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And I Let Go of Her Hand

This is an addition or spin off from a cool creative writing piece I found on Tumblr by thefalloutdiaries. You can find the original post here:

I was not so old as to venture out on my own when my mother told me of the old friends. I was taught, as all others, of the Final War, as some called it. As soon as I was developed enough to understand the meaning of those words, they told me all about the Extinction Event. But my mother had different stories that she saved from my curious questions. She laid those stories down in an airtight container and forbid me to touch them. I spent many years wondering about those tightly-wrapped stories; one day I was pulled close to the bosom of my mother’s body and told to listen very closely to the tale of the old friends.

“You know I do not like to talk of the Great War, but the oldest of my friends will be visiting us, soon. I want you to know about her before you meet her; I want you to hear her history before she arrives.” My mother touched the scar over her eye absently.

“Friends?” I asked with one sound.

I asked so many more with my eyes and with my mind tenderly touching the packaging of those stories. With a bright delight that I muffled, I listened to my mother unwrap the story slowly, with shaking fingers and trembling breath. I could feel her entire body jerk with the effort to tell me something that I had always wanted to know.

“Yes. An old friend. She has worked very hard to gain entrance to our world. It has taken a lot of work; our kind do not trust her, child. I have not seen her since — ”

“The War?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t we trust her?”

“She is human, child. A being of mankind.”

“A warrior race…” I mumbled, reciting the memorized lessons.

I used to recount them before I went to sleep, such was my fascination with humanity. The barbarian species, the race of warriors, the war dogs of the universe! So many frightful names floating around my head before I finally drifted into my sleeping state and always the haze of curiosity lulling me into a sense of security rather than fear. Of course I knew about the Human Empire and their deeds. The savagery that they committed among one another before uniting. Their domestication among the rest of the universe.

The Texar-Hakara. The blood lust. The death, the destruction. The Extinction Event.

I used to dream of their eyes like the most deadly of lasers sweeping across our home and bringing demise to our people. I used to dream of their forms — we never saw what they truly looked like and had to imagine them in dark corners with hushed voices. Did they have antennae? How many limbs, exactly? Eyes? What spoken language did they use? I created a voice like thunder for the humans; it followed me in my dreams, unintelligible and haunting.

“Yes. You know of their actions against the Texar-Hakara. The way that they decimated the species, leaving few survivors to live out the Extinction bathed in fear and despair. It was a time of desperation for our kind. We tried so hard to reign them in; they would not listen. My friend, she was one of the humans who brought about the demise of the Texar-Hakara.”

“You’re letting her into our home?” I questioned, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice. I believe I failed.

“Child, listen to me. Listen to how my old friend, a human, was in the time before the Final War. I met her when I was working as a translator on what was once the Azgarian home planet. I would spend my days mediating between different races, talking in tongues that do not exist anymore. As a result, this human met me before she met any other species. I was the only one who knew how to speak her language.”

My mother suddenly laughed. A low, humming sound, she chuckled. Her frame moved with the vibrations.

“What is funny?”

“I remember our first encounters, she and I. We spoke brokenly to each other, with such elaborate gestures. I remember how amazed I was at the voice of humanity; they are quite vocal, child. They speak in not only words but in pitches, rising and falling.”

I remembered my thunderous dreams. Would the human not sound like I imagined? Would this warrior not rumble, but shriek and howl?

My mother grew still, again. Her oldest memories naturally progressed towards something marked with roaring fires and the smell of death. It had begun to soak into even her earliest memories, without the human. She told me, much later, in a frightened whisper, that sometimes she still heard the wailing of the Texar-Hakara and smelled the sour scent of their blood. Still, I urged her to show me the blood-stained memories. I was not worried about being splattered with long-dried blood.

“She was nothing like I had heard, child. We were told to be cautious. This race of brutal, cruel humans had only recently pursued peace. They were working hard, but we had to watch them closely to make sure that they did not regress into their barbaric tendencies. They told us to always observe the eyes, child. A human’s intentions, they said, are always spoken through their eyes.”

She paused.

“My friend had the largest eyes. Out of all the humans I saw, her eyes were always so big and bright. Child, she was nothing like what we were told. She delighted in color, like we do. She would sing me songs from her home. She had the most gentle touch, child. She could coax a hatchling out of its shell quicker than its own caregiver.”

My own caregiver, my mother, gazed off beyond our home to a place and time that I could only create blurry recreations of and hear dimly through fabricated memories. I thought I saw her smile before the smoke of the too-recent War began to cloud her eyes, again. I wanted to tug her back into the present, jealous that she had such vivid pictures of the human while all I had were crude caricatures.

