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Hunger of the Pine

Teal Swan
Chapters (42)
  1. Front Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. PART ONE MONODY
  4. CHAPTER 1
  5. CHAPTER 2
  6. CHAPTER 3
  7. CHAPTER 4
  8. CHAPTER 5
  9. CHAPTER 6
  10. CHAPTER 7
  11. CHAPTER 8
  12. CHAPTER 9
  13. PART TWO FUGUE CONCERTO
  14. CHAPTER 10
  15. CHAPTER 11
  16. CHAPTER 12
  17. CHAPTER 13
  18. CHAPTER 14
  19. CHAPTER 15
  20. CHAPTER 16
  21. CHAPTER 17
  22. CHAPTER 18
  23. PART THREE SONATA APPASSIONATA
  24. CHAPTER 19
  25. CHAPTER 20
  26. CHAPTER 21
  27. CHAPTER 22
  28. CHAPTER 23
  29. CHAPTER 24
  30. CHAPTER 25
  31. CHAPTER 26
  32. CHAPTER 27
  33. PART FOUR CODA
  34. CHAPTER 28
  35. CHAPTER 29
  36. CHAPTER 30
  37. CHAPTER 31
  38. CHAPTER 32
  39. CHAPTER 33
  40. CHAPTER 34
  41. CHAPTER 35
  42. CHAPTER 36

Front Cover

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Title Page

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HUNGER OF THE PINE

We are initiated.

We are apprenticed by pain.

Our beauty … Our purpose … Our growth

Is forged in the fire of our difficulties.

Like a blacksmith, our suffering relieves us of our rough and tattered edges

Painfully at first

Until we are broken open.

And our soul pours like water through our every thought and word and action.

It extinguishes the fire of our pain.

It weathers our curses to such a degree that they become blessings.

And then, we are free.

PART ONE MONODY

PART ONE

MONODY

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1

The muffled tapping of the soles of her favorite high-top sneakers sounded against the floor of the endless hallway. From high above her, the windows, which were no larger than jail cell windows, cast an array of silken light shards on the floor below her. The hallways of the school were empty. She was late again. She could smell the all-too-familiar smell of cafeteria lunch being prepared. Like a tedious symphony, her breath and heartbeat played their anxious notes and she tried to time her footsteps to them. She hated being late. She hated the heavy feeling of people’s stares. She hated the texture of shame.

When she reached the classroom, she extended her hand and felt the chill of the metal handle against her fingertips. A paralysis came over her. She couldn’t afford another tardy, but she couldn’t force herself to go in. She couldn’t face them all. It was better to actually be alone than to feel, like the proverbial exile, alone in a crowded room; the feeling of being the outcast. But that she was. “Tomorrow,” she thought as she pulled her hand back from the door and, with a pivot, ran down the hallway to the nearest bathroom.

She leaned against the pink tile wall to catch her breath. She could feel the heavy husk of childhood at times like this. She could feel the prison of it, the burden of not being able to choose what to do with the hours in the day. She couldn’t hide in the bathroom forever. She knew that, but right now she almost wished she could. The row of mirrors on the opposite wall reflected the emptiness she felt inside. She shifted toward them until she was standing before her own image looking back at her. The honesty of the image of herself made her uncomfortable. But she did not look away.