Excerpt: Destiny's Hands

(This is a scene I wrote before NaNo and is not part of the word count. It is a vignette that precedes the story's events - a sort of prologue.)

Bezalel looked up from the striped pattern of reeds. He straightened his back and rested his eyes on the pale midmorning sky. A long-necked ibis flapped above the reed beds. From nearby a pair of squawking ducks rose in sudden flight. He rolled his shoulders and made a circle motion with his head to relax tense muscles. But the swish of reeds and the faint tinkle of armbands warned him the overseer was nearby. He bent down again and resumed the endless rhythm – grasp the ridged stocks with the right hand, sever it with the knife in the left. Onan followed close behind, picking up the cut stocks, stacking them in neat bundles, and tying them together. Someone would come later and bring the bundles out from the reed beds.

The day wore on and as the sun beat down hotter, Bezalel was thankful for the lukewarm water of the reed bed that cooled his body to the waist. At last the overseer’s whistle signaled a break.

On the muddy bank after he had drunk the milk and eaten the bread and tangy garlic paste his mother had packed, he felt revived. So did the others. Some of them, skipped rocks on the river and challenged each other as to whose could skip the farthest. Onan and Reuben wrestled. Bezalel sat slightly apart. He took up a twig and began to draw in the mud – the ibis standing in reeds, its long spindly neck, it’s sharp beak and the solid silhouette of the ducks in flight. He loved the soft surrender of the mud to his stick, its warm squish between his toes. He made a deep circle in the mud and dug out a chunk. He worked the ball, rolled it between his palms into a solid log, pressed and shaped it.

“Look, Bezalel is making a crocodile.” Onan and Reuben came over and watched as the animal took shape in his hands.

“It looks alive,” said Reuben.

“How do you do that?” asked one of the stone-throwing boys who also stood and watched.

Bezalel shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Did your father teach you?”

“No,” said Bezalel. “My hands just know.”