Whilst We Wait | Teen Ink

Whilst We Wait

March 23, 2023
By pfrisby32 BRONZE, Davidsonville, Maryland
pfrisby32 BRONZE, Davidsonville, Maryland
3 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
No One Is You & That Is Your Power


The days are long in Cambina, longer than most's patience. The river runs harder and faster than the two hands of school children meeting their afternoon snack with their lips. But, this doesn't stop them from putting those same hands in the river for a played game of raspa. The mothers dip their shoulders, with the sun still barely around, waiting for the children to emerge home. But with an ease of patience because they know they used to play the same game too. The bursting city is the outlier to this happening on its outside. The biggest, the only, city in Cambina isn't what you might think it to be. It's home to almost no one as people are always moving through. It's the quiet to the rest of the land because she doesn't play with the rest of it. You shout Shara! and your mind wraps around the city's identity. The daughters wake her up and the sons put her to sleep. The restricion is vast, but so imbedded it feels like bad luck. None of the suns in the world stick around long, feelings run down your back before through your mind, it's a tight squeeze between one door to the next, no one plays raspa here, no one even seems to remember what it is, no one can call for the song birds because they are free and not bound, and no one feels Shara like the ones who stay there.   


The rustling willows are a comforting sound and they only awake when the bustle starts and dies down. An evening’s presence sets over the city and so do the willows' song, inviting peace along with it. Strong-willed and even keeled is the face she puts on this time to hide Shara’s guilt in which, including her, everyone carries. She takes it and goes on, settling her space down. The youth breathes out of her between each hymn she hums, the one’s she learned in church as a child. But this was before Shara, there were no churches there. She is draped in bright white linen just alike what she’s folding and lying in a basket. Her hair washed, a little mangled, and bundled by a scarf that had more colors than a rainbow. Coming upon the last linen, she strokes the creases with the back of her finger so she can prove to herself that she can still make a gentle touch. An abrupt clash! sounds by the window drawing her towards it and away from the linen basket. A small crack forms on the window which she can’t bring herself to make contact with as she had just made using that same gentle touch. 


The author's comments:

This is an excerpt from a piece I've been working on setting the scene of a city, and even though I don't have a certain destination with it the story, I think this beginning shapes it for endless possibilities. 


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