The Kneeling

The last of the market-day errands were done. The salt-crusted nets were mended and stored, the day’s meager earnings counted and secured. The woman’s hands, usually so quick and sure, felt clumsy as she tied the last knot on a bundle of dried sea-herbs. Her mind, usually a whirlwind of calculations and worries, was strangely quiet.

An image kept returning to her: a still figure, kneeling by a patch of dark earth as though it held something precious. It was a foolish thing, a distraction. And yet, she found her feet carrying her not towards her cramped home, but back through the winding, boisterous streets of the harbor-town, towards the place she had seen the seeker.

The seeker was still there, a silhouette against the fading light, unmoved, their posture one of perfect, unwavering attention on the small patch of earth. The woman hesitated, a dozen practical objections rising in her throat. But the quiet in her own mind, a fragile, precious thing she hadn’t realized she’d been missing, urged her forward.

She didn’t understand what the seeker was doing, or why. But she understood the peace that emanated from that small, forgotten corner of the world. Wordlessly, uncertainly, she knelt a short distance away, her own gaze falling upon the small, tended patch of earth. The sounds of the harbor-town faded, and for the first time in a long time, she simply was. The first soul on this new shore to sit in the stillness.