Prompt: Hands
Title: Tlazopeiotlcochitta (etetl: 3)
Notes: Ynez is my own.
Word count: 340
Tlazopeiotlcochitta (etetl: 3)Yax butterflies sneak up on her from time to time throughout the days, even when she is away from the ofrenda. They either distract her or frighten her, depending. They are always waiting now for her return, clustered on skulls and picture frames and empty bottles. Almost before she crawls into the room, they lift in glory, scintillating fibrillating fragments of another world, one that only she can see.
Peiotl is bitter and makes her ill, but yax butterflies are the mercy it grants her. She is not alone yet.
First is darkness, each and every night, followed by the flicker of flame, little lights multiplying past reason or hope. Chuparrosa will appear to flutter her wings, driven on an impulse of votivelight, seeking nectar that no longer exists. If Ynez were able to sleep, perhaps she herself would become Chuparrosa again. As it is, the painted bird on the candle’s glass container is what she settles for.
One night, Ynez takes a drum down from its shelf and settles to the floor, holding it between her knees. Her favorite drum is gone, half a world and a complete lifetime away. It is not until she takes this drum into her lap that she realizes that she does not expect to see her own best-loved possession ever again in her life.
It is gone as though it never existed.
Her fingers blindly search the surface of the pale inadequate replacement. The goatskin is supple and the rope knotted well, holding the tension of the head as though it had been pulled only a month ago. The wood is firm but not completely unyielding. She can measure the balance of the instrument without using her eyes. They’re overfilled with butterflies and candlelight anyway. She could not see if she looked.
The drum beneath her fingertips takes a long shuddering breath, like a child who has just stopped crying. She pats it as she would a baby. It responds with her heartbeat and soon, she holds her own heart in her hands.