serial – Fauna Lewis Writes

Children of the Living Isle // post six.

This is another blog serial. Ope.

It would be work like neither of us had ever known for it wasn’t necessary. We had what we needed to exist, surely we should have been contented with that.

But we were the daughter of a mountain and the son of the moonlight, and we would not be so
easily pacified.

For many days I wandered the mountain. Crossed it here and there, scuffed my delicate hands against the toughness of it for hidden trails that would reveal themselves to only me, for I knew my father. He did not give us food when we cried that we had hunger, instead he would show us a bush laden with berries high on the cliffside. A bounty of krill just on the other side of a sandbar.

Finally on the fifth day I found the perfect spot: a small shelf that hung over a small lake, partially concealed from the sky.

I told my brother of what I had found and we began our work. He dug his heel into the sand and we both rejoiced as the water swirled around his feet and onto the new swell he had made.

As he climbed the mountain, I descended. I brought with me a tinkling waterfall from our father, and he the swirling mystery of the sea. We were glad, now, that our silver kin occupied our mother. That our father was mostly indifferent to our labors. That we were left in a kind of peace.

Our bodies ached but we could not feel it when finally we were to bring our water together, so that my brother might know our father. So that neither of us may be alone.

But I was struck then with incredible jealousy as I watched my brother, as sure as hewn rock and sleek as the shadowed depths, dig away the last of the barrier my father had put between them.

I would be outed twice, my silver fish to the waves and moonlight, my brackish one to the calm of a hidden pool. All I knew of my father would be known and then some. Things I could never see, could never feel, would be for them and them alone.
I hid my envy from my brother as he cried out in his happiness. How could I take that from him?
The waters mingled. He beckoned me to his side as he continued his ascent. How could I not oblige? He was my brother, the only being whom remained beside me when our parents both turned their backs.

Our father sucked the sea up into him and my brother with it. I feared for him as he slipped beneath the mounting waves, despite knowing he could survive it. The fear was for myself, for what I
was about to lose. For what he was to gain.

I ran to the edge of the pool, now flattened again but for the ripples of my brother who had plunged within it. Now out of the dark waters of creation he no longer blended in, obsidian on shadow. Here in the clear pool he shone like a star. What our mother did for our silvery brother, the sunlight did for him.

We spent lovely days, our father and us. I more kept off to the side, a finger or toe breaking the pool surface, while my brother rolled within the greatness of the mountain. My father revealed veins that
went deep within, and only occasionally would my brother offer his back for me to ride. Otherwise I watched as he disappeared to places I could not go, my joy for my brother an equal to my pain.

Our mother made sure we knew how she felt about it. She washed out our channel so that he may not return from the mountain, only to guide me in repairing it once her guilt became overfilled.

The lengths between each visit varied, dependent upon the geniality of the mountain, the comfort of their company with or without the other.

Eventually I found myself relegated to the shoreline again and nowhere else.

My brothers would simply bid me farewell, flit off into the unknown, to creatures unknown. Places unknown. The moonlight on the mountain refused me and so I remained trapped in the foam.

This story, which I am breaking into an online serial to release every-other Saturday, is the original incarnation of my recently published poetry books My Mother, the Moonbeam and My Father, the Mountain. Posts related to each of those books are also included in this blog, offering additional information and insight to the poems. You can find more information on books, events, and the blog at http://www.faunalewiswrites.com

Children of the Living Isle // post five.

This is another blog serial. Ope.

When I came to know myself more I began to spend my days gathering that which my father provided to me. Oh how he loved to see my creations! The questions he would ask, and the tales I would tell. He knew they were only pebbles, and twigs, and blades of grass, for he had given them to me, but his smile beamed upon me, heavy and accepting, as I tried to convince him they were instead
creatures of the air. That they were instead puddles of sky.

I knew it would not last, could not. Though he doted on me, loosed flowers upon my brow and rushed sparkling streams across my feet, the night would always come and he was no longer mine.

