#twenty miles of redwood forest trains | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

entitycradle · 3 years ago

Text

A Tree Without Wind

Content warnings: mention of, discussion of, threats of, and plans to commit suicide. Panic attacks, disassociation, and paranoia are described, sometimes in detail. An eating disorder is alluded to. Characters are horny for each other but there’s nothing sexually explicit.

I promise the ending is hopeful. I genuinely am not trying to trick you, I know what this sort of thing is like, I want to respect your capacity while still being truthful to the experience and allowing tension in the story. If you’re in the right place for it, click that button.

A TREE WITHOUT WIND

I was nine years old the first time Phoenix told me he was going to kill himself. Is that too brutal? Sorry. It's where this starts. We were outside, in the morning before it got too hot, kicking around a ball in the scrubby grass. We used the long shadow of the I34Q tower to make the rules--you can't use your hands if you're in the sun, that sorta thing. It was fun because the boundaries of the shadow were always moving with the shape of the tower, and because the tower was a little scary. Phoenix lost a game and just said it, frustrated, "I'm gonna kill myself." I laughed.

When I was that age I loved looking at the shadow of the tower, because it made so much more sense than the real thing. You'd look at the dark, fuzzy stain on the ground and you could imagine it was some sort of antenna, or house, or marker. But then you'd look at the structure itself and your eyes would glaze over trying to figure it out. Unevenly rotating, stacked polyhedral structures, dark gray but covered with a rainbow film like an oil slick. Irregular pieces would be transferred between different sections with no apparent pattern. It smelled like someone you'd never met. The tower was doing something but no one was ever clear on what. That's how it is with I34Q stuff, I think.

I'm stalling. It was some stupid shit, he must've picked it up from some awful caster or something. As a kid Phoenix liked that sorta thing. He'd watch videos of mean people cursing and laughing and he'd laugh with them. I preferred my cartoons, or the I34Q casts, as weird as they were. Later I repeated what he said when I found out my dad was making squash for dinner, "I'm gonna kill myself," and my mom told me off pretty hard. Kept me from saying it again, at least in school and at home. Phoenix kept at it though.

- = -

Phoenix and I got put in the same dormitory when we went to T-school. Do they call it T-school in other places? It's the thing where 4Q tanks (as in I34Q) come and take a bunch of eleven-year-old kids to stay at "training" facilities. No one I've asked knows what T-school is actually for, same as the towers, same as all the 4Q stuff like I said before. An organic shape attached to the ground heads a classroom, gibbering except for the occasional english sentence (Phoenix said he also recognized some Cantonese). Mrs. Lough, who apparently also lives in the facility, tries to teach "formalist english," which is like english but the rules contradict themselves. You take notes on the behavior of a tank filled with inky fluid for four hours a week. One day a three-legged machine packs up your stuff and shepherds you to the gate.

I was ejected a year and a half after Phoenix. I went home on the bus and met him at burger king that afternoon. I caught a glimpse of him from outside. His hair was in long, tight braids. I felt self-conscious about the uncontrollable smile growing on my face. "Aco!" he said through a grin as I opened the glass door. A green poster advertised a meal made from "water beads," an I34Q plant thing.

"Dang," I said, grinning as I sat down. "Dang."

"You make it out? Fuck you to 4Q?" He'd stopped eating to greet me. His grin looked as uncontrollable as mine. Phoenix's nose was wide and flat, also like mine.

"Fork you, 4Q." I still felt nervous about cursing. I was fourteen. "How ya doing, Phoenix?"

"I'm good, I'm good. High school is interesting."

"Oh, man..."

"It's actually like, fucking nice to understand what's happening. But now there are actual smart kids and you actually get punished when you, y'know, mouth off. I'm like, I gotta get around to--" He swiped with his hand, bent his neck, and made a cracking sound with his mouth. I laughed. "Don't worry, I'll show you around. Maybe we'll have a class together."

- = -

We did have a class together. High school with Phoenix was fun, because I got to have a proper crush on him. Pining, sexuality, youthful obsession, yards and yards of it. It was weird, we kinda drifted--Phoenix hung out with kids that I was afraid of, I hung out with kids who played too many videogames. As our familiarity waned, I started seeing him differently. A foreign, adult desire began to penetrate me, replacing childish affection. It took me a while to realize that's what was happening.

It was a shame our familiarity waned, though, because Phoenix was really struggling, and I didn't see it. His friends were mean, when they weren't outright abusive. Not a lot of people liked him. I learned later that he started hurting himself when he was sixteen. Little cigarette burns, and then cuts. He got put on meds at seventeen--the wrong meds, for a year. He went to a psych ward when he was nineteen. His family did not have the money to pay for an extended stay. I still don't know exactly how that worked out. I do know he went into debt after his second stay two years later.

I wasn't doing too well myself, after I hit twenty-two. Something in me broke I guess. So when Phoenix told me he was going to travel to the Santitos digger and throw himself off a cliff, it didn't take me very long to ask if I could go with him.

- = -

"I... I didn't..." He paused for a long time. Ten seconds of silence feels unbearably long in a conversation, and I was quiet for fifteen. My teeth held each other tightly as his thoughts whirled. "I didn't..." He looked me in the eyes. There was an intensity to both our gazes. He'd stuck his jaw out, just a little. "I guess I did. I was, kinda, hoping you'd say that."

"Fuck," I said, looking away and down. "Fuck." I put a hand over my eyes, gripping my face as tears came.

"I'm gonna die," he said, beginning to smile and looking up. I felt the discomfort I'd felt since we were nine.

"Yeah, I wanna go, I wanna go," I said, pulling my hand away midway through and looking back at him with a force I didn't recognize.

He looked back at me and said, "I'm gonna die, and you're gonna die with me."

- = -

The Santitos digger is in northern California, in the Redwood national park. People have figured out the basic idea of what the digger is doing, unlike the towers or the T-schools: the digger is making a big hole. I'd heard that in some places it had dug more than a mile, almost straight down. Don't ask me how the digger would've done that. Don't ask me why it's called Santitos, either, since it's pretty big and not very saintly. Maybe it was the name of a town. Getting to the digger from Prince George County was about fifty hours.

"I figure we could do it in three days if we really fuck-you-pushed-it. But I'm planning on five." I craned my neck to look at Phoenix's cracked phone screen, where he'd pulled up the route.

Gas is expensive because 4Q takes most of it. Basically no one flies. Even in Phoenix's hybrid, it would be a thousand dollars to get to the west coast. But it's not like we'd need the money afterwards.

"We'll eat along the way," he continued. I bit my thumbnail. "I'm not picky, we'll just stop at wherever they won't run us out of town."

We'd sleep in the car. It was April, so temperature wouldn't be a concern. I packed a change of clothes, a water bottle, my meds, and a box cutter I'd stolen from my last job.

The next morning, he pulled his blue, dented '38 prius in front of my apartment building. I saw the car arrive out the window. There was an anxious pit in my stomach that deepened when I opened my front door. I didn't want anyone to see me. This is it, I thought, this is it, this is it. I repeated that phrase down the stairs. My landlord could fucking charge rent to my corpse, I could give a shit. This is it, I thought. That final T stretched to enrobe me. The sky was gray and wet. The sensation wasn't enough to rip me from my inwards reverie. I was about to get in the back of the car when Phoenix spoke. "That ain't it."

He was leaning out the window, regarding me coolly. "Morning. Shall we go?" I walked around the car and got in the front seat.

- = -

Virginia is beautiful once you get into the mountains, forested and rolling. I told Phoenix, "Once I read the Appalachians are millions of years old, and used to be taller than the Himalayas."

"No shit. Was there like an Everest? Where's the old Everest?"

"I don't know, I never heard anything about that. But yeah the continental plates looked totally different. And then things changed and the rain and wind and plants broke them down."

"Hah. Fucking awful. Just being broken down like that. I mean, it's better than what 4Q did to Everest."

I was quiet for a moment. "That's... the worst thing they did, right?"

"I dunno, dude, I think taking kids from their families is worse."

"No, right, right. But like... Everest was like... like everyone knew about Everest. When I was really little I had this big book about mountains and I read the bit on Everest so many times. And now it's like... they made it about them. And people lived in the Himalayas before 4Q came! It forced everyone out and carved a bunch of nonsense into it. A forever reminder that we're below them."

"Hah, literally. Hmmm. I still wouldn't say worst, but, I get what you mean. I'm so numb to it. It's good some people still care." Phoenix shrugged. "I mean I dunno. It doesn't matter much to me, at this point. But from an outside perspective it's good."

That first evening was alright. I drove Phoenix into a beautiful sunset. You hear the phrase "rode off into the sunset" and you think, what a nice ending, but it's not really an ending. If you're the cowboy you keep riding, and eventually the sky darkens and you have to set up camp and eat and sleep and wake up the next morning and eat and go riding again. A feeling of dread and desperation fills me when I think of surviving alone like that. Maybe I'd get used to it. The trip to Santitos was an attempt to write a story with a proper ending.

We didn't stop until we crossed into Illinois. We parked on the shoulder of a country road. I used the light in the car to look at the atlas we'd bought for when we didn't have cell service, and laughed. "We've been in five states today. Pretty good. Keep it up and we'll have visited every state by June."

"What the--?" Phoenix snorted, laughing. "You mean if we visit five states a day. Asshole."

I always giggled when he snorted and called me an asshole. "Hey, I'm just saying."

"Fucking dumb. Doesn't even work. You'd have to wake up in a different state than you fell asleep in." He caught my eye. The smile felt intimate, mutual. Born of sleepy exhaustion from a shared journey. I looked at the divot between his nose and upper lip.

I realized something. "Shit, I forgot to bring a blanket."

"Poor baby. You cold?"

"Hmm. I guess not really."

"Oh, you know what I do have..." He leaned towards me and reached toward the back seat. I watched his shirt stretch over his chest. Phoenix retrieved a big gray sweater. "Feel free to stretch it out."

My fingertips touched the back of his hands as I took the bundle. I did that on purpose. His skin was warmer than I expected, as skin always is. We tipped our seats back. Not the most comfortable, though the sweater would help, hopefully. I checked out Phoenix to see him on his side, looking at me and smiling. I let my own smile relax into me as I watched his eyes. His irises were a rich, beautiful brown. His skin was the color of cardboard in your childhood memories. I loved the way his smile wasn't symmetrical, wider on one side than the other. I carefully resisted scanning my gaze down his body. I actually saw his eyes flick down my form, instantaneously. His eyelids half-lowered, and then, horribly, what seemed to be a great tide of sadness overtook him. I watched him hold it back. I watched his smile mix with growing grief and fear, then bow to neutrality. He covered his gaze with his eyelids, breathed in, breathed out. "All right," he whispered, then opened his eyes. The gaze was gone. "Time to sleep." He sat up and turned off the light.

The sweater had a very particular, subtle smell to it. I guess it was his smell. I was desperately horny, yet blasted to pieces. A heady mix.

"I think I could fall in love with you, if things were a little different." He broke the silence, fifteen minutes later. "I probably would. But I'd cling to you like a fucking baby. And you're here, right?" He paused. For a response? I didn't give him one in time. "That's what I mean, codependent hell. I'd only be alive for you, and you'd only be alive for me, and then the second anything goes wrong we'd be right back here except I'd, fucking, direct all my shittiness at you... and you'd blame yourself."

I was quiet. "Ain't... ain't being codependent better than dying?"

"Hah! But that's what I'm saying, it doesn't change anything, it just leads us back here."

I fumbled for something. "Yeah but if it could... like stave it off..."

"Why is that good? The world is fucked, Acoatl, totally and truly fucked. Things don't get better from here, for me, for people. Should I beg? Stay here in misery out of some misplaced sense of morality? We're doing the only thing that makes sense."

I stayed quiet, not unconvinced. Sleep came, eventually, uncomfortably, anxiously.

