Sarkata (On Hiatus)

Sarkata

                 “All this time I have been gone, yet I cannot even begin to explain to you where I was…” The woman said while sitting, staring more to her feet than to the two people in front of her. They sat staring up at her; waiting for a signal that she would explain further more on why she had been absent. Her long black hair enveloped her face as it hung down, curtaining the two observers, listeners, from her and her expression.

                   “Then tell us where you’ve been.” One of them finally built up the audacity to urge.

               She looked up from her lap, her black hair parted from her face. The curtains had been drawn and behind them was a face that radiated tiredness and shock. But in her eyes were the feeling of rest and contentment. She was tired, but she was glad to be back where she belonged. The dark haired woman looked from her on seers to the window that shed what little light the dark stuffy room had. The two listeners were watching her every movement; eager to hear her story but not in the slightest bit impatient. They could see she had been through a lot and they were willing to wait if it meant she would be more willing to tell.

                “If I tell you where I had been,” She began, “How much could you believe?” She inquired softly. Her tone was so hushed that it would seem as if she were trying to believe herself what she had witnessed.

              The two looked at each other in a questioning glance before they looked back at the woman.

              “Would you believe that out there,” She croaked as she tiredly raised her arm and an elegant finger to the window, “That through that window, through that light, through our sky, through our galaxy and into another is where I have been?” Her eyes followed her arm and finger. The two believed her for while she asked the question she seemed to have transported back to that place beyond the window and light and was fondling lightly the memories she experienced on her journey.

                      “Do you believe me?” She asked.

                      “Yes.” They said in unison. They wanted to hear the story.

                     She gazed at them seemingly looking passed them, through them, into them, “Can you believe then, that I have been to a place where there are no men, and only women on a single planet?”

                      One looked at the other as the other still looked at the woman.

                      “That the men were out casted to another planet, that they have the means to do such a thing, that they have the mind to do such a thing?”

                       They both stared at her.

                      “Where half the women became mad with power while the other half became mad with hunger?”

                       The staring continued.

                      “Where both halves combined in a war? And I was there to experience the war and fight on behalf of a side that was destined to win?”

                       Neither said anything.

                       The woman looked at both of them, at their young, innocent and curious faces.

                “Then I shall tell you where I have been.” She scooted closer to them, “I’ve been to Sarkata.”