She kept everything from me. Kept it where I could see not but reach.

It was easy for my mother to keep them complacent for she could easily encircle them all without taking from the other. My brothers were contented, my father appeased, and I tucked away into a dark corner. I wished to also play in her light but I was stubborn and refused. They could bask in it; I would instead borrow whatever strength my father left over for me until the moonlight would go.

A whole new world came to exist when my second brother, with his thick scales of near-black, began an interest in the mountain.

When our silver kin would leap from the cool waters to greet our mother, my brother would instead join me in the tidal pools, his eye always on the jutting majesty of the mountain behind. His life in the sea did not intentionally keep him from knowledge of the stone but when he looked upon it I could sense his longing for it, for all the time lost to the currents.

“How is it you have come to know our father so well where I have not?” he asked me one morning. He lounged beside me at the feet of the mountain, my legs floated in the water besides.

“I came to be upon his back.”

“And why do I, then, find myself in the sea?”

“Not within the sea,” I admonished. “Within the moonlight.”

“And yet here I am, without moonlight nor mountain.” He nodded to the mountain. I knew the look, I’d envisioned it upon my own face so many times when I longed to spread myself upon our father’s lap, to pull the strength of him within myself. “What is it like?”

There were not words for it, to know the denseness that held me day after day. To feel weight of earth beneath you. To want to know that power and be so readily upon it.

One day I had an idea.

“There is a lake,” I told him. “A few days hike, cradled within the peak.”

And there was. It was nourished from the streaming chill of ice that capped our father’s head, which trickled through his clever brain and took with it echoes of his wisdom. So often I had wanted to
swim within the water but I knew I could not for it would kill me. The shocking crispness of it, the substance of it. I was overwhelmed just seeing it, I knew that dipping myself beneath it would be my
end.

I needed the warmth.

I needed the air.

But, my brother was a fish.

“I can not,” he scoffed in anger. And I was embarrassed to show him my face at those words for suddenly I knew he could not, how could I make such a suggestion? I had seen how weak he became only a step from the shore, how his color drained away and his suppleness tightened in the damning warmth of the sun, for he could only attempt it in the day: If our mother were to see our transgression.

How we were so different, and yet the same, I never came to understand.

How we could both love and want the silverly light of our mother but only one of us could thrive within it.

How we could both yearn for the stability of our father but only one of us survive it.

Our father would shrug his questions away where mine were treated like music. It pained me to enjoy it. After all, it was not my brother’s fault that where the moon chose to hold him, the mountain held me.

“How can I be with you, Father?” my beautiful brother would ask. Our father would not answer, no matter the desperation. No matter how my brother flipped and thrummed against him. But my brother and I, neither of us needed to hear the words, they were as known as the day: Be more like the sleek silver of your kin. Bother me no more with this.

“There might be a way,” I whispered one morning, for mornings were for us.

“Tell me.”

Children of the Living Isle // post four.

This is another blog serial. Ope.

My brothers reveled in each-other, thrilled to have their company. They did not intend to keep things from me but there were things only fish could know. I came down to the shore less and less,
unwilling as I was unable to be among their greatness.

Those days were spent quietly within shoulders of the mountain or upon the plateau of my father’s hands, if he would have me. In brief happinesses he would hold me to his chest and let me spill every word that came to my mind, without interruption, without judgement. Those were pleasant idylls, asides I knew to relish as they came and not take for granted. He knew the moonlight preferred
the grace of her fish to us, those who kept ourselves so openly into the day as we did her night.

As we did her anger.

I would get lost within the mountain and my father and I both would inhale it. Become high off it. He would carve me trails to stretching grottos. He would show me quiet respites beneath a canopy of trees. When he felt I needed it and he had no other choice, he would cocoon me within his precipices where the moonlight could not reach.

She would demand presence and he would deny her, but he could only do so for so long; my mother would call the tides, would pull the weight of the clouds, would suffocate us with a fog. I did not fault my father in these times for the fog would bring all on the mountain cold as death.