- = -

The International Astronomical Union provisionally called it 8I/2034 Q1. I had to look that up. The eighth interstellar comet discovered, identified in 2034. I don't know what Q1 means. The name was briefly changed to 8I/Pasarati, for the research group that had discovered it, but by that time I34Q was clearly accelerating non-gravitationally and on an Earthbound trajectory. 8I/Pasarati is still in orbit, technically. You can see it through a telescope, it's like five miles across. But I34Q is the name for all of it, the craft that came to the surface, the life it brought with it, the structures it built, the war, all the consequences. No one can make any sense of it, except the one thing everyone knows: something else controls the world now.

- = -

I just barely remember waking up to switch seats in the morning, and then desiring nothing more than to return to sleep. Eventually Phoenix nudged me awake. "Hey." We were parked somewhere in Missouri. I'd slept all the way through the night and Phoenix's turn to drive. At least twelve hours, depending on when I actually fell asleep last night. I'd missed the big arch in St. Louis.

Phoenix was curt and reserved as I drove. I thought he was still thinking about last night, or angry at me for leaving him alone on his drive. Then he tilted his head back and began to gag. "My... heart..." Tears streamed down him face.

"Phoenix." I glanced back and forth between him and the road. There were abandoned cars on the shoulder; I couldn't pull over. "Phoenix, Phoenix, um."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, stop." He bent, heaved, and emitted a yowling, harsh retch. Nothing else left his mouth. "My heart..." He was breathing hard. A panic attack, I realized, stupidly too late.

"Do we have..." Panic attacks can be interrupted with certain intense sensations. The general goal is to increase awareness of the environment, focus the mind on the current moment rather than the future or past. Holding an ice cube can help. There were no ice cubes. I reached into the back seat for my water bottle, which would at least be cool. A truck behind us laid on the horn. I swerved back into my lane. "Sorry." Phoenix dry heaved again. It was a uniquely distressing sound.

I searched for the hazards, feeling useless. Far too much time passed before I found them and started slowing down. A different truck laid on a different horn. I was able to slip in a gap on the shoulder between an abandoned pickup and a rusting minivan.

I led Phoenix onto the tall grass beyond the asphalt, where he collapsed onto all fours. His torso flexed as he heaved. I put a hand on his back. "Phoenix, look at the trees." There were bushy, broken trees lining the sides of the highway, a vibrant green against the blue and white sky. "The, listen to the road." No, the road was stressing me the fuck out. "Listen to the grass waving, feel it." Stalks crumpled in his fists. I twisted my head and saw the tip of an I34Q tower peeking up over the treeline. "Look, a tower, just like when we were kids." Over the next few minutes, his breathing slowed, his heaving stopped. But the tears stayed. He sobbed away the panic. I read somewhere that tears actually contain different chemicals depending on the emotion causing them. Something to do with hormones I think.

He apologized to me. I would've done the same thing. I've done the same thing. So I got it, but felt indignant at having understood--he didn't need to apologize!

We got back on the road and listened to static on the radio. Sometimes the edge of a station would pass by, and we'd get fuzzy country, or christian rock. I changed it whenever there was a sermon. Sermons always come back to 4Q and they're always awful. The 4Q broadcasts are actually better than sermons about 4Q. They're kind of like static, anyway, totally unintelligible. We encountered more of them than I expected. Maybe static itself is a 4Q broadcast. I don't think that's right, I think static is like cosmic background radiation. But maybe 4Q has changed it somehow, like it used to be white noise and now it's blue noise, a different random distribution but still random.

"I'm off my meds," he said, as we rolled into darkness. The moon was a crescent, low on the western horizon. He spoke flatly and calmly. "I didn't even bring them with me. I thought you should know."

I hesitated. I wanted to voice this diplomatically. But then, we'd be dead in four days, anyway. "Is that why you had the attack?"

"No. I panic even on meds." That made sense. I remembered a few times in the past year when he'd canceled an event with little notice, or left early. "But I'm not a person right now, and that's definitely because I'm off my meds."

"You're not a person right now?"

"Yeah. It's called depersonalization. Also derealization, which is when nothing is real. Or that's how it feels, as I'm told. It's pretty freaky if I'm honest. You don't get the same emotional reaction from stuff. It feels like you're watching from somewhere else." He wasn't looking at me. He was looking down. "You're not you. You're not even real." He whispered. "Pretty freaky."

"Can I--do you--"

"Ahh, I'm coming out of it. Some of it is just recognizing that you're in it." He drew a knee up to his chest and shook his head. "Uhh, could you. Could you hold my hand. Touch helps."

I gripped the wheel with my left hand and held his palm with my right. It was warm and sweaty. I wish I could say that was okay. I felt miserable. I wanted to feel happy, holding his hand, comforting him. I didn't.

Sleep came quicker that night, though still uncomfortable, still anxious.

- = -

I slept late, again. I hadn't touched the chicken sandwich I'd gotten from a drive-thru last night. It had awful 4Q stuff on it anyway. I hadn't eaten in twenty-four hours, so I was pretty hungry, but I had no actual desire to eat. I'd deal with it later.

My own panic attack must've seemed similarly unbidden to Phoenix, though I felt it coming about an hour beforehand, and tried to stave it off. We were on I-80, driving through the hypnotizing flatness of Nebraska. Every ten or fifteen minutes I kept seeing this scarlet structure. It was like a giant, bloody caricature of a water tower, a skinny, triangular column maybe ten feet across and at least two hundred feet tall, supporting an enormous squashed sphere more than twice as wide as the column was tall. I'd watch it rise from the horizon, far too big. I'd never seen them before but guessed they must be 4Q. I started thinking we were somehow traveling in a loop, that my sense of direction was faulty and we were passing the same structure in the same field over and over again. Then I started thinking about how crazy that sounded. But I couldn't stop the thought.

I wanted to pull over but I couldn't stop anywhere in view of the structure, because it was watching me. Of course it wasn't, but I couldn't stop the thought that it was. Hell, maybe it was. Maybe only the mad can decode the purpose of I34Q stuff. I felt how hard I was breathing and glanced over at Phoenix, wondering why he hadn't said anything. He was staring down. He was probably disassociating again, I realized later, but at the time all I knew was that I was alone.

I get angry at myself after my attacks. I feel so stupid. Phoenix apologized to me that night, which made me feel even stupider. I couldn't wait to get to the Santitos digger.

- = -

The next day was bad. Quiet, lonely, and frustrated. A further reminder of the reasons. I saw patches of 4Q purple grass climbing up the Rockies. We both took long shifts and entered Redwood park just after midnight.

- = -

I read a story once about a man that was falling in the dark. He was falling so far that he would die instantly when he hit the ground. He realized that his brain wouldn't have time to process the impact, or even the few moments before. And he couldn't see the ground. He couldn't see anything. All that was left in the world was him and his death. I wondered if Phoenix had read the same story, and was hoping for a similar effect, coming here at night. Of course, we got it wrong. There were clouds, burgundy with light pollution, and every few minutes a star would gaze through; an unearthly glow was cast up from distant pieces of the digger.

Some parts of the digger looked like the towers, spinning and shifting. Some parts looked like exposed microelectronics, cables sutured to shiny terminals of minute complexity. Some parts were just made of asphalt blocks, cream-, gray-, and lime-colored pebbles tightly embedded in dark tar. Distant redwoods, many damaged by fire, ringed the horizon. The Santitos digger was less an object and more a place.

I felt wordlessly close to Phoenix as we scrambled over asphalt, looking for a pit. We touched each other frequently in our effort, to assist, to communicate. We'd have to give each other boosts, lift each other up, look for alternate routes. This place was not made for people.

Finally we came upon a deep canyon. I had half a mind to walk off the edge immediately. But both Phoenix and I stopped to regard it.

I couldn't tell if the rumors were true. You could only see maybe a hundred yards down before the walls of the abyss disappeared into ink. Or, not ink--not blackness, either. People are black. This was something else. The most prominent features were the semi-perceivable red blotches left on my optic nerve after gazing at one of the digger's glowing sectors. The unknowable told me nothing. It just revealed the flaws of my being. Maybe we would achieve our effect after all.

"This is it," I said, elliptically. The beginning is the end. If you take out the 'h' that phrase is a palindrome. "That was the first thing I said out of the door before I got into your car on Saturday. If you take out the 'h' the phrase is a palindrome. The beginning is the end. This is elliptical. This is it."

"That ain't it." He was regarding me coolly.

I laughed.

He was angry. "Are you fucking kidding me? The point of this thing, the whole fucking point is you do it in your right mind. You're letting your madness make the decision for you. You have to make the decision!"

I found that extremely funny. I laughed harder.

"Shut up! Fuck!"

"What's a right mind?" I asked, still grinning. "There's no such thing anymore. Even when it was a thing, all it meant was the most socially-acceptable, capital-promoting mind. Now? The world doesn't fit us anymore. The human condition is inconvenient to its purpose. 4Q can't even train us. The right mind is a dead one. You want a right mind, go ahead." I gestured at the abyss. That's what I did.

He stepped forward. He stepped forward. A foot hung above the end.

I don't know what I would've done if he had lowered that foot, changing his balance, tipping him forward. Jumping in after him wouldn't have felt right. Maybe I'd have gone back to those red eyes in Nebraska and begged for them to torture me. Maybe his idiosyncrasies would have been repelled by the unknowable, flowing away from his body and into me, and I'd be lost forever in a derealized paranoia. Maybe I'd have gotten in the car and driven back home.

His foot remained, hanging, the edge a gallows. "Suicide is about pain. It's the ultimate response to ongoing distress. I never wanted you to be normal. I just didn't want you to be in pain. In a twisted way, I guess I thought, if this was your way of dealing with pain, I wasn't going to stop you. That is your right. I feel like that has to be your right." His balance was incredible. He remained still, a tree without wind. "But you can be abnormal, you can be a bad fit for the world, you can be utterly broken, and you can still live without pain." We're both crying. Tears descend into the pit.

| ' , |

I do think madness is the right way to understand I34Q. I feel this mysteriously. I wonder what it would be like if I tried going to T-school while embracing my altered states, living in them. I suspect Phoenix would have more success, being more comfortable with unreality. Not that either of us would participate in whatever hegemony 4Q perpetuates. More that we'd figure out what it wanted, and how to resist. I've been thinking about this a lot. Maybe other people are, too. We need to find each other.

Phoenix and I wandered north. We found this incredible queer community in Oregon, with actual traditions and mechanisms to deal with communal trauma. I can't say anything about the world, the world is unknowable. But I think there's hope for us.

Phoenix and I are together, now, in a way I can't quite name. We did finally make love. That was beautiful. But we don't live together. I make love to other people, sometimes, and he does the same. Sometimes I'll go a week or two without seeing him, without notice. Sometimes I'll go a few days without even thinking about him. I love him, and I tell him that, and he says the same to me, though both of us have admitted that we don't know what that means.

We still panic. I still get paranoid. Phoenix disassociates. He's been using the state to make art. I think about I34Q and write down what I think. I'm pretty good at eating regularly, even if I don't feel like it. I don't know if we're living without pain. I think maybe that's a pretty tall order. But I don't want to kill myself anymore. So I think that's pretty good.

[Ed.: have this little treat. It takes me about the length of this playlist to read the story.]

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5VD5lJJqNUJsITPj3Rg8Sn?si=d262096479104d4f

#fiction #short fiction #science fiction #aliens #madness #suicide #panic attack #disassociation #paranoia #eating disorder #hopeful ending

1 note · View note

windpeakofficial · 4 years ago

Text

CAMELIA WINDPEAK || INTO THE WILDWOODS

- in which camelia goes on a planned expedition to open up the secrets beyond rovar's gap.

