“Fragments of a Prayer” by John Tavener & Sarah Connolly which clocks in at 15:22.

The following is Part 1 of a four part 8+ series based upon songs from the film ‘Children of Men’, the film itself, and the writing of Jorge Luis Borges.

No one saw her disembark in the beclouded night, no one saw the gifted rowboat sink into the inviolable mud, narrowly evading the adversaries aboard The Tomorrow who’d taken her child. No one saw her arrive, but, after a few days, there was no one who did not know that the woman came from the East and that her home had been one of those numberless villages across the sea, where the English language has not been contaminated by The Gaels and where a third trimester is as infrequent as anywhere else. An air of uncertainty shrouded her just as heavily as did the aura of singularity that radiated from her core.

What is certain is that the woman kissed the mud, climbed up the bank with thoughts of her baby cradled so tightly she could almost feel her (probably, without feeling anything herself - unknowingly welcoming the blades which were lacerating her flesh), and crawled, nauseated and bloodstained, up to the circular enclosure crowned with a stone serpent or griffin - or was it a human infant? - which sometimes was the color of flame and now was that of ashes.

This circle was a temple which had been consumed by ancient fires, engulfed by the vaporous bog, and whose god no longer received the prayers of men. Kee, the name she’d been given (or perhaps had given to herself), stretched herself out beneath the pedestal and rested, thoughts of her child clutched and cloaked and safe. She had given birth, a daughter, they took her. She was awakened by the sun high overhead and was not astonished to find her wounds healed; she closed her eyes and slept, not through weakness of mind, body, or spirit, but through determination of will. She knew that this temple was the place required for her indomitable intent; she knew that the overbearing trees had not succeeded in strangling the ruins of another temple downstream which had once belonged to gods now burned and dead. She knew that her immediate obligation was to dream.

Toward midnight she was awakened by the disconsolate shriek of a bird. Tracks of bare feet, some figs and a gun warned her that the men of the region had been spying respectfully on her sleep, soliciting her potential, or afraid of her magic. She felt a chill of fear and sought out a niche in the crevassed wall where she concealed herself among obscuring leaves.

The purpose which guided her was not impossible, though supernatural. She wanted to dream a girl; she wanted to dream her complete in studied detail and impose her on reality. She’d done it before and needed to test her ability to do so again. The undertaking had exhausted the entire expanse of her mind; if someone had asked her her name or to relate some event of the past week, she would not have been able to give an answer. Not even as images of Theo and prison camps and Dylan and war filled her mind. Memory was fleeting, fuzzy. Intangible. Therefore, this uninhabited, ruined temple suited her, for it contained a minimum of visible world. The proximity of the workmen also suited her, for they took it upon themselves to provide for her basic needs anonymously. The rice and fruit they brought were nourishment enough for her as she consecrated to the sole task of sleeping and dreaming. They would aid her, passively, unsure of precisely what or why they were helping.

Initially, her dreams were chaotic; then in almost no time they became academic in nature. Kee dreamed that she was in the center of a rounded colosseum which was more or less the burnt temple; clouds of silent onlookers filled the rows of seats; the faces of the most distant ones hung many centuries away and as high as the stars, but their features were well-defined and obvious. She felt as though she were leading a class and thus lectured her pupils on anatomy, obstetrics, and magic, none of which could very well be separated in today’s world. The faraway faces listened uneasily and tried to answer knowingly, as if they guessed the truth buried behind nearly twenty years of improbability, or that they themselves might be ripped from the heavens of imagination and thrust into the real world if only through exhibiting an understanding. Asleep or awake, Kee thought over the answers of her phantoms, did not allow herself to be fooled by visions of others, and in an enigmatic manner sensed a growing intelligence. Somewhere among the nameless faces would be another - one to replace the daughter torn from her grasp aboard The Tomorrow - another soul worthy of participating in the universe and joining Earth as the second baby in a generation. Unlike any other person on the planet, she had created life. A child. And she was going to do it again.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Buy Children of Men (Music from the Motion Picture) HERE.

*front thumbnail and top photo from HERE

EAR FARM’s 8+ is a weekly feature that showcases songs longer than 8 minutes. Click HERE to see the songs recently featured in EF’s 8+.