Menolyrical; Final Friday Fiction

The end of May (no, that was not a political statement)... it means that we are at FFF

day again already!!! Do please leave a link to your offerings in the comments as am still setting this up from the YAMroid and linkythingamijiggery won't play ball.

PLEASE, FOLKS, LINK DIRECTLY TO YOUR FFF POST AND NOT TO YOUR BLOG GENERALLY, SO THAT ANYONE COMING LATE WILL STILL FIND YOUR STORY/POEM/MEMOIR. Thank you kindly.

From “Sathyodaya - Truth Awakening” by Sri Walpola Rahula.

8 - faraway places

12 - the offering

16 - I wish

WANDER AND WONDER

It was an interesting talk. Bella often dreamed of faraway places and since childhood felt she was destined to travel. At the grand old age of sixty, she was yet to get her feet further than the coastline of her home country. How had that happened, she wondered?

There had been the final school year jamboree trip to the Northern Tips when she was eighteen summers. That had been a revelation, for her native town was on the Flats of the Southern Continent. Nothing higher than a cherhog’s tail. Up there, climbing brought an exhilaration she had never felt before. She never forgot that feeling and all other travel experiences were measured against it.

Other high points in her memory were the visit to Overyon where the suns joined faces in their biennial conjunction, the journey of Lingerin with their headman and the two-month long Walk of Worthiness, undertaken in the foothills of Saykriohm.

Now here was the offering of a trip of a lifetime. The Speaker told the crowd of the chance to ride on the waters and drift over the far edge. He promised that the carrier would not fall into the sky beyond, but instead, would take them to another land, filled with a chance to wander and wonder with no fences or restrictions. There was room to swing the arms and stretch the legs with no fear of encroaching upon another’s boundary. It would be possible to lie down at full length and arms stretched and never know another was nearby.

Could there truly be such a place, where air could be breathed that had not been breathed before? “Oh, I wish and pray that this is true!” Bella whispered. Almost unbidden by her mind, her arm sprang up in response to the request for volunteers to take the journey.

Amazingly, there were only eight others. They were gathered together in the ante-room to meet The Speaker. In his presence there was a sensation of lightness and joy. No doubts came from Bella or her fellow volunteers; they were in awe of this person. He looked into each of their faces and each felt they were alone and yet were one. They all knew in that moment that the land to which they would wander would indeed be filled with wonder.

(385 words)

© Yamini Ali MacLean 2019