SSCS 01: Installment 7 of 31
Because the Desert is a Great, Broad Beast of Memory
This is Installment 7 of this year’s SSCS. If you want to start at the beginning of ‘Because the Desert is a Great, Broad Beast of Memory’, go here! If you want to know what the heck an SSCS is, go here!
Previously…
Now, when the wind howls upward, the heart of the beacon trembles, and shudders, and beats its first beat. And the cold, desert wind is forced to beat the air and the stones in time with it.
…Because the Desert is a Great, Broad Beast of Memory
Installment 7: 19.0309
For the blood of the scout is the desert’s blood, is the cathedral-dust blood of the valley of flowers, and – bee-less as it is – the valley still carries its dominion.
As the stone heart beats, the scout plucks out one eye, reaches out, and lets it fall so that it comes to rest in the beating, shuddering air just above the heart, spinning and flashing as red and searing as the desert winter, as red as the heart-blood is black, flashing at the top of the highest peak of the highest mountain.
This is the eye of the beacon, and it sees what the scout once saw, and hears the whispers of what the scout once heard. And now it will shout those secrets to the world. And the world will beat to the beat at the heart of the beacon and shout those secrets into the stars. The other scouts will hear her. If it is not too late, the other scouts will gather at the start of the whisper of clues and follow where the honey-faint trail will lead. The beacon is done.
And so the third-returned scout dives free of the peak to fly home. Home, home, home. Her stick-thin bones may barely hold her, but it will be enough. She will reach the stillness of the flowers. She will be welcomed into stillness for herself.