"I
walked the night for years before I dared to walk again in the light of day.
Until then, when I ventured out of the cave, I would wait until the time when
the moon was at its darkest in the sky. Shame and black bitterness stained my
every thought for decades. I passionately avoided any pool of water if there
was the slightest chance that I might see my own reflection, even for an
instant. I could not bear to see the monstrous reminder of my sentence, my
eviction from humanity, the permanence of my exile. I did not know how terrible
the curse would become then; how absolute was my damnation. Not for two hundred
and fifty-one years did the full horror of what had been decided completely
seep into my understanding. The soul-deep, consuming and abiding loneliness and
sadness of what it means to wander accursed for all time; to remain.
At
that time, with the stupidity and inexperience of most of childish humanity, I
was absolutely stricken with the physical manifestation of my sentence. Yet,
even then came the stirring realization of that ultimate separation with which
I had been doomed...condemned to wander the earth in the shackles of
time...forsaken by the living and the dead."
Get
your copy at:
About
the author:
Like
the character of Kyle Tombs, who is introduced near the end of this story,
Kevin Shell too is a missionary's son. He spent most of the first nineteen
years of his life overseas, in many foreign lands, and learned the folk lore of
a dozen nations as a result. " Entranced, I listened to the tales that my
Filipina baby sitter told me as a young child. In a fascination that was beyond
my understanding, I read the mural stories chiseled into the stone walls of
Angkor Wat in Cambodia, left there by the hands of priests that had been dust
for a thousand years. I have placed my hands on the gothic statues that stand
at the head of the graves behind castles from one end of Europe to the other,
and heard the account of their histories. All these, and countless memories of
the same kind, live on in my heart. I hear their whispers still."
Follow Kevin on Twitter!
No comments:
Post a Comment