(i wrote this at 2 last night and i am REALLY rusty im sorry lol)

| ❆ | [ 11 / 11 / 2020 || 10:30 AM || DUNDULL, JORVIK ] | ❆ |

The sun struggled to shine through the thick, frosted over window panes of Dundull Stables.

Last night had marked one of the first harsh frosts to come this season. Sure, southwestern Jorvik had pretty simple winters, especially compared to the northeastern territories, or Camelia's hometown of Beauvista. Still, however, a chill managed to creep its way through a loose board in the barn - accompanying the sounds of mucking, horses making conversation, and the looming echo of the kitchen's radio playing "Walking in a Winter Wonderland."

As Camelia adjusted the girth of her treeless saddle, she received a calm nudge in her side from Pepper. Turning to face her, she received a face full of mare stare and a snort - causing her to giggle. "Don't you ever like anything on your back?" She chuckled, slipping a light brown bosal over Pepper's ears and mounting.

Before the team knew it, they were already on the way to Mistfall's Ranger camp.

Cam knew that it would only be fair if she brought this specific mount out for the trip into the Wildwoods. Being a retired Jorvik Ranger horse from right here in Dundull, she knew that Pepper would not only appreciate the gesture, but also guide her from years of taking the trails. She had received an invite from Alonso about a month ago, asking if she wanted to come and help out. Happy to oblige, and possibly find a few secrets, she agreed and booked a stall to board in.

| ❆ | [ 11 / 11 / 2020 || 11:00 AM || MISTFALL RANGER STATION, JORVIK ] | ❆ |

Coming up the hill to the station, she could already see 4-5 rangers come into view, one of them being a happy, waving Alonso. Though excited to meet everyone, she couldn't help but be apprehensive. How couldn't she be, really, considering that they were going into an area that hadn't been explored for years and she was doing it with none other than a bunch of strangers.

Waving happily, she dismounted and led her mare to the newly-lit campfire. Breathing in the scent of marshmallows, she grinned and introduced herself. Everyone seemed fairly sweet ( except for that Nova chick, no clue what her problem was ) yet something just felt... off. Rowan Allaway - but what really bugged her was the fact that she couldn't figure out why. They were just different, mysterious, confusing.. too much that could be feared, she supposed. They said that they'd "heard things about her" and that if they're true, she'd be useful... Regardless, she dropped the topic once she saw a familiar haflinger and its' rider approaching them.

Rania. That put her at ease. She smiled at her warm greeting, replied happily, and before they knew it they were off.

Cam heard everyone chatter amongst themselves and eachother until she became fairly certain that she was being ignored. She didn't know why, really, but it didn't matter. She had already zoned out - the only thing her subconscious picked up was the rambunctious stories that Rowan was telling and the occasional remark from Alonso, Rania or Yousef. She felt magic teeming stronger and stronger as they got closer to the passage.

"Camelia?" A voice called out, shaking her from her thoughts. "Can you join us for a group picture before we head in?" Rowan beams and her stomach churns uncomfortably. Her mouth twists into a smile.

"Sure, I'd be happy to."

| ❆ | [ 11 / 11 / 2020 || 11:30 AM || ROVAR'S GAP, JORVIK ] | ❆ |

Pepper nervously stepped up the hill, ears partially pinned in an uncomfortable listening position. She spooked when Astrid let out a loud gasp, stepping aside a few hoofbeats.

"Sorry everyone, she's a little on edge." Cam apologized "Astrid, is everything okay?"

"It grabbed me! It reached out and GRABBED me!" The ranger practically screamed. Cam's gut did flip-flops. There is definitely magic here. She sensed it.

The rest bickered back and forth, forcing Cam to try and focus back into reality even though her soul was trying to comprehend the magic. "Not now, Cam. Not now" she mumbled, sighing as she watched Yousef gallop away with Astrid and her steed in tow. Rania looked at her quizzically.

"What do you make of all this?" She asked softly, causing Cam to gulp.

"I- think there's a lot more to this place than what meets the eye." She blinked, urging Pepper up the mountain, still bothered by the underlying power.

As the team of two headed near the top of the hill, they fell back. This gave Cam some time to pull out her camera and sneak some photos of the beautiful landscape. Despite the fear factor, it was gorgeous nonetheless. Beauty carved out by the hand of Aideen herself and- what was that Enitan was saying up ahead?

"Enitan, what were you saying?" She trotted up to the group, slipping her camera back into her saddlebag. "Sorry, I was lost in the landscape."

This caused the man to chuckle "The deer, Camelia, it's very special. It watches over the woods." This also caused Tiera to laugh. What was up with awkward laughter today?

"It's a genetic effect called leicism, though sometimes certain environmental elements come into play - like radiation! Enitan, where do you come up with these stories?" She bickered, causing Enitan to sigh and look toward the gap that Rowan was standing in.

Woah.

Cam and Pepper were speechless. Their hearts pounded in an almost perfect sync. This was a large valley with trees that touched the skies. They went on for miles, fresh breeze flowing through with hints of magic. It was stunning. The grasses grew wild, yet kept a manageable length. This place was truly a wonder.

And then it started to pour.

| ❆ | [ 11 / 11 / 2020 || 12:30 PM || WILDER’S VERGE, JORVIK ] | ❆ |

Pepper was almost eye to eye with Dellingr, keeping it together only through the bond they shared. One thing she had to say about that horse, he wouldn't leave Rania if his life depended on it. He pranced through the mud, huffing and puffing through the lowering temperatures.

CRACK!

Pepper leapt back what could've been called a foot. She exhaled heavily, watching Shay gallop away without his rider.

Cam blinked, exhaling with the same volume of her horse. She held Pepper's reins tightly and walked carefully toward a dazed Rowan.

"Someone's gotta go after Shay before he hurts himself!" And as soon as you both made eye contact, you knew who it was going to be.

Thunder boomed as Pepper tried her best to find her footing, huffing and puffing, snorting for the horse to calm down. Camelia's eyes blurred from the bitter wind hitting her face. As they neared the steed, the girl stood out of her saddle, leaning toward Shay until she managed to catch his headstall between her fingers, pulling back and letting out a pronounced "HO! EASY!"

The bridle slipped out of her hands, forcing her to find her seat again before Shay came to a sliding stop about twenty-five feet in front of them. Without hesitation, the tattered woman dismounted and began to step toward the panicked horse, humming softly. All of a sudden it was just her, this horse, and the world. She silently thanked Rhiannon for training her in the gift of wind whispering and soul riding in the back of her mind.

She loved the way the magic felt. It coursed through her veins like life blood, and everything felt so loud. Colors were brighter, feelings were stronger, and every sense she had was awake and vibrant. Before she knew it, her hand instinctually stroked his muzzle. She turned around and walked back to the gang, Irish cob in tow.

"Thanks for bringing him back to me, Camelia. He's a real beaut, but he's still learning the ropes." Rowan smiled. Cam felt an exhausted smile bubble to the surface of her mind, tired from the power she used in front of this unknowing, motley crew, but still being careful. Maybe they weren't so bad.

Enitan mumbled to himself "I think this forest doesn't want us here. It seems.. angry." A visible chill ran down his spine, either from the low temperatures or the fact that he was just.. scared.

"Stop getting yourselves all worked up." Rowan sighs "Nature holds no grudges, it only acts on its' own behalf."

Cam performed the most overly exaggerated eyeroll ever, stifling a laugh when she heard Tiera giggle. Nobody said a word and they continued on their hack, though Cam reached over and tapped Enitan on the leg, nodding understandingly at him.

She hadn't really realized this, but the rain had stopped completely. All that she recalled was that she felt the sun beaming on her skin when she was calming Shay. Who knows what happened, really. Magical properties were a fairly large gray area in Jorvik.

| ❆ | [ 11 / 11 / 2020 || 1:00 PM || REDWOOD POINT RANGER STATION, JORVIK ] | ❆ |

Cam smiled fondly as they reached the abandoned lodge. She could tell this was a really cozy place at one point, though quite frankly, she also figured that there was a 99% chance that there were 1-3 dead people inside. Who knows, though!

Everyone was given their individual tasks, and Cam quickly volunteered to fix the paddock. She had done it several other times when working at other places, and it was quite easy as long as you had a couple nails on hand.

One fence, three fence, brown fence ... brown fence. She was done! She quickly slid her helmet back and wiped some sweat off of her brow. Hearing a twig snap and, assuming it was Pepper, she turned with a friendly greeting.

"Hey, Pepper, I'm done a-"

Oh.

It was Enitan's deer.

That had to be what it was.

It had a sleek build covered in vines and glowing blue flowers. At the base of its neck emerged a proud, bright white coat with shiny, hollow looking baby blue eyes that strikingly resembled Rania's. Was it blind? You know what, that doesn't matter right now.

Cam reached out and slid her hand down its wet nose. The creature sniffed curiously, making her giggle, and galloped off. She let out a delayed flinch and looked over to her mare, as if to confirm "Did that just happen?"

Yes, that just happened. She guessed she would just- go back to the station, then. Wordlessly, she slid onto Pepper's back and trotted back to Rowan and the cabin. As she approached them, they gave her a peculiar look.

"Is everything okay? You look like you've seen a ghost." They squinted. Cam internally argued with herself, trying to figure out if she should tell them or not - or rather, if they'd believe her.

"Nope, it's all good. The fence is in tip top shape." She smiled, putting on a facade. This is a discussion to have with Enitan, she decided.

"Alright, well, you should get some rest. You look dog tired." Rowan chuckles warmly. She grimaced internally at the thought of napping at the cabin. Hopefully someone brought something a bit more comfortable than the old sleeping bag she used in her junior year of high school. Nevertheless, she nodded and left to untack Pepper.

| ❆ | [ 11 / 11 / 2020 || 3:45 PM || REDWOOD POINT RANGER STATION, JORVIK ] | ❆ |

Sighing to herself, Camelia turns Pepper out to pasture with the other horses. Grinning wildly, she watches them bounce and play with each other. The sun is already setting due to the season, so she seeks shelter inside the stable and begins to prepare a stall for her trusty mare. She feels her expression soften and, out of habit, begins to hum the same tune she did earlier.

A stall door closes and she doesn't bother to look, until she hears a familiar voice that could light up a room.

"Cam?" Rania questions "I recognize your humming. Is that you?"

Cam nods instinctually before snapping into reality and correcting herself "Oh! Yes, Rania, it's me. Do you need any help?"

"No," the dark haired girl grins softly "I just had a feeling, you know-"

"A feeling?" Cam blinks. "What kind of feeling?"

"Well, the rangers' exploration is over, but... I've a feeling yours isn't?" Her grin turns into a smile. "I felt what you did with that horse. I might not have been able to see it, but Aideen willing I felt it."

Cam trails off, just saying that the "humming" was merely something she's tried with other wild horses and it seemed to calm them. Rania clearly didn't buy it, but she knew that she could grill Cam on it later.

"Regardless," Rania taps the door of Dellingr's stall "what do you say you and I do a little exploring?"

Cam's face explodes from Rania's contagious grin.

And that's exactly what those two girls did, too. They wandered all over the woodlands with their mounts, taking pictures and describing landmarks.

