“That one is special,” said Grandfather Elder with a strong voice as he pointed to Klarissa sitting meekly in the back.

He came forward and pulled Klarissa out of the shadows and into the light so he could look her over. Klarissa was terrified at becoming the center of attention. “I’m… I’m not special,” she stammered as she stood trembling under his piercing gaze and avoiding his eyes.

His voice and his gaze softened as he replied, “We are all special in the dance and unfolding of the universe.”

“Beats is special,” she continued. “She is beautiful and brave.” Grandfather Elder looked at Beats who returned his steady gaze with her own piercing steady gaze.

“Yes,” said Grandfather, “Beats is special. But,” and here he looked back at Klarissa, “you are the one who carries the buried light.”

“Kam!” Grandfather Elder called for his grandson who stepped forward into the light. “You are to accompany them, and you are to train this one. She is asleep.”

“Yes, Grandfather,” Kam replied with a nod.

As Kam and Klarissa walked out of the tent, Kam asked, “You long to be Beats?”

“Who wouldn’t long to be Beats? She’s beautiful and strong.”

“She carries a lot of pain.”

“We all carry pain. At least she’s pretty and in pain.”

This made Kam laugh, but even with a smile on his face, he replied seriously, “While you do not accept yourself — while you do not feel and understand your own importance, beauty and poetry — your training will move slowly. You are swimming against the current, against the natural flow of energy. You are exhausting all of your resources on fantasies based on lack and inadequacy.”

This last statement stung. She could feel tears stinging her eyes but didn’t want him to see her cry.

“I’m sorry,” he said as he cupped her hands in his, “but as Grandfather said, you are asleep… in so many ways. You long for beauty when you have beauty. You long for strength when you have strength.”

“What do you know?!” Suddenly she was angry. She snatched her hand out of his. “What do you know of my pain?! Beautiful, am I? Tell that to all the boys who passed me over for a prettier face!”

He was quiet for a moment, weighing her anger against his words, before continuing. “You cannot move forward while you carry this burden. It weighs you down in the waters. Trust that you are exactly what you are supposed to be, that you are crafted with precision and poetry.

“There are many physical joys of life,” he continued, “and this is the only beauty that you, and many others, see.”
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And, shitzilla, that’s the end of the excerpt that I wrote in my notebook. What was Kam going to say! I really must write this book. 🙂