The Feast

  I can feel the forest’s willowy breeze tickle my neck. Her trees creakily yearn for our connection once again, yet this call feels stronger than any before. I know not what else she could need from me, save the very bones beneath my dry, fragile skin. Terrible, yet beautiful; powerful, but compassionate; her woodland contains both my highest aspirations and most grievous short comings. 

  Getting up from my brown, brittle rocking chair, I advance once again toward the mouth of her dark jungle as she implores me to come quicker with each painful step. Fighting through sharp thickets of thorns, I lose sight of the sun overhead. A horrid heartbeat throbs in my ears as I run to our old, familiar clearing (now black) in which we first met all those years ago. Beautifully radiant, my blossom was. Never had I seen such a woman so pure and dangerous. Fear had clouded my head, but she soothed my brain as though petting a cat.

  Now, instead of a heartbeat, her shrill, screaming commands repeatedly pummel my ear drums. I fall in the center of her swirling leaves, a tornado of green and brown forming around my supine body. This feels strange. The forest is hungrier than before, and foreseeing the terrible event about to take place, I leap up and charge the solid, rotating wall of foliage to no avail. I hear the familiar whisper of her voice speaking sweetly as she did our first day together. “Do not be afraid. I am here, you are here. We will be one soon enough, my dear. Do not resist. The process is painful but the reward sweet as dew and honey.” Her soft words lull me to sleep and I fall on my back once again. 

  Slowly, the leafy whirlwind lifts me in the air, revolving around me as though I were the eye of a dark storm. The wall turns faster, constantly increasing in speed when finally my blossom tears the flesh from my body until there is nothing of me left but pearl white sticks. Taking them in her formless, airy hand, my love distributes the bones throughout her mysterious wood, planting me again, waiting until I grow strong enough to connect with her once again.

Author's Note

I'm not really sure how to go about writing stories and such. I focus more on poetry, so any reviews would be greatly appreciated :)

Reviews

[Charles Anthony Almanza]

This is pretty amazing my friend. Love the woodland-nocturnal-creatures-turned-pagan-wiccan feel it gives off. It is short and it does feel as though it could use a little more plot (that may be more of my own personal neuroses, I don't have too strong an affinity for short stories) but overall, spectacular; it glitters like a gem around other short stories I've read.

Excellent work, I hope the quality of work you pump out continues.

[Ethan]

Thank you :)

[Daryl Matthews]

Perfect. As a fantasy super short, it works extremely well. Dazzling powers of description pulse in every sentence, not a single word wasted. Real talent.

[Ethan]

Thank you very much :)))

[matrixmark]

Good sentence length - sometimes writers can write a sentence and go word crazy with it; trying to make it look all fancy - it fails miserably. But you seem to understand that: the tighter the sentence is, the better it looks. Yes cou can get all descriptive and you too do that, but also in the correct manner - Good work. You also seem to have a good grasp of how to use grammar correctly - Another thumbs up from me.
The forest was very inviting and a joy to read. You show that you have a good vocab range too and when you place your words down and make them flow like you have, you bring a solid structure to the piece. In turn, it doesn't look rushed and stands as firm as a tree (No pun intended)

Great work.

Keep writing.

Mark.

[Ethan]

Thank you very much sir :)))

[Deason]

Your focus on poetry can definitely be seen through this piece in the way that you describe and build the atmosphere. This story also remained ambiguous, much like your poetry, throughout. Having the elements of poetry prevalent in your story does not take away from the quality of the work by any means. However, this piece almost felt like an incomplete thought for me, and I do have many more questions than I do answers after reading this. This is mainly due to the extreme shortness of this story; an interesting plot could come from an expansion of what you currently have here. When telling a story, the reader should be given a little more guidance through elaboration rather than an overload of sensory words. This allows one to become more immersed in the world that you have created rather than being pulled out of it before one could fully understand its contents. For example, I could vividly picture how our protagonist felt, but I was not given enough information about the character to care for what he feels. Overall this was a good attempt at a story, despite it still feeling like a poem in several ways. I fully enjoyed it, and found moments like your casual foreshadowing in the first paragraph clever and original. I hope that you continue attempting storytelling in the future, because wonderful tales could stem from an imagination such as yours.

[Ethan]

Yes I struggle with all the things you said😂 Thank you for your review

[Maria]

Loved this Ethan. Truly enjoyed reading it

[John Alexander McFadyen]

You capture a Wiccan mysticism in this imaginative piece Ethan. You give the forest a voice and a pulse and bring alive the essence of nature. I am still contemplating if this is truly meant to by mystical or 'merely' a representation of plant growth and self seeding?

[Mr.Writer]

The imagery was just perfect Ethan...
the story was amazing as it was and I just loved it!
Well done, keep it up

[Eleise Trenda]

Woah. That was really cool. It was very mysterious. I didn't really know what to expect and I thought that was really good. No one likes movies where you can predict what's gunna happen next; it's the same thing with books. Well done. I would go back and reread it. Try to see if there is any more editing you could do to make it better. I would suggest not relating the woman soothing the characters mind with petting a cat. You lost the tone a little bit with using that, I thought. I also wasn't expecting that either so it made me laugh a little so whatever you prefer 😂 But overall very good.

[Shasha]

Oh god, the writing is just flawless! I loved it! Great work! Keep writing!

[Ethan]

Thanks :)))

[Shasha]

You're welcome!

[Zeldablue]

I really enjoy your writing, very beautiful.

[Ethan]

Thank you very much