of the flowers, I love to see the grove, Here in their sacred presence, we live right below, This is our beloved home, I’ll make our people proud, When I’m older and stand by the altar- Is the moment for my devotion to be vowed.