Prologue: Dragonfly Vision

Sometimes, when she was a little girl, Jacinta imagined she saw the cattails and water lilies through the eys of one of the yellow and black striped skimmers as they chased mosquitos around the irrigation pond on Andy's farm. She'd stand still on hot summer days with her feet sinking in fetid swamp mud, the sun bright on her wet tank-top shoulders, and think about how the dragonfly's multiple field of view changed, kaleidoscope-like, every time it changed direction. She imagined that cattail stems looked like trees and the forest across the way from the pond was too big and too remote to matter to the skimmer. She wanted to learn to draw how the insect saw the pond, saw its prey, saw her, saw the distant things it could not comprehend. At eight years old, she was sure the entire world would be crazy about seeing the world like a dragonfly. Who in their right mind wouldn't?

 

She'd held a  dragonfly-eye kaleidoscope once the previous year; and the woman who showed it to her had explained the theory of compond eyes.

 

"Look into this end", she said, showing her the eyepiece, "and you will see the world how a dragonfly does."

 

The thing had something that looked like half of a clear disco ball on the other end. Jacinta's first thought as she looked into the tube-like device was that she would probably starve to death if she had to select the correct plate of food from so many options. How did you know where to put the fork? Her second thought was to notice that the visions did kind of seem to converge in the center, as if the visions were trying to organize themselves into something that agreed with themselves. Her third thought was, "Wow! Wait until I tell Sammy about this one!"

 

****

 

Eighteen years later, she stood on a ridge above a small town in Central America, trying to remember how to remember that people have multiple visions too, and moving forward sometimes means having to find the compromises in the center of things. She had done a lot of compromising to get here, but the sight of the volcanos in the distance drawing themselves as toothlike islands in a magenta sea while the sun set; that made her remember why she decided to come back. For this, she thought, is the place where ancestors walk the streets and hills with the living, constantly reminding them of the duty to the past, and warning of the mistakes of the future. Without knowing, she had accidentally stumbled across the source of her own vision in this country; and she had followed the hints and suggestions, tangled snarls of abruptly ending tales, until she found her way to this very spot. Jacinta decided one day she might just have finally come to terms with the fact that she could hear the voices of those ancestors sometimes as if they were standing right next to her. What she hoped to find, after all this time, was simply some breathing space; for both her and them. 

Reviews

[Larry Dyson]

you weave a tome I want to revisit..please..write it...

[lawrence bear]

I liked this, reminded me of my childhood :)

[Through the Gateway]

An interesting beginning. You've got me still wanting to read more.

I think this is a very solid beginning, Marie. You have a distinctive voice, and I for one would like to hear Jacinta's story.