Or she would abandon us and leave the solar rays to do with us what they would, as long as it pleased her. Then the coolness of her
wake was wanted like a thirst, my father and I both blind to the other and only seeing her.

And so it went. My mother and her fish would often go on their own adventures, content to leave me to the rocks. To know that we could not follow. The loneliness crept in, thick and black. My strong mountain would only be without her so long before he too fell silent to me.

I knew resent then, in those moments. Angry to have been given a companion only to have him given another. Angry to be lonely with company.

Again I found myself plotting against those more beautiful than I, more accessible than I. I would find heavy stones that I hoped to pin them beneath the waves with, so that my mother could not reach them. Perhaps she would grow weary from reaching down so far, perhaps she would then see me nearby and know me again.

But I loved the fish. I could no sooner stone them than I could pluck myself and throw myself upon the surface of the sea.

Children of the Living Isle // post three.

This is another blog serial. Ope.

In the beginning, when it would be me alone in the moonlight on the mountain, I pretended she was only for me. That only I received her light. Lithe and thin as it was, I would close my eyes and imagine a swelling warmth from it. Its hair-thin strands would become thick as trunks and I would curl myself within it. Tell myself I was safe, that it was substantial. But all I could ever truly feel was the silence of my father beneath my feet.

My eyes I kept closed because it ruined the illusion to be able to see. All the world lay within her. She spread herself everywhere, happily and without apology. It was not her fault I was but a bulb, squat and awkward. She would pool at the feet of others whose voices were sweeter, would curl her hands around petals of stark-white that only showed their faces to her. They lay gilded beneath her smile and she gave it to them freely, pleased that they only gave themselves to her. The moonflowers.

How I hated them.

During the day I found myself plotting against them, as they slept within their sheaths of green. Dreaming of the night.

Even the mountain would set me aside to gain more of her favor. On those nights I felt like smoke. I would make myself as big and wide as I could, expand my fingers and toes to cover more of the
handsome rock, and during the day he would let me. But as soon as my grandmother pulled herself to her place and set my mother forth, the mountain would make me small again. I’d have to balance on a root, knobby and uneven, because he wanted as much of his surface to be beholden to her.

During the day my banner of gold pleased him, but during the night it was only her silvery glow that would sate him.

How I hated them both, and how I loved them. How they loved each-other in spite of me.

Then there were the times when she did not appear, when her mother cloaked her away from us. I would curl into the coldness of the mountain, it only accepting me because her light was nowhere for him, either.

We were quiet in those times, we did not need to speak about it. I knew he treasured those borrowed moments as I did, but that he also secretly rejoiced when my mother returned and we were no longer alone.

“Daughter,” my mother called one day, her face full and alive. “Come to me.”

I did so at once and on tiptoe, almost afraid to turn my dull face toward her. So many others around for her to address, why now did she ask for me?

“Mother?”

“I’ve something to show you,” she had said.

And I came, as she wished, and witnessed a magic I hadn’t before experienced.

A beautiful fish like had never been, dropped from within her light, right at the waters edge near my father’s feet.

I stared at it, both entranced and afraid. I could not go within the waters for I could not swim.

Where my mother muted me, this being glowed. Each scale shone like stones, wet and cool. The light of my mother embraced it as with everything on the mountain but this was not as fierce. The weight of
her arms was more subdued, the water allowed for ripples of relief within her embrace. Unlike me who had spent an eternity nursing at that moonlight, the fish both existed within it and reflected it back out.

“Be well,” my mother said as she folded back into the bosom of the sea.

I watched her go, the last of her brilliance overtaken by the dark waters, and then turned back.

“Sister.” My brother, newly born, stood within the gentle waves. Tall and sleek, nothing more beautiful had ever come upon my mountain.

Our mountain.

I carefully waded to him and held him tightly to me. The salty water sucked at our feet.

The first of three gifts my mother would give to me.

Children of the Living Isle // post two.

This is another blog serial. Ope.

