#loonyunicorn

[loonyunicornn]

The Man | Part 4

I pull myself up from my bed in caution, I was late, I had overslept like an inattentive deer. I must make haste quietly, the trees are filled with alarm as they usher me to use them as cover as I climb into the water. I stand up trying to make myself not seen, long ago the trees made this point to me. You mustn't let them see you. They chimed, though they did not let me know as to why I listened, curiosity would be the death of a lesser being, not I. That would not be my story. I stepped through the snow as it covered my hooves, I stepped off my little island out from under the willow as a breeze ripped through the land, Man’s scent rippled through the air, finally the deer would awake. I would hear the starting of their hearts as the older few warned the others of Man's presence. I stepped off the island into the underbrush not daring to make a sound, the only sound to be heard was the slow and silent dip as my first hoove dove into the water, freezing all around my body. I was not made for this, not made to hide in the liquid, the water was for drinking. 

The Man claimed the water was dirty, but they made it that way. They claim the trees and wildlife made the water dirty, they made it brown and cold, undrinkable, but they did. The Man came and poisoned the water, like they did everything else. Their simple presence was anything but simple, they took away the sky, they took away the life, they took away the magic of the world. I to this day wonder what was beyond the fields, I glanced out not many months ago onto the field, in cover of the trees, in the distance I could hear rolling and screeching of something large and deadly. It scared me. I was rarely scared anymore, Man had scared me once before the day they broke into the world taking the lives of those first fallen deer, but never again. I would not let them hold fear over me. I was not scared of the fleshly beings, I was displeased and angry with them, anger was something rare for my kind I was told. The fact I was able to hold it in my heart was a mere miracle. It did not feel like a miracle, it felt like a boulder which I carried everywhere, it felt like an unshakable cold. The world carried anger, the world had an unshakable cold, the earth used to speak to all living things. But Man killed her too. Maybe she was alive somewhere deep underneath the surface, sometimes I would hear a mighty breath, a feeble attempt to get Man out and off of her, he did not belong.

[loonyunicornn]

The Man | Part One: Written by Me

The forest is quiet, the birds have flown south for the winter and the bears are hibernating. I am alone, the trees bending and twisting as I walk through them, the leaves crunching under my hooves. Winter is coming. I have been searching for dry grass for days, only to find them covered under the crisp brown feathers falling off the trees. The trees cry when this happens, I hear them quiver in fear as the wind passes through them. I try to calm them by brushing my mane onto the bark, but nothing seems to console them as the air gets brisk and frail, and as the forest grows silent. 

The hunters will come, the deer have grown big enough, most don’t survive the season, they get plucked off by the Man, dragged off into the distance, outside the forest into the fields. I don’t know what is beyond them, when my mother was alive she told me. Never go into the field, never go beyond it. Stay deep in the heart of the forest, stay hidden. I am not like the other animals, they say I am not one of them. The deer say I am too large to be one of them. The bears say I am too furless to be theirs. The trees utter a name, one that they hide from me, as if I mustn't know my own name. What am I called, who am I? I try and remember my mother, but the passing has blurred back into my mind where I cannot reach, I cannot remember her face. I remember her voice, from so long ago. I think I hear her sometimes, when I drink from the lake my reflection ceases to be found. I watch as the others gather around me and look into their own eyes staring at the mirror, why can I not be seen?

[loonyunicornn]

The Man | Part 6

In an instant, a single bang rings out. It tears through the sky and makes me flinch, opening my eyes. The dark pool of murky liquid with the sun now risen flinches with me. A deer has fallen, this time it was an elder. With his head of horns so ferocious and mighty, for this death the Man cheers. I know what is to come, but it breaks me to think. I lift my head to the surface of the water, which I have drifted far below, I look to the sun. why?

The Man clobber to the deer which lay dead on the valley floor, he was a father to many. They say a prayer to the thing, soulless and gone, if only he were alive to hear it. They begin to take off an article of clothing that surrounds their opposable thumbs, as they get weapons out of their bags, as if they have not done enough. I hear the other Man in the forest sigh, they always do that after a bang. In jealousy of not catching the deer himself. I begin to hear the ripping. The ripping of man cutting open the deer, gutting his stomach. I grimace as the organs pool out, onto the soft snow. This is the circle of life. I remind myself, kill or be killed. I never want to kill, I will never subject my sacred body to the torment of being a murderer. I hear the organs pool onto the ground as the cutting goes on. I rock my body side to side to comfort myself. How am I so sensitive to the killings just as the first? Any living thing would be used to it by now, a formality, the token of existing. Why not I?

