Written for Muse On Monday where David
asks us to write a story about trying a new food.
The bowl arrived without ceremony …. chipped ceramic, a thin steam curling upward like a mystery. Sochi stared at what floated inside in the inky liquid: three pale dumplings, skin translucent, filled with something dark, coiled like a corkscrew, and quivering … or so it seemed to Sochi.
Elder Kyun set her hands flat on the table. “You eat,” she said, “or you leave. Not just this house. The valley.”
Sochi had spent seventeen years earning her place here. Seventeen winters hauling ice from the river. Seventeen springs planting seed by seed in silence. The Hollowers didn’t speak until you were one of them …. truly one …. and that meant the Passage Meal.
She had asked once what was in it; nobody answered. A girl before her had refused. Sochi had watched them escort her to the ridge at dawn, a small figure disappearing into a world that no longer held a home for her.
She picked up the spoon.
It could be nothing, she told herself. Mushroom. Offal. Something foul but survivable. The elders were watching with their still, unreadable faces …. Ji-woo, Kyun, and Old Jun whose eyes had seen a hundred of these moments and given nothing away.
It could be nothing.
It could also be the gray-cap fungus that grew along the north wall …. the one she had been warned never ever to touch. She had noticed just three days ago that the north wall had been freshly harvested.
Still, it could be nothing.
Sochi lifted the first dumpling to her lips.
It tasted of smoke and winter bark and something sweet underneath, almost like plum, that bloomed long after she swallowed. She waited as her heart counted the seconds.
Slowly, deliberately, she selected another dumpling and raised it to her lips. Then the third.
When she was done, Sochi placed the spoon alongside the bowl, closed her eyes and sat silently, waiting.
Old Jun exhaled …. raspy, ancient, and satisfied. Ji-woo reached across and covered Sochi’s hand with her own.
“Well done, Sochi. Welcome home.”
NAR©2026
This is “Fighter” by Christina Aguilera
Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.
The Elephant's Trunk 