★ Warning Mature Content ★
Asher Kells is a Rock Star and Rapper, complete with tattoos on nearly every inch of his thickly muscled body. He has a badass ability to play the guitar, and he sang like crush diamonds, amber whiskey, and smoke. While I...
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Damn. That blew up in my face.
My neck gets hot with humiliation. With my cheeks heating to follow that and thankfully, my dark skin kept my poor poker face in place. The page was as embarrassing as I thought it was going to be. It was a song and short story inspired by my mother and nana. We, as listeners, immortalize revolutionary musicians in music for all time. With the first known person at the crossroad blues artist Robert Johnson. Not that shocking that he picked it out. The page was a book tab and labels. The paper's edges worn down as if I read it a thousand times because I did. I was so reminded of them in every word. It was deeply personal, but the best piece of me refused to ever be embarrassed by anything to do with my mother. But something I need to remember was never to play Russian Roulette with Asher.
"If I tell you this story, you're going to think it's dumb."
"Tell me birdy." I squish my nose at the name. It's not the first time he's said that. I didn't mind. He didn't forget my name using some nickname to get around it. Like how Paulie calls people babe. This is a nickname unique to me, but it catches me by surprise.
"A god came to a woman who lost her son. The god said, 'where is the boy that is dedicated to me?' The woman, as if looking through time and space, said with tired eyes. 'He was stolen.'' The god that eats first could not understand the state of things. He went near where the stealers were. He let himself be stolen. The god expected to be taken to a village and find the boy that was dedicated to him."
"That wasn't where the god was taken. His hands were bound in old iron. Long, dark fingers touched his legs that were bound in cold chains. His neck chain to the next in line. He was taken by the stealers by boat. The god could barely lift his head. They were so tightly packed. He who eats first, he who tricks, looks at all the men, women, and babies on the boat. He saw those dedicated to his sister and brother gods, but missing was the boy dedicated to him. His stomach hurt as he ate the moldy bread he was fed."
"The god knew something deep in his soul. He may be a trickster god, but the trick for the first time wasn't on someone else, it was on him. He and his brother and sister gods as their children were spread over the earth without care."
"He gave the people on the boat the only thing he could freely give under the eye of the stealers. His voice sang to them of home. He knocked the beat against the chain, giving them the pieces of the song. But when he tried to give them his name, it was like the words could not float through the chains. The song and the beat sunk into their souls but the names of his brothers and sisters were lost to the sea."
"When the god finally made it to the Newland. He slips from his chains. Freeing those he could, but not able to save many. The god walks this new land searching for the boy, for he was his. Decades passed and still, the god wanders the lands like a ghost. When he tried to speak to the people that were his brothers and sisters, they could not hear him. But the boy, he thought to himself, the boy is mine and will remember."
