Week 4 Storytelling: Come Find Kismet

Image information: A fish similar to the one I wrote about in this story: Source: Beta Fish Center

        Written history in our Eyco’s village told of the consistent soulmarking that occurred on one’s twentieth birthday. Generations of individuals, one after another, day after day, went to sit on the elaborate chair that had been carved into the village’s oldest tree that sat in the village’s center, and they all received their soulmark. But on that faithful day in mid January, Eyco left her house, full of nerves and giddy anticipation, ready to meet her fate head on. But instead of securing herself a future of warmth and love, she came home empty wristed and empty hearted. Without a soulmark how was she to find her one true other half?  

         For someone to not get their soulmark could only mean that the individual was without a matching soul—that no one else on Earth was meant to complete them. It was a slap in the face by fate. Born without another soul to complete you. So Eyco hid herself away. Ashamed by her fate and unwilling to show her face in a village where there was nothing but talk of her empty wrist, she pulled herself away from the workings of general society.

         That is until one day years later a knock sounded within her cottage. Eyco, who had become used to her solitude and separation from her village became alarmed. For if someone was knocking that meant nothing good for her. All of the other villagers knew that she wished to live alone forever and dared not interrupt her peace. Hesitantly she went to the door of her cottage and cracked it open a couple of inches. Only to see that there was no one actually there at all. Unnerved, Eyco closed the door and heard it lock with a small click. Taking a step back, she heard the knock again. Only this time she saw that it came not from the door, but instead from the small fish that lived in a vase on her kitchen table.

         The small creature looked back at her with large eyes while she stared at it in surprise. And staring her straight in the eyes, began to sing.

“A girl fair in mind and body,

Left behind by a man before his time.

Alone in a cottage, alone in the world,

Now must listen to a fish’s rhyme.

He left you not by choice, my dear,

The pull of the otherworld beyond his control,

But listen closely and follow blindly,

And I will lead you to a new world—

A world where kismet is not separated by death.”

            Eyco just continued to stare, absolutely thrown by not only the fact that her fish was speaking, but also by what exactly it had to say to her. So she simply nodded—too shocked to speak, but unwilling to let this opportunity to pass her by. Kismet was all she wanted; kismet was everything that had been important to her and her culture and her people for all of history. It was their meaning of life, to find someone who would complete the emptiness in their souls.

            “Touch your finger to the water that separates one world from another then, lady Eyco.” The small fish told her with a singsongy lilt to his soft voice. “Come find kismet.”

            Eyco dipped her fingers into the water in the vase, the water rippling outwards from the interruption, and finally found peace.

Author’s Note:
 I wrote my story based on the Turkish Fairy tale “The Patience-Stone and Patience-Knife.” This story is about a young girl who is told by a bird that her soulmate is dead and that she now is without a soulmate. On a trip to the town (without her mother's permission) she becomes trapped by a magical wall and is welcomed into a realm where a prince asks her to fan him for a long period of time. The bird had told her that she would find her soulmate beyond the door in the magic wall, so she fanned the prince only to lose out on his favor at the last second. The rest of the story is about her finding her way back to his side. 
When I wrote this story I really wanted to focus on the idea of soulmates and mysticism that was present in this story. I was really interested in the idea of kismet and soul mates and the lengths a person will go to find their other half. I wanted to explore that in the same setting of a world in which people are vengeful and often think only of themselves, often at the expense of others. This is what happened.

Bibliography:

Forty-four Turkish Fairy Tales by Ignacz Kunos, with illustrations by Willy Pogany (1913). Part 1 and Part 2.