Of all the lousiest ways of spending a Friday night, mine takes the cake. I fell asleep for almost 2 hours right as work finished. My immediate plans had been: call mother and inquire as to how she's feeling today; eat something dainty; play soccer in the rain. Instead, I collapsed in a heap, piled blankets on myself, and fell asleep while praying.Now, instead of enjoying the company of friends and chasing a soccer ball around darkening fields, I've only the wind and rain for company. I should have accepted J's offer for a board game night.
My mother is faring better. I'm fairly certain only mothers can receive calls regarding their visit to the emergency room, and turn away questions of health into questions of, "met any cute girls lately?" At first, I believed it a Jewish mother specialty, but I've since learned Jewish mothers do not have a monopoly on such questions.
No, Mom. I think all my female friends will be married by next year. I've never even held hands with a girl, and mother expects a fairy-tale falling. I expect she prays for it each night. Poor mother, cursed with three socially difficult boys. But how are you doing?
There is heart disease, or something, on mother's side of the family. She fears a heart attack, and has let us know about her worries. She exercises daily, watches her cholesterol and blood pressure carefully, eats especially well, and appears a blazing light of energy and health. The doctors said the same, and, thankfully, it was not the heart causing the pains, but an acquired acid reflux probably.
If I defined the week for you in five words, exhausting might not even make the list. It should have, I just refused to grant it notice. Every day this week, my body slept adequately until four in the morning, and then in small bits until work. I suspect my rem cycles averaged one a night. Yet this fright with my mother caught my body's fatigue up to my mind. I'm still in bed, still listening to the rain putter against the gutters and the wind whistle through the screen, rustling the blinds.
And now, evening drowned the sun in darkness, and I wish I had something worth writing, but my enervation has deprived me. I'm blind to inspiration.
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So strong are these feelings, that when you encounter
even a few of the Rhuach, senses are easily overwhelmed – the fainthearted have died with bliss in their eyes, a fatal rapture. On the day the great
city fell, even the great desert islands of the south, the pearly-peaked
mountains of the distant north, to the far-flung reaches of east and west, a
lilting song echoed along the wind without discernible words, across the
worlds, breaking the hardest of hearts. Even in the farthest countries, over
the seas and under the earth, the exotic and nutty smell of cardamom and
honeyed saffron drifted like memories.
:But who destroyed the city,
Grandpa? And why?:
Grandpa sighed, deflating
visibly. :It was a grand greed, the delusion of theft:
In ages long past, they
appeared. From whence they came, the first Rhuach, we know not, for they
arrived before the great cities of man: Mezekh, Ulan, Il Ariesa. Already,
before these laid their first foundations in the hearts of man, the Rhuach
delved into the deeper arts, desiring return to the land of their home. To us,
it might have been magic; to them, it was but an art, a creative birthing. In a
forest glade, far to the west, they linked together in a tapestry of color and
sentient mingling, and a great awakening was born.
Not the city, but the stone of colorlessness at its
center. It is neither stone, truly, nor matter, for when held they claim it is
liquid sometimes, or of no weight at all, and of changing form. In this stone, they placed the fullness of
their artistic weight, the compleat mastery of magic. But it was not enough,
and much was destroyed in the attempt, the earth riven, the forest torn
asunder, rivers rent and mountains burst forth about them.
Devastated, they journeyed far unto the Harmonah river,
building the city from the stone’s great powers. If the stone were destroyed,
so, too, were the Rhuach, and the city in its wake.
There were, in those days, several polis in the region.
Disregarding the artistry of Zevah Nuahr, its strategic and cultural positions
were also substantial. Crossing the
mountains through any other pass required more than a day’s journey, and the
danger of bandits was significant. Rogue’s Roads, they called them, for if you
were crossing on other paths, you were as like to meet them as be them.
Strategically, then, it possessed a vantage on every
trade route from Nesul to Mezekh, and any routes destined for the western
coast. The lake beneath the waterfall offered a welcome respite for weary
travelers, and the sight of spiraling rainbows and Zevah Nuarh soothed sore
eyes. While caravans frequently passed without lingering in the city, many
climbed the extra hours for the safety of a city and the refreshing qualities
of an inn, dancing, and the serenity of the city of colors.
