Annoushka Lyvers
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Bellsainte
Although I was born during a time when man was ruled by Saints, a winged race of men and women living in a black city in the sky, the first thing I questioned were my parents. The allure of perfect and powerful beings like the Saints had no hold over me. It was my mother and father that made me wonder. I looked to them as an object turns to its creators to ask important questions. Why did you make me? What am I supposed to do?
My mother meant a great deal to my father. The first time he saw her, she bent to wipe yellow petals and red pollen from her fingertips, stroking her linen apron in dusty smears and peels of bright gold. Hair loose from a clasp, curved her neck. Father was not a man of great words. But seeing my mother, things inside him stirred. Suddenly his instinct was to stay close to her.
From sweethearts to lovers, they married. Mother became tangible to father, a land he was welcomed to explore and realize. She was in reach, a partner of his days and nights. He would never dare say he understood her completely. She said she knew him, and wasn’t surprised when he couldn’t say the same.
The morning after she discovered her pregnancy, he rose early from bed. She asked him to wait, it was still too early for clothes. Her hands coaxed up his chest, pulling at the vest he shrugged on. He would not stay. Chairs needed strengthening to support her gaining weight. Mother sometimes didn’t like him, while still being in love with him. During the pregnancy he petted her, fed her, and continued to push himself harder with work. When she slept he liked to undress her to see the belly, and measure his fingers around the swell. Before he’d touch her, he puffed hot breath onto his hands.
A girl or a boy. Perhaps like him or her, or pieces from both of them. So many possibilities. It made him conscious they were more than parents. They were now artists of the body.
One day, they lay in bed for an afternoon rest. She was at peace, thinking of the supper she intended to cook. He was unwrapping her skirts to spread the span of his hands on her stomach. Her skin, tight, round, and warm, felt like a fleshy sun. Between his splayed fingers over her belly, dark veins began to blotch her skin. He removed his hands and saw the blotches form a perfect single wing off the left side of her navel. It was a sign, foretelling mother was pregnant with a Saint.
The birth was to be a bareheaded child and would eventually sprout white wings to fly away and join the other Saints of the world. My parents promised each other they’d try again for their own baby after she was well. They often declared this promise. What kept them awake at night was the knowledge that a Saint’s arrival was foretold not by a single wing, but a pair.
The essential story of Saints, well-known across all four continents, this story determined my life:
When Saints were first born to man, no one noticed a great change had already taken place among them.
All men reciting this story usually began with a similar line. A few words could be twisted with a few flowery meanings, dressing up the beginning. It all depended on who was telling the tale. I’m not certain why anyone needed to decorate Saints. They were ornate enough. Where was the need to attach “majestic were their wings, ripe with sun-soaked light,” or their “dew-smooth skin”, but many still embellished.
It was first Bellsant, whose wings sprouted before he could walk. Still a child, he became the god of man and forever