The Portal
Zahra & Ilham
It was pride that turned angels into devils
Who am I…?
It was a question long haunting the golden-bellied girl. Nearly a week had passed already since she had swanned back into the public eye (plunged into this, the belly of purgatory), with a sour outlook and poison-slick tongue. The accumulated burden of pessimism, of everything that she had ever wanted not to be, had hobbled her in this prison of unhappiness and hopelessness; and Zahra had nowhere left to turn.
She was desperate…
Misleading vision of her Da’s tragic death pressed heavily upon her moral conscious. Lifeless and cold, she remembered the shell of a once gallant ruler, a father who’d loved his child deeply - but, through the eyes of her Ma. So conflicted (and long lived), was the memory - so achingly convincing - that Zahra had grown to trust those bitter pangs of guilt; why else would she remember it all so clearly if not for the logic of culpability.
In stark contrast, the depressed child knew nothing of the fall of the Starry-Eyed; actually, the flaming mare held no bearing or familiarity in her past, at all!
It had been in one final act of that trademark, irrational selfishness, that Africa had bestowed upon her child’s mind, every step along that path of her own life’s crooked journey. All of the suffering, the constant shadow of sadness, had been sent to tarnish the the spirit of the brand new babe, iced across the surface with a flimsy, remorseful band-aid layer of the frivolous, manic episodes, lived in between. In the same moment which her magic had been brandished, the one-winged fool had robbed her daughter of those final hours together - of their memory, and the crazed, tortured lead up to that brutal end.
The spider-girl remembered the grey - the tormented glaze across her eye - so to the sun-kissed stallion with his golden cloak and the other, massive, with the psychopathic smile…
She remembered fleeing that scene with Bird, into the white northern wonderland, confused and helpless.
Zahra had returned inland, slipping once more into the place with the living, lurking shadows. The familiar weight, of cold, burning eyes watching, raking her saturated skin, did little to daunt the breaking heart within and the chilling echo of those who had been cast down from the marsh around her, had at last eased. With a quiet and sorrowful eye, she sought refuge from the ceaseless rain beneath a narrow arch of tangled-together vine; the eerie fluorescent light which had once turned her stomach, now repelled some of the murk so enticed by her growing vulnerability.
Before that stinging breast even hit the sodden loam, forlorn tears were already channelling down her cheeks.
Da, I’m scared… "I want to go home.”
The spiral of anguish fed fatigue through her core, and eventually she fell hard, against the pillowy bosom of miserable slumber.
