[Excerpt]

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They were each gifted the secret of the sole. An edict had been stitched across the tongue and carefully guarded for seven generations. Though not fully conversant, they had remained in deference to the elders, silently fearing that a break from tradition would cause a mighty curse to descend from the heavens and land upon them with a heavy thud. It wasn’t until the eighth generation that their worst fears came to life.

The Season of Fracture emerged with the birth of The New Babies. Leaving their mother’s hollow, they were at once rebellious, breaching the confines of the womb and turning their heels from the path that had been so carefully laced before them. A mother’s cry could be heard across the land. Trembling and quaking and cracking with grief, her tears swelled the tide and caused the earth to overflow with sorrow. But the New Babies were indifferent. They pointed and pirouetted, arched and flexed, then callously waltzed away.

In time, they grew up and had New Babies of their own and they, too, had New Babies. The ninth and tenth generations tossed the soles that had once been considered sacred leaving them to walk bare in the elements. The covering of protection, now gone, caused them to lose their way, and even the most regal among them walked in the manner of proles for the knowledge was left far behind waiting to once again be discovered.