It did not please my mother to exist this way, never to be her own but merely an extension.

Oh but how she also loved it. The drama of it, the transformation. The rhythmic dance of death and renewal she so enjoyed. She was praised for it, and feared. Her mother as dependent upon her
return as she was the acceptance.

They were beautiful together, so far from me. So mysterious.

I was loved for things out of my control, and by everything but the moonlight. My hair, like spun gold, flew behind me wherever I ran, a banner of victory I wore with pride. The wind would sing about
it, the birds to the clouds and sky. Rays of sun would dance within it. The rain and snow would caress it.

But then at moonrise my gilded locks would become muted, dwarfed by the hypnotic glow of my mother and hers, in all her resplendence. No more birds would sing, tucked away they were within crevices and nooks. Any rain that fell would mat it to my face. Any snow would hide it.

How many times had I gone to the creek and muddied my hair within its water? To show her I was not growing against her, that any beauty I held was worth less than any she could show to me?
How often had I crawled along the pointed peaks of the Mountain just to drag my hair in the dust?

If I could afford to not give her reason to hate me, I would do it.
I learned quickly that if I got any pleasure from lying in the sun I dare not show her, lest be at her mercy. I could not help myself, however. Even though the pain of invisibility was unbearable, I would lay out, arms wide, on the deep warmth of my father’s back as I tried to pull in every last drop of sun before it slipped into the waters which surrounded us. My mother would already be high above, trickling down from her mother moon, and she would see my betrayal. In those final rays of daylight she could not reach me but I knew
she would again. Soon.

How foolish I was to tempt her.

Moonlight touches all. You can hide from it, certainly, but then you are left alone and in darkness. It was almost worse sharing her.

Children of the Living Isle // Fictional Mythos Serial

This is another blog serial. Ope.

My father was a mountain, steadfast and absolute. He was as affording in opportunities as he was merciless. You could not come upon him and dismiss him, and if your passage through his realm
included him then his mark would clearly be upon you for everything about him was sharp — his features, his mind, his resoluteness. He could cut you with a word and very often did.

He was solid as mountains go. You could spend the time to chink away but there was nothing more to be found but the same beauty; what was in the open continued soul-deep. There were no dark
and empty pockets within, though often he did some shifting in attempts to keep who he was for himself. But he was ever-giving. If it was a pond you needed to draw from or a patch of moss on which
to rest then he would reveal them readily.

If my father a mountain, then my mother was the moonlight: temporary yet inevitable. She was beautiful and terrifying. The tides, which stilled for no man, would fall to glass beneath her stare. Her
surface she roamed was scarred and pocked with secrets which she put on full display, but the stories of which she kept behind her mother’s back. If you were to attempt an understanding she would only smile back at you.

How many times I had seen my mother reach out to touch that mountain? To touch all parts of it, reach every rock with her cool luminescence. To always know all of its secrets yet not even let on that she herself had secrets to keep? Of course the mountain welcomed it, basked in the light, reveled in it, for what mountain would care to worry about the dark side of the moon when its brilliant face shone upon him?

And I, then, perhaps a stream that ran from one to serve the other, fluid within my banks and with depths in which to hide. Within which my mother could not reach.

Or perhaps a tree upon his back, grown from a foundation of rock, cradled in that same beautiful light. With a back of my own straight and true, with roots that twined down and leaves that flew up.

But I am neither the stream nor the tree. Instead, where the moonlight kissed the mountainside sprang a small greenery. A pale bulb, fat and simple and nondescript. A being which yearned for soil but was laid upon rock; which required sunlight but was lifted to receive stark coolness of the night instead.

So many beautiful things come from both mountain and moonlight, yet somehow I grew to be everything that came short in both.

Where the mountain dug deep into the earth, forever down to its core, I was laid bare upon its surface. Where his brow was dark and set, mine ticked up. Against his skin of weighted mantle was mine of feather-thin vegetation. The wind and rain could not tempt him to move, only to change, if he wished it, but I was at their mercy.

