High above the clouds went the winds, unseen, crossing and turning, shouldering past one another, tugging and slipping away, never long at rest, yet never straying from the paths set for them. They worried at the high places, pressed against the cloudbanks, slipped their fingers through the seams of them, messengers long bound to their errands, sensing the hour drawing near. Beneath them lay the land, drawn thin and bare, its skin split and pale, its strength worn down to the quick. Open it lay, emptied and exposed, and thirst had gone into the bone of it, and deeper still, past soil and stone, into the hard places where ache is borne and endured without sound.
Then was the sky smitten. The sound of it came down upon the land, great doors torn from their hinges. Thunder drove in close, thick and weighty, crowding the air, shoving itself downward, leaning hard upon hill and hollow alike. It battered root and buried seam, filled the caverns beneath the ground, set the stones knocking against one another, until the earth flinched beneath it and could not hold its stillness. The noise lodged where it struck, swelling and echoing, demanding answer.
And lightning rose into the high dark and found its match there. White blade met white blade. The clash burst forth in naked light, sharp and sudden. The flash leapt, drawn steel, crossing again in another quarter of the sky, nearer now, fiercer, the heavens scored and rescored with brilliance. Sparks scattered where the edges met; the glare flared, fell away, and sprang up again, feint and answer, stroke and counter-stroke, the air split and ringing. Each meeting left the sky trembling, a pale after-light hanging where the blow had fallen, the heavens still carrying the jar of it in their frame.
Then could the clouds bear no longer. Long had they been drawn tight, swollen with what they carried, sagging beneath the weight, their edges frayed and darkened by the strain of holding. They shuddered, gathered themselves, and bowed, and their weeping was loosed—not sudden, not wild, but heavy with delay and sorrow, servants answering the word long set over them. What they yielded came from them with reluctance and with relief, given over at the summons laid upon them, and their tears fell thick and searching, finding the land where it lay open, creeping into crack and hollow, sinking into the deep places that had known only dust.
And the earth received it. Darkened was its face; the dust was laid low; the hard crust softened where the tears struck and lingered. The depths answered slowly, stiff with long restraint, and beneath the surface moved a stirring, cautious and uneven, limbs waking from long binding. Old seams tightened and drew together; long-silent ways were wetted and remembered their courses. There a pulse began, uncertain at first, then steadier, running through soil and stone and root, gathering itself, settling at last into the shape set for it ere it was laid low.
It rose not.
Nor did it yet take a new name.
Yet not as it had been before was it, for it had been pressed, and struck, and wept upon, and was now awake to itself, bearing once more the weight of what it was made to be.
© 2026 Steven Scott. All Rights Reserved.
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