Sarah Koz

“That peculiar light just before sunset, before gloaming: it is then that Essa sees for the first time the famous dunes at Avanue, which roll like fat people in their sleep, and shift restlessly forever.

“They cast long shadows, these sleeping giants, and Essa shivers. She has walked too far—after the trip north she was so grateful to be out of hospital—her hands and feet are cold, and she is dizzy with exhaustion. She sits down on the ragged grass at the edge of the bluff which overlooks the dunes, and tries not to hate them.

“Her mother’s words, remembered in a dream, sound like water flowing in her thoughts. There is no water here. The grasses under her are dry and stiff, and they grow in sand so fine it grits through her clothing against the skin of her ass. The sea is too far away to see or smell. But at least she is alone.

“Though she is shivering, it is still a hot day, and the sun has warmed the sand. The ground radiates heat into her body. She lies down flat on her belly, her head to one side so that she can still see the dunes, and puts her hands beneath her; gradually they warm.

“Gradually her body comes back into balance and she starts to see an eerie beauty before her. The sun is fully down when she sits up, brushes the sand away as well as she can, and hugs her knees to her chest. She puts her chin on her knees and watches darkness descend over the low rolling landscape.

“This is unlike any cliff on which she has rested yet. It is low and gives no perspective. The dunes come up almost to her feet. Yet the demarcation is quite abrupt: there is no grass growing anywhere after this brief crumbling drop-off, and she can see as the land-breeze begins to quicken that ahead of her the sand is moving. In fact, she realizes, she can hear it, a low sweeping sound which has mounted from inaudibility until it inexorably backs every other sound: sounds of grasses moving, insects scraping, birds calling from the invisible sea far beyond her viewpoint are all subsumed in one great sand-song.

“It is a sound so relentlessly sad that Essa can hardly bear to listen, but so persistent that she cannot ignore it now that she has become aware of its susurration. She pulls her sweater—the one her mother made by her knitting—around her and waits.

“When it is fully dark and the wind has died again, she rises and begins the long walk back to town in the dim light of stars and crescent moon.”
― Candas Jane Dorsey, Black Wine

“What in heaven’s name do you mean?’

“=Not the name of heaven. Just the place you come from.=

“‘You don’t know anything about the place I come from.’

“=It is true I don’t know the place. But I know a great deal about the place now, after learning to know you. I know what kind of stories—not the stories themselves, mind you, but the kind of stories—they tell their children. I know what the children are led to expect from the world. Fair treatment. A happy life. Even that question you ask comes out of the mountains.=

“‘Is there anything wrong with that? You make it look stupid.’

“=There is nothing wrong, and there is something wrong. There is nothing wrong with making a place where children can be safe. I can hardly imagine it myself, but it sits on the edge of my vision like a small sun. It’s a blinding glimpse of something. Safety. So very odd. And I suppose there’s nothing wrong with a modicum of safety, though I think my way one at least learns how to react quickly. But there is something wrong in the kind of complacency…= his sign is complicated: a cat after cream, a fat despot =…which lets you think you have a right to a happy life just because you can think of the idea.=

“‘I don’t agree with you. Everyone should be able to be complacent in that way!’ As she speaks she illustrates the way by repeating the cat-with-cream sign. ‘But that other, that arrogance, I don’t think we are arrogant, in the mountains, like that—do you?’

“=Arrogant? I don’t know. Arrogant? A curious word. The arrogance of privilege. You had safety. That’s a privilege.=”
― Candas Jane Dorsey, Black Wine

“It is a simple answer, really. It comes to Essa in the memory of XX’s old name. A fist is tight and tense, then it opens, relaxes, turns and flies up. It could mean Escape-from-bondage, but it could also mean: let it go.
“Let it go. Let the past transform as it will, let the future unfold. XX was right in a way about her expectations: she has taken to worrying at the world, trying to get it to make sense. It is time to let go, whatever that may mean: daughter, lover, friend, past and future.
“Simply let it all go. It will fly up.”
― Candas Jane Dorsey, Black Wine

“Were they taken apart like this? But they seemed to be able to function after, though I couldn’t imagine how we would. We clung to each other. After a while I started to cry. Annalise held me.

“‘In the book,’ she said, ‘they say that after fucking one is omnivorously sad.’

“‘It’s not that.’

“‘What then?’

“‘It’s so easy for you.’

“‘Easy?’ She looked at me and her grin slipped off, right off into nowhere. ‘Easy? We could die of this. Don’t you feel it? Right now, we could be dying of each other. How do you think that feels, when I could be thrown out like garbage any day? And you, you are the heir to everything.’

“She had never talked about it before. Now I was so far into my own fear that it took me time to realize they were the same fears. We lay in silence, holding each other tight, until I caught up to it and passed ahead.

“‘How can she hurt them?’ I said finally. ‘What if…?’

“‘You are not her,’ said Annalise, which she had said before, but now, she took my shoulders fiercely and held me so she could look into my face. ‘You are not hers,’ she said. The difference was immense, and she struck my fear away easily. I was washed with gratitude, relief. ‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘You never cry.’

“‘I never knew stuff before,’ I said. ‘How this changes everything. How it’s full of fear. In the books I read, it’s full of joy. In the books you read, it shows you how to put your hands into me and pull my heart out.’

“‘Poor princess,’ she said. ‘And what have you done with mine heart? You have eaten it all up.’

“After that we were shy and had to start to make stupid jokes, though I could not imagine ever seeing the light of day again, I felt so different.”
― Candas Jane Dorsey, Black Wine