fantasy

Smoke and butterflies

May 17, 2015 by Pen Leave a Comment

The day the forest caught fire I was out looking for butterflies. The ones that hide in the deepest, oldest parts. It’s been so many years now. I can’t remember anymore. Not clearly. Not like I once did. I used to remember every line in your face. Especially around the eyes where the wrinkles all came together when you smiled.

I saw the swarm of butterflies only moments before I smelled the smoke. In a clearing deep in the old forest. I watched. Mesmerized. They danced for me. Only seconds. It was the most beautiful thing. Then I caught the smoke in my nostrils. It’s weird how time changes the reality of things. It’s weird how immediate danger changes the nature of time.

I ran for my life. For all I know those butterflies continued their dance until the smoke blotted out their warm patch of sunshine. Maybe they were still dancing when the sparks off the trees began burning their delicate, impossible wings. Do butterflies have souls? If they do I hope there is an afterlife where they continue to dance in lovely, impossible kaleidoscopes.

I met her close to home. The fire raged all around. We tried to look for you. There was no time. We called out as we ran. Hand in hand. I thought about pauses. The pauses turned into commas. Commas make me impatient. It was hard to breathe from all the smoke around us. Our calls grew weaker. Our hearts beat too fast. There was nothing left but the desperation of our need to find cooler air. We stopped calling and tried to outpace the fire. Somehow we did. We didn’t see you along the path that day.

Home. That place we all loved so much. Burned to the ground. Nothing left but memories and the feel of her hand in mine. We stood at the edge of the forest where we had lived and cried together. It was hard to talk. So many years ago. I wish I could remember the sound of your laugh. I know it tinkled sometimes. I close my eyes and try to imagine exactly how your shoulders arched when you were amused. There was something in that stance you had. Something as beautiful as the swarm of golden butterflies.

In the days after our disaster I talked to the old man who lived over the ridge. He lost everything too. His family, his livelihood, his sense of humor. He told me that he’d been out looking for medicinal plants. Said that when he smelled the smoke and began to run back towards home he saw you. He told me you were floating like a wraith through the smoke. He told me you looked at him and continued into the heart of that horrible, all consuming maelstrom of flames.

We rebuilt eventually. In a barren landscape that was already beginning to renew itself. Life is strange. It builds itself out of the bones of death. Always. A cycle that repeats over and over. I suppose it will continue until the universe itself decides the time to end has come. I look for you still. Over every trail I’ve worn through the young forest that grows around us indifferent to the past. Trees don’t remember. So I’m told. Sometimes I think it would be better to be a tree.

I could shelter a swarm of golden butterflies under my leaves during a gentle rain. I wouldn’t struggle with the question of what happened the day of the fire. Or why you would ever want to do a thing like that. Things would be simple if I were a tree. I would be born and die in exactly the same place without ever worrying about why I can’t remember exactly what your smile looks like anymore.

Sometimes on my walks with her we come upon more butterflies. It makes me happy that they still dance. The trunks aren’t as tall or thick as the ones I remember from back then. But the butterflies are just as golden and their dances are just as magical. I look at her and I am happy. But both of us miss you and the way you used to dance. It was like you could fly. I hope somewhere you are still dancing.

They say a mischief maker started the fire that day. The ones who investigate such things. I sometimes think it was you playing with matches. You used to be fascinated by flames. We had to warn you not to sit so close to the hearth on cold nights. You would stare sometimes. Into the flames. In a way that made me think you wanted to touch them.

What makes a butterfly different from a moth. Which one were you? It doesn’t really matter. We both miss you.

The nature of starlight

March 30, 2014 by Pen Leave a Comment

The rainy season came early that year. It was a time of upheaval. The portents said trouble was inevitable. That the monsoon would be much worse than usual. Crops would fail and things would be washed away. The soothsayers spoke louder than normal. They charged extra coins for our fortunes. Made nuisances of themselves.

I prepared. Something in my bones told me that the predictions I kept hearing were right. Something big was coming. I stockpiled extra food and made the house ready. The metal shutters and drainage ditches cost me a great deal. Almost everything I had went into the readying. After two moons I felt that all I could do had been done.

I waited. Wrote my stories. Planned for the worst. Hoped for the best. Everything is nothing more than thinking and talking small steps. One foot in front of the other. Over and over. That’s how we move through life. The only difference between myself and others is in the way I see the process. The walking is all the same.

Ah, but when you can see where to go. That’s when the light and dark places all turn magic. That’s when each step takes you a little closer to heaven or hell. The places in between are just waypoints on the journey. Waypoints that bring one side or the other closer to being focused and real.

