myth for wild emmer

And so the stranger stayed. Sweetie called her pearl because she wouldn’t move from her place at the hearth and grumbled a lot, even though she was also beautiful. Like a piece of sand caught in a shell.

She was a cool light to the fire’s stubborn yellow. She kept the place warm and cooked the food. She ate nothing but the driest crispiest leftovers, which crunched as she ate them. She hummed a soft tune as she ate. That’s how the family knew she liked it because she avoided eye contact as much as possible. It was hard to discern what she felt about anything in particular.

With seven administrative buildings and the majority of the population living in small structures in the limestone quarry, the officials must have sent a message to their leader. Sweetie didn’t know how because there were barely any birds.

But still a man came walking, with powerful, tireless strides, from the swaying golden grass hills. He led a black horse. He did not ride it. He was trying to prove he was as strong as the horse. He looked quite different from his officials. While his officials all wore grey and purple hats, he was all dressed up in gold. But his features were also gold: from the tip of his nose to ends of his hair. From his toes to his fingers. His suit shimmered a gold black in the sun. It was almost too bright to look at. He acted very differently from his officials too. Where they were at times, severe and serious and then boisterous and volatile all at once, he was consistently warm. He laughed a lot and smiled all the time.

He would hug his officials and hold their hands. His symbol was a hand, he wore an emblem of it on his chest, and his horse had it like a flag on her flank. Between his laughter he would say vile things and they would all laugh, he and his officials, all. This was confusing. But for his attitude some thought he meant well.

He created a ceremony in the limestone quarry one day and announced that the quarry would be the center of the city that would be built in his honor. He produced seeds magically into his hands and taught everyone all how to bake bread. Of course they knew this wheat well, but he had done some magic to it. He called these plants emmer. These grasses would be cultivated all around the city and the townspeople would make bread to feed themselves and sell to places the west.

Their leader now did another kind of magic trick then, that made Sweetie tremble with terror. The officials raised their hands to their leader and danced. They danced and danced until they changed. Sweetie could see it happen from the inside out, for the way they moved was rounded, and then it was more like a stiff swaying. It was as if their very cells changed shape. They looked more and more like grass. Their hands could now produce seeds. The grass king appointed a straw leader who looked and laughed exactly like him - and he himself disappeared into the fields. You only knew he was there by his black horse, whose tail swayed as it chewed on leaves.

All of our work was now moved to the project of building the city and baking bread. A road was paved over the golden grass hills and into the west. Some of of the townspeople felt they would soon be rich, like so many of the officials. Some of them wondered if the officials would ever leave. Some wondered if they would eat nothing but bread for the rest of their lives. Some wondered how long their lives would be.

That was how the town became the city of bread.