Stillness

                 

          The holidays are over and tomorrow I return to teaching.  I know my time will be limited for my personal work.  I look forward to this blog as my committment to share.  Over time,  I have gathered together my words and images and have come to realize,  if I maintain stillness,  I  have a story to tell.  It begins in the following excerpt from The Daimon.

Chapter 1:  Conception

                 Stillness penetrated the air, the brewing kind, even the hens had quit cackling.  If sound had traveled Little Elisabeth could have heard the scuffing of his farm boots, kicking up the dirt across the yard, for he had gotten wind of Momma hiding in the chicken house.   

“Go on!” Momma shooed her from underfoot. 

“But Momma…”­­

“Go play” She nudged as if nothing was wrong.

With great pains, Elisabeth returned the eggs to the nest.  They both knew what was coming down the path, something other than Daddy.

 “Auch, those Volga Germans!”  Momma used her Old German dialect on such occasions to admonish scars of oppression from lives past. 

                “Don’t you tell Daddy where I’m at!”  Momma needn’t say.  Tears softened her sternness, “Now go on!”­­

                Little Elisabeth imagined Viola coming to the rescue and left Momma pacing amongst the chickens; it wasn’t the safest hide-out. 

“Get to the house!” Viola coached.  Elisabeth’s legs broke into a run.  She could see him out of the corner of her eye. He cast that look of otherness; she ran faster. 

                He tried to charm Little Elisabeth with his toothy grin while scoping the direction from whence she had flown—like a stool pigeon—she could almost hear the taunt, crystal clear, in his blue eyes. 

                “Where have you been?”  He called out with a chuckle.

                 “No where!”  Her voice, though barely audible, resounded powerless, as she closed the back stoop door on a storm about to break. 

                Upstairs in her bedroom, Little Elisabeth played dollies with Viola in tow, hushing the babies so they wouldn’t cry.   Fear lurked in  Elisabeth’s psyche, taking shape in various forms through previous lifetimes.  Thankfully, she now had Viola as her companion.