Art

Amalia started first grade on a Monday in March, at six years old, with two loose teeth and a school smock whose sleeves were too long. Grandma Eliana folded the cuffs twice before leaving her at the door. The classroom smelled of new pencils, glue and freshly mopped floor.

Amalia drew a small house and three mountains. Then she repeated the mountains along the edge of the page. One pointed up, the next pointed down. She put a sun between every two peaks, but at the fourth sun she decided there were too many and turned them into eyes. The eyes became diamonds. The diamonds began to walk along the margin.

Amalia sat on the stone in the mornings. From there the mountains were straight ahead. The sun rose on that side, and the light crossed the yard until it touched her knees. The sea was on the other side, behind the houses and farther than she could see. In the afternoon the sky turned orange over there.

She did not need the words east and west. She knew where the day woke up and where it went to bed.

Anara walked slowly through the darkness. Beneath her eight little feet stretched an enormous web: the web of the whole universe! Every time she took a step, it trembled a little, like a guitar string after someone has touched it.

Anara loved walking this way, listening. The darkness was not silent. It was full of tiny sounds: murmurs, crackles, whispers of light.

Anara was not walking just to walk. Anara was looking for her own kind.

“Where are the other cosmic spiders?” she would ask, touching the web with one foot, then two, then all eight.

The web never answered in words. But Anara could see with her feet. When something heavy moved very far away, the threads trembled and she felt it.