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Calibration 74: Chapter Forty-Three
Calibration 74 is a serial novel experiment, posted raw and unedited as it is written. It is recommended you start at the beginning.
Chapter Forty-Three
Babies’ teeth hang like stars from a ceiling borne of stone. Wrapped in roots. Tethered to the present. That which grows above. Trees and shrubs and grasses and weeds. Food for the rabbits. Wood for our homes. A breeze blows past, sending the teeth chattering against one another.
Windchimes of our children. The symphony of a fairy.
I reach up, stretching my arms, extending my fingers. Expanding my being like a man made of rubber, and my touch stills them, the teeth. They do not bite or chitter or snarl. But rather, are at peace.
I clutch a handful, a batch of white diamonds ensnared in a spiders’ web of dirt and the deep thirst of life. Tug and pull and yank and wrench, but they do not break free. Instead, the roots slip through the earth, bringing stone and soil into the depths alongside me.
The dust settles and I drop the teeth and roots to the ground as a beam of light bursts through from above. A single shaft. Yellow daylight from lightyears above. Born of a star, its life extinguished many eons ago.
