SCULPTING Amy Laurens Smashwords Edition Copyright 2011 Amy Laurens Cover design copyright 2011 Amy Laurens Cover image: Alex Bruda via stock.xchng Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes Thank you for downloading this free ebook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support. ‘Sculpting’ first published online in Golden Visions Magazine, June 2010. Discover other titles by Amy Laurens at http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/AmyLaurens SCULPTING By Amy Laurens They moved away when I was six, my family. Left me alone and dying in a hut on the edge of the plains. There was nothing more they could do for me. And the monsters were coming. Each night the shadows thickened. Each night they breathed a little more heavily while we slept. And one night, my sister screamed. I was already dying. My family couldn't save me. But they could still save themselves. I don't know how I survived. No, not true. I know. I just don't want to. I couldn't feel. Nothing but the pain, anyway. It didn’t leave room for anything else. My lungs bled, the lining tore from my stomach, and every slight movement was agony, knife points tracking up and down my limbs and through my body. The shadows didn't want me. They devour whole things, things good, and pure, and solid. They had no use for something already broken. One day, there was no one left. The shadows ate them, glutted themselves on life and light and joy until the world was cold and dark and empty. And then the shadows left, because they had nothing left to stay for. My family had nothing left to stay for. They left before the shadows. I used to lie awake at night, listening to them breathe. If I listened hard enough, I could even hear their heartbeats. When they'd gone, I could still hear the rush of blood in their chests – all I had to do was close my eyes. The shadows closed in on me eventually. They didn’t take me – but they did take something. I had no sustenance for them, but the sickness itself was whole. So when the shadows left, I didn’t even have my pain for company. I was an emptiness of skin, a belly after the baby died. And then I found the clay. It was a year since the last shadow left and I'd begun to explore outside. A little further, a little wider every day, to see the world slowly turning green. The smoke of the shadows still hazed the world and the sky was milky grey, but this one day, the sunshine burned a hole through the smog and lit upon a tree, perching on a creek bank. I tilted my head, staring at the gnarled tree lifting old, arthritic hands to the sun, welcoming the warmth. I raised my hands to the sky, wondering if the emotion would come if I pretended hard enough – but nothing came. I begged and screamed and pleaded to feel something, anything; but the emptiness kept time with the heartbeats of the ones that had left me to die. I fell to the ground, exhausted. For a while, I slept, and when I woke it was to the realisation that my hands felt wet. I stared at them through sleep fog, and saw that they were sticky with river-clay. At I watched, a spark danced between my fingers and for half of half a second, I remembered what anticipation felt like. I scooped up some clay and took it home. That night, by the crackling of the fire, it possessed me. It demanded sustenance, like the shadows - but unlike them, it promised something in return. It wouldn't tell me what. I caressed it, breathed in its earthy scent. I fed it, watered it, shaped it - and it took form. A twisting, maddened pillar, lashing at the air. It reminded me of something, and as I thought back over the day, I remembered my cries. Despair. The clay was despair. The next day, I tried again. In my dreams I'd heard the heartbeats grow soft and warm and lazy. I knew that was a feeling, too. Peace, I thought it might be called. Contentment. I fed it to the clay, and although I never felt it, I saw it in the mud. Calm took shape. I wept. # The walls of my hut are covered, now, with sculptures of emotions I have not borne in years: anger that lashes and glowers; happiness that floats; empathy that wrenches; boredom that lounges in superiority. There is no room left on my shelves, no more feelings but one to create. I will not sculpt anymore after today. There’s no point. So I sit, poised over the final lump of clay, and listen. The heartbeats begin to race; they are in trouble. I wonder if they will die. And then my breath catches in my throat. They are afraid, and I can feel it. I press my hands against the clay and something snaps inside me, and all at once I know the price the clay demands: I feed it, and it feeds me. Instead of resting safely on my shelf, the clay has made itself a conduit, has reawakened feeling in my chest. And the first thing I feel is pain. My family is dying. But this time, unlike before, I embrace it. Pain might not leave room for anything else, but it is transient – and without it, my family would die, and I'd not care. So I sit, and as tears trickle down my cheeks, I embrace the clay. END Amy Laurens is an Australian fantasy writer and high-school English teacher. She lives with her husband and two Labradors, one of whom tends to bash the laptop's keyboard to get attention. When not glued to the laptop or teaching, Amy can be found baking in the kitchen or snuggled up reading a good book. Contact Amy: Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/InkyLaurens Website: http://www.amylaurens.com/ Blog: http://ink-fever.blogspot.com/ Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/AmyLaurens