The Story of God's Children

Chapter One

             Hearing the light patter of rain hitting against my window I open my eyes and wake to the smell of my mother's Congee, "side dishes for breakfast again?"  I think to myself as I get out of bed and head downstairs. Walking through the narrow hallways of my home, I enter the kitchen and instantly the smell of porridge, pork fat, and thyme for some reason hit my nose. My entire family is preparing the meal and rushing to put it on plates. While my two younger brothers race to see who can make most origami boats in under an hour. Of course Tau is winning. I lean over the reddish table and pick up one of Tau's paper boats and place it on Eren's side and wink at him. Tau glances at me sharply once he sees Eren smiling and laughing at me.

             "Blossom, what did you do?" he screams.

              "Giving the underdog a chance," I exclaim.

        As I walk out the kitchen and into the dinning area and see plates of beef dumplings, Congee, rice pudding, and mooncakes piled on top of each other. My grandmother looks up from sitting in her wooden chair with a broken leg that seems it could snap in any second, looks at the food in disgust.

         " Isn't it terrible Blossom? You know back when I was a child, the gods used to beg us for our approval, not the other way around! This isn't right, the Gods are supposed to be desperate for our love. Now we're lucky if we even get them to listen for a single day. There's something wrong with this generation."

         I slowly grab a seat and sit across from my grandmother and smile awkwardly. Once my grandmother starts talking about the Gods, you're in for a long conversation. My grandmother hands me a strawberry mooncake, while she stuffs small wooden boxes with steamed pork dumplings.

         "Blossom , listen to me. Every poor villager tonight will be begging every God to represent our village. Do not fall for such common behavior. Remember your morals. You are a human; the Gods should be begging for our love."

           I get up from the table and walk closer to my grandmother, I put my hands on hers, and look at her gently,

        "Times have changed Grandmother, we've come to love the Gods, and in the end became dependent on them."

         I remove the dumpling from her hands and start to place them into the cheaply made boxes for her.

           "In the end this village needs to be represented by a God, just like the millions of other villages. If we don't, nomads will come and purge these lands; so we do this not only to please the Gods but to save ourselves."

          Grandmother smiles gently at me, stands, walks over to her bedroom, and closes the door. She was smiling but deep down she was filled with disappointment. I  continue  packing the remaining food for tonight's festival.

          Mom screamed at all us to shove the food onto a wagon and head to the lower Peony Trail. This was the fastest route to the Lower Moon Crest Village, where the festival is being held. She said that if we walked fast enough we could be an hour early and have enough time to unload all the meals. As our old determined mule, Cinnamon pushed the wagon full of goods, our grandmother, Mother, Eren ,Tau , and I walked beside it. Mother soon grew annoyed by Eren and Tau's constant yelling and jumping around the wagon, to see who could tag the other first. We all grew tired of the banter so Grandmother, told them to run ahead, to save our ears the pain from bursting.

           "Which Gods are coming to the festival," grandmother asked.

            "Just three. But they're highly ranked and sought out, so we should all be grateful that they took the time out to come to us," mother said while looking at my Grandmother.