image from Google Photo Frame
I was born and raised in the small village of Ukara. The medicine woman crone delivered me. My mother named me Cupra for the beautiful copper stones we found on the lake’s shore. When I asked where they came from, my father pointed to the mountain and said, “God gives us many gifts.”
When I was ten years old I began to want to go to the mountain and see for myself where the rocks came from. The crone warned, “Do not make God angry or the fish will go away and we will starve.”
At age sixteen, I was reckless enough in my youth to risk God’s wrath. I packed pemmican cakes and set out at dawn’s pink welcome and walked towards the peak of the mountain. It was farther away than it looked. By orange sunset I was exhausted. I lay at God’s feet, wrapped in my sheepskin blanket and slept the sleep of the dead.
I realized taking the winding goat path I found was a way to the top. I ate berries and snared a few rabbits along the way. In two days I reached the top and made camp just as night was falling.
The sky blazed with strange colored dancing lights that whistled the low tune I’d heard a hundred times in my dreams. The crone and my father are wrong. God is not the mountain.
[230 words]
Fandango is the host of Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge.
Tao Talk 
Let us hope the fish don’t go away now…
Lovely story that reads like a fable.
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Thank you, Dale. I hope she keeps going and doesn’t return to the village…
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I agree!
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This is such a raw and evocative story. There could be more when the mystery is revealed?
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Could be! Thanks for reading, Sadje.
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It’s always a pleasure Li
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Particularly loved ‘dawn’s pink welcome’ and its counterpoint, ‘orange sunset’ :)
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Thank you, Wibble.
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Good take, Li. Thanks for joining in.
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Thank you and you are welcome.
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Excellent 🙏
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Thank you :)
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Beautifully described, Li. I hope his antics didn’t scare the fish away 😂
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LOL I hope so too! Thanks for reading, Shweta :)
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You’re welcome 😁
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Maybe now a trip beyond the village will be in order and leave it forever.
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That’s what I was thinking. Maybe she will find others beyond her small village that aren’t so constrained by their beliefs.
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I read this at 1 in the morning…I ate dinner and I was out like a light lol. I liked your descriptions also.
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Thanks again, Max :) I want to get back to writing more stories. Maybe when the weather gets cooler…
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I’m glad to hear that!
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It’s hard to defy “common knowledge”. Great build up of suspense. (K)
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Good way of putting it, Kerfe. Thank you :)
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