FIN. 2161 WORDS.

| ❆ | [ 11 / 11 / 2020 || 6:30 PM || WILDWOODS, JORVIK ] | ❆ |

6 notes · View notes

tnp4tbowm · 7 years ago

Text

THOTS & PRAYERS FOR THE BROTHERHOOD OF WHITE MEN

is what I’m gonna call this mess

since we’re the demo that does them best

if thots and prayers mean acting less

or voting against marginalized groups with minority stress… as if women at conference tables… and brown folks in dorms… need white guys subtracting more… and I know we use categories for making sense… and giving names to groups we haven’t met

but no

WHY DO YOU HATE WHITE MEN THAT’S LIKE ME SAYING I HATE FAGGOTS AND LATINAS

my brother

on the phone while I’m at an intersection

but what about flesh in the grass and women in ironworking and los trumpistas in southern california and pixie boys in kootenai county and ill-eagles fireworks on the skokomish reservation and mothers nursing children in rocking chairs at spokane international airport… and steer ropers staring in horses’ eyes… and words so strong they become actions like “guilty” and “I hereby pronounce you”

I want to say

it comes down to

while animals aim for physical victory bc they’re rewarded by evolutionary gain… my brother aims for high-volume sucker-punching bc… well same

no no no I reassure myself… I’ve prepared for this moment… covering my bedroom walls with butcher paper and definitions for agápē and wisdom and grace

the light turns green

in seattle where my boyfriend and I saw a band named “boyfriends”… consisting of three guys some with girlfriends maybe play-acting “gay”

not the faggot town I grew up in

did I say faggot town

flipped my thoughts

I live with faggots now

bc of course I moved away

from where I was raised… where ladies in subdivisions filled rusted bathtubs with dahlias… and re-arranged living room sectionals and side tables… and guys in trailer parks worked on TVs in their yards

I never smeared deer blood on my face after a kill… and neither did my brother

we never paintballed stop signs… or climbed trees to catch squirrels (the unofficial after-school workout of the wrestling team)… or nailed the bloody skins to the weight room wall… or chilled in the parking lot with the tenth-grade science teacher slash security guard

where I grew up

white trash was designated white as opposed to other dodgy colors

wonder if the cafeteria table at school still says derek smith is a fag… I see blocky letters behind my eyes… nirvana on the lawn… holding a stick next to a praying mantis… hoping she’ll crawl on

live in the same place long enough and the frogs will be gone

each year I bike a block further

find certainty in school

lay around and think about what's true

leave cleats books water bottles in the living room

train for x-country in july and august… dream of anthropology and art history in college… parents fill out FAFSA forms

unconscious

at the intersection of my privs

square jaw wide grip

I give in

I say to my brother

driving by the gaybucks

are you serious? I ask... you want to do this rn? you think I hate white men? you didn’t show much interest in my self-hatred when we were teens

we were raised to read widely on top of doing our homework for English class… stories about white men unable to find work or shelter… I stayed awake by reading one chapter in the basement of our three-story home and another chapter in the bath… and another chapter in the basement… and another in the bath

it was 1997 and everyone was wearing ck jeans and eternity cologne and disappearing into the wood paneling of their basements

not everyone wrote a 5-paragraph paper on why abortion was wrong

but I did

most people ate the pro-life sundaes at youth group

as the tin man in our high school production of “The Wizard of Oz”… I dreamed of a fabulous life in the emerald city… while listening to conservatives in the community complain about the presence of witches and pagan values in the play… a few token liberals described how the Wicked Witch’s green skin and Glinda’s button nose… equated virtue with appearance

I worked on a farm for $

hi-ho the derrrrrrrrry-o

faggot on the farm

flesh in the grass

telling stories and pulling weeds as I acknowledged “weed” was a human category… for life distinct from other forms of life… standing out in color and shape… budding out of place

when I got home I studied Zanie’s backwoods dialect in Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God”

four years later

ash-covered New Yorkers crossed the Brooklyn Bridge with their hands on their faces

I picked blueberries on Mount Rainier… asked if subalpine flowers should smell like dryer sheets… if lakes should be toilet tab blue

¾” threaded galvanized pipe two chain links eye bolts flag

supplies list from the guy at the rest-stop on the way home… old glory should stand up to a 96 mile trip up to 70 mph

I went to work folding taco wrappers into triangles like nothing had happened… and made food with beef that showed up in boxes marked “fit for human consumption”… staging mexi-fries under heat lamps in groups of two or three

while boy george (w.) signed the Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism act

after work I slept in self-inflicted poverty in a house full of guys who did backyard enemas and drank jars of pee and kept mushroom journals… and changed my opinion about property ownership… bc why bother storing up treasure when human possession is an illusion… and condoleeza rice has a chevron tanker named after her

we argued about earth history and theological precepts like pre-destination

but agreed

god’s complacent

should be more like the hippie guy in the volkswagen van… with Eden Before The Fall painted one side… and Eden After The Fall on the other… and a nice patch of grass growing on top

textbooks copied screens

fireplaces provided intimacy w/o heat

virtual experiences dominated references in speech

green-tongued goats on forest service roads licked antifreeze

we asked if the phone was real or surround sound prestige... did the spin instructor in the windowless gym want sixty percent on hills or ninety percent on streets… is the norway maple transplanted to the front lawn of the new house conveying a line of aristocratic family wealth

an old-growth tree

the entrepreneur in an education workshop talked about “products” metaphorically

a patriot/explorer on a mustang/bronco went on an expedition/excursion to the frontier/tundra… passing through the winnebago tribe saying

srry bout it

the kids on the makah reservation don’t want whale sandwiches

wal-mart got blue and target red

white wonder bread

happy meals

j. christ

c.e.o.

5 lb cereal

4 brown ghosts

the speaker at the commencement ceremony joked, “what’s the difference between Pullman and a cup of yogurt?”

the cup of yogurt has more culture

zuckerberg’s hoodie went from “disregard for convention” to “purity of intention”… for someone too focused to worry about clothes… monastic gray was helping folks

now we’re here

we’re here

at the mindfulness weight loss retreat… three raisins… six almonds… the right herbal tincture… twenty minutes in the redwoods

dragging

the past in front of us bc it happened

we’re at home eating pancakes with butter and syrup and powdered sugar… but the sugar is crushed-up hydroxycut

city buildings capture sun for the 20%

hey shadows

and data-mining companies have been adding my places of employment and the mesh shorts I almost bought… and the dreams I deferred and the shows I watch… to their digital dossier of me… and I guess the gazing goes one way but not the other… like church… where predictive analytics play upon thirsts… and hunt me down like unicorn shirts

what’s next

trees drop plastic fruits

domesticated deer eat out of troughs

stunt-double bears rent suits in parking lots

forest rangers lasso the last of the orioles and roll up the sky

we learn

the last time I had a long island iced was... the last time I had a long island iced tea

seeeeeeeeeeeeeee

bro

I’m doing better

you’re like me

except I’m a busybody

with no kids

wish: “pc lecture with moral authoritarian tone by urban elite who reflexively rejects critiques of globalization”… reads “fearless inventory in a world where ‘quinoa empanadas’ are a thing… and platters of deviled eggs watch the horizon”

so even as I call your baby’s bedroom view of the skyline from your island home

privilege bestowed

I call out myself

for lavender cookies and oatmeal soap

never noticing appropriation in cartoon indian smokes

white peace pipe under a red sun on a yellow box

database of ruin snapshots

you know how I spent those years teaching high school in gig harbor… what you don’t know is I had two Hispanic sisters… Maria and Paula… spend a quarter translating children’s books on sticky notes

they

smiled

yawned

bored

I was their teacher and offered “support”

(but if you need more… in 2009 I was plucking spraying spiking shaving shoving… like the guys on jersey shore… watched every episode and called it my reward… for getting through two president bushes)

the founding fathers designed our branches of government to withstand the likes of King George

(also: granted love to gather more of it, shirked a wrong but lorded over it)

psychologically spiraling… debating if I should share the video of the first lady in the blue dress staring at her feet during inaugural prayer… wondering if I’m feeling personal irritability or existential despair… if I have “compassion fatigue” from doing “emotional labor” in my newsfeed

why someone hasn’t invented a female-friendly pee trough between the knees… why menopausal sensuality gets teased… why testosterone means feeling confident about incorrect answers

have the decency to feel guilty

living off the massive retail workforce stocking big-box brick-and-mortar stores and online fulfillment centers

what did we expect

detaching personal accountability from global effects

what did you think

watching nature documentaries frame lions as villains… positing giraffes as victims… when we know aggression isn’t something “we get out of our systems”

but confessing rings wrong

I say to my brother

pulling up to my apartment home

ear hot from the phone

how’s the kid

peeing blood

good… he’s got a kitchen set with a stove and dishwasher… he cooks plastic things while he toot-toots… farts on command... he says

I hope he’s reading “Radical American Women A-Z” and “The Adventures of Toni the Tampon”… I say… and playing with the nine new ken dolls with ethnically ambiguous face-sculpts… developing new play patterns… bc brown kids asked to play with “the good doll” choose the white doll… and still grow up overly disciplined at school… by administrators analyzing “racial predictability and dis-proportionality in achievement categories”… without saying the word “racist”

I like body positive post-holiday ken his paunch

also our white immigrant ancestors got rich enslaving Blacks

(the rest of the starter kit for understanding institutional injustice can be found online @ www.google.com)

(intermediate: people of color fight against constructed realities… internally and externally… and the racial imaginary overlaps with the gay imaginary bc invisible people need some space to practice their fkn moves… but what about time and place… whose ear does the hearing… which mouth translates)

o say can I… being me… understand how corporate restructuring shows one face and sublimates others… contributes to oppression where double consciousness affects women and people of color

o say can I hear the oppressors’ voices renegotiate my thoughts decolonize space

where do I fit in? will there be room for me? how do I make room for others?

my brother suddenly has to go asks if you’ll be him on the phone

yes

it's complicated

but yes

(if you're not my brother and the request is nbd bc you've always heard the voices of white men… I invite you to continue… if you’d rather not… peace be with you… let’s hang soon… I love you)

and right there did you feel that [ [ [ [

in actual life we aren’t there yet… I hung up the phone after “faggots and Latinas”... bc my hands were shaking so hard I could barely steer

typical of you to back out of conversation before we say the hurtful things you say

before we say the hurtful things? before? I ask

1) well at least I finally have the upper hand with you thinking you can threaten broken bonds 2) I’ve never seen two belief systems more perfectly in line 3) I guess you stand for democratic values most of the time

we’ll never know what’s depraved and what's divine… I can’t read hearts and I can’t read minds

already I had escaped into the televised self-help seminar in my head… where I am the host rolling up my sleeves… ready to hear from household cleaner huffing sisters… and visualize problems worse than mine

after the commercial break I engage the girls in patient-therapist interactions... mixing hard-hitting realism and hypersensitive dialogue… as intolerable and inauthentic as my wife’s bouffant

basically I’m dr. phil… but also… if it’s okay with you… I’d love to try being the girls… who haven’t seen their father since they were two

and later during the re-tape… the visiting expert with a new self-help book… explains the “colorization of the soul”… saying “I think it makes sense to nurture the ‘daily me’ before skimming the news… look here… on the color rubric… reds before blues”

red apples picked by farm workers with multiple SSNs

blue mechanics in overalls twirling ballpoint pens

white eggshell enamel over pink or saccharine

symbols up for grabs… by anyone… bc that’s what I was told growing up and believed… I can be anyone I wanna be

hope the same for Muslim girls wearing spandex hijabs in P.E.

our country is not exempt… when campaign rallies look like nests… but I know I’m like… eighty-two percent spoon-fed/tone-deaf

tomorrow

is a child’s flying drone-wish… where native plants have extraordinary ability visas like the biebs… germinate round-up ready soft white wheat… and facial recognition software on my self-driving truck beeps… bc I’m not wearing guyliner… and lack ethereum cryptocurrency

so I walk into a bar and borrow liquid pencil

apply it in the mirror by the urinal

remembrance of things pabst

love comes in spurts

the worst

hasn’t

hap-

pened

be around

thanks

I’ll be a morel mushroom full of vitamin d in the dark

an emerald city queer in the shadow of Rainier where bark is bark

mist from the Nisqually River rolls above the fast part

torrent > P2P file sharing

a robot hands me a warm towel after yoga… scans my sweat for communicable diseases

construction workers buy baguettes out of a wheelbarrow… from my kids

paid in no-nuance knockoff dramatized black lady gifs

blood on their faces hunting feral pigs

allahu akbar… on the fortieth click… means more than the first search results about jihadist battle cries… jihad… means more than the first search results about holy wars

as-salaam aleikum… peace be unto you

saw-lahm

all-lay-koooooooom

while keeping an eye on the horizon

for crowd estimation software in weather balloons

across the un-crossable Puget Sound

not really

we live in western wash.