Difficult it was for someone to pass a mountain without
circumstance, but a green smear high on his side would only be found by those seeking it out; wanderers did not point to smears to get their bearings.

And then what of the moon! Of her beauty and her charm. Even when she was unwelcome she was still wanted. Not much could be done by her but absolutely nothing could be done without her.

Where she could turn away, where she could keep parts of herself always hidden, I was surrounded by her light. Her eyes could always seek me even when I was unable to see.

She was prominent and proud and gave little away; the bits of myself were small but forthcoming.

But then there was a price to be paid for being the daughter of the moon. Daughter of the moonlight, too, and daughter of mountain, sure, but there are many mountains and much moonlight.

But to be a daughter of the moon, like my mother.

My mother herself hated the moon. She wished to be free from it but she was tethered. It did not matter how far she traveled from it, for one toe or finger must always remain lest she lose herself to
the ether. And she would, many times, only to find her way back and cling to her mother in forgiveness, to beg to return. Of course the moon took her back, how could she not?

B97 5HP // post two.

a serial-memoir

Notifications were all blinking when I finally logged in.
I clicked to the ‘messages’ tab first.

You all right?
How was your day?
Are you there?
Do you not want to talk to me?

I sighed in ‘two-retail-jobs-and-an-infant . . . and zero friends’ and folded into the chair. The most recent message was a couple hours ago; the first was maybe twelve.

Hey!!
I am so sorry
I swear I wasn’t ignoring you
I was at work, blargh

Immediately, the ‘typing’ indicator popped up.

Oh, you hadn’t mentioned.

Sorry, yeah, I had work today.

I pulled up my writing program and typed in a few lines before the notification blinked again.

Are you getting my messages?

Yes

Sorry, this messenger
doesn’t work right on
my computer.
Do you have a different one?

Uh, I don’t know,
what one do you use?

Have you heard of SkUpe?

Yeah, but I don’t have it.

You need your phone number,
if you send it to me I can add you —

Typity-type in the browser; download pending.

No, I just need an email.

Oh, okay perfect.

After a few minutes coordination, some swearing, and favorable download speeds, I signed-in and hopped-on. Within moments a new chat window popped up.

Hey! Long time no talk 😀

Hi!!!! 😀
Is this working better?

Yeah, it is working a lot better.
So, how was your day?
What are you up to now,
hanging out with your boyfriend?

At the mention, I sat back and stared around our dark apartment. The table where we never ate together. The quiet in the corners.

No.
He went out
hanging with his car friends.

Like his friends are cars?

Hahaha 😀 , no.
They all go drive somewhere
and stand around
and talk about cars.

What do you do while he does that?
Besides talk to hot British guys 😀

Lol, well.
Usually I read.
Or write.
Or clean.

What do you write?

I clicked back to my writing program and frowned at the screen.
not much, I thought.

It is kinda random right now.

Can I read it?

You want to?

I’d love to read it.

Really?

Sure! 😀

I scoured some recently-disgorged typing: very ‘diary entry’, very ‘angry teen’.

Well?
Where’d you go?

<<<webcam request>>>

I stared at the screen. A raw kind of panic shot through my belly.

Uh, I don’t have a webcam.

Oh, sorry
I accidentally clicked it.

Okay.

Can I read what you’re writing?

No, nevermind
it’s all stupid.

It probably isn’t.

I gave it another scroll.
no, actually, it is, I thought.
I couldn’t bring myself to send any of it.

Please?
I bet it is great
the other stuff you posted is great.

I chewed on my lip as again my eyes flicked from paragraph to paragraph.
something he won’t think is stupid something he won’t think is stupid

Five seconds.

Ten.

Finally, I just copy-pasted half a page and dropped it into the chat. I quickly returned to the word document and typed OMG OMG OMG OMG over and over again until the notification ding’d.

Wow, this is really incredible.

Really?
I thought it was dumb . . .

Hey, how old are you again?

