Force of Nature

Once there was a small girl born with a special gift: she could sing the creative energy of the Universe.

When she sang, the animals drew near, the deer, the frogs, the beetles and squirrels. Flowers blossomed, leaves unfurled and their green tendrils reached for the sky, roots grew downward.

When she opened her mouth, the song might be a delicate, effortless trill — or a guttural, soul shaking scream.

Leaves would wither and fall from the trees, and animals collapsed in their final breath, for the energy that creates worlds is also that which destroys them.

None of this seemed strange to the small girl. It was what it was, and she sang of all that was.

Until one day her song was too much.

“You shouldn’t sing like that,” her mother said. “Other people who can’t sing will feel bad.”

“Such singing all the time is wasteful,” her father said. “Save it for when you need it.”

Because she loved her parents, the small girl quieted her voice.

She only allowed her song to come out when she was alone or with other children who didn’t mind the whirling dust storms and flocks of ravens that followed.

One day a teacher caught the small girl singing to a spider in its web as it sank its fangs into a moth.

“That song is dangerous,” she said. “You could hurt someone with it.”

The small girl didn’t want to hurt anyone, so she stopped singing altogether, except in her dreams.

In her dreams, the small girl sang worlds into existence and out again, spiraling around universes.

The small girl grew up and became a talented musician who played the violin, but she never, ever sang.

She helped others find their voices, but she never forgot the danger that might happen if the world heard her song. She was certain it would destroy the world.

All through many years of playing her violin, the song inside the small girl was stirring.

She could feel it curl around her throat and extend its tentacles through her body, begging to be sung.

When she could stand it no more, the small girl ran into the woods and whispered a song like the winter wind over a frozen pond and the howling of wolves.

The town came alive under her song, soft and quiet as it was. Colors were brighter. People felt more peace and more anger.

There was more of everything when her voice fell over it.

A townswoman with extremely sharp ears — she could hear a feather plucked from a bird miles away — complained about the dreadful noise coming from the woods that was keeping her awake at night. She persisted until the townsfolk traced it back to the source.

They found the small girl song-whispering in the woods to the moss and trees, and demanded that she be silent.

The small girl choked her voice down, but it was harder this time. When the townsfolk left she asked, “What if it’s okay for me to upset people? Like the hurricanes and the tides, the moon and the sun, what if I, too, am a force of nature?”

And just like that, the small girl stopped hiding.

She sang in the morning with the doves and the frogs. She sang in the afternoon with the children who climbed off the school bus. She sang in the evening with the moon and the stars.

She sang whenever she felt like it.

Some people held their ears and ran away. Others gathered all their belongings and followed her, reveling in the song.

Her song opened a giant fissure in the earth, and from that crack grew a tree so tall it stretched across the universe and beyond, leading the small girl and her singing followers to other worlds.

The song sang itself in and out of existence into forever, and the girl knew the creative energy of the world inside her could never be silenced.