Her Sun & Moon

For more than thirty-six thousand days, each exactly like the one before, each promising to be exactly the same as the next, she lay confined in a claustrophobic cell – static – trapped in a circle of spinning, pain, & dizziness.

Her first inkling that a day might offer something more than monotonous terror was her recent realization that she couldn’t discern if the dizziness was caused by the spinning or if it occurred after and because of the pain.

She had formed a question, an act of reasoning—something beyond the separate serial sensations of spinning, pain and dizziness. Pain – she knew it started in her finger and spread like stinging ants to her hand then her arm, a deforming agony, exceeded in its horror only by her inability to focus her thoughts elsewhere and by her immobility.

But for the paralysis, her new ability to think beyond the fear would have made her smile. But something else emerged that would have squelched a smile even if she had been able to manage one. She was conscious enough to be aware of consciousness, but not enough to focus her thoughts until today, when she remembered an emotion other than fear – anger!

Anger and emerging acuity cut the circle, freeing it to form a spiral. She rode the changing shape as it morphed. The spiral retained its recurring pattern, spinning, pain, and dizziness, but each revolution added new sensory awareness—each sensation nourished by bites of fear consumed by her anger then dissolved and digested in a rising pool of her bile.

Her finger! The spinning did precede the pain and both preceded the dizziness and all three preceded the stasis and the terror. She was spinning something – an activity she knew. The spinning didn’t cause her dizziness, but it was related to the pain. The expanding spiral continued to lift her up and out of the terrifying pit of spinning, pain dizziness & despair.

Anger brought new knowledge with each revolution. She remembered something about “fate” and how she was forbidden to touch spinning wheels – yet she did – and she knew pain and fear, but now she embraced anger and it spoke defiantly to fate. Reveling in her anger, she thought she may have felt her cheek twitch.

The spiral spiraled; each revolution brought a new revelation and a gnawing revulsion. She heard the rhythmic pounding of hooves approaching. As anger brought focus and new feeling, she found she could move her fingers and her arm. She fingered the folds of her dress and felt another sharp sting, but it wasn’t followed by pain or dizziness, instead, this edge brought the reassurance that her dagger remained in the pouch she had secretly sewn into the hem.

She tested the dagger’s point with her finger, welcoming the sting and the knowledge that she may well conceive and bear the Sun and the Moon, but if she did, she would be conscious during the conception. She remained immobile, but now she was still by choice rather than condition. She heard him dismount from his horse.

Fate would have had her awakening to the prince dismounting from her. Yes, she would thwart fate, with anger’s and the dagger’s help. Fate might give her the Sun and Moon, but they would be hers by choice with someone she chose. The dismounting prince would never mount her earthly body as fated, nor sire her heavenly bodies – nor any others.

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Tags:

fairy tale, feminism, folk lore and micro fiction