A girl builds an entire world out of everything she is. Then it is taken, never asked, only told. A lifetime later, she stands again at the cliff's edge.

All That There Could Be

chanelled by Radhika Malhotra

When I was a child, I giggled, standing at that cliff, the wind blowing through my hair. I was free. When I returned, I looked down. And took the step I thought I would never take.

.

It was a rough place to grow up. White skin turning rosy, cracked lips, streaks on the hands. All we seemed to have was our body ensuring our survival. Stones bedded in mud, grass thatched, surrounded by a vast land in every color. Cold and harsh, the world felt lonely, but it was ours; for generations it was our entire world. Irrefutable, we were one. We looked after each other, even with a father who hardly spoke and a mother who never seemed to look up. A different time. Every day seemed the same to others, but never to me, as I never filled them with what was, but all that there could be.

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The world I created spanned from the distant sea to the morning dew wrapping around the tip of the oat to the bugs running from the fire. I sang until my throat felt hoarse, ran until my legs gave in, watched in awe until my eyes fell shut. Everything was vivid, and everything was mine, as it came to life in the world I created. And as I grew up, so did the people around me and those I didn’t know of. I believed I would always stay until I was taken. I believed my world would always be filled with all that there could be until it wasn’t. I was never asked; I was told to obey. And shushed out the door.

My clothes reeked, my skin lost its colour, but the streaks on my hand never lost their depth. My knees hurt, my breasts were crusty, the flesh between my legs bloody and sore. I remember hardly speaking, nor looking up. And at times, my chest grew tight. I finally sensed the presence of my mother. I did as I was told, but when death lay down next to me, and there was no place for children anymore, they shushed me out the door.

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I returned. The distant sea in front of me, the vast land behind me, and as I stood there, it all came back. It flooded my entire being; it rushed through me with all its force. Someone took what was mine, but I never lost it. I would hold onto it, here where the blood of my birth sank into the soil, where my feet marked every step I took, and where my body would lie to rest.

It took a long time until somebody noticed, and as they did, no words were spoken; a silent nod. And as I watched them walk away, their heads down, their shoulders slumped, I watched their smallness, their passing, fading away between the long stalks of oats. But I still linger.

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I linger in the wind that carries itself through the hair of the young children, the morning dew that wraps itself around the oat, the bugs that run from the fire. I linger, because I made a choice. My very first choice in this short life lived.