The priestesses finally flow out of the heart of the temple, each looking upon me with identical expressions of awe in their identical red robes, even though I've not yet become what they fear and worship. I am to sit here, and to pray, and The Mother's spirit will supposedly come down and possess my body. Alone at last, I let out a heavy breath and lean forward, in the appropriate position for prayer, but it's more to rest my tensed body than an attempt to connect with any gods. I have no interest in them if I'm to be imprisoned here, and think of it as an honor. Almost childishly, I want to go back home, to see my brothers and sisters and nephew, to return to school.
But more than anything, right now, I want to eat. The exact point of fasting is entirely lost on me, though the priests explained. First our local head priestess came to my mother's home, told me that I had been chosen and wanted to confirm that I was in fact the one; she looked at my hands and the thickness of my hair and the color of my eyes, and that all told her something. They took me to our town's Temple of the Mother and explained everything, and either I'm no where near as smart as I've been told or the ideas really were ridiculous, but I didn't understand much beyond the words themselves. The next thing I did know, I'm shipped to the other side of the country to the highest temple in the land. I'd never been overseas, much less to Lilembak. Looks like I'll never do the former.
The Mother's Eyes came to see me. I'd say she had a regal aura, if we had queens (which I naively used to be proud of). But what do I know - maybe what I felt was the power of The Mother, and I'm just too ignorant to tell the difference. She said she chose me, and I cried in her arms. Escape is absolutely impossible. Outside this chamber are hundreds of priestesses waiting not for me, but The Mother's Eyes, and every moment from then on, one of them will always be attending to me. My tattoo marks me as divine, and public records say I no longer exist - that I was never born, and so can never die. All I can do is sit and wait for Her holy spirit to enter me.
April 2009
But more than anything, right now, I want to eat. The exact point of fasting is entirely lost on me, though the priests explained. First our local head priestess came to my mother's home, told me that I had been chosen and wanted to confirm that I was in fact the one; she looked at my hands and the thickness of my hair and the color of my eyes, and that all told her something. They took me to our town's Temple of the Mother and explained everything, and either I'm no where near as smart as I've been told or the ideas really were ridiculous, but I didn't understand much beyond the words themselves. The next thing I did know, I'm shipped to the other side of the country to the highest temple in the land. I'd never been overseas, much less to Lilembak. Looks like I'll never do the former.
The Mother's Eyes came to see me. I'd say she had a regal aura, if we had queens (which I naively used to be proud of). But what do I know - maybe what I felt was the power of The Mother, and I'm just too ignorant to tell the difference. She said she chose me, and I cried in her arms. Escape is absolutely impossible. Outside this chamber are hundreds of priestesses waiting not for me, but The Mother's Eyes, and every moment from then on, one of them will always be attending to me. My tattoo marks me as divine, and public records say I no longer exist - that I was never born, and so can never die. All I can do is sit and wait for Her holy spirit to enter me.
April 2009