“I believed that she was the pinnacle of humanity; she was the final product of their efforts. When the Texar-Hakara came, when they began to tear apart planets and invade our own galaxy…this human, she wailed with me for the deaths. She would claw at herself and emit the most terrible emotions because of the destruction. And, child, she did not want her race to fight. She would sit with me, watching her Empire’s Marines march past, and she would ask me if I could forgive her.”

My mother was no longer with me. I could not bring her back from this long-forgotten time.

“A simple human gesture; they hold each other’s hands. She would ask me to hold hers and it would calm those volatile emotions. I shouldn’t have — ”

She hesitated. I waited.

“But, then, the Texar-Hakara — they thought that they could — such foolishness. After the news came to us, I thought that I would not be able to withstand her emotions — that terrible cry she did of anguish was enough to make me weak. Oh, child, if only I could have kept her from witnessing the devastation of her home. If only I could have taken her away and given her the peace that she desired!”

“What happened to her?”

“I thought that she was immovable when it came to peace. I thought that she was without weakness when it came to savagery. I was wrong, child. So very wrong. After she had broken the barrier of peace in our station with her sorrow, I saw for the first time what intentions could be expressed in a human’s eyes. They changed, child — ”

My mother held onto me and I found it hard to breathe, but I was swept away with her in her memories. Nothing would stop me from finally being able to see the human and its cruelty; the sharp teeth, the quick tongue, the eyes of fire that doomed whoever they fell upon! Selfishly I lapped up the devastation that poured from my mother’s own trauma and I hoarded it for myself; I wrapped it tightly in my mind. She spoke quickly, desperately.

“Her eyes…She left me. The last time I saw her was in the evacuation. The conflict was coming to the Azgarian planet. I thought that I would take her back to my home; I wanted to keep my friend safe, child. I thought if I brought her here, she would not become one of them. But I was too late, child. I met her on the day of evacuation. She was wearing their armor. Her voice cracked across the room; her eyes flashed with acidic purpose. My friend was gone. I tried to grab her hand, to calm her — her words, child. I should not repeat them.”

“What did she say?”

“I understood her language perfectly by this time. I did not know that it was founded on blood. She spoke of determination and devastation. I could see in her eyes that, yes, even she thirsted for the blood of the Texar-Hakara. I took her hand, child, I took her hand and I tried to placate her but her words…so cold and so exact. She frightened me so, child. My friend was a monster and I — I — ”

On the cusp of discovering illicit information, I did not breathe. The air hung still as it waited for the climax of the story that had not only been unwrapped but flung against the wall, scattered on the floor, splattered on our skin, shattered and clinging to the ceiling. I wanted to reach for the scar on my mother’s eye, but I did not want to break her trance.

“I let go of her hand.”

The silence rushed out of the room in a flood of anxious desperation. I took air in and let it sit within me before I let it back out. My mother’s eyes became cloudy and she shook with an emotion that I did not quite understand; she must have learned it from the human. For me, there was no need for the wailing, but it seemed to rock her frame from the inside.

“Why is she coming here? Why now?”

“I do not know.” she answered quietly. “I want you to stay behind me when she arrives.”

“But — ”

“Silent, child. You will listen to me.” A trace of that emotion leaked out. I grasped it tight to my chest. I coveted it for a long time, afterwards.

The human did arrive, shortly after. A flurry of fear fell across our quadrant. Not a single one of our kind stirred as the human climbed to our home. I waited behind my mother; almost faint with anticipation. I held the emotion within me and waited; I would hold it up next to the human and find the similarity, somehow. I expected it to fit into the human perfectly.

Yet, when her shadow fell across me, I knew that I must let go of that piece of the past. Some sound, up and down, back and forth, came drifting towards me. My mother responded to it slowly, in her humming voice. The human’s language seemed to fill me to the brim. I could not make meaning, but somehow I understood what was happening. Then I heard my own tongue.

“It has been a long time, old friend.” said the human, lacing the atmosphere with emotions only the human race knew.

“Yes, it has.”

My mother let me see her. The human was the antithesis of my dreams. She stood easily, without sharp teeth or claws. Her voice did not rumble like thunder or strike like lightning. It simply leapt through the air. Rising, falling. She did not wear the armor that hung in the memorial; she was wrapped in colors. I forced myself to look up into her eyes; the largest orbs flashed at me, but they did not burn me. They sparkled like the stars in the sky.

“Hello, little one.” she coaxed. “You do not have to be afraid.”

I was not. I was entranced. I was influenced. I was in love, yet somehow aloof.

In a sudden rush, the human, jerked forward. Startled, I retreated into our home. My mother stood her ground. The human had a hold of my mother’s hand. I could see her squeeze it and some remnant of left-behind emotion perfumed the air.

“I am sorry, Ahn-Tia.” the human cried out, somehow still sounding like music.

“My friend, it is over.” replied my mother. She held the human’s hand. “Aria, you are forgiven.”

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