Thanks for joining me for Fiction Fridays, where we’ll post fiction pieces as ab imaginative space to bridge the dumpster fire of the world and the world we dream it to be.
Here’s a snippet from a YA fantasy book I’ve slowly been working on. Always love your thoughts!
Sara
Adara lies in the grass on her back staring up at the clear blue sky. The sun’s rays kiss her almond skin. She bends her knees and rests her bare feet on the grass beneath her. She smiles, thinking about the fact that even now, at seventeen, she still struggles with shoes.
Her mother, Lena, always tells her that she can count on one hand the number of times Adara was fully dressed from head to toe. As a child, Adara did not like diapers. Adara did not like clothes. Adara most definitely did not like shoes. When she was an infant, Adara wailed and writhed any time her mother tried to put a diaper on her. Lena, perplexed, kept at it, trying every different kind imaginable—compostable, cloth, handmade--all to no avail. Adara refused to wear one.
Her body liked to be unencumbered and free.
A bird chirps in the distance, and Adara perks her head up just in time to see a blue jay swoop up from the oregano bush to perch on a branch of a nearby tree. Adara watches it for a moment, then turns her head back, closes her eyes, and lets herself sink into the grass. She loves these stolen moments more than anything. Whenever she can, she sneaks out to the lush green yard tucked behind her stepfather Brad’s home, picks the softest spot of grass, and sprawls, looking upwards. She used to do this back at home too, before her mom forced her to moved here. As much as she hates it at Brad’s, outside is the only place that feels familiar, being hugged by the grass like this—soft, fresh, smelling of summer, of rain, of life. She sinks her body into it, feeling the firm soil beneath her. Her body calibrate to the heavy hum of the earth beneath her. She wriggles her toes deeper into the soil. Her weightless strappy tunic and flowing pants so light they feel like she’s wearing nothing at all.
I haven’t changed much, she thinks. I still can’t stand feeling encumbered.
Adara’s mind lingers on that knowing. Even knowing years of nearly everyone’s disapproval—her grandmother, her neighbors, her teachers--for being wild and untamable, she still stands by her childhood strike against clothes. Diapers didn’t make sense to her then, and they don’t make sense to her now. Who wants to sit in their own excrement? And shoes: How can she possibly climb a tree, or feel the grass tickle the soles of her feet, or the soil hum beneath her after it’s been quenched by a hearty rainfall?
Her mother loves to tell the story of visiting her father’s familh back in Palestine when Adara was a toddler. How once, exasperated and overwhelmed by Adara’s protests, her mom finally gave up and let Adara roam bare-bottomed, which delighted Adara’s grandfather and her fathe Sammy, but shocked Adara’s very traditional grandmother., who turned an eggplant shade of purple and vigorously shake her head, muttering as Adara frolicked in the olive groves. “My grandaughter will know how to behave in civilized society,” she would whisper furtively to her son, Sammy. But Adara’s dad kissed his mother on the cheek and said, “we could all learn a thing or two from her, Mama.”
Her dad loved her freedom--took fierce pride in it, even. He understood her yearning for it more than anyone. Her grandfather kept diplomatically silent, but the twinkle in his eyes said everything. He agreed with Sammy.
A gust of wind sweeps over her then, and she takes a deep breath. Her heart beats quickly and her palms sweat at the thought of all of her dad. Her heart aches for him. She spreads her fingers wide, and beneath them, and as if beckoned, the blades of grass inch higher toward the sky until they deeply hide her hands. The grass grows around her swiftly until soon, it hides her feet, then legs, then gently her face, as if cradling her cheeks in comfort. Her wild curly hair weaves itself deep into the grass’s roots. She can no longer tell where she ends and the earth begins. Closing her eyes, she lets the grass swell around her, soothing her heart back to a slow, rhythmic beat. She brings her mind to grieving her dad once again, this time with the earth’s embrace.