shivani mehta's origin story

Origin Story

My mother told me I was born out of the sky, dropped from somewhere beyond
the moon’s shadow. She found me coiled on a crop of weeds, brushed the dirt
from my body, shook worms from my hair. My mother told me I came from the
sea, washed up on shore with fragments of coral, jellyfish, my body swaddled in
seaweed. She heard my cry in the tide’s restlessness. My mother told me I was
born from the seed of a pistachio nut. She planted it in the garden and waited.
Once a day she squeezed my body, testing for ripeness. When I grew to the size
of an avocado she plucked me from the branches, peeled the leaves from my skin
like an orange. When I tell this to people I say it’s a bedtime story, it’s safer that
way, with no princess, no castle, just a hunchback kissing the lips of a wide-eyed
horse until they both run out of breath.