what I’m saying is… I’m not traveling down Tolkien’s path… climbing Silverstein’s precipice… crossing a toothpick pier… or boarding a balsa wood boat… for a “dialogue event”… when I see you across this metaphorical inlet

not everything overlaps… smoke + fog = smog… marionette + puppet = muppet… enchilada + burrito = enchurrito… intermingling > provinciality…but apple slices on guacamole is white people saying to Mexicans we want your food and want to “touch” it too

eww

I want the queer bar full of queers… and that’s true of any gathering place… the identity shifts with who’s there and who stays… for physical touch and feeling safe... and cultural intensification... we congregate

I could never hate feminist separatists reading sappho by lyre

agrarian nationalists and queer energy collectives disappear

cross the cascades… to north idaho… passport in hand to show agents at the skin of the bubble… preparing for my cousin the welder… who can’t get out of his trailer… and my dad who says seat belts and metric measurements are communist and has a legal pad with instructions for working the computer

the girl on the greyhound says she didn’t go to college for four years to sit on her ass and bake cookies

been awhile

a few days later I ride in the back of our uncle’s truck to the parade… where grandma reminds me to keep my beer tabs so kristy will get a party for her class… as we set up folding chairs on the sidewalk… to watch shriners on little cars… and wave at hooters girls on the make-a-wish float… the mayor… always pooping in other people’s pants… grandma says… as we find ourselves standing and clapping for the coeur d’alene tribe

after mayor and police go by

later help grandma make tater tot hot dish... wrap the pan in a bath towel she pulls from a cabinet full of towels stacked vertically like pizza boxes

small talk

fawn over the s’mores pie with graham cracker crumbs on bottom and top… especially the marshmallowy middle

oh oops

did I go there

pre-prayer

here’s the thing… the alliances we need to overcome the monster are never what we think they are… and seeing anti-american sentiment in the firmament… and indicator species’ temperaments… reminds us the world collects… and/or usurps the throne… the debt is more than we think we owe… there won’t be polite knocking or ceremonial drumming… by so-called “others” we didn’t see coming

solution… testing limits… and I don’t mean excusing myself to get the wings by the jumper cables in the trunk… walking back in and telling everyone angel gabriel is here… saying… oh I guess this isn’t… is this not the sexy jesus party with a crucifix selfie station?

omg that hoe over there

our arguments are basically light divisions… internal-only obstacles where I go back and forth debating

I know

this makes you wanna scream into the phone

well

here’s a semi-autobiographical lyric novella in the form of an epic poem

typical passive progressiveness… I can’t even talk to you face-to-face… when you wanna chill by the water tank… I communicate via popsicle stick messages in the gutter / everyone on tumblr

one thing’s for sure… we’re giving up some things... s’mores pie is on the table… but it’s not on the table… of sacrifices I’ll be making… bc I love s’mores pie

we don’t wanna give up anything but we have to try

our lives are characterized by conveniences with steep costs

like celery and bell peppers and onions already chopped

people with invisibility powers can’t be stopped

rowing outside San Diego and the Gulf

above cracked pipes and pvc

clouds of oil

grass and reeds

dragonflies and damselflies with heavy wings

on multi-generational round-trips without breaks to breathe in juniper trees

addition: we had a seed vault… a plan b food bank… to take care of us... in case a plague trapped in siberian ice destroyed our crops… but ten years went by without permafrost… and car-less urbanites with mileage plans... shrugged and said there was nothing they could do

a collapsed ice shelf is another place for cargo ships to pass through

our ecosystems depend on conversations among interlocking interdependent parts… more than mermaid toast or zombie shows… or mother nature wish-fulfillment fantasies… where we ask quail and cranes in the forest… to come out of the trees and lift us away by our shoulder pads

our second eye watches the ground… as we pace sidewalks disrupted by roots… thank inchworms for decompositions…. trace the paths of ants on the side… turn our ears like ferris wheels on the sly

inner vision attuned

wilderness survival guide

I do not have superior autobiographical memory like my faggot boyfriend does… brother… but if I remember right you beat up the guy who peed on my backpack in ninth grade… bc the next passing period… he apologized

I’m in bed rn… thinking about how I hate your muscular public practice… but needed it… srry for being confused

the word is not the thing

the menu is not the food

the plan

after I’ve figured out what I can give up

is to invite people to a park

grand theft auto fans

promote

slacktivist slash accent coach

mom in dallas… cashier cleric caregiver… competing for section 8 vouchers

developer counting kickbacks and calories... at a housing tax credit industry gathering

middle-aged man afraid to lose… leaving Buenavista for Baton Rouge… parents of dead black kids don’t know what to do… Saudi women barred from carpools… El Salvadoran sugarcane harvesters… closeted Egyptian police officers… Filipino nannies tinikling to Lil’ Wayne… trans women fighting the state… Miss Texas 1988… Harlotte O’Scara Hellen Tragedy… snake handler crab trapper… adjunct professor qualitative researcher… world’s most prolific fortune cookie writer… Bible Jim… shirtless guy next to him in briefs and “This man gave me a blowjob” sharpied on his chest

salmon in gasoline

up the bank across the street

pipeline burst on whatcom creek

hyper-empathic hatchimal colleggtor

trained to serve but not hit back

except in tennis lessons

the male coach

flips that

srry

gay hater cake maker cradle labeler

homo-plausible bi-logical

floral arranger

retain it or give it away

intellectual property is three chords

and the person with less power says you're not allowed

your brother

it’ll be the opposite of when I showed up at your house after my wife left me… and you opened the door… and I collapsed in your arms in the hallway… and bc you’re a few inches taller than me… and my knees wouldn’t work… you saw the nail marks on the walls of my subconscious

we’ll play a game… where we introduce ourselves

recall times in our lives with less repetition more repair

describing versions of ourselves adding post-scripts unaware

listing words we never use: farce, fatuous, machination, myopic, subterfuge

sorting beliefs by size date modified proof

discuss satire-less south park

duraflame start

galvanize flake n rust

behave spontaneously n not combust

help hippielandia hostel in flames

learn ancient proto-langs

repeat shit we wanna forget

like, has anyone checked on the family in the nuclear train car yet

we’ll discuss what should change… what should stay the same… believe ourselves capable of restraint… revive the practice of communal processing… where townspeople gather side by side… to watch events from the day reenacted in light

practice… on a page

like in a play

oceans and lands… dna strands… airspace… electromagnetic spectrums… gridded and privatized… but the public square

ACT I

CURTAINS OPEN ON PARK/SQUARE. TOWNSPEOPLE GATHER IN HALF-CIRCLE. MISSILE, WEATHER BALLOON, AND RED SUN HANG OVERHEAD

NICO: “I’ve been thinking about how I might convey my progressive morals in a way that sounds wholesome to my family.”

ISSA: “I’m done with that. I spend ten dollars on tampons at the store and my husband gets a bowlful of condoms every time he orders a jaeger shot. Then if I mention the disparity he blames ‘red tide.’ When I needed postnatal care to stop my fourth trimester pants-pissing, my doctor’s visit wasn’t covered. Society isn’t family friendly. I spend forty-minutes on the couch organizing housework and childcare each week, and regardless of what society says, that’s project management.”

JASLENE: “Last year my teacher gave everyone two bathroom passes and if you didn’t use them they were worth extra credit, so I left bloody circles on the chair para mostrarle que esto es lo que sucedería.”

CROWD SILENCES. BOY IN “WANNA LIFT?” SHIRT LEAVES. DARLENE STEPS TO THE MIDDLE.

DARLENE (to vacated space, then to group): “We’ll miss you… Every manifestation of good and evil has part of the answer, but also, immovable people will not be moved. We will show civil inattention by giving him the space he needs.”

MARK: “I’ll never represent my beliefs adequately since I have trouble telling the barber how I want my hair without the assistance of visual aids, but I’m here to talk anyway.”

JAMES: “We're standing on varying levels of culturally constructed oppressive frames and the only way to deconstruct the artifice as it exists is to stand on the ones that are more entrenched and take apart the ones that are less entrenched.”

SOFÍA: “I’m so confused by the fact that I’m not supposed to feel shame, except for all the things I’m supposed to feel shameful about, which aren’t the things I thought were shameful. Am I supposed to know what a ‘gender illusionist’ is? I thought liking men made my nephew gay.”

CURTAINS CLOSE

overheard in audience:

they’re not connecting… just waiting turns and expressing

let’s not underestimate the hard work of avoiding moral outrage

dismayed at the repetition of “but” while conversation disintegrates

hang on

looking up cognac insta chef’s recipe for caramel-drizzled hennessy cupcakes

unwilling to listen generously… while aiming for an ending other than intensifying favoritism is like nailing jelly to a tree

using a chainsaw to cut butter

jumping from flower to flower in a fern gulley type situation

pragmatism is a dangerous alternative to conviction

ACT II

CURTAINS OPEN. CHARACTER ‘YOU’ GAZES OUT OF HOUSE WINDOW ON AN ISLAND, STAGE LEFT. CHARACTER ‘ME’ LOOKS OUT APARTMENT WINDOW IN A CITY, STAGE RIGHT

In unison: I promise me: to fight for-profit prisons, schools, and kidney-dialysis centers. you: [ [ [ [

In unison: I think I can give up me: the scholarship I got in college and give it to someone who needs it. But don’t touch the s’mores pie. you: [ [ [ [

In unison: I’ve been thinking about me: what you shared with me about China building artificial land around the Spratly Islands. And how prison construction companies look at standardized test data from second grade children of color. you: [ [ [ [

In unison: I believe I am owed me: a reply. Not long, but something. you: [ [ [ [

In unison: I care about me: how Ryan and Jesse’s mom used to put Carl Budding lunchmeat with mayonnaise and mustard in a blender… set it on ‘mash’ for a game of Duck Hunt… scoop it into Tupperware… and smear it on white bread throughout the week. I would eat that over apples on guacamole. The real globaloney. you: [ [ [ [

In unison: I hope me: we find space to show real love to kenyan baboons in garbage dumps and dioxin babies walking like spiders with red septic skin and people in apartments named after species they’ve displaced and women planning the clean-up of their suicides. you: [ [ [ [

CURTAINS CLOSE: INTERMISSION

overheard in lobby:

coming up with a formula for interacting in common space

himalayan crystals from the mystic utilikit dude

maybe we’ll see them agree… or calm down… or point towards partial truth… or connect idealism to privilege

not youth

we know old folks are idealistic

planting seeds without expecting fruits

going to target and payless shoes

ACTS III+

CURTAINS OPEN ON PARK/SQUARE. TOWNSPEOPLE HUDDLE AROUND A RADIO, AS IF IN A SNOWSTORM.

RADIO: ... let it be that great strong land of love… where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme… that any man be crushed by one above…

DARLENE: “Starting sentences with ‘I’ is a good place to begin, but feelings of belonging go deeper. Shift responses bring the attention to ourselves. Support responses ask for more. Let’s be more than cannibals with knives and forks.”

MARK: “Food metaphors. We want to think about asking better questions. ‘What place most inspires you?’ instead of ‘Where have you traveled?’ ‘What work are you passionate about?’ instead of ‘What do you do?’”

JASLENE: “What's your weightiest belief? What's your most potent fear?”

RADIO: … clutching the hope I seek… and finding only the same old stupid plan… of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak… it never was America to me…

ISSA: “The desperate search for an ethic, a specter.”

JASON: “I am willing to give up my authority but don't touch my autonomy.”

