Wear The Forest Out

A short fantasy story

She’s sitting there.  I know she is, because I saw her an hour ago doing the same thing, and she didn’t seem to care at all that I was watching.  She washes her face, her arms and legs; bare in the drape of a golden sheet which she adorns so delicately.  It clings to the tips of her shoulders and smiles like a poor man’s chompers.  She doesn’t only sit; sometimes she stands.  She arches her back, taking a light step forward and lifting her buttocks from the earth.  There, she gazes out with a slender hand solidifying the direction of her interest.  Towards the sky and horizon, the last light of which tiptoes away down twilight carpets. The enclosure adopts its purplish nightshade…the azure flower tips swaying in a light breeze enticed by the darkness.  A nymph of the wild; nightmarishly whitened skin with verdant green gemstones for eyes. The shallow water bobs in pendulant rhythm to the feet of frogs and the pitter of dirt critters. She squeezes out the last blue teardrops from the riverfall of her spaceblack locks and awaits deliverance.

“You tremble so.  Tell me Man, do these shapes please, or whisper to your craving malice?”

I clobber to my knees, and dash homebound.  I cannot think but of the beauty I have seen.  I will not drink from the river lest I swallow her up when she runs her course.  The tunic dragging against the doting wind tugs me back to sense.  I stop and breathe, hands clenching at the knobby knees- doorhinge swingers from my thighs. The dirt is rough beneath me, and a bug crawls by in a huff.  He’s a fat, juicy one with a neon glow and a matter-of-fact jog in his march. Collecting self, I suck the air in through my nose and run a firm hand through a wiry mess of sweat drenched hair.  The short tufts of grass collect here and there, guiding me the way home.  I see father’s light, and I’m glad to know him. The watchtower looms in the distance- a solitary black flag to signal retreat from the countryside.  Limestone hatchet wedged in the crevice between belt and hip, I stride on in defiant pride. Out in the open I’m safe to be a beggar. In her domain I can’t be sure I won’t be taken for a jester.  

 

 

~

 

Father sets the table.  He’s got a gaze in him tonight that I can’t bear to ask about.  We sit in the crackling firelight and dance around each other, I wonder who’s the better fantasy?  We’ll never tell.  The soup is in the crock, floating over coals, and popping with disgust. Now and then I’ll grumble dispassionate complaints into the broth.  The thatched straw roof above us gave us all the information we needed; patter patter and drips through the canopy.  The mud was thick but I made the most of it, scooped up enough to make a rest for my head.  Came face to face with a worm,  she inched on by and sighed a hello. I said hello and we tucked ourselves into the floor together.

 

Morning came from a handful of dust.  Shooken into the daydream my nose was caked with anthills.  I shook my head and sat up; the most beautiful garden sprout.  The main decoration.  My worm was gone, but I knew she would be back again.  She always came back when the grasses dwindled. Hatchet fixed again, I alleviate my obligation to the hearth and sneak out to find my friend at a local bubble stream. First over dirt and turf, then over slivers of cracked up rock stacks until I reach the shallow liquid sink.  There I wait. I use my hands to examine a few beautiful stones, the pink sediments blending effortlessly with the charred remnants of volcanic disruption long past. Turning them over and over again I read each line of the earth’s messy handwriting- making a good point with this one aren’t you! I have to close this chapter for now, there just under the arch of my eyebrow gaze is a couple of padded paws and a meaty red tongue panting like the windbag They are. Our visual technicolor connectors shake hands and it’s a secret We share. So strong and fierce. Paw prints line the tidy shore with chaotic grace, each step a jolt in fate’s direction.  Their teeth smile, haunches flex with a tremulous vigor.  Suddenly we’re thrashing at each other in the stance of killers, manbody chest-to-teet with a powerful beast. We’re a senseless tangle of ligaments splayed out like swords before the slaughterous blow. Their paw pads fail and slip, and so They crash shoulder-first into a neat stack of sandstone.  Right then the whole ordeal gurgles to a stop; both hyperventilating from raucous laughter at the insights we’ve made. Head to head, opposite in orientation, I reach over and dab my fingers in Their slippery brownish coat.  Heaving massive gusts of air out of the wheeze trap like fireside flame fanners, throbbing with tremors that lent themselves to ecstacy. We’re quiet then, for a moment in time.  Gazing up towards the nether we can see the last of the starlight as the violet haze of springtime creeps along the skytips.  We can just make out the celestial messages, and we’re proud to be alive. At length I stand and peer around, searching for a clue as to where my Earth begins. Eventually my irises, drooping with the painty blackness of sleep, follow the stream into the edge of the forest I’ve escaped in. I know I shouldn’t return, but that’s what my body tells me.  I fear I’ll die in there…I’ll wither away until I’m a rotted corpse and a heap of ragged drapes.  Father will find me and shake his head in perfect grief.  Can these be the truth, or do illusions persist? The galaxy drops and coalesces just to highlight where I’m meant to go.  The dusty reeds thrust toward the inner sanctum, where hilltops abide only by the laws of the wild.

 

~

               We tread landmarks- slinking through the embankment ever-closer towards the door of this disaster I’ve created.  They’re right beside me, swaddling bath and forth with the slick osculation of a salmon tail.   The great orbs nestled in those poring sockets stare blankly for a spell, but within them swirls a world of adversity. I want only to pat Their wounded heart; although I feel it not my wisest to dissolve the sanctions laid in place.  We step one foot over in silence.  At the last we’ve come to the mouth of these cavernous woods.  I shuffle my toes and bounce in anxious deliberation.  They fiddle with a hungry little salamander nearby. Dangling from my neck and draped around the back is the mask.  The shredded rope is coarse and aged; grating against collarbone with a sadistic kind of shiftiness. I tamper with the twine and fit the notched bramblewood over my forehead crinkles, cheekbones, chin skrit…all but lips and eyes. Faded warm blue clings to the fabric, underscoring splotches of juicy orange-yellows like a slice of fruit adorned with sugary pustules.  A gift from my mother, handed to me as one mind tips nectar into the cup of another. I use it as my shield- to keep me from reeling frantic where it can’t be called for lest I’d pay my life.  I clang to it last night, though I told no one. I wink a grin at Them inviting friendship with my motives. They’re pleased to see me brighter still, and so I’ve got the courage to leave this sand and stone as treadmarks.

               I can’t be certain of the way I feel in here; the shallow vines chaining us up in various poses. The sunlight splashing in; beams gutter-dripping and we stick to those candles. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what I’ll have to give to get it. Bobbing bulbous beetles carrying bags of bioluminescence bask in the blackness- gatekeepers tending watch where we cannot keep our stride.  The pitch lobs a canvas over the texture of it all; fitting neatly over best possible explanations- fallen trees, teething weasels, pedals bloomed in private. Still, the skittering lizards are no match for Their heightened extrasensory guessmanship. 

Author's Note

A story

Reviews

[Daniel Seward]

Poetic lines with stirring images, but I had trouble following story line.