A Condition of Beauty

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They threw the meat to him and he fed in darkness, his eyes smarted from the after effect of the blinding light which had, for a few moments, shone through the small door.

Food was good and hunger was good. So few things were good. His ears heard the tearing of the flesh from the dry bone and there was a good stinging at the corners of his jaws.

The old one crouched in the corner of the cell and ate with less noise.

He who was known as Pol threw the cleaned bone aside toward the heap of other bones. He padded with bare feet across the dirt floor and drank deeply of the single stream of water that came from the wall and fell into a deep pit at his feet.

The old one, his voice muffled with food, said, “I heard them speak, Pol. This is the year of great light, when the two suns are close. Tomorrow is the ceremony.”

“I saw one such,” Pol said. “My mother hid me and at last she sent me alone into the forest. I lived in the forest. For many months the sky was bright. And on the brightest morning of all, I heard the singing. By then I could move in the forest as quietly as any animal. I crept through the brush and I saw them. The priests and the naked giggling maidens of the village and those with drums. They went to the silver temple.”

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