RADIO: ... say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? and who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

YOU: [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [

EPILOGUE

Before sharing my brother’s response, I want to say I wrote “Thots & Prayers” because women get fewer obituaries than men in newspapers. Because the Baltimore Orioles lost way back when they had no tree canopy in which to land. Because trauma squats in the valley and anxiety raps her knuckles on the hill. Because Taco Bell spent 10 years and $15 mill developing stretchy cheese. Because men look at other men working in daycare centers and think they’re dumb for frittering away perks that should have been theirs from birth. Because my older brother yelled about faggots and Latinas after visiting the site of the Orlando Pulse shooting.

I am not looking to be comforted or assuaged.

White men need to educate each other. It’s not anyone else's job. We need to listen to the cultural conversation, see connections, and act on behalf of people who aren't seen. We need to be friendly in crowded places, and pull each other aside and be bridges.

I hope my family understands how many things will break if we don’t accommodate fragility. I’m not a metaphysician and don’t know about quantum mechanics or particle physics, but I know the phrase “I hope” is a glimmer of light living outside my rage. “I hope” signals my privilege. I hope to understand more about “I hope” in the context of everyday life in coming days.

As a beneficiary of entrenched systems, I work for everyone to have equal voice and access. I work for what’s best in my neighborhood and nation, on this striking and stunning and astoundingly polluted planet. I avoid asteroid-bashing. I avoid the ossification of stalemate. I avoid co-opting languages of the oppressed. I save room for warmth and time for children. I learn about neuro-diversity in the workplace and nutrient density in school lunches, and communicate generously about these issues and other issues, like the shared struggle for justice.

Mantras I’m saying and acting upon.

What’s mine is yours.

We do not need all the parts of the old society to create a new one.

If you feel inspired, please comment. I’d love to hear your weightiest belief, most potent fear, frustrations, considerations, qualifications, corrections, assessments, and agreements. No presh. I get nervous sharing my feelings, and words impact and behave differently for different people. The spaces between known grains of wood make wood strong.

I wasn’t sure if my brother would be a grain or a space. He’s the first person to admit he doesn’t read much and would rather talk on the phone or hash things out in person. Before sharing this, I called him up and said, “I’m about to send you a piece of writing. You don’t have to read the whole thing. You can always ‘Ctl. F’ and look for ‘brother.’”

Here’s what he wrote:

FYI, I don't really like you writing somewhat rude things about me and my house (which I take as jabs towards my wife and kids), etc. I don't do that towards you. I know there was some nice stuff too… I am communicating by e-mail as I know email is your preferred method, but at some point you need to realize I have feelings and opinions too, and don’t share them with everyone.

Right now I’m looking at 40+ people smoking joints outside the subsidized housing across the street. Wish I had that option. I wonder if their chronic drug use is helping out the health care system – I know they're not paying into it? I was up at 4:05 a.m. today to keep working toward losing that 20 lbs. so I'm not a burden on the system in the future. Learned that from Mom and Dad. I guess sometimes I feel ripped off. Need to get back to work now as I need to pay bills.

I’m sorry about the hate stuff that one day, you know I don't feel that way.

On another note, is hydroxycut good stuff?

He attached a document where he continued the conversation.

I promise to… take care of my kids and not cheat on my wife.

I’ve been thinking about… how to lose 20 more lbs. so I’m not dead when my kids are 40.

I feel like I am owed… nothing. I don’t feel I’m owed anything. Everyone chooses how to spend their money.

... and gave me prompts of my own.

In unison: I’ve been busy me: working about 12 hours per day if I count commuting and working on my house. you: [

In unison: I save my money for me: the future. I think I’m responsible for taking care of my own problems instead of hoping someone will help me out if something happens. you: [

In unison: I feel I’m privileged because me: I had a good Mom, Dad, and brothers growing up. I was never given any money, but having someone in your corner is more valuable. I am in your corner if you are in a pinch, and I know Mom and Dad are too. you: [

Working for a great strong land of love,

COLOPHON

Published on tumblr on Thursday, Aug. 10, “Thots & Prayers” is a phone transcript, visual essay, poem, and interactive self-help manual. I edited my brother’s written response for clarity. My mom took the pictures of my brother and me. My friend Jonathan Ursin took the pictures of me kneeling on the amphitheater stage and laying in the grass with rosary beads. I took the rest. Spanish phrases were proofed by Alè Barrientos. Radio broadcast lines are excerpted from Langston Hughes’ “Let America Be America Again.” Endorsement by Seattle performer Nico Pecans (they/them) / Miss Texas 1988 (she/her) is available. Lines from “James” and “Jason” are from interviews with James and Jason. PDF with original formatting shared upon request.

5 notes · View notes

iamnotthedog · 7 years ago

Text

ARCATA: SEPTEMBER 8, 2001

About three days after that panic attack at the Co-op, on the eighth of September, I woke up early—around seven in the morning—feeling restless. I was still being docked shifts from work, so I had nothing to do. Chloe had to work from eight to ten, so I hung around the house for a while, cooking up some breakfast and talking to Steve. When Chloe got home, we smoked some weed and she told me she had to run some errands and that she had to go back to work at four. I really didn’t want to hang around the house anymore—the weed immediately had me in fight or flight mode—so I took off on one of the bikes that one of the roommates had hanging out on the back porch.

A relatively easy five miles later, I was seated on a piece of driftwood on Manila Beach with my shirt off and my bare feet rubbing indentations into the sand. The cloudscapes had been unreal all morning—gigantic cumulus clouds that came and went, changing shapes as they drifted across the blue horizon. I stared at them, and watched them come and go, and I breathed deep and felt good, right down to the bone. So good, in fact, that I laid down in the sand right there by the ocean and fell asleep.

I’ll be damned if I didn’t fall right into a slightly more modern version of that dream I hadn’t had since way back in what? 1983? 1984, maybe? The dream of being kidnapped in the night by a skeleton. In this version of the dream, I was in our bedroom back in Arcata, lying next to Chloe on our mattress on the floor in that white room with the white walls and the white tile floor, and I woke up and rolled over and saw this skeleton standing in the corner by our closet. He still had that faint glow to him that I remembered from my childhood. But this time, instead of scooping me into his arms, throwing me over his shoulder, and running outside to a pick-up truck, all the skeleton had to do was beckon me. He stood there and stuck out his left arm and shook a boney finger at me, and I got out of bed—being sure not to wake Chloe—and I walked right up to him. He didn’t say anything, but lifted his right arm toward the door, and I stepped into some jeans and grabbed a t-shirt off a pile of dirty laundry by the door and walked out of our bedroom and out of the apartment, where I found myself standing at the base of a large mountain of ice. I turned to look for the skeleton, but behind me was only a horse, which neighed loudly, right in my face, and then took off, galloping away along the base of the mountain. It looked like it was almost flying or something. I don’t know, it was a dream. Then there was a cold blast of wind and I turned around, again and again, looking for our apartment—anything recognizable really—but everything was gone. There was nothing around me but ice, and I was in a goddamned t-shirt with bare feet.

I woke up with a start, and I was lying on my stomach with my arms out to my sides, the right side of my face pressed down into the sand, and the ocean water lapping at my bare feet. My feet were numb, actually. I stood and brushed myself off. I had sand everywhere—in my pockets, down my pants, in my underwear, in the crack of my ass. I had probably been thrashing around in the sand something fierce. The sky was much darker; a rather ominous storm cloud was approaching over the Pacific. I put on my shoes and shirt and started walking back to the bike to get back to Arcata before I got soaked.

Manila can actually be a pretty foreboding beach to visit. As I left I had to jump a fence put up by the gun club that had a warehouse and targets nearby, and there were a few radio towers with warning signs and such that I hadn’t noticed on the way in. The Moonstone and Lieufenholtz beaches were both far more majestic, with their redwoods and tall, rugged sea stacks jutting out of the water, but there were always people on those beaches. When I went to Manila, I was greeted only by the dunes, and the occasional gun shot in the distance. The Conservation Corps also did a damn good job on the trail through the dunes to the beach—it wound down through the trees that had been contorted by the gentle but relentless ocean breeze, and then climbed a steep log staircase before coming out on the rolling hills of sand that bowed towards the water.

When I got to the staircase on my way out, I saw another person standing still down at the bottom of the stairs, and I jumped a bit, startled. He was a large man with a floppy brown knit cap on his head, and a long, gray beard. He wore a brown handkerchief around his neck, black rain boots, and a long grey wool jacket with holes in the sleeves, and he had his hands in his pockets. A lump formed in my throat. I lifted my hand in a friendly wave, and continued walking down the stairs, towards him. When we got close enough to hear each other, I said, “Hi, there.”

At first, the man did nothing but stare. I wondered if he wasn’t crazy. One too many hits of acid in his day. Then he frowned. A deep, dark frown that sent chills up my spine. And he said in a gravelly baritone: “A storm is coming.”

I smiled nervously and walked calmly by him, then sprinted out to the road and the bike and took off, out to Samoa Boulevard and back to Arcata, being chased by the rain the whole way.

When I got back to the apartment, I hopped off the bike and opened the front door, and I really just wanted to take a nap and try to sleep off the memory of that skeleton and the psychopath in the trees. But I pushed through that door with the front wheel of the bike, and I steered the bike into the kitchen past the refrigerator, and sitting right there in front of me on the goddamned couch was John. He was smoking a three-foot tall glass bong with Brie and Chloe, who had just got home from work.

“Dan Duffy!” he yelled.

“John?!” I looked at Chloe and she smiled, then kind of raised her eyebrows a bit and shrugged. “What the fuck are you doing here, buddy?” I asked.

“I’m the new guy on the couch!” John said. He laughed.

“Where the hell did that bong come from?” I asked.

Brie yelled, “IT’S A PARTY!” and got up to get herself a beer from the fridge.

John grabbed a djembe from next to the couch and pounded on it. “I brought a couple drums, too,” he said, standing and putting the djembe’s strap over his shoulder. “I’ve got this one, some bongos, and a talking drum. I thought we could find you a guitar and go play some songs out on the street. Try to make a little money.”

I smiled. “Maybe, man.”

About an hour later it seemed like the storm had completely missed us, so Chloe, John, and I had walked up Bayside to Union Street, north and uphill to 13th, then east and up a steep hill to the Redwood City Park, where a crowd was gathering in the huge, well-manicured grass square in the middle of a ring of redwoods. We initially avoided the crowd and cut off the road, onto the trails that wound through the ferns and the gigantic trees. Chloe had a bottle of water with her and a backpack full of beer, and John had his talking drum. I had nothing. We hiked way up into the hills of Arcata Community Forest, climbing up fallen logs as big as train cars, absorbing the scents of pine and wet earth. When we were up in the woods as far as any of us wanted to go, we sat on an old growth redwood stump that had to have been some twenty feet across and Chloe packed a bowl. She handed it to John, who smoked it and offered it to me, but I waved it off.

“What are you talking about, man? I just got here!”

And that was all it took. I smoked, then Chloe smoked, then she laughed a cute little laugh and took off downhill through the ferns, over fallen redwoods and down the massive hill back towards the city park.

John and Chloe bounded through the ferns ahead of me, down the steep incline. The towering redwoods dwarfed them, and they splashed through puddles of sunlight—the sun having reappeared momentarily through a break in the clouds—sunlight streaming down from infrequent breaks in the sea of pine needles that all of a sudden seemed to swarm like insects high above our heads. I got itchy. None of the pine needles were brushing my arms as we ran, but I started to feel them itch, nonetheless. The ferns also felt like they were prickling my skinny legs through my jeans. I eventually stopped running, and hung back behind John and Chloe and felt sick.

As we neared the bottom of the hill, I could hear drums—some low and rumbling, infrequent like thunder; others high-pitched and almost constant, like the onslaught of a machine gun. The sweet smell of marijuana blended with those pleasant, earthy scents of pine and soil. As clouds rolled in overhead, John—now only about twenty paces ahead of me—peered down through the pines and yelled, “We made it! We’re at the park!”

