A story

This is something I wrote as a sort of exercise... comments/feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Looking out over the sprawling prairie grasses, I could see a hill with a tree on it. It reminded me of the fairy mound I saw in Donnegal during my visit to Ireland ten years ago. The sun was beating down on my head, which was, strangely, uncovered in the heat.

There was nothing around me for miles- just grass and flowers; soft blue sky and clouds; and of course, the sun. I could see that tree, branches spread like a leafy umbrella, offering shade to those who could make the journey.

I started off towards the tree, feeling the sweat dripping from my brow and down my face. The shadows rippled under the tree with the changing leaf patterns, little semaphores suggesting shade and rest. It seemed so far away from where I stood among the grasses.

I walked slowly, trying not to sweat any more than I absolutely needed to sweat. I hate sweating, but it’s our body’s way of regulating our metabolism and temperature, so I allow it to happen. Taking a deep breath, I smelled the growing grasses, the rich earth and the wildflowers that populated the field. From the direction of the tree, I smelled a freshness I hadn’t expected- a cool breeze wafted across my face.

I reached the base of the hill upon which the tree stood and was surprised to find someone already there. “Hello,” I said cheerfully. The old woman just stared at me as if I was a bug she’d be squashing in a few moments.

“Sit there,” she said brusquely, pointing to a cushion on the other side of the tree. A cushion. Why was there a cushion under this tree in the middle of nowhere? Why was this woman sitting here, as if waiting for me?

I lowered myself down to the cushion, wishing for the thousandth time that I was graceful and agile instead of a lumbering cow. I leaned my back against the big oak tree’s trunk and closed my eyes, letting the shade cool my fevered body.

“What do you want to know?” The old woman said suddenly, startling me from my meditative reverie. I looked up and moved to go around the trunk.

“Stay there!” She commanded. I stayed.

“What do you want to know?”

I closed my eyes and thought long and hard. It seemed as if this woman could give me answers to questions that had been plaguing my mind for so long. How could I sum that up into what I assumed would be my one chance?

“I want to know why I exist. What is my life’s purpose?” I finally asked. Then I waited for her to tell me to get the hell off her hill and out of her field. She cleared her throat and I thought to myself, This is it- this is where she tells you to either go to hell, or that you’re supposed to have twenty babies before you die.

“Long ago, before the earth and sky separated, there walked a woman named Walani Wahana,” the old woman began in a singsong voice. I settled back against the tree, closing my eyes and listening to the rhythm of her voice.

“Walani Wahana walked the earth and sky not knowing why she existed. She assumed that The Wu had created her for a reason, but she could not understand it. She ran with the horses, seeing their purpose as beasts of burden and transport, but she couldn’t carry as much as they, nor move as fast.

“Walani walked across the face of the earth, stopping each time she met a new creature, to see if that creature’s purpose was her own. She was disappointed, time and again, to find that she shared nothing in common with the creatures of the earth and sky except a creator. She kept walking.

“One day, when the sun was high overhead, Walani was walking and bumped her head against a cloud. She was surprised to find it moist and almost intangible as she tried to learn what it was. ‘What is your purpose?’ Walani Wahana asked the cloud as she rubbed her head.

“’ I bring water to places that have none. I provide shade against the bright sun. I float and help the breeze blow.’ Walani was disappointed to find that again, she had nothing in common with a creation. Walani kept walking.

“One evening, the sun was just about to disappear behind the clouds, when Walani Wahana heard a sound she’d never heard before. She moved quickly toward the sound, recognizing it was one of distress and perhaps pain.

““Help me,” a voice cried from beneath Walani. She looked down and saw that a creature had fallen into a new fissure in the ground. She was surprised to see that he resembled her in many ways, having two arms and legs, one head and no tail. He also spoke in words she could understand.

““Please help me,” the creature said again, his mouth turning down into a picture of distress and pain. She moved carefully to stand over the fissure, bracing herself before bending to help pull him out of the ground’s maw. She stared at him as he struggled to stand upright.

““Who are you? What are you?” Walani asked as he wobbled against her. A trickle of red liquid seeped down his leg, and another was forming along his left ear. He looked at her, eyes pinched in pain, then responded.

““I am Mahana Malanu,” he said softly, as if the strength of his voice had been lost from shouting for help. “I thought I was alone here. So when I fell, I thought I’d die alone here. Then you came, and now I won’t.”

“Walani took Mahana by the arm and led him back to her dwelling place where he could rest and recover from his injuries. He stayed with her a long time. Eventually he was fully recuperated and the time came for him to leave. “

I held my breath, waiting to hear what had happened to Walani and Mahana. I could feel the parallels to my own life- always helping others, always wanting companionship…

The old woman continued the story, “ Mahana was so grateful to Walani for rescuing him that he gave her a child who grew into a strong young man. But Mahana did not stay with Walani for that was not his destiny.

“Many years after her son was grown, Walani took to wandering again. She roamed the earth and watched when the sky separated from the sea. She visited the place where she had met Mahana, but did not cross paths with him again.

“When she became too old to walk any more, Walani settled her bones beneath an old willow tree and rested until her bones were swept away by the earth.”

I was surprised to find tears streaming down my hot cheeks. I had thought Walani and Mahana would stay together- that her purpose was to nurture and love and raise their child. But that didn’t seem to be it at all. I was more confused than when I had first sat down behind the tree.

“That was a beautiful story, but I still do not know what my purpose is,” I said softly, from the other side of the tree.

A rustling laugh came back to me, “Did you think you’d find your purpose in a story, young woman? You find your purpose by living your life, by going out and doing things, not waiting around for them to happen to you. “

I blushed a bright red, although I knew she couldn’t see me. I rose quickly to my feet and went down the hill in the opposite direction from which I’d gone up the hill. I walked faster and faster away from the old woman, the tree and the hill that I soon found myself running through the prairie grasses.

I was stopped, eventually, by a long split-log fence about chest high. I couldn’t see a gate at all along the length of it, so I climbed up and over the fence and dropped to the ground. I needed to get as far away from that tree as possible, and the woman beneath it, who had made me feel such a fool.

-Jean M. Hurley, August 11, 2009