Writing about David as a fugitive, I asked myself, where would he hide in the wilderness? What would that place feel like? How would it look? How would the place reflect the mode he would find himself in, during this testing time of his life, when he is called a traitor?
And once I found that place in my imagination, the question became: how do I convey the mood in this place? How would the mood change from bitterness to hope? And as an author, how do I bring all of this to life, by painting images with words? How do I use the rhythms and pauses of David's inner reflection?
“What a treat to have the story of David presented in such a stimulating manner”
And once I found that place in my imagination, the question became: how do I convey the mood in this place? How would the mood change from bitterness to hope? And as an author, how do I bring all of this to life, by painting images with words? How do I use the rhythms and pauses of David's inner reflection?
Not only do I talk to myself, but out of loneliness I answer back, too. I say, Forget Happily Ever After. Old legends are nothing but deceit. In reality, it is the political needs of the state, it is money and power that dictate royal family unions—not some emotion, a fickle, faithless emotion that is known to be fleeting.
Bitterness is eating at me. I stagger into the darkest nook, deep down in my underground hiding place, and curl myself there, unable to stop seething at my misfortune, and most of all, at her.
“Michal, perhaps I don’t deserve a fine, highly schooled princess such as you. All the same, thank you,” I hurl at her, forgetting for a moment that she is absent. “Thank you for the education, dear. I won’t forget it.”
For a long while, maybe days, I stare at the ceiling of the cave, where a slow, mind numbing drizzle is heard, and where calcium salts, deposited by the drip of water, have been forming over innumerable centuries into what looks to me, at first, like icicles.
Then something stirs in me, an awakening. All of a sudden I note the miracle of their stony, frozen trickle, and it takes my breath away. Nothing in the king’s palace compares to this beauty. Here is the process of creation, eternity flowing in a drop.
If not for the hunger I could stay here, in this cave under the stalactites, till the end of time. I imagine that long before that, my bones would be unearthed here, and brought before the king.
My quick charcoal drawing was done to the sound of music. It is a landscape of music, if you will, which conveys the same awe expressed in the excerpt above: "Here is the process of creation, eternity flowing in a drop."
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