My stomach turned, and I scratched at my arms. Chloe fumbled around in her backpack, there was a clinking of glass, and as I caught up to her she handed me a beer.

“You alright, man?” John asked, cocking his head to look into my face.

I looked behind me, up the hill we had descended, up the towering tree trunks to the pine needles above, and beyond them to the sky that had once again turned grey and lifeless. Then I turned back and looked past John and Chloe, out to the wide-open, grassy clearing dotted with nappy headed men and women—all of them young and white, and wearing various shades of brown, green, grey. All flannel and denim and corduroy. Dogs chased each other in circles. Clouds of smoke hung in the air roughly ten feet above everyone’s heads. I was observing all that when John shoved a joint in my face. “Here you go,” he said, smiling. “Take the edge off.”

Chloe looked at me with a moderate look of concern on her face, then sucked down a bowl full of weed in one massive hit and slapped the ashes out on her leg. And all of this was happening under the relentless drone of those drums.

“Let’s go check it out,” Chloe said, inadvertently blowing her hit in my face.

I threw back half of my beer, shoved the bottle between my legs, and lit the joint. My heart pounded in my ears as I inhaled, and a rock formed in my gut. But a voice in my head—quiet at first, then slowly gaining volume—said, “Fuck it.” After a couple of minutes it was screaming, screaming to be heard over the drums as we walked out of the forest onto the grass and Chloe took her shoes off.

This was the city park in Arcata. A large, square field of green grass surrounded by hills of towering redwoods. There was a strange energy to it all, an uneasiness that I knew must come from something other than the drugs, the relentless drums, the evening fog settling in, making everything seem suffocated, claustrophobic, as if a tarp was being thrown over the town. Chloe had her shoes in her hand and was padding around in the thick wet grass as John handed her freshly packed bowl to a shirtless young man with patched corduroys and a feathered vest. The young man smiled and handed his drum to John—a small aluminum high-pitched thing that John stuck between his legs and attacked with a flurry of fingers.

I smoked my joint, put my hand to my heart, and counted my breaths. The eyes I was getting from the drum circle were too much for me, so I looked away, towards the redwoods, now draped in fog and shadow. It happened so suddenly. There were ghosts in that forest. I began walking towards them, away from the deafening machine gun fire of John’s fingers, away from the eyes. Then a young woman took my arm and did a little dance around me, her skin sliding over my arms, her hands moving up my rib cage as she slipped behind me, and then she was in front of me, her knotted hair smelling like burnt sandalwood, her smile open-mouthed, her yellowed teeth shimmering with spit and booze, her cheeks and nose red and shiny, her eyes bloodshot and blinking rapidly. Then she was gone as quick as she appeared, and I was seated on the grass, petting a wet dog, thinking of my family’s first dog—poor Aggie—Aggie who had run out onto the train tracks one evening chasing something—chasing what, we would never know—and had been destroyed by a west-bound Union Pacific that probably hadn’t stopped, but had barreled through the snowy Midwest, out into the Great Plains, up into the mountains, down into the hot, dry desert, and all the way out to the Pacific coast with a piece of my childhood splattered all over the front of it. That poor dog—small, part Labrador, part schnauzer, bearded, awkward and overfed, living a comfortable Midwestern life with all of its needs taken care of, but she still couldn’t resist the chase—still couldn’t resist taking that one shot at attaining the unattainable, and she had her spine shattered for it.

I pet the dog more and looked into his eyes, his tongue hanging out of the side of his open mouth. Then I looked out through the cloud of smoke encircling my head, out past the drum circle to the trees beyond, imagining that I could see right through the trees and out over the sleepy town, everyone working, sleeping, eating, fucking, all of them dogs. Dogs everyone. The joint gone, I looked around for something, anything to hold onto, and I was given a bottle. Several long pulls, and my control was gradually returning to me, starting in my legs and moving up into my spine. I found John in the sea of flannel and denim and corduroy, his whit face bobbing like a buoy on a sea of earthen foam, and I managed a smile. The sea shifted beneath us and the bottle returned to my lips as an ugly little leprechaun of a man scowled at me, then turned to the goblins on his left and said, “Who’s the new guy?”

#arcata #manilabeach #moonstonebeach #lieufenhotlzbeach #conservationcorps #soothsayer #dreams #nightmares #storms #reunions #friendship #weed #paranoia #redwoodcitypark #ghosts #dogs

0 notes

vi-sability · 7 years ago

Text

Against the Flow: Chapter 1

The residents of Redwood village scurried around their homes, banners and flags of various shades of green gently moving in the soft wind that filtered through the trees. The majority of people that lived in the small, but well-known village were the native elves, proud that one of their own had turned sixteen, ready to be shown their path in life.

The village stood next to a temple, for the Elves’ patron Goddess Aurora. When each Elf turned 16, they went through a ritual where she showed them what they were to become in life. Each race had their own God or Goddess, and their own temple in each region of the land.

The tavern was the centerpiece of the rural town, the only Dwarf for miles drinking everybody under the table as usual. As he did, the barmaids, between brining pints to their customers, were also hanging banners above the door and windows.

A few of the town’s children were running around, some getting under peoples feet, others making flower crowns together, or inventing a game where you throw a ball over the tallest tree branches that they could find. The village only held around one hundred people, despite being the most well-known in the Elves’ region of the land. The reason for that was the Redwood family, the people whom the village was named after. For over 5 generations, the large family of Elves were all Monks, the majority going into the sub-class of Martial Artists, the rest becoming Priests or Priestesses.

The Redwood family’s mansion stood at the edge of the town, the single floor house still barely able to hold the large family. In the Elves’ culture, all of the women in a family line shared a last name, whilst all of the males shared a different one. Because of this, the Redwood family was a matriarchy. The oldest member of the family was Ayra Redwood, still in her pride despite just passing sixty summers. She had birthed three boys and one girl in her lifetime, her sons spread out over the country with their own families. Her daughter, Renna, had three boys and two girls herself. The boys were Tarron, twenty-one, Ruvar, eighteen, and Fenian, eighteen. Her boys, and her nineteen year old daughter, Ayda, had all become monks.

“Renna, do you know where she is?” The last member of the house, Renna’s husband Akkor, was one of the country’s best rangers. Both he and Renna were thirty-one, refusing to let their wrinkles define how young they felt.

“Where who is?” Renna asked, turning from where she was drying a white robe.

“Teyame. You know, the most important person in the village today?” Their final child was sixteen year old Teyame. Like all the other members of her family, she had trained and dreamt of becoming a Monk since she could walk. Rekka chuckled and turned around to face her husband.

“You’re the ranger, why don’t you track her down?” Akkor puffed his cheek out, his pointed ears drooping slightly. The both of them “Is she in her room?”

“Already checked.”

“Then go look in the yard.” Renna and Akkor both had emerald green eyes, which was rare for Elves. Renna had passed her blonde hair onto four of her children, their youngest gaining Akkor’s black hair. The two of them had faint wrinkles across their faces, but it didn’t bother them. As Renna turned back to drying the white robe, Akkor kissed her on the cheek, and then moved through the house, heading for the large yard.

“One! Two!” Akkor chuckled before he opened the door. Four of his five children were stood in a line, facing away from him, all stood in powerful stances. In front of them, Renna’s mother, Arya, was leading them in different exercises. “One! Two!” All of them were throwing strong punches, not moving any muscles other than their arms.

“The training never stops, does it?” Two of them flinched in fear, relaxing and smiling as they turned around.

“Why would we stop training, Father?” Tarron asked, putting his fists together and bowing. “We all wish to be the strongest we can be.”

“The way that your twins slack, they have a long way to go.” Arya huffed, putting her hands on Ruvar and Fenian’s heads.

“That’s not our fault!” Fenian whined.

“We’re trying our best! We’re still young!” Ruvar said, stepping away.

“Try harder! Teyame is doing better than the both of you, and she hasn’t even become a Monk yet!” Akkor rolled his eyes.

“Speaking of Teyame, do any of you know where she is?” All five of them looked between each other. “Why does nobody know where she is?” Akkor sighed, rubbing his face with both hands. “Her meeting with the Goddess will be happening soon!”

“Think about this, Akkor.” Arya walked forward and patted his shoulder. “Where would your daughter go at a time like this?”

“Where would Teyame be when she’s coming of age?” His other daughter, Ayda, turned and walked into the tree line behind the house unnoticed. “I imagined that she would be either training with you or sitting with her mother.” He rubbed the thick stubble on his chin. “Teyame has been waiting for this day since she could walk.”

“Such a Ranger, he doesn’t know where one of his own children is.” Ayra turned her head to Tarron, making him laugh. Since Ayda had slipped away, she has walked through the path that had been trodden down by many pairs of feet before hers.

“Tey?” She called softly, wary of possible vicious animals. “I know you’re here somewhere.” Only a trained eye could see the glimpse of black hair that vanished behind one of the larger trees. Ayda smiled and started walking silently towards it, careful to not stand on any of the potential crunchy leaves that littered the forest floor. “Teyame, I know that you’re here.” A few more careful steps and the Monk looked around the tree, smiling at the sight of her younger sister.

“Did Mother and father send you to find me?” Teyame asked, not looking up. The young elf was sat with her knees pulled to her chest, chin resting on them, and her arms covering the lower half of her face. Unlike her family, who all dressed in loose-fitting sleeveless robes to help with their training, the youngest Redwood wore human style clothes. Renna always picked at the hoodies, jean pants, and what they called ‘skate shoes’, but never stopped Teyame from wearing whatever she wanted.

“Father is looking for you, yes.” Ayda, sensing the worry in Teyame’s voice, sat down next to her sister. “What’s wrong?”

“Do you think that Goddess Aurora won’t approve of me?”

“What makes you think that?” Ayda laughed, rubbing her sister’s back. “Why would she disapprove of you?”

“Because I don’t dress like you all do.”

“She won’t dislike you because of what you wear.” Ayda pulled on the hood of Teyame’s jacket. “Clothes are meaningless when it comes to who you are.”

“Mother always picks at what I wear.” Teyame finally looked at her sister.

“Well, our Mother and our Goddess are not the same person, and you won’t be wearing that when you meet her.” Ayda smiled. “Speaking of which, that is going to be soon. We should head back home.” She stood up and offered her hand. With one final sigh, Teyame accepted, letting herself get pulled to her feet.

“I know what path will be chosen for me, but I’m still nervous.” The younger sibling admitted as they started to walk.

“Everybody was nervous when they went through their ceremonies.” Ayda said. “Fenian and Ruvar told me that the Goddess was amused when they both talked to her.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re twins. I don’t think that Aurora sees many Twins.” In the short walk back to their home, Ayda tried to make Teyame less nervous, which didn’t really work.

“There you are!” Renna jogged out of the house at their approach. She cupped Teyame’s face in her hands and kissed her forehead. “I was starting to get worried.”

“Is the ceremony starting soon?” Teyame asked.

“Of course! The sun is almost over the temple!” Renna didn’t notice the nervousness in Teyame’s voice. “You need to change into the robes!” As she was pulled away, Teyame sighed again, which worried Ayda.

For someone who has wanted this day to come for years, Tey doesn’t seem too happy. She thought, before deciding to find Akkor and tell him that her sister was home. Inside, Renna had taken Teyame to her room and helped her undress.

“I’m proud of you.” Renna smiled, unconsciously hugging the hoodie to her chest. “My youngest child is almost fully grown.” Another thing that bothered Renna was how Teyame decorated her room. Unlike her other children, she didn’t seem to be content with only one culture. Many traders passed through Redwood village, bringing items from other regions of the land. Teyame decorated her walls of known Monks of other parts of the world, the most common being what was known as a coloured bear called Kyung-Jae.

“Must I wear the robe?” Teyame grumbled, pulling it over her head when she removed all of her clothes other than her underwear.

