Search Results for 'relic'

It was hot, although not as hot as usual for the month of August on the southern slopes of the Serrania de Ronda. It had rained, the black clouds and thunder a welcome respite from the searing dry heat of an Andalucian summer, plumping up the blackberries and washing the dust from the leaves of the fig trees. Blithe Gambol hadn’t seen her old friend Granny Mosca for months, although she wasn’t quite sure what had kept her from visiting for so long. Blithe loved Granny Mosca’s cottage tucked away in the saddle behind the fat hill and there had been times when she’d visited often, just to drink in the magical air and feast her eyes on the beauty of the surroundings. Dry golden weeds scratched her legs as she made her way along the dirt path, and she was mindful of the fat black snake she’d once seen basking on the stone walls as she reached into the brambles to pluck blackberries and take photographs.

Rounding a corner in the path she gasped at the incongrous and alarming sight of a bright yellow bulldozer just meters from Granny Mosca’s cottage. The bulldozer was flattening a large area of prickly pear cactuses. Unfortunately for the cactuses, it was fruiting time, and Blithe wondered if Granny Mosca had first picked the fruits and suspected that she had, those that she could reach. Nothing that could be eaten was left unpicked ~ Blithe remembered the many sacks of almonds that Granny had given her over the years, very few of which she had bothered to shell and eat.

The bulldozer was making an entranceway to the tiny derelict cottage that was situated next to Granny Mosca’s house. Granny had asked Blithe if she wanted to buy it, and she had wanted to buy it eventually, but the purchase of a derelict building hadn’t been a priority at the time. Now it looked as if she was too late, that someone else had bought it, perhaps to use as a holiday home. Horrified, Blithe called out for Granny, who was often in the goat shed or away across the hidden saddle valley cutting weeds to feed the poultry, but there was no sign of her. Two alien looking turkeys gobbled in response, and the black and white chained dog barked menacingly.

As Blithe retraced her steps along the dirt path it occured to her that whoever was planning to use the derelict cottage might be a very interesting person, someone she might be very pleased to make the acquaintance of in due course. After all, she had noticed that the holiday guests staying at the casitas on the other side of the fat hill were all sympathetic to the magical nature of the location, many of them arriving from a previous visit to a particularly interesting location in the Alpujarras ~ a convergence of ley lines. When questioned as to why they chose the fat hill casitas, they simply said they liked the countryside. Either they weren’t telling, or they were simply unaware objectively of the connection of the locations. Blithe could sense the connections though, both the locations, and that the people choosing to vacation at the fat hill were connected to it.

For one hundred and forty seven thousand years, Blithe had had an energy presence at the fat hill, although it was half a century of her current focus before she remembered it. She had felt protective of it, when she finally remembered it, as if she had a kind of responsibility to it. This place can look after itself quite well on its own, she reminded herself. The fat hill had watched while Franco’s Capitan looted the Roman relics, and watched as Blithe stumbled upon the remains of Roman and Iberian cities, and the fat hill had laughed when Blithe first tried to find the entrance to the interior and got stuck in thorn bushes. Later, the fat hill had smiled benignly when Granny Mosca led her to the entrance ~ without a thorn bush in sight. The cave entrance had been blocked with boulders then. Blithe had given some thought to an excavation, wondering how to achieve it without attracting the attention of the locals, but now she wondered if one day, when the time was right, she would find the entrance clear, as if by magic. Magic, after all, was by no means impossible.

{link: feast for the birds}

Elioctyl looked down on her body being wrapped in mummification bandages and sniggered. Dear funny silly alive ones, with their darling little rituals. How sweet they were to think their physical processes would make a ha’porth of difference after their last sweet breath of terrestrial air.

Look at Hoofut, taking it all so seriously! He thinks that if he takes every possible care with those strips of cloth and smelly unguents, that he…yes he alone!…has the power to direct my next adventures. Silly man! But he means well, bless his leather sandals. And Tarfel too, see how he cries when he’s sure Hoofut isn’t watching. I see the tears roll down his leathery cheeks, I see him brush them away with the back of his hand, and sniff and snort, and then spit on the floor. He pretends it’s the malodourous vapours of the embalming mixtures that’s making his nose run, but I can see.

Shalabat cries too when no-one is watching. He rests on a cushion beside the pool, waiting for the completion of the process on my lifeless body, waiting for the ceremonial rites to take place, waiting, wondering, worrying about the future….he has every faith in Hoofut’s skills, and Tarfel’s too. But he wonders what will happen to his people now without Elioctyl.

Ah, and I wonder too, but I don’t worry. I make a pact now, in love for these dear ones, to leave a piece of me in energy in the mummy they create out of my bones and skin. The mummy is for the terrestrial ones, a poignant reminder, a mystery, a relic, a treasure, a clue! and for them, I give it life, energy, meaning….I will return from time to time, in ethereal body form, to those who ponder this mummy, for generations to come….