Objects have stories.
Objects have stories for those willing to listen to what they say, so see what they show. To those who can Hear without ears, See without eyes.
Objects have stories, memories, of time before. Some stories are stories of joy and innocence. Some stories are stories are stories of darkness and fire and the unknown beyond the fire’s light. Some stories are stories of pain and sorrow. But all stories are memories, echoed across time.
Memory is the bones, blood enlivens the bones. But not all bones are made of calcium and marrow. The objects left behind are part of the bones of a soul. An arrow or spearhead, a set of dice, a pack of cards, an old makeup table, a cherished book, a knife or gun, a birthday card, a coin. Items left behind are as much bone as the bleached or breaking down actual bones, and hold memories, too.
And blood doesn’t always have to be spilled to enliven these bones. The blood rushes through the seer, the listener, and as attention shifts, reaches, finds the object, power follows, for power follows attention. That power is the power of the blood, iron rich blood swirling, like 18,562 tiny magnets, power, swirling, enlivening the bones, the objects, once held dear or just held.
Objects have stories.
A piece of pottery from a shell mound near Berkeley, where many claim it shouldn’t be. A circle of people in the dark, a fire burning near the shore of an ocean not quite as old as now, bowls filled with fish. An old man chip, chip, chipping and arrowhead.
A leg bone of a deer, actual bone, laying beside the river, the Laramie River in Wyoming. Visions of the deer walking, alert, then a foot caught, a slow end, coyotes clean the bones.
An old key, opener of doors, in a cup of keys in an antique store in Boulder, carried long in a pocket, flashes of solid wood doors, tarnished brass locks. An old woman’s hand shaking, the feel of ache in your own hand, arthritis, or the memory of it. The door opens.
Cherished jewelry grandmother to grand daughter. The blood of family brings echoes beyond just the objects. A red flower or sun, red jade set in pewter, flashes of a long corridor, sun through breaks, windows or openings, jade and pewter on a young woman, a flash of fur on a dressing table. Beads, flashes of foreign lands and more familiar places, sitting and waiting, waiting for return.
Some objects whisper, the bare hint of the stories they recall, quieter and quieter as the years pass. Some objects scream, loud and vivid stories, growing stronger with age, the story echoing through the halls of time.
Objects have stories. They just wait for one who can See the stories without eyes, Hear the stories without ears. They wait for those who can. They wait for those willing.
They wait for someone to go calm and pay attention, to not pull back from the dull ache the time past causes, not just the echo of pain long gone, but an ache in the bones as bones call out to bones, blood calls out to blood. An ache in reaching through the cold/hot echoing halls of time, to find the story, to learn what is says.
Objects have stories. Will you witness them?
FFF,
~Bethany “Lorekeeper” Davis, Muninn’s Kiss