I think you act much older
much more mature.
I would have guessed 25.

Hahahaha, thank you 😛

You’re very welcome.

******

Okay, I should probably go to bed.

Really?
You don’t want to talk to me anymore?
😦

No! I’m just getting tired, is all.

Okay 😦
I guess I’ll just sit here
Alone

Hey!!! That’s not fair 😦
I mean, what about you?
We’ve been chatting for like
hours.

I’m not tired.
Do you have any writing anywhere else?
A blog somewhere?

Not really.
It’s just whatever I write and post.

Do you have any other pictures?

Just what’s on my page.
Actually . . .

I browsed through a friend’s profile and downloaded a few photos they had of me.

Actually?
Where’d you go?
Did you leave me again?

<<<webcam request>>>

Accidental click again?
lol
Here’s a pic of me and a friend
I’m on the left

You’re really beautiful.
You were blonde?
When was this?

A year or so ago.

What were you guys doing?

We were in dance together . . .

******

Okay, now I should go to bed for real.
I think the sun is coming up.
I hear literal birds

😦

Staaaaaahhhhhhp

Okay, fine.
Goodnight.
sweet dreams.

Good night!

You should take more pictures tomorrow 😀

I don’t have a camera.

You can take pictures with a webcam.

I don’t have a webcam!!!

Maybe you should get one 😛

GOODNIGHT
I AM TIRED

Goodnight.
Message me tomorrow!

Shut down.
Brush teeth.
Bed; shut down.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

B97 5HP — a serial memoir

Okay BYE everybody, goodnight! ❤ I typed into the chat. I watched as my line bumped up again and again from replies.

bcuz u suk >.<

goooodnight!

BAE, UNTIL TOMORROW!

she doesnt suck you homo

I closed the chat-screen with a smirk and then ate the final bite of my toast — white bread, generous butter. The ache in my knees begged that I finally unpretzel them, which is usually how I gauged when bedtime was, so I unfolded myself from the chair; my bare thighs made a thhwweet sound as they peeled slowly from the fake leather. Even in my periphs as I took my plate to the kitchen was it easy to see the bright pink welts I had caused myself.

Stiff and with a yawn, I checked the stove and doors and then back to the computer to shut it down, but . . . my message notification blinked.

I opened it.

Hey 😀 I saw you in the chat.
So you like to write?

I rested against the chair.

I do! Why do you ask?

I read through some of
the posts you put up.

Immediately mortified, I pull up my recent posts. They’re all flowery, journal-entry-esque poetic ramblings.

Oh, haha, they’re all stupid but thanks.

No, they’re not stupid
I think they’re great!

Thanks. The recent one is
about Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Do you like Shakespeare?

Duh.

I live like thirty minutes from
where he was born.

I blinked as my brain computed.

You live in England?

Before he could respond I clicked to his profile and scanned a few, very England-looking, pictures of building-lined roads or moody pastures. He replied by the time I clicked back.

Yeah.

That is so cool!

My body had re-pretzeled without realizing.

Have you been to his house?

Yeah, I have been.
Hey, can I tell you that I think
you are really pretty?

Oh, thanks.

I clicked back to his profile photo: blonde hair, blue eyes. Nice teeth.

You’re handsome.

Thank you.

So do you read Shakespeare?
Is it weird that he is so
famous and lived so close?

It is interesting.
I haven’t read anything
since school, though.

Yeah, me either.

I yawned.

Well, I am heading to bed.
What time is it even there?

Really early.

What are you doing up so early?

What are you
doing up so late? 😛

Lol, just couldn’t sleep.
Okay goodnight!

Can I talk to you later?

Sure!

I shut the computer down, padded along the carpeted hallway to lean in to the baby’s room — sound asleep — and then on to my bedroom where I crawled into bed beside my snoring boyfriend — whom hadn’t looked at me in days; talked to me in weeks; and had never read anything I ever wrote.

The space between us on the bed felt really far.
I wondered how far England was.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month