Returning member

[sahlmi]

Hello all. I think I joined here maybe 3 or 4 years ago, but haven't been around much since music demanded more of my time. I've recently returned to writing and found Chronicles in my bookmark list. So I figured I'd jump right back in, rusty and all. Here's a short 600 word pieced I recently fleshed out and would like to know what you think. It's a quasi mythological tale, so the writing purposely slightly formal. My normal style is quick and lean.
I'll be seeing you around now that I'm back into the flow.


Blackness Within

Uata was a lonely goddess, superficial and colorless, a shadowed hint of a woman. Her beloved pets--a dozen loyal crows that fluttered above her--helped ease her solitude. But she needed to mend her non-being, she needed the companionship of peers to stand regal like a rightful god.

Ashamed of her nothingness, she surrounded herself in near darkness. The flame of a single yellow candle lit her chambers, just enough to suggest her scarce furnishing in its glow.

But she tired of the darkness. It became a disease around her. It consumed her...but what was to stop her from consuming it, ridding herself of the stigma? She took a testing taste and found she savored darkness' tang. The more she absorbed, the more she showed substance. She had found her answer!

After her discovery, she devoured darkness with more vigor. She even consumed the light, which provided only a whimper of satisfaction, to cause darkness to return sooner.

It didn't matter that she was wreaking havoc among the people of the world. The quick changes from day to night destroyed farms. Trees and plants couldn't flourish. People weren't sure when they should sleep and their schedules flew awry. Prayers and supplications at Uata's meager shrines were to no avail. She would simply send her crows to pester the people away.

Darkness itself could take no more and confronted her. "Why do you dine on my presence and deprive me life? I can no longer stretch across the lands and provide a blanket for sleep. All my existence is too quickly eaten away. And innocent light doesn't have enough time to provide nourishment and warmth."

"Because you render me whole." Uata hugged herself and squeezed like a child. Even the voice of darkness made her tingle.

"And the livelihood of the people mean nothing? Your destruction of their being?"

"I care only about how I feel, an awareness I haven't known in eons. How could I possibly voluntarily return to being a dismembered soul?"

"You will not cease?"

"I will not."

Darkness would not accept that answer and devised a plan. "Wait," it said before Uata gave in to her night craving. "I think there's a way I can be with you always and you'd never again have to consume me." Darkness admitted to itself that Uata was a lovely goddess in the unsteady light of her candle. It would be a shame to send her back to emptiness, but less so than her callousness.

"How could you fill me better than you do now?" Uata asked, a little peeved at having to stall her meal.

"Invite me into your heart. Part of me will always be there completing you in ways consumption never could. You won't ever have to wait for me, or taste unfulfilling light again. Once your heart is full, the rest of me can continue as before."

The words courted Uata with their charm and reason. Darkness caressed Uata’s heart, and she shuddered from the thrill.

"Yes, oh yes. Enter my heart and never leave, my love. Stay with me forever."

Darkness scorned her words, or perhaps not so much the words as much it was Uata that spoke them. It didn't need to enter Uata’s heart; it was already filled with blackness. Nothing changed, but Uata welcomed the placebo. She even retained her newfound color and fullness. Little good it would do. She had no respect among her peers nor the people. Her shrines would fall to squalid waste.

Since Uata no longer craved darkness, feeling it was always in her in heart, the land returned normal, and the people could make predictable schedules again. As it remains to this day.

END




[1] UATA

 

[Stable]

It's got that nice mythological feel to it, particularly in how darkness is both a thing and an entity. On the other hand it doesn't make a lot of sense at the beginning - she's in a state of non-being, but also has a chamber. She's lonely, but then quickly doesn't care when people start paying attention to her. It just feels disjointed to me.

Returning to the first hand, I do enjoy that a mythological-style tale has a placebo ending! That's a fun juxtaposition.

 

[sahlmi]

Thanks Stable. Perhaps I should remove/exchange the word "non-being" since she's more like "only partly there," but not completely non-existent.

She doesn't care about attention from "the little people"; she wants attention from her peers.

I'll give it another look after some time away and see what I can do about any disjointedness. Thanks again!

 

[tinkerdan]

I love a good myth. This one is okay in its own way; however there are some niggles that I'd like to address.
Keep in mind that this is my own reaction to my best interpretation of your narrative.

I've always thought the the myth that contains specific aspects has to be set up to include those quickly, whether it be the creation of those or just the fact of their existence and I'm not seeing that here.

To explain::
We have Uata the goddess who is surround by her twelve loyal crows and who do not afford her companionship. They seem to reside in a chamber along with a lit candle and darkness.

One missing aspect is the world and its people and how they relate to this, so for all intent and purpose they don't exist until you pull them out of nowhere some time later.

More importantly there is mention of other gods yet where are those and if perhaps this is before there were other gods then maybe that bears some importance in the story, because it might mean that she simply has no peers.

Next we have darkness and the candle. They seem to be lifeless things until the tale desires to have darkness speak and I've not so much qualm with that as I have that when it does the goddess is not struck for a moment that it might exist as something more than just darkness.

Now things get confusing from here because first we say she is a superficial colorless shadow of a woman. Yet she is non-being and nothingness until she consumes darkness, which we find is already in her heart; perhaps meaning that her nothingness is just her own inability to perceive.

She consumes darkness until darkness reveals its sentience and suggest a better way of defining herself that doesn't involve constantly feeding on darkness. However it seems like the light is what defines her and not the darkness because darkness against darkness would be hidden or nothingness.

And then with the attitude darkness holds toward her I'm surprised he doesn't entice her to consume all of the light to better enjoy the darkness and then when everything goes black.
Darkness sighs. "Ahh...I shall begin anew."

And perhaps my own perception is what is often the problem with getting myths just right.

 

[sahlmi]

Now things get confusing from here because first we say she is a superficial colorless shadow of a woman. Yet she is non-being and nothingness until she consumes darkness, which we find is already in her heart; perhaps meaning that her nothingness is just her own inability to perceive.

Bingo!

I really appreciate the insights and find them some things to consider.

 

[cidetraq]

I think the grammar here is incorrect "But she needed to mend her non-being, she needed the companionship of peers to stand regal like a rightful god." Instead of a comma, use a hyphen, or separate into two sentences.

I like the love-y, sensual feeling of the piece. However I don't get why people would be mad at darkness having left, after all it's more time to grow crops, etc. They can just put heavy blinds up to block sun to sleep.

 

[sahlmi]

You're exactly right about the incorrect comma. Somehow I let that slip by. I've corrected it and thanks for catching that!

Uata didn't just eat Darkness, cidetraq, she ate Light also, so the land was like an erratic strobe light--light one minute, dark the next, and so on.