Non-fiction Friday--This Year

 Shuffle off, on repeat  

 KRISANN GENTRY 

Ever-ceremonious Janus has loftily hoisted his skeleton keys and closed firm the gates to the transition, wanted or not, into a new season. Our own small mortal's revenge is that we have banished him from our sights for the remainder of this year, and he, with his lists and ledgers filled with empty promises, loose resolutions, and false hopes, will not bother us again 'til after next.

The rituals of purification associated with February seem mostly lost - Lent aligns itself with the same hollow devotions as the unkempt contracts of mere fortnights ago - they are Janus' shadow as he marches into battles around the globe, away from us, and back to us.

Daughters are growing older and stronger and braver and lovelier, opening like blossoms into the fierce sunlight, closing up for the rain--not because they are too delicate to weather the drops on their faces, but because they recognize the value of working only on drinking in the nourishment when it comes to them.

I take care of them.
I address governing bodies and small whispers.
I engineer and judge.
I create and dispel.
I reign and serve.
I establish order.

We start again.

The world so far has not come to an end, despite the best efforts of some.

There are still no hover boards or promises of definite dates by which we will all have our hover boards, despite the demanding outcries of many.

The new cycles or old apocalypses are leaving us out in the cold, one way or another. Our manufactured tenets of change may mock us well enough, and our cleansing seasons are traded for sugar comas without much notice.

Still, we see, despite our seemingly complete incompetence, that change is real, and growth is true, and damn if we don't desperately need that little germinating flower to succeed in it's rise through the frozen earth, where we find we are risen with it--ready to hold dominion over all the new heights and depths and small voices that we've been graced to command. Or, at the very least, to start again.

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Read more essays from this prompt:
Moody's submission

Want to make one of your own? Next week's prompt is FLASH FICTION.

Write a short story from the starting point, "Fairy Tale with a Twist."