The Foundling (797 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.96 on 35 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Buttmonkey (View user info) at 2005-03-31 14:41:04 EST
I knew a girl, once.
We grew up in a town called Criers Rest in Dartmoor where the places were still wild. The moors were endless to us, and infinitely mysterious to children such as we were. Brooding and dark where surely monsters lived, thick with heather and deer and winds that tasted of rain.
Her name was Anna, and she grew from a serious child into a coltish youth. Her black hair long and always wind tangled, dark eyes feverish, bare feet grass stained. The wildest of us she spent her days on the moors leading us in games only half playful, sometimes serious and often frightening.
I loved her certainly, feared her a little.
Our mothers warned us of her, said in fearful tones that she was wild, was a creature only half human surely whilst our fathers chuckled but did not refute the notion.
She ran alone often, in the rains and storms and searing summer sun, and I would find heather in her hair. She smelled of air and dust and earth.
She feared death, my Anna. Not physical death but the slow decay hinted at by words like 'marriage' and 'responsibility'. The idea of being captured made the fever in her eyes glow brighter, her breath quicken, made her run faster.
The boys of our village were enchanted by her, but afraid. Afraid of her wildness, her fierceness, her difference. They envied me of my audience with her but I knew we'd never be lovers. There wasn't a single one amongst us that was alive enough for her.
Age only seemed to fan the fires of the wild desperation in her eyes. Unbridled fear burned through her as her days on the moors shortened, as her parents sought to tame her with muttered words and secret councils.
She was to be sent away, they said. Perhaps a proper school in a city would reclaim her. Perhaps she could learn the ways a woman should be. Perhaps they could quell that look in her eyes that spoke of a difference in her that they would never understand. Perhaps.
She cried bitter tears but would not let me comfort her. She let the dusty salt tracks of her tears dry in the wind; such dark eyes so wild and hot and afraid. She would die, she told me, and I believed her. She told me once that They would come by here soon, that she would go with them. She told me that she would not say goodbye but that she would not forget me. She sighed and told me that in her dreams she was haunted by memories of running on feet not her own. She kissed me for the first and last time then, and she tasted just as I'd expected; wild and sharp. Her words frightened me, and she never spoke of it again.
There was a heavy storm the night that Anna left. Heavy rains swept the downs of bruised heather. The burns overran and the gorse was battered by a wind that howled; animal-like to a sky scudded by clouds that to a thirteen year old felt like the wrath of God.
I followed her to the moors but I could never keep up with her. Rain soaked I watched her leave, watched her run and that night I saw that she no longer ran alone, that they had indeed come past and that she had always been one of their own, lost by the wayside but found in time.
I am an old man now, and I know only the things of old men, of aches and pains and fears and the untold joys of grandchildren. I still walk the moors but not so far and not so fast. They're changing, you see. Receding past the encroaching shoreline of development. Criers Rest has been swallowed by nightclubs and winebars but the elders amongst us still tell the old stories we were raised on, of dark fairy tales and creatures that would steal you away.
I tell my grandchildren stories about a girl I knew, once. I also tell them of a Wolfpack that run across all of the wild places of the world. Never to stop, never to rest, always outrunning the death of stagnation, running for fear of being caught.
Sometimes they pass this way, I tell them and if you see them their eyes burn wild and feverish and afraid. They never stop, perhaps they never will but sometimes one will fall by the wayside and forget themselves. Sometimes they find their way back.
They do not believe me, I know. I am old and know only the things of old men but I do know that one such creature runs with dark, dark eyes that burn brighter than the rest. She fears the future that might catch up with her should she stop, and I know what her kisses taste of.
I tell them the stories but they do not believe me. I think of her as I get older, running forever on feet not her own, caught up in the desperate eyes of her pack. She told me she'd remember me and I have never stopped loving her of fearing her - the girl that I knew, once.
User Reviews
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2006-10-19 13:34:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i believe in these things.
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2006-10-19 13:19:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
compelling
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2006-04-13 03:12:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2006-04-13 03:10:36 (#)
Ranking: 2
Mrs buttmonkey I left you my email address on your last post a while ago, but it's uberc1ndy.at.gmail.com
Thanks for sending my book back!
Submitted by Davros (user info) at 2006-03-29 08:27:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is still amazing even after all this time.
-Dave
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2005-09-19 09:10:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
write more like this Butters!
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2005-09-19 09:10:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Enchanting
Submitted by Davros (user info) at 2005-08-13 03:18:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very nice.
Great imagery.
-Dave
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-08-11 11:02:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Still like it.
Submitted by pantsarestupid (user info) at 2005-05-16 22:55:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
We could be on the up and up with this one.
Submitted by d_prime (user info) at 2005-05-16 22:38:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Are you one of these morons who not only have horrible English, which isn't a big deal, but gets mad at people who have good English and calls them stupid?
--
Yeah, I didn't read it at first either. I just gave it the most consistent raiting (rounded up.)
Submitted by Flying_buttmonkey (user info) at 2005-05-16 07:38:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2005-05-13 03:21:29 (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2005-04-28 07:50:44 (#)
Ranking: 2
mas, por favor!
============================
You deaf?
===========================
Babelfish seems to think you're saying "but, please?"
That's either really funny or I haven't got a bloody clue what you're on about old bean.
Oh and I'm a girl, not an old man. I have boobies.
Submitted by mrwolf (user info) at 2005-05-13 03:37:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You been french kissing them wolves again? You dirty old bastard!
Submitted by d_prime (user info) at 2005-05-13 03:35:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Are you one of these morons who not only have horrible English, which isn't a big deal, but gets mad at people who have good English and calls them stupid?
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2005-05-13 03:21:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2005-04-28 07:50:44 (#)
Ranking: 2
mas, por favor!
============================
You deaf?
Submitted by williamson (user info) at 2005-04-28 07:56:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That's the last of these that needed reviewing. This was the best.
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2005-04-28 07:50:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
mas, por favor!
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2005-04-28 07:50:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Flying_buttmonkey (user info) at 2005-04-28 07:48:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
If it is, that's spooky. I made it up in my brain....or read it somewhere and didn't remember
Submitted by Wazza (user info) at 2005-04-28 03:22:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Yes. that was interesting, is that the place of the Hounds of the Baskervilles?
Submitted by garcon_fou (user info) at 2005-04-01 14:28:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by carolrichards (user info) at 2005-04-01 02:21:26 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2005-03-31 18:31:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Publishable
Submitted by JMG114 (user info) at 2005-03-31 17:21:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice.
Submitted by DonovanMD (user info) at 2005-03-31 16:45:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Best post I've read on Uber so far today. Well done.
Submitted by Dannie (user info) at 2005-03-31 16:22:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent.
Submitted by Spice (user info) at 2005-03-31 15:46:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Wonderful
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-03-31 15:35:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Gnome (user info) at 2005-03-31 15:30:50 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
nice story, old man.
Submitted by freebie (user info) at 2005-03-31 15:13:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice.
Submitted by SilvrWolf (user info) at 2005-03-31 15:10:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome
Submitted by TheSpook (user info) at 2005-03-31 14:51:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This was real good, then I saw th:
Submitted by knucklesnelson (user info) at 2005-03-31 14:44:54 (#)
Ranking: 1
Oops I thought this said The Fondling.
and laughed my ass off.
Submitted by matrix2681 (user info) at 2005-03-31 14:47:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Tay in the Weeyun!!
Submitted by knucklesnelson (user info) at 2005-03-31 14:44:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Oops I thought this said The Fondling.
Submitted by GodChicken (user info) at 2005-03-31 14:44:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Thats good shit.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2005-03-31 14:44:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Cool.