Category: Cassandra

But then, the little girl sobered, “Did you ever find your true love, grandma?”

Cassandra wistfully looked toward the window…

“That remains yet to be seen.”

Cassandra smiled at her granddaughter’s look of her mouth gaping open while she stared at her grandmother in wide-eyed astonishment.

Then they both jumped up, squeeling and trumpeting about in joy a bit as they did a little happy dance together, laughing and hard squeezy-hugging at Grandma’s wonderful surprise reveal – finished with a kiss on top of the beloved little girl’s head.

Something we seek
Insight we can give

A path that is found
A way for us to live

Purity is
Impossible

When mixed
With reality

But there
Is a

Right
Feeling

Right
Matching

And

Intolerable
Losses

To be
Avoided

His
Voice

Drew her
Response

Instinctual
Resonance

Mapping
Stars

The one thing about staying in motion is that nothing is stagnant, and nothing can catch you…

But then nothing stabilizes, and nothing is claimed.

As the approaching storm front’s initial soft breezes began playing with her hair and slightly rippling her clothing, the enlivening flow carried an all-encompassing fresh sense of spring’s returning vitality.

Hyper-oxygenated air molecules poured into her lungs as she breathed them in deeply, and she began remembering truths that she had inherently known as a child, but that had become suppressed for her protection during her enslavement.

She opened her arms wide to embrace its arrival.

She stared in awe at the huge clouds roiling, emanating energy like a godlike presence watching them as it rapidly encroached and shifted between shapes of majestic, mythical creatures – and the crew quickly lowered the sails and battened the hatches.

Even when they had abused her and used her body, she had known to cause them no harm.

An unwilling sacrifice while they  blasphemed in the names of gods, she should never have  been forced to do men’s bidding.

(Flashback)

No one questioned her about her identity, reasons for passage, or intended destination on the ship, and every evening before crews shifted to night’s light duty taken in turns, she was welcomed to join them as they ate supper, told lavish tales of their extensive journies, and sang and danced to sparse instruments accompanied by the beat of drums.

Having already learned a few rhythms herself, it felt easy for her to join in their revelries – and marvelous to be free at last, carried away by water and wind while guided by the stars’ heavenly trajectories.

“I know who you are, Cassandra. It will be alright.”

She jolted awake from the voice in a dream to the muffled sounds of the crew working the rigs outside her cabin and adjusting sails as they docked at their first port.

Dressed in common clothes and allowing herself to relax her posture a little, she no longer stood out as the graceful high priestess she’d been forced into becoming.

Hair tied back and hidden well under a worker’s cap, she stayed on board on the upper deck, out of sight, as the crew restocked supplies and then cast off, aiming for farther shores.

After the guard left once she again refused his advances, she knew she must escape.

It was only a matter of time before the rebellion broke out, and she knew they would eventually target her as a martyr, despite her attempts to keep out of it.

As the evening’s revelries coursed onward, she knew no one would think twice about her absence, so used to her same withdrawn introspections that never gave outward variations as she’d walk the halls and outer gardens.

Only this time, she deviated, heading out toward the cliffside in the deep of night – and at the last minute, making a sharp turn to trace along its edges until an openimg down to the beach below revealed itself.

Heart pounding and breath becoming ragged, she was tentative with each step as she carefully scaled the slippery path in the pale moonlight and then safely reached the shifting sands that compress-crunched quietly underneath her slippers as she lifted her dress hem and swished-stumbled forward toward a small,  beached boat.

Within it, she found a change of clothes in a napsack weighted with stones, a sachel with food and water, and a coin purse with a rough-sketched map folded inside.

Then, she quickly pushed the boat into the edge of the calming ocean waters that were mid-shifting between tides.

Once she had maneuvered it to where she could climb into it without getting herself too wet, she leveraged the boat the rest of the way off of the sand and began rowing with renewed determination.

As she worked on maintaining a smooth yet fast-paced rhythm, she angled the boat out to just past the tucked-in cove to where a ship made ready to sail was still waiting for her in the deeper water.

“What is this sense?

Is it decreed by fates?

Alligned by stars?

Or governed by our own instincts?”

She could not remember well her life before it all changed…

“The choice to not run away has never really been a choice…”

(Title of multiple meanings)

“Abstaining from joining mass behavior is a way to assert one’s own authentic identity, but ‘society’ often strives to persecute and pressure us into irrelevancy.”

“Sometimes, all we can do is hold onto the memory of light when there is no fire remaining to comfort and warm our bones.”

She was sad…

For Man would still not acknowledge Woman’s value, and, therefore, he would not rise to champion love’s valour.

When the voices came, they took on apparitions of the people she knew to be flawed in their souls, easily bought and sold.

The pressures they assaulted her senses with were unbearable and invective, and she did not know if she was gifted – or just poisoned from the oracle’s fumes.

“If more women closed their legs to men’s bad behavior, maybe men would better mature and not readily philander!”

“It’s called mad-ness for a reason…”

“So does Cassandra escape and get to be with her beloved someday?” the young girl asked her grandmother, hopefully.

“Well, I know we would want her to be able to, wouldn’t we?”

The girl nodded, earnestly.

“But we must remember,” her grandmother cautioned, “she has been enslaved for a very long time, and in those kinds of circumstances, there are very harsh realities…”

When a bird is cagebound for too long, it begins to think that there is no better way of living, and memories of freedom song in flight begin fading as if they had been only in a dream.

One day, she realized that the voice she had heard in her head when on the top edge of the cliffs must have been her mind’s own – for how else could she account for it when there was no tangible evidence?

And maybe it was as the guard said and no one was coming for her.

Maybe she should just take him up on his offers.

But damn it!

If she could have nothing else, she was going to at least hold onto this dream of having a loving partnership!

Even if it meant she would forever be on her own, she figured that it was one ideal worth living and dying for.

One of the guards who had a reputation for “treating the girls right” kept hitting on her until finally fully vexed with her consistent rebuffs scolded, ” Cassandra! It’s not like you’re going to get a better offer!”

Being accomplished is great, but it can give the impression of one’s not needing anyone.

She couldn’t believe it was happening, but she could see the path opening up before her.

Had he truly sent the messages, and were they for her only?

Insecurity had her fretting.

When she desperately needed comforting, she was supposed to endure more waiting.

They say now that women have the power to shape their own destinies, where clearly, one mistep can lead to our immediate demise.

Exactly when and where is it safe for us to do so?

Only in the company of a good man may we be so inclined.

In the deepest cold of winter, he came to her bringing the heat of the sun, reviving and purifying her senses while his passion’s vitality rekindled her sense of purpose.

But upon awakening from the dream, she found nothing to cling to in the barren stone chamber except the dull nub of a burned out candle and the barest whisper of hope’s promise yet unsung.

There is no answer but to live and love, and do both well.

Searching for meaning, gathered tiny shells gently caskaded from her slightly opening and slow-sweeping hand onto the sparkling, warm cove sand as she examined patterns of their falling, realizing that the only true assessment was that they had all once contained vital life within them.

“A succubus needs her incubus, yet the incubus seems never inclined…”

She wondered if his mind could be satisfied by staying connected with hers for mutual fulfillment, or if he would just discard and leave her like so many others had, once he completed courting her and got his fed.

Brings with it a type of intrepid insanity, which, hopefully, is only temporary.

It’s like being caught in a feverish dream while struggling to awaken.

One must “fight with the sheets” to reacquire solid ground’s purchase.