The Isle of Stone

6.

If not for the absence of his mother, travel in the warm, rocking basket would have been pleasant to Molobrus. It lulled him, over the miles of his life’s journey to the place his fathers had chosen for him, his brows furrowed with the effort of dreaming. He saw the nimbus of gray that he had learned was his mother, her head bent, pouring tears as her fingertips glistened blood from the scoring of her cheeks. He saw another shape in the gloom, still less distinct, who also wept, though he sensed not for any knowledge of a son borne up from her dark, benthic core. He went upward, ever upward, through the soft gates that waited to strangle him, up into the light, the trail, the judgment, and the mountain. Had he known the gorge awaited, he might have wondered to what fresh heights this new caregiver would send him.

When the moment came, instinct triggered a reflex that made him grab for some secure object. Thick arms spread and gathered in empty air; his bladder voided as he fell. After this the sensation seemed familiar-a long-lost weightlessness. In peace, he remained curled into a ball, his feet crossed at the ankles, his right thumb in his mouth, his eyes turned away from the light, for all the time left to him in the world.