2.1 : du' Lanche

The mortal world knew a palette of black and white; perhaps a smattering of grey and cinder. Sullen expressions, hallowed eyes, charcoal hearts and ashen faces spanned the earth. There was no light coming from these people, only darkness and shadows. They spent their days mathematically and scientifically, and there was no room left for artistic enlightenment or spiritual guidance. If they could not touch it, feel it, taste it, then there was no believing. The word imagine wasn't even in their vocabulary, for how could one possibly fathom imagining anything they hadn't already understood?

***

Lizelle was the eldest of three daughters. Their home was built for function and practicality. Each daughter had a bed with precisely one pillow, one set of crisp cotton sheets, and a black, wool blanket to be used during the winter months. Lizelle spent her days carrying out the duties expected of her and she never faltered.

***

The clock in the city tower kept a strict grasp on time so that no one else had to. The hands moved metronomically froward, steadying themselves on the circular face of moments yet to come. Each person born within the city's confines could define most of life's happenings to the second. Instead of spending a quiet afternoon lazily taking in the summer winds, one born in the city of du'Lanche could be found sitting perfectly upright at the edge of their parlor chair; hands placed properly atop her lap, back straight and head positioned in complete awareness. The people of du'Lanche never had a meandering thought, for how could their minds wander if they knew not of a place to which they could close their eyes and let their thoughts creatively roam? Instead, their thoughts proceeded forward in perfect synchronicity to the ticking of the clock's second hand.

Through precision, one could remember everything unequivocally. In fact, Lizelle knew that she was born on the fourth minute of the eighth hour of the morning of the twenty-first day of May in the year one thousand, nineteen hundred and sixteen. She knew also that the first time she completed reading her first book from prologue to epilogue was on the seventh minute of the first hour of the afternoon of the fourteenth day of November, in the year one thousand, nineteen hundred and twenty. It was a book of numbers, letters and factual understanding of life's simple equations, but even at the age of four and a half, she understood the importance of this to her continuance of a heightened quality of life.