Dust

I thought I was familiar with all the details of my life. I thought I knew how the world fitted together around me. I wondered at the movement of stars, the way they strayed aross the vault of emptiness, filling it with glamour, ever following their set circumventions.

I vaguely grasped how the earth holds together instead of flying apart and whirling into the void. The way that mountain ranges rise, and fall back, the way that tides advance and retreat, the scent of trees, the cool, creamy night air, all fitted within its given parameters, despite the sheen of dust fuzzing the outlines. I felt all was in its rightful place, and my daily life fit the patterns laid out.

But last night my sister rang and told me that my father is not her father, and that my mother, long ago, loved another, and dreamed of a different life. I find that with the sheen of dust cleaned away, the stark outlines beneath are not the shapes I was familiar with at all.