Legend of the Shale, by JCC Keith
“There is someone I want you to meet,” she coaxed as she led him down the hall and into a small quiet room. Turning back for a quick glance at Lem, Rob couldn’t believe he had at last managed to get the attention of this beautiful woman. He wanted to make sure Lem was a witness. No one would believe him otherwise. Women like this didn’t exist in real life, or so he had believed until he first saw her. Sliding her hand in his, Aavi, as she had introduced herself, brought Rob to stand beside a small girl alone in the room. Rob gazed at the dark haired child. He couldn’t help but notice her long thick dark hair resembled that on his own head. Catching the attention of her impressively deep green eyes, those too stared back at him with familiarity. The long elegant shape of her nose with its distinct rounding at the tip matched his own. Every feature, even her slightly reddish-bronze skin matched with his. “Jesse is Perrir like you,” Aavi offered as if reading his thoughts. “That’s impossible, the Perrir people perished just after I was born. She is only ten, maybe twelve cycles old. I was the only survivor of the disaster, there are no Perrir left and I have no children,” Rob resisted but wanted it to be true. He wanted desperately to be connected to someone through blood but it wasn’t possible. Who was this child?
“Rob you were a duplicity. Jesse is your brother’s child. He too survived the destruction of the Perrir people. Just as you were, your brother was taken away to live elsewhere,” Aavi explained, again as if reading his thoughts. “How do you know I was a duplicity? How do you know what happened that night?” he still couldn’t believe it. “I was there,” Aavi replied. “I was there to save you and your brother. I took you from your mother’s arms and away to safety.” “How could that be? You look younger than I do,” Rob stammered, “how could you have been there and left without being caught in the devastation? The entire area, every single one of the thirty islands was destroyed, crumbled into pieces in the Southern Sea.” “I will tell you the story one day but today is not that day. I must leave you now. Jesse can answer many of your questions. I will return later.” Squeezing her hand to keep her from leaving, Rob didn’t want her to go. He only had a few minutes with her. How could she be leaving so soon? Rob watched as her small body shimmered slightly in the light and began to fade from view. “No!” He called out in protest to her departure.
Squeezing his hand around hers he couldn’t accept what his eyes were telling him he saw. She was there. Her luminous, flowing golden hair was brushing against his arm. Her violet eyes were looking into his own dark green eyes. The scent of her skin was filling his senses with an intoxicating rush. And then she vanished, disappeared before his eyes. His hand fell empty by his side. Turning to Lem, his longtime friend Lem, keeper of all legends, Rob asked if what he thought had just happened had really just happened. It was surreal and he had to wonder if it was all a dream. In the air a thick sweet aroma lingered in her absence and Rob inhaled as deeply as possible. He couldn’t wait to see her again. First he needed to know what was happening. He needed answers on who or what Aavi really was. Clearly she was not mortal nor corporeal. She was one of the magic folk. “Lem, can you explain what just happened? Who is that woman? What is she? She said she was a guardian. What does that mean?” “She is a guardian,” Jesse spoke softly, “but she is no ordinary guardian. She is a Shale.” “What is a Shale?” Rob asked the obvious question, “Lem, tell me the legend of the Shale.”
Beginning the story, Lem started with the same phrase he used to start all stories… “Legend has it… “Lem paused as he considered whether or not to add any definite truth to the story or just stick to the legend. Deciding it best to stick with the exact legend, as passed down over the centuries among the Sonomians, he began again. “Legend has it the Shale were created by the God Ein. Ein felt compassion for the people of the North. They were plagued by disease and disaster. They had been abandoned by the Gods of the Old World and left to their own destruction on the isolated islands of the harsh Northern Sea. Ein took a piece of his own heart and created a new life to send to the North to save the people. The world was a rough place but he felt females would be best suited to the task of saving the people. He sculpted their features from the memory of his true love Inara, Old World Goddess of Beauty. He captured rays of the sun to give them their golden hair and bring light back to the North. For their eyes he plucked the vivid violet flowers from the Gardens of the Gods to bring color back to the land. Their skin he made from sugar and honey to endow them with the sweetness necessary to endure the hardships of humanity. Ein’s creations spread out across the North healing the sick and restoring hope as they went. The people called them the Shale; it means savior in the old language. Over the centuries they returned the isolated islands to their former splendor and helped build the strength of the people. In those times the Shale were numerous in number. Legend says the other Gods asked Ein to help their people and their lands. Out of kindness and generosity he sent his Shale, one each, to every homeland and its people, and left only one to protect the North. Stories are still told of the Great God Ein and his Shale. People say each year on the eve of the rising of the Northernmost Star, the Shale return to the North to mark the anniversary of their creation and pay homage to Ein. It is how SonomonShale Island gained its name. In the old language sonom means refuge. SonomonShale translates to Refuge of the Savior. It is supposedly the original home and refuge of all Shale.” Lem finished his brief history of the Shale.
Seeing the smile on Jesse’s face, he could tell she knew more than Rob. Jesse, he guessed, had been told a different legend, one told by those of the Southern Seas. Legends were like that, they differed according to the area in which they were told. Sonomians, as the protected people of the Shale, told it best he felt. “You said, “in those times the Shale were numerous in number,” does that mean there aren’t as many around now?” Rob failed to notice Jesse’s smile. Nothing mattered at the moment except getting to an answer, “Are there more of these Shale?” “Aavi is the last,” Lem smiled at Rob’s hopeful expression, “She is the sole remaining Shale and she is the guardian.
Cocoa, Chocolate Ice Cream and Hot Buttered Toast, by Tim Wilkinson
Cocoa, chocolate ice cream and hot buttered toast, that was our dinner, that last night we spent together. It wasn’t exactly common for her to do this, nor was it rare. It happened mostly on evenings when she felt too tired, angry or depressed to actually cook or prepare…well let’s just say something normal. Of course, we didn’t mind so much, we, her children. No, in fact my older brother Earl, Davy the younger and our little sister Janie and I thought it quite grand, a real treat. After all, as I said, it didn’t happen so often, only when Mother’s mania and melancholy were at their peak. Both of which seemed a sort of reprieve to us all, as while her mania found her up, happy and lively, even her brooding, sulking darkness caused within her a sort of tender kindness most often absent from her angry tirades and debilitating, virulent outbursts of verbal violence and eviscerating condemnations. Yes, we thought it great as our stepfather most usually chose the heat and serve TV dinners whenever he needed to mask or enable his unfaithful liaisons with his potato skinned, vodka breathed whore, or when mom was…well as I’ve said, unavailable. You know the sort of fare I am talking about, the type that came incased in silvery aluminum trays covered in thick, shiny foil, folded along the sides and crimped at the corners. At least those of you who’ve lived long as I know of what I referring to, those of the first generation of heat and eat foods. Mexican for me, thank you, was always my choice. A lightly seasoned, saucy enchilada or two, perhaps a bare, corn covered tamale, a glob of refried beans and a pocket of pink, spicy rice I thought of as wonderful. And of course we all had our metallic topped, fold up TV trays with the rubber tipped feet and the cheap looking floral designs printed on top. Yet even as much as I enjoyed what these space age wonders provided, the Tex-Mex, the Salisbury steaks and the limp, fried chicken with reconstituted mashed potatoes , sweet corn or peas, is it any wonder which we option we preferred? Yes, as you can easily imagine, Cocoa, chocolate ice cream and hot buttered toast survived, hands down the winner. Looking back I still wonder about that night, what must have been going through her mind as we children sat alone in the small dinning room, just off the wide, long kitchen, relishing our glorious treats. Even now, over forty years after, I find myself agonizing, questioning and doubting, trying to understand he actions, her motives…as well as my own. Much as I’m sure we all have, or once did. All of us that is, of my…family. Yet that night began as many others before it. Nothing set it apart or somehow marked it as one of such lasting effect. The evening found Mother down and morose, Stepdad out as usual, nothing out of the ordinary. The four of us children sat quietly. Well ok, we sat as quietly as children are wont to do, eating our toast and ‘chockwet’, watching our favorite shows, shows I now can’t seem to remember. While mother, well after setting the table, dressing Janie in her new, ‘Winnie the Poo’ bib, walked up the stairs to her bedroom, closed the door, laid down upon her bed…and quietly died. She didn’t lock the door so it was little Janie that found her later that evening, tightly curled atop the bed, an empty bottle of Xanax still tightly clutched within one hand. Of course Janie didn’t understand, I wonder if any of us did, not until years later anyway. What I remember most, even today is how serine and calm Mother looked, as if she were merely enjoying a needed rest after a long and weary day or an afternoon nap. It seems funny looking back, funny as in strange, odd, for no one cried, no one except I that is. Shock I think it was, disbelieve and fear, who can say. That’s a lot for children to deal with, the oldest among us, Earl, being only twelve at the time. At any rate, Earl died a few years later, a needle stuck in his arm. Davy, well he ran away as soon as he was old enough to escape. I haven’t seen or heard of him in twenty plus years. Janie, well she seems the most normal, yet I do often wonder. She married a man twenty years her senior, had a few kids and faded into cloistered, subdued silence. I haven’t spoken to her in as many years either. As for the rest of the so called family, aunts, uncles, cousins and such, well…they all had their own lives, didn’t they. As for me, well I’ve had my own share of troubles I suppose, troubles with drugs, drinking and whoring. Seems I’m always searching for something or someone, a little numbness, a few brief moments of pleasure and some semblance of joy. Little wonder, or so I am told, yet who can truly say? Who has an easy time in this life, who but the rich, the spoiled or the welfare entitled? And I, well I have children of my own now, three, two girls and a little boy, Vickie, Davie and Dawn. Their mother, well she left a few months ago. She isn’t coming back. It’s dinner time now. The table is set and the kids are eating. I won’t be eating tonight. I’m tired, so tired. Too bad I have no Xanax. I could use a bit of sedation right about now. However these are new times and it’s a new world in which we live and there are new drugs to fix all that ails us. I’m going upstairs now…to rest. It’s been a long and hectic day. I’m sure I can find something in the medicine cabinet that will work. All I want…is to sleep, just to sleep. The kids are happy. I can hear their playful laughter as I walk quietly up the darkened stairwell. They love it when I fix them cocoa, chocolate ice cream and hot buttered toast for dinner. I think of Janie as I lock the bedroom door. Dawn, the little one, she likes to check on me. The End © 2013, Tim Wilkinson
