Bells pass in the Tower of Silence. I
sleep twice before my throat doesn't protest even water. It is
longer before I begin to feel normal again.
Lying there, though, I wonder what it
is that I gave up for that Song. The sense of being less remains,
although I can feel it scarring over, fading to something less than
an ache. A forgotten memory, which I will forget even the forgetting
of, soon. I can feel, so slightly, two other such scars, themselves
forgotten and long since worn down to a smooth surface.
Much of the time, I find myself sitting
by the one window in this Tower, up above the storage floor. The
lights of Singers below on the flagstones moving back and forth on
business I know I will soon return to. Singing forth those things we
need, slowly adding flagstones to the edges of the city. And all the
time, the stellated line of light that describes the edge of
everything.
Sitting on the sill, only the general
tones of songs come through. The whole Tower is insulated, to
promote quiet and solitude for healing. Here, though, some of our
singing is audible, a general sense of what is happening, a wash of
voice and sound rising and falling almost regularly.
From time to time, shudders strike me,
hot tears and quaking. I remember this, now. This drawing inward.
Other Singers who have sung that song don't talk about this, but I've
felt it all three times. Perhaps it is a flaw in me, in my Song,
perhaps it is a flaw in them, that they don't feel it.
Eventually, though, with food and rest,
and caring, I begin to find equilibrium. Not better, but less worse,
or at least stable in that worseness. Perhaps from here I can rise
back to what I once was, if such a person ever existed.
316
No comments:
Post a Comment