—

You two. Such beauties. Let’s get you out of that rain. Don’t let the flood wash you away. Don’t worry. This house will stand. I’m glad you knocked. We’re on high ground and I can use the company.

Sisters are you? Let me get some soup and coffee from the kitchen. You’re so young. Are either of you old enough for coffee? I’m not sure. We’ll risk it tonight. The winds are blowing so hard. Come in. Let me shut the door before the cold follows you inside.

This place was made as a refuge from all the ugliness out there. Take off your shoes and warm your toes by the fire. I’ll be back in a moment. Don’t mind the cat or the dog. They are friends.

Sit there, on that comfortable couch. Nothing will come in and hurt you. Not the storm. Not the worries that followed you. Not any hunger nor any pain. I’ll ensorcel away your demons with my words and the spells I know.

Sit. Enjoy this haven. We’ll talk in a moment after your bellies are full and your skin is warm. Be at peace. You are home. For as long as you wish.

Gather yourselves while I take stock of you two. So pretty. Why are your eyes doubtful? It’s dark outside. Not in here. Let me tell you a few things while you eat and drink.

That fire was made with wood I chopped and dried myself. I cut the fuel from the trees on this land. They are a beautiful gift that must be managed with care.

The soup is made from things I grew with my own two hands. Potatoes, leeks and thyme. The coffee beans grew in the field over that small hill you came up to get here.

Everything I have to offer is as much yours as mine. This house, the land, safety from the storm. Be at peace, little sisters. My hospitality is good and honest.

The two of you look tired and the rain won’t stop anytime soon. I’m afraid you’ll have to spend the night. I have extra room and warm blankets. The storm can’t get in.

—

Soon the sisters trusted me. Once the fire, soup and coffee had warmed them inside and out I showed the girls to the bedroom and let them talk together a little while so they would know their hearts better. In time, they asked me to tuck them in and tell them a story. I told them about the way starlight on your toes keeps you young forever.

Soon they were drifting into a dream state with soft smiles on their faces. When I knew they were content and saw that they would soon sleep, I doused the lights. We joined each other in the world of slumber and woke up to find that the storm had passed us by.

The rainy season came early that year. The predictions were right on that count. In one thing though, the soothsayers were wrong. The rains were fierce but they didn’t last long. My girls stayed on. They are with me still. I love watching my beauties tucked in warm under the blankets on cold nights. They whisper and giggle together. Then we talk about the nature of starlight.

Stem

October 31, 2013 by Pen Leave a Comment

The little girl walked down the dirt road slowly, holding the last thing her protector had given her. Her jet black hair hung limply, despite the strong wind gusts that stirred leaves and raised little dervishes made of dust. She did not seem to see the bleak landscape around her. Her brown eyes stayed always focused on the thing in her hand. She clutched it tightly to remember him by.

A storm brewed nearby, malevolently. Cracks of thunder broke the silence from time to time. Each thunderclap engendered the same reaction in the solitary little girl. She clutched at her dress with her free hand. Her lips pursed and she squeezed her eyes shut momentarily. Then her lips moved.

“Master, protect me. Keep me safe. Show me the way. Give me strength.”

Off to the sides of the dusty road on which the girl walked, bodies littered the landscape. They lay in the creek. They hung across the fences on either side of her. They were scattered like flotsam and jetsam across the fields surrounding the road. Some, not yet surrendered to the inevitability of their own impending deaths, struggled and moaned. A few cried for their mothers, lovers or friends. The little girl heard one man crying for water.

“A mercy,” he begged. “Water for my lips before I go to the next life.” His voice was strong until the last two words, when it faded to a croak. He grimaced and closed his eyes.

The girl shivered, for she knew the power that came from words on the lips of the dying. She clutched the thing in her hand more tightly and averted her eyes from the destruction all around her. Then, despite herself, the girl looked at the man who had begged for water. Three arrows protruded from his stomach and another from his groin. He looked back at her for a moment and his hand reached out. Then his eyes closed. The hand fell. He spoke no more.

The girl’s lips moved again. “Give him peace.” Her hands rolled the stem. It had perhaps been some flowering thing at one time, but now it was only a ghost of what it had been. It had a stalk. A single damaged flower petal clung stubbornly to the top of the stem. The petal was half pink and half black. Like the litter of human beings scattered around the walking girl, the stem was a dying thing.

She closed her eyes and continued walking, trusting her feet to keep her on the road.

