the kids glanced up at the night sky from their place on the palace overlook. had they been looking for it, they would have seen the earth shrugging with the onset of cold, pulling the stars over its mountain-shoulders like a jacket, now drawing its heat from the fires set and being set by the thousands of cottages and fortresses and apartments in the valley below, sighing with the final breath of day and coming to terms with the dark. they could have seen the last gasp of triumphant dying blue in the western sky, martyring itself in protest against the collusion of blackness; or maybe the righteous indictment of the day's self-obsession, a judgment passed against the vanity of light, which has a greater need to be seen than it has to shed light on other things. the night lights flatter the earth with subtle, unselfish light, and the kids would have seen as much if they'd been looking.
but they weren't really looking. for them, at first anyway, the sunset was a whistle blown at the end of a day's work, and they glanced at the dying light with impersonal appreciation, the appreciation they'd give a cool breeze on a hot day. one by one, the kids finished their chores with varying degrees of thoroughness and tromped through the palace, boots loosened, until they met at their normal place on the overlook. the palace was a huge place, a city on the edge of a high mountain with ten thousand permanent citizens, not counting those who lived outside it and commuted in and out every day. half the palace was cut into the rock, so the other half, the half visible to the yawning valley and its thousands of residents below, jutted out of the mountain rock like a lamp on the side of a building. on one of the lower overlooks, a largely ignored, somewhat dirty open space with a good-not-great view of the valley, the kids gathered every evening after work to sit around and re-learn how to appreciate the night sky.
the first to arrive on the overlook was wesley, who worked in the foundry making pipes. his job was as mind-numbing as any of the others', but it allowed him to grab a bucket of the used rinsing water from the blast furnace, which was a perk. wesley was a clever young man and hadn't yet been caught stealing the runoff, which wasn't particularly valuable to the smiths except it was reusable in making beams. wesley arrived at the overlook, took off his boots, sighed and set the bucket down in the middle of a circle of logs and old ottomans that functioned as chairs. he grabbed some dry leaves and logs tucked away in the corner of the overlook and clicked his flints together to start a fire.
fifteen minutes later, agnes and jim arrived, visibly exhausted and relieved to see their friend. they hailed wesley and clapped his back as he sat, taking seats across from him and throwing strips of linen down next to the bucket, two years from the fire. agnes and jim were brother and sister and worked in the laundry, where they were able to tear strips out of the older and more tattered banners hung from the top overlook. linen in general was expensive in the country where the kids lived, especially in the palace, so the siblings' contribution was riskier than wesley's. they had to be especially careful not to get caught taking the linen strips.
rachel arrived just after the siblings, carrying a bundle of sweet-smelling herbs. she worked in the bakery, which a few times a week baked bread with an herb called "daturic." daturic was the riskiest of the ingredients to get, and by far the most important.
rachel took her seat next to the siblings and carefully unwrapped the bundle of herbs. tall wheat stalks and some other uninteresting cereals veiled a small canvas bag which, when opened, fully released the fragrance hinted at at her arrival. the bag contained a quarter of a pound of daturic, which was fairly rare and very tough to steal. it took rachel all day to gradually scrape the herb into the canvas bag and collect enough to distill in the bucket. she placed the bucket on the now-high fire and reclined. the kids discussed the day amongst themselves, exchanging some overused complaints that passed for conversation and constantly glancing at the bucket, until the metallic water bubbled.
at the sight of the boiling, wesley leapt from his seat and produced a coarse strainer. he dipped the strainer into the water several times and shook it, until the dark liquid separated into distinct parts. he removed the mercury-like liquid metal and tossed it disdainfully aside, onto a large pile of hardened metal in the corner. the water now had a thick sheen of dense white foam on its top. the kids carefully removed the bucket from the fire and set it on the ground adjacent. rachel sprinkled the entire quarter-pound bag of daturic onto the foam and used a small stick to stir it until the foam turned a light purple color. she waited a moment and then nodded at agnes, who took a large stirring wand and quickly mixed the foam with the hot water below. agnes then quickly dropped the wand and took a linen strip, as the other kids had done, and dipped it into the mixture. she took the strip out, allowed it to drip for a short while, and then rolled up her shirt sleeve and wrapped the linen around her upper bicep.
as the purple water dripped down their arms, the kids reclined and gazed at the final halo of twilight crowning the western mountains, recognizing for the first time that day the martyrdom of blue, or the just suffocation of day by night. they could do no other than look to the constellations and read the stories written there.
ok well there we go! that was about 1000 words, which was more than i thought i would write. it feels good to have written it, on reflection. now back to this incomplete UGH.
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