[loonyunicornn]

The Man | Part 5

As I allowed my body to be fully submerged under the surface of the icy lake I took a breath, a deep breath which would touch every piece of my body and soul before I plunged my head under. I let my eyes remain closed for a moment as I sank a little into the soft floor bottom. I used to enjoy bathing in the lake but because of the underwhelming circumstance it had turned my experience sour. I could hold my breath for hours, I could remain floating for however long I liked but since my mind was distracted with the nerves of the surrounding world it made it hard to concentrate. The sealife was somewhat entertaining for my temporary stay, but I could only watch, I could not listen. The fish took on a different vibration than I, a much quieter and more simple way of talking, I used to wonder what they said to one another when I would arrive abruptly into their home. I made sure not to step on any structures or disturb any peace, in the best way I could. The trees would tell me they were not startled by me, that they found me fascinating to look at. I was sometimes jealous of the trees, they knew everything, they could speak with anything and everything. It was, they said, because they were more connected to the world than animals, they could hear her mighty roar with every turn and circle she made around the sun. That is how I know that Man are dumb.

Man think trees are not alive, they think they do not speak or feel. They chop and cut them and drag them out into the places they've built. The trees tell me horror stories about the things Man has done, I choose not to believe. But if I believe it’s not happening, will it still go on? They say Man steals from the earth, they harvest and take and take and take. They say they’ve doubled in population, they say it's mutiny. They have come up with different words for the same thing, that they have grown so much they do not trust each other. That every word, and every day, is filled and littered with deception and fear. They say they are killing the planet, and each other, they make these weapons to kill the forest and now each other, with great battles and death. I squeeze my eyes tighter as a single glimmering tear rolls down my cheek and into the lake. What is one tear? I think sadly, in such a pool of droplets alike. What lies beyond the field, is there more to life? Is this all that there is? Is this irreversible? How much has life fallen, will it ever be picked back up?

[loonyunicornn]

The Man | Part 3

I stepped underneath the willow and stared out into the woods and the lake that surrounded me. The marsh was the safe space for me, I would hide in the water before morning, but for now I would get sleep. I layed down into the soft padded ground like I did every night. I stuck my face onto my folded legs as I slowly blinked myself to sleep. 

My heart jumped, I was startled awake by the sound which I had come to know as Man, since they first began stealing away the deer, their weapons had become loud, made of something I wasn’t sure of. It was something grotesque and perverted, something evil. Man makes lots of things, things they do not need. They call themselves the only living thing on the planet, the only smart thing, but I think they are ignorant. They communicate with sound, they don’t hear anything but themselves. They trudge around the forest disturbing the harmony. The trees and I are the only ones who hear them, the only ones who can sense them coming. The trees shiver in the cold as they are skinless, they shudder and call out to me, to wake me and warn me. Go to the water, they are coming. I pick up my head and body with a breeze as I look around, the forest is white, covered in the chilled powder. Snowfall. The first of the year.

[loonyunicornn]

The Man | Part 2

I walk through the forest and onto the path where I will follow until I reach the marsh to sleep. The old trees croak overhead, I look up to stare at the regal branches, some have fallen with great storms, but they still survive. The trees are all connected, they say that everyone is. Goodnight. I hum to the great willow as I step onto her island, she stares as I wander closer to her, underneath her will I will lay. In the summer she is mighty. She blows with the wind and is the oldest tree in the forest, so much that I do not remember her birth. I remember everything, I remember the beginning of the forest, many many years ago, when Man did not exist yet, and the world was free. When my mother was alive and we could leave the confines of our land, there were many like us. I remember distant voices in the back of my mind. We hum together in vibrations, we danced together and winter never came. 

That was until Man. They changed everything, chasing the animals into small portions of the shrinking world. They made fire and ash, they cut down the trees and hunted us out. I was only a child then, only a baby with my mother keeping me safe. The Man made it cold, they made the trees die, I remember the feeling in my heart as it pounded. When I sensed them for the first time. They came into the forest with a malicious heart, creeping quietly in the early hours before dawn. I was woken by my mother to move quickly into the water, they would not find us there. Quickly, you must wake up. She had said to me, we moved to the water without a sound, the deer had not been so lucky. They woke at the beginning of sunrise, unaware of the Man who surrounded the forest from all sides, they would walk to the lake to take a drink with their children and begin their day normally. But just before the sun reached its peak in the sky they would fall. At first it was one, then it was two, then three or four. I lost track after 12. They created a tool to take them from their lives, a tree branch fashioned with stones, it moved quickly in the air. It dove into the sides of the deer, killing them in an instant if they were lucky. For some it took two, but for the most majestic it took four. I felt the dying all around me, it shot through my bones and into my heart, I wished I was the one taken by the stones, the forest felt a great mourning that day. This was the first death but not the last, so thoughtfully, they left the fawns, motherless and alone, wandering the forest with sunken faces and heavy hearts, we took care of them, our kind. But soon the Man would come for us too.