WeWriWa—The world of After begins

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

This is the opening of “Rising from the Rubble,” from Saga VII (the 2000s) of my magnum opus Cinnimin, which begins on 12 September 2001. Many times throughout, the division of time into the world of Before and After is evoked. This profound sense of change is most keenly felt on that first day after the cataclysm.

The Pashto proverb which opens this part of the book, Toro tyaro pase rana razi, was said to Mancika and her friends when they left the Afghan restaurant yesterday. She and Ammiel will name their daughter, born nine months later, Rana, which means “light.” (It’s obvious I don’t have much experience writing Arabic scripts!)

The morning of September 12 dawned on a battle-scarred, wounded world torn asunder, populated by people left in a traumatized daze, shell-shocked, their emotions too raw and discombobulated to even make an attempt to try to begin making sense of what had happened to them yesterday, a day which had started in a world which now seemed to belong to a primordial era long ago and worlds apart, in the era of Before which had forever ended and been cruelly replaced by After.

But in the safe haven of the Poconos which Mancika, Ammiel, and the Brandts had sought healing refuge in last night, that precious world of Before seemed on the surface untouched. The fresh air, unblocked sunlight, unpolluted waters, undisrupted grass and trees, and scenery devoid of mushrooms clouds of sadness, toxic debris, and the haunting reminder of the presence of absence and the absence of presence, strongly stood as a defiant, powerful reminder of how life always stubbornly, insistently found a way of carrying on despite everything. Yesterday hadn’t been the end of the world, but rather merely the last day of an old world which existed no more and now lived only in memory.

Mancika awoke entangled with Ammiel as early morning light shone through the curtains. For a brief moment, she wondered where they were and what had happened. Then she remembered the events of yesterday and how the worst day of her life had ended as one of the most beautiful days of her life. Nothing had been a dream.

Ammiel stirred awake and gently stroked her face, his eyes bathed in adoration. Mancika responded by snuggling against him and wrapping her top arm around him more tightly.

The ten lines end there. A few more follow to finish the scene.

“So this means you don’t regret anything we did last night and that you still love me as more than a friend,” he said in relief. “For the briefest moment, I couldn’t help wondering if you only reacted from the heightened emotions of yesterday. Deep down I knew that was as genuine as it comes, but it seems natural to feel some insecurities the morning after.” Ammiel ran his fingertips along her body.

“Now you’re back to being a beta,” she teased him. “Usually it’s the woman who feels insecure the next morning. You must be all alphaed out after everything you did yesterday.”

Ammiel grinned at her. “Believe me, I’ve still got plenty of alpha left in me. I can give you a morning treat right now to show you. A good night’s sleep was just what I needed to get all my energy back.”