Vhalar 21 722
“Gardening doesn’t seem all that complicated,” Eternity thought as she set down a planting pot in her back yard. The book had made it sound so simple, just put soil into the pot along with seeds and then magic happened. The pot had been dirt cheap as well and the seeds were so cheap she couldn’t even remember how much they’d cost, which made her wonder why everyone didn’t just grow their own food. She thought that plants would be easy to grow because plants seemed to grow all over the place in nature without any people taking care of them.
She hadn’t bought soil because there was no way she could possibly carry enough to her home. She’d thought, “I have a yard, why not use some of my own soil?” She looked out at her small yard and came to the realization that she was going to have to dig. “I should have bought a shovel,” she thought and then swore out loud. She got on her knees and dug into the ground with her bare hands. The top layer of her soil was soft, perfect for growing but it was full of grass. Knee high grass which hadn’t been cut because she never saw the need to.
Before long she’d cleared about one square foot of grassy soil. “Are those all roots?” she asked herself when looking at the yellow-brown stringy plant matter that dug deep into the soil. She felt them in her hand and noted how cold they were, much colder than the air above ground. She thought it was strange but she didn’t have time to ponder why that was so. She dug out some soil with great effort and dumped it into the pot. She peeked into the pot and saw that she’d need to dig at least ten more handfuls. She didn’t even want to look at her nails, she was sure that they were absolutely filthy.
By the time the pot was full of soil Eternity was already sick of gardening. She dumped the seeds on top of the soil and hurried to get cleaned up. She was supposed to go meet her singing teacher and she felt like she was going to be late. Eternity screamed in frustration when she couldn’t get the mud out of her fingernails. No matter how much she tried there was still a bit in there and her hands still smelled like she’d stuck them in mud. “This was a terrible idea,” she said while scrambling to get her clothes changed. She bet that her whole body smelled like mud and wished she had time to fetch some perfume. “Oh right, I’ve got to amend the shopping list,” she thought before jotting down Shovel and Gloves onto the list. Then, she was finally free to go to her lesson.
She hurried into her teacher’s home not too long later and rushed her apologies. Nasir didn’t seem to mind though. She had an interest in her student who seemed to have absolutely no talent for singing but was determined to learn. Nasir asked, “you just come from work? Where work, in field? You too skinny for field work.”
“What? Oh you can smell it, of course you can. I was planting some seeds this morning in my yard,” Eternity said with the wave of her hand.
“Yes, smell like mud, very bad if looking for man. You own home? How you get money? If you have house, you no need learn to sing.” Nasir shuffled around her small shared living space and pulled over some chairs and fetched a small book of songs that she owned.
Eternity said, “oh, I do work here and there for people. It changes often. It’s not a big house, trust me I’m not rich. Also, who know? Maybe I’ll be a famous singer someday.”
Nasir burst out laughing. When she calmed down, she said, “No girl, you never be famous singer, but I teach you because you pay. Now let’s start.” She meant what she said and since Eternity couldn’t argue to the contrary, the teacher had full reign to insult her student as much as she wanted.
Nasir scooched her chair to put her right next to Eternity and showed her the book. “This helps me. I sing simple song before performance. They get voice in the good mood and you sing hard song more good. It is same when man stretches arms before work. Your voice is like muscle. Do not over use, only little by little will you learn.” She cleared her throat and flipped to one of her favorite tunes. She started singing and squeezed Eternity’s leg to show that she was supposed to join her.
Eternity was not sure if Nasir noticed, but the song was not in Common. Eternity sang along by changing the pitch of her voice after her teacher did. Trying to read from the book was not helpful at all since it only confused her more. She settled for echoing Nasir, who didn’t seem to mind or care that her student was struggling. They sang through one song, then the next, and finally one more. Echoing Nasir became easier and Eternity found she could actually copy some of the notes accurately which was a big improvement from when she had tried singing in bars. The notes that were similar to her natural speaking pitch were the ones she was most accurate with and they quickly became her favorite notes to sing because she could confidently increase her volume.
Afterwards, Nasir had Eternity sing some more songs. They were simple bar songs, the kinds that Nasir sang every night. Nasir danced around with emotion as she sang, and imitated the sound of drums by smacking the walls from time to time. It was easy to tell that music was her passion, though she was only competent at it at best. She brought more to her performances than just singing which was her advantage compared to her peers.
Eternity was content with sitting and watching the amusing show that Nasir put on. Thievery had ruined dancing for her since it was much productive to steal from people than dance with them. Self confidence was also an issue. She needed to be wasted to be confident enough to dance and when she was that drunk she couldn’t move properly. Eternity wasn’t given a choice in the matter this time. She was unexpectedly pulled to her feet to dance with Nasir. When Nasir found out that her student had two left feet she dumbed down her movements to a simple side-to-side step pattern.
“This isn’t so bad,” Eternity thought as they kept on stepping side to side and clapping while singing. Before long they were both covered in sweat and in need of water.
“Is fun yeah?” asked Nasir who went to fetch cups of water from the corner.
“Very fun,” Eternity replied with a smile.
“It better with music. Loud music make singing easier. Crowd singing along make it even easier. You much better now than before. Or maybe I get used to your voice. You sing now one more time and then you go. You need bath for the sweat and mud.” Nasir dropped her full weight on her chair which protested with a loud creak.
Eternity nodded and performed one last song and tried to dance on her own. It wasn’t pretty or good sounding but she tried and Nasir tried not to insult her student any more than she already had. Nasir then said, “okay you do this every time you see me and we will see how you improve.” She didn’t expect much improvement in such a short period of time but now she had a baseline to reference.
“Thanks for the lesson, it was fun,” Eternity said with a half hearted smile. She knew she wasn’t getting better but it wasn’t for lack of trying. It was just like when she’d gone to the gym forever and not gotten any stronger. She told herself that she’d give it a good season or two and if she didn’t get any better by then then she would move onto the next thing. She also debated whether or not she could afford to keep doing this every day. Maybe lessons every seven days would be better for her improvement and her wallet.
Eternity headed towards her home and take that bath but a few minutes later she remembered that she was supposed to go shopping. “Did I… did I really leave the shopping list at home?” she thought as swears escaped her lips. “What was on there again? I think I was supposed to pick up some food and I needed some things for gardening… a shovel and gloves right? I suppose I should get another pot and some more seeds too.” She took a turn and headed towards the market knowing full well she was probably going to have to come back later that day to pick up everything else that she’d forgotten.
[Template credit to Pyrre]
