[PRESS Ctrl ++ TO ENLARGE] Cora fades slowly out of whitening to embrace the return of her full spectrum. She can feel her heart go back to a synergetic pace and the length of her breaths increase. This event with Mailaa ended the same as they do usually, “This is all I can do, until you have mastered yourself.” Cora heard her own voice as she withdrew her space. Mailaa enjoyed her testing. She knew more about Cora after each assessment. It pleased her to no end that she believed she held the key to the older woman’s pattern. As she sat teary eyed, Mailaa wished that they were equal so that she could demonstrate what she’d learned. The leathery response stung her without kindness. This time Cora sparked whiter than Mailaa thought she could, but the girl still believed her possession was priceless. Cora thought about Mailaa’s conception and confirmation. She was happy about the girl’s entry into the world. She was fruit for the eye, and the spirit in her first year. The revelation of her acumen in the next couple, made her a child that one could not help but keep company. Cora spent many joyous hours, watching and playing, showing and knowing the adolescent girl she now lives with. She loves and fears for Mailaa greatly. Her established birthmark does not lie. More than requested actions left undone, Mailaa knows confused language to work best. She isn’t always involved in testing. It seems only recently that she began at all. Before, there was much more laughter, and the kind of comfort that feels like just right bath water. Mailaa’s knows her testing is the reason why there isn’t as much as before. Instead of thinking about that, she keeps her sweetness in her mind, except when she’s alone, or with other girls. Cora is the one with Mailaa most of the time, so she focuses her testing on her. Her name will be Mailaa. An elder spoke, after briefly consulting among her ranks. They had kept the baby for seven days, the full length of a newborn’s confirmation. Cora was cared for in a separate space. There is where she re-gathered. She knew her spectrum colors well and could easily sense the gained addition. One elder read the baby’s skin and said where the mark would appear. Another elder who had no eyes agreed and said the girl was a part of their design. A third member whispered, as Cora studied white, and rasped the word, undefined. The group chuckled at this revelation that is solemnly said at all confirmations. In their tradition the future can not be known, just prepared for and accepted when it comes. White is the color of rage. When you feel it, you will know it as whitening. It is a spectrum color needed only after bearing a child, and exists only as long as the child does. Cora learned from the elders how to properly balance white and set it’s limits within her essence. Her pre-child shades are to maintain their kaleidoscopic sparkle around her form, while she wears the white as an adornment that can be made to look like shaped silver. Depending on Mailaa, the white is to fuse with, and illume more brightly than the other colors. This whitening will be the girl’s unmistakable sign that a specific type of interaction is at hand. I thought you meant Lulu. We were both undressed. Cora’s jewelry begins to melt. Mailaa speaks further about her not, and Lulu being dressed and ready to go. She watches the woman’s color fade as she utters the syllables of her words. What’s the matter? Isn’t Lulu’s outfit nice? Didn’t I make her hair look pretty? The two people have spent the last hour listening to Cora tell Mailaa to put her clothes on. The time for words have passed, save for the ones she will use when the event of her whitening is finished. I’ve figured you out, you know. You, your colors and your words. You’ve been saying it all along...telling me over and over. Well I’ve got it now. I’ve got you. You can not do anything else. When this is over, you will stop and that will be it. Nothing more. You will disappear and this will be finished. The white color, and who you are behind it, will leave. It always does, you cannot stay. You only show up when I make you. I make you. You come only because of me... and then you leave...and that is all you can do. You know it’s true. That is all you can do. That is all you can do. Mailaa did not know what to expect. Lulu was gone, dropped as the girl recoiled her hand from Cora’s unpredictable and accurate range. The woman was all around the her. Amid fierce strikes, heart-kicks and crying, neither person heard the sound of ripping. Mailaa’s soggy lips were too involved for her to hear anything but her sound. She knew she would make it under these conditions, though she fought to keep the yelps from stealing. She was to be a match for Cora this time. Her words for the woman’s whitening. A new surprise for an old routine. Mailaa muffled her inner screaming and desperately kept her jaw moving. She felt her strength being whipped by fear and that things were out of her control. Cora heard the agitated girl between hits and clearly felt what was inaudible. She knew that Mailaa was now defined. Her whitening was beginning to fade and she realized that this would be her last. The tearing reached her where she first felt the child assert herself in her womb. With each plunk of fabric fiber breaking, Cora and her grip lessened. An already gone elder sent a word through the stars that gently diffused her hysteria. The shredding was beginning to vibrate and further disturb the last moments. Mailaa caught her eye just as the tears spilt past their border. The whitening was between them, transparent and dissipating. Cora’s spectrum multiplied by thousands. Thunder demanded their attention, as did rumbling and ill possessed winds. Cora appeared to be and was indeed in the air, prepared to leave, even if unfinished. The design was pulling her toward it’s own completion. Mailaa was holding her knees and thinking as fast as she could. There was no trace of white. Cora’s colors were blending with those coming in from the window and roof. On the floor, Lulu laid on her face in the place where the woman’s feet would be. Cora thought of her last words and slowly began to speak them. |
| mAILAA'S mASTERING bY mStMUSZE copyright 2006 |