“You must.” Renna tapped her nose. “It’s tradition.”

“It’s also uncomfortable.” Instead of answering, Teyame’s mother took her hand and pulled her out of the room. Outside, Akkor got up from the chair that he was sat on, pride filling his eyes.

“Are you ready?” he asked, cupping Teyame’s face the same way Renna did.

“I am.” Like all of her siblings before her, Teyame’s parents flanked her as they left the house, the teenager wondering where the rest of her family was. There wasn’t much time to dwell on it, though. Akkor opened the front door to their house, revealing all of the village’s residents, who cheered as soon as the three of them came into view. All Teyame wanted to do as run, which was impossible with both her parents by her sides.

I have a really bad feeling about this. Was the thought that crossed her mind as they moved forward, walking her through the crowd. Teyame was surprised by how much the town changed when a child was about to go through their audience with Goddess Aurora. Colourful banners hung between many of the trees and houses, a large number of tables were spread across the main square, where the stores, warehouse and Inn were circled around, and a large feat had been prepared by many of the townsfolk.

It showed favouritism, but every person living in the town, Elven or not, was always excited for a Redwood to go through their audience ceremony. The fact that Teyame was the last Redwood to go through it for the foreseeable future made them even more excited. Teyame was terrified. She had a gut feeling that something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t say anything. She knew that if she tried, her parents would brush her off and tell her that it was nothing. At the door of the temple, Aurora’s last priest stood, both hands on the cane in front of him.

“Teyame!” He barked, shocking the crowd. “Step forward!” Swallowing her nerves, the elf walked over to him and bowed at the base of the short staircase. “Are you prepared to meet with your Goddess?”

“I-I am.” The Priest struck his cane on the floor once, and Teyame pushed herself up, walking up the stairs. The crowd cheered again, making her flinch and almost lose her footing. The Priest caught her elbow and pulled her up next to him, giving her a rare smile. As they walked into the temple, the crowd’s cheers slowly started to quiet, until it was silenced completely, leaving the two Elves in silence, save for the Priest’s cane clicking on the floor.

“It gets quite lonely in this Temple. Maybe you can become a Priestess, Teyame.” She almost tripped over her own feet in surprise.

“That sounds… very creepy, if you don’t mind me saying.” He chuckled and patted her arm.

“My apologies, I did not intend that. I just won’t live for much longer, and this temple needs a keeper.” The temple walls were a pristine white, the pillars carved in the image of Aurora, and the floor tiled in a pattern of white and silver.

“You could always ask my brothers.” Teyame suggested. “Grandmother is always telling Ruvar and Fenian that they’re not good martial artists.”

“Becoming a priest is a personal choice, Teyame.” The two of them stopped in front of a large, knee-deep pool of water, dominated by what was known as a ‘fake sun’ on a pedestal, projecting a pillar of light through the hole in the tall ceiling. “But what the Goddess shows as your path is not your choice.” Placing his cane down, the Priest gripped Teyame’s elbow and led her into the warm water. “Remember, be respectful to Aurora.”

“Of course. I don’t want to be involved in an ‘accident’.” She said, with added air quotes. The Priest chuckled, and lifted Teyame’s chin, forcing her to look into the fake sun.

“Goddess! Please look upon this young Elf and show her your guidance!” She flinched again as the fake sun started to shimmer, and another beam of light projected off of it, enveloping Teyame. She panicked for a few seconds as her vision was clouded by darkness, only relaxing when it cleared, and she appeared to be standing among the clouds in the sky.

“My, my. Another Redwood.” Teyame turned around, her breath catching in her throat. “How many more of your family am I to see?”

“I-I’m currently the youngest, Goddess.” The way that Aurora chose how people saw her almost always took their breath away. She took on the form of a young adult, her long blonde hair falling both around her face and down her back, only separated by her pointed ears. Her vibrant blue eyes were gentle, accentuated by her soft smile.

“You don’t look like your siblings, do you?” Aurora placed a gentle hand on her cheek. “I have seen many members of your family, female or not.”

“I have high expectations placed on me.” Teyame chuckled nervously, scratching her dark hair. “My grandmother already tells me that I perform better than my twin brothers, and I’m not even a Monk yet.” Aurora smiled, closed her eyes, and then opened them with a confused look on her face.

“Well, it only takes one person to break tradition.” Teyame looked up at her, confusion on her face. “My child, you are not a Monk.” Emotions and confusion both ran through Teyame’s mind, and her knees buckled. “Alright, alright.” Aurora gripped her shoulders and helped her sit on the clouds. “Are you okay?”

“How-how am I not a Monk?” Teyame asked, her hands shaking. “I’m-I’m a Redwood!” The Goddess knelt in front of her and cupped her cheeks in an attempt to calm her down.

“I know the path laid out for you, Teyame. I cannot see you being a Monk.” Aurora helped her to her feet and smiled again. “I know what you are, and you are one of the few people that have ever been told this.” Teyame swallowed and nodded, waiting. “You are destined to be a Cleric.”

“A C-Cleric?” Teyame almost fainted, only kept conscious because she was not physically there. “You mean the people that get killed?”

“That is not something that I can control.”

“I know, Goddess. I just- I’m a Redwood!” Teyame stepped away, rubbing her face. “I’ve been waiting to become a full Monk for years!”

“Teyame, look at me.” Aurora walked over to her again, cupping her face and looking into her eyes. “Only special people have the path of the Cleric laid out before them. You are one of them.” The worry in Teyame’s eyes didn’t faze her. “You are a Cleric, but your destiny is yours and yours only. You choose your own path.” Aurora smiled and kissed her forehead.

Teyame gasped sharply and opened her eyes again. In a short panic, she looked around herself, relaxing when she recognized the Temple walls. Confusion crossed here mind when she didn’t see the Temple’s Priest sitting on the white marble stairs. She grimaced as she got up, as the crystal clear water had soaked most of her robes. Before stepping out of the pool, she wrung some of the water out before looking at her hands.

I don’t feel any different… Am I really a Cleric?

“Teyame!” She flinched and looked to her parents, who were running down the hall towards her. “You’re okay!” Her Mother pulled her into a tight hug, shortly followed by her father.

“Priest Arl told us that you were out of your body for quite a lot longer than others.” The Priest was struggling to catch up, his cane clicking on the marble. “Are you alright?” Akkor asked, lifting his daughter’s chin.

“What did the Goddess say?” Renna asked this time. Teyame paused, thinking about what happened.

“I’m…” She swallowed and smiled. “I’m a Monk.” Akkor laughed heartily and picked Teyame up into a hug, and Renna clapped a few times, waiting for her chance to hug their youngest child. Within minutes, she was pulled out of the temple, and into the village, where the residents started to celebrate and congratulate her. After around two hours, her guilt overtook her mind, and Teyame managed to sneak away from the celebrations.

Back in the Redwood’s mansion, she pulled the annoying robe off, draped it over a chair, and started walking towards her room for some more clothes. As Teyame fastened a pair of baggy jeans, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. For being 16 summers old, she was well-built in terms of musculature, thanks to the many training sessions she had gone through. Her skin was fair, and breasts as average as her height. Teyame’s eyes trailed to the scar on her stomach; an accident from training with multiple weapons a few weeks prior.

She raised her hands and held them over the scar, trying to focus her energy into it. It took a couple of attempts, and the third shocked her. Green energy covered her skin, and when she moved her hands away, the scar was completely gone. Teyame’s green eyes shimmered as she looked at her hands, the wonder quickly replaced by fury.

“I’m a Monk, damn it!” She yelled, dropping to her well-practiced defensive stance, her hands balled into fists next to her chest. “I’m a Redwood!” Teyame threw her first out, smashing the mirror. Her fury didn’t subside, and she stormed out of her room, crossing to the house’s bathroom. As she looked at her reflection again, and then at her bleeding hand, she sighed and turned the water on, winching as it washed over her new wounds.

I’m not who I thought… Was what crossed her mind. Then, she noticed her dad’s electric razor on the side of the sink. Teyame didn’t give it a second thought. She picked it up, turned it on, and started to run it over her head.

“What is that?” Tarron, the oldest child, asked as he walked into the house. “Teyame?” He ran a hair through the messy crop of blonde hair on his head, following the sound until he opened the bathroom door and cursed in surprise. “Tey, what are you doing?!” She almost dropped the razor as she turned around, shock across her face.

“I, uh, just wanted a new look?” Brother and sister stared at each other for a few beats of silence. Tarron sighed to break the silence and took the razor from her hand.

“You’ve made a mess of your hair.” He sighed. Teyame’s smile went unnoticed as he continued to shave her head, half of it landing on the floor before he turned it off. “Now you look like a vagrant.” Tarron chuckled as his sister checked herself out in the mirror.

“Good.” The side of Teyame’s head started to itch like crazy, much to her brother’s amusement. More thoughts crossed her mind, most of them wondering about what would happen to her if people knew about her new powers.

“Come on, we should get back to the celebrations.” Tarron pulled her out of the bathroom. “But before we leave, you should put on a shirt.”

“Probably.” He half-followed Teyame to her room, before clapping his hands together, making her flinch.

“That reminds me! I have something for you!” Teyame’s curiosity was not as strong-willed as other people’s, so she just shrugged, walking into her room, and pulled a hoodie over her head. “I knew you never liked being the shortest,” Tarron started as he walked into her room. “So I made these for you when you became a full Monk.” He handed her a box and pulled the lid off. Inside was a pair of wooden sandals, with two blocks attached to the sole.

“Geta sandals, Tarron?” He smiled as she took them of the box and inspected the finish. “They’re impressive, but did you have to make them out of red wood?” He chuckled.

“It’s in your name, Tey.” She smiled along and placed them on the floor, accepting his hand as she stepped into them and tested the fit.

“Thank you, Tarron.”

“Come on, we better get back outside.” He took Teyame’s hand and started to lead her –carefully- outside.

“Goodness, Teyame!” Akkor jogged over to them and ran a hand over the shaved side of her head. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I just… didn’t feel like I used to.” She forced a smile. “Anyway, it’s just hair.”

“That’s true, but…” before he could finish speaking, Renna walked over, and Tarron took that as his cue to leave.

“You’re always the rebel, Teyame.” She smiled. “I see that Tarron gave you his gift.” Akkor was still trying to find his words, rubbing his hands over his stubbly chin and through his wild mane of black hair. “Come on.” Renna took both of their hands and led them back to the celebrations, and sat Teyame at the head of the family table.

“What was wrong with the robe?” Arya, the matriarch Redwood asked, after deciding to ignore her new haircut.

“I hate wearing skirts.” Teyame replied, drinking some of her favourite juice.

“Rebel.” Ayda smiled. “What else are you going to do today, Tey?” She rolled the question over in her mind. What else could she do that would show people that she isn’t the person that she used to be? One thing crossed her mind. Something that she’s always wanted to do. Something that will hide the fact that she’s lying about being a Monk from her family. Something rebellious.

“Well, there’s one thing I’ve been planning. Her parents, four siblings, and grandmother looked at her grinning face. “I want to travel the land.” The table burst into volume, every member of her family either asking questions or protesting Teyame’s words. At the other end of the table, Ayra slammed her hands into the wood, silencing them all and standing up.

“All of you, let me speak.” Folding her hands behind her back, Arya started to walk around the table whilst speaking. “I can hear you all protesting, but this family has always has strong-willed children.” She stopped next to Teyame. “If you refrain a child from doing something, they will just go behind your back and do it anyway.”

“But mother, she’s only sixteen.” Renna shrank away at Arya’s glare.

“I have led all training exercises for these children.” She placed a hand on Teyame’s shoulder. “Your youngest is more than capable of undergoing such a journey. The most we can do is support her wishes.” Everybody knew that there was no way to go against the head of the family. Teyame, however, was beaming.

Patreon I Ko-fi

#Writing #Against the Flow #