In the beginning, there is a voice. The words touch a place of nothingness waiting to be, and somewhere in the shiftless emptiness a single sound pulses. A second close on its heels and then a pause, so long it seems no sound could follow, that nothing could breathe or speak in this primordial quiet. Thump thump. Impossibly strong, real and surreal. Thump thump. A single heart beats.
“I believe,” the voice says again, and the sound is heard, it is not alone in the quiet, and sound meets sound and something waits. Waits for the rest, waits for the knowing and the breathing and does not know itself but knows more could be.
“I believe,” the voice whispers, echoes beyond itself. The heart pumps life into new-grown lungs, wings flutter just on the edge of sound and the void whimpers, full of alien presence.
“I believe… in fairies,” the child says, and colour explodes in the formless dark. Malachite and amaranth, pumpernickel and xanadu. Leaves sprout, curl, grow and wrap around her forming limbs. Bones shift, break, settle into blood and muscle, smooth gentle skin wrapped up like a present. Her mind blinks, eyes open, lips form trills of music and the void is gone, filled with being.
“I believe in fairies!” the little boy hollers at the empty cloud-filled sky, and somewhere a first breath is taken, and a first laugh is released.
“I do too,” the fairy whispers with a wink.
Picture by: Emily Lampson. Emily is a Canadian illustrator and fine artist. Check our her work at EmilyLampson.com.