The wind gusted, roaring in from the north. The air around her grew cold. She shivered and made a sign of some sort against her chest. Her white dress swirled around her ankles as dirty dust rose in spirals around her. The pillars of dust rose high into the air, dwarfing the girl.

Fat, gray rain clouds scudded in the sky, moving rapidly over her head. At the edges of the fields around her, trees began to bend and groan as a merciless wind pulled at them, swaying even the strongest and oldest of them from top to bottom. The forest came alive with loud shivers of protest, joining in the cacophony of those whose lives leaked out into the soil around them. The dance of the wind and the forest trees grew frenetic.

She continued walking, trying to ignore the increasing sense of foreboding. As the air grew colder and the noises of the storm grew louder the voices of the dying were eaten by the wind. The sky turned from grey to black and rain began to fall. At first only a few fat drops came down, but those were soon joined by an endless multitude of brothers and sisters from the heavens. An army of battering drops grew larger and colder until they changed from water to ice.

Liquid began to pool in the ditches on both sides of the girl. In minutes, the channels became rushing streams. Soon, almost mercifully, the dying men in the fields began to drown in the deluge. In the falling hail, few of them had enough energy or fight left to do anything but let go of the world.

Her white dress clinging to her body now, the little girl tried not to watch the injured men as they succumbed. She tried not to think about how many souls were being claimed but failed. She saw the man who had been begging for water pull himself upright against a fence for a few seconds. Then his eyes rolled back in his head. He fell into the thing he had been begging for and it drowned him. The girl wondered if he managed to swallow any water to assuage his thirst before he died.

The rain continued falling. The ditches began to overflow. Soon the road was no longer a road. The two streams on either side of her joined forces and rose until the water was pulling on the bottom of the her dress. It threatened to pull her feet out from under her each time she took a step.

Soon, bodies were floating by, brushing against her feet. The hail stung her skin. As it grew in size it began to more than sting. Her pale skin soon became mottled with red splotches. All the world turned to water. Stumbling now in the wind and the current, the girl began to despair. Unbalanced, she fell with a splash that went unheard by any ears but her own.

As she fell a corpse brushed against her. She flailed, in a panic and rose quickly, but only by the greatest effort. The girl found herself barely able to stand against the fury of the storm. Mud stained her dress now, and her black hair was disheveled. She coughed dirty water from her mouth and trembled. The water pulled at her yet again. Angrily, like a hungry beggar.

The hail grew even larger, and it began to rip her skin. It battered her and when it hit her in the head, the pain made her dizzy. She began to panic.

“Save me,” she begged, and looked up into the sky.

Lightning flashed. It blinded her. The thunder clap came almost immediately. She felt it resonate powerfully in her chest. Then something unexpected happened. The stem in her hand quivered. She felt the movement and flinched. Her hand went numb and opened of its own accord.

With the single half-dead petal still clinging to it, the stem fell through the rain towards the water flowing past and around her feet. She grabbed desperately and failed to snatch it. Her mouth fell open in a silent scream of despair as she thought of the dead man who had given it to her, promising her that he would always protect her from harm.

“I will bring you another flower when I return,” he’d said. Only he hadn’t returned. She had waited until the food ran out. Then she went looking. She had found him dead in the forest, a large wound in his back. He’d caught a rabbit, which she’d eaten through her sobs. Her master was also holding another stem in his dead hand. The petals of its flower were crushed. She’d left it with him.

After a time with his body, she had started walking.

The only people she’d seen since finding her dead master had also been dead or dying. In a daze, she had looted the bodies, walked and prayed. She was not sure how many days and nights had passed.

The stem disappeared into the water and she thrust her hand downward again, plunging it into the frothy, muddy maelstrom. Her hand made contact with something hard. It felt like a large piece of wood. She realized that something was happening under the water. Something was growing down there.

The ground beneath her trembled. She felt her body rising and her mouth opened. The water receded and she realized that the ground was pushing itself higher. In the center of the rapidly growing hill, the stem had anchored itself the to the ground. As she watched it grew thicker and thicker. The single pink and black petal grew as well. Its color changed and become more radiant as the black faded away and the pink grew vibrant. New pink petals began to sprout from the top.

In moments the plant had grown to twice the height of the girl. Soon it towered over her and the petals formed a protective pink umbrella that the now massive hail simply bounced off and fell to the ground in a circle around the canopy. The girl entered the safety of the shelter. She clung to the stem of the now massive plant and watched the storm wash the wicked world away.

Time passed, and the sun returned. The girl stood. Tears fell from her eyes as she thought of her dead master and his promise to keep her safe. She kissed the stem, and prayed a prayer of thanks for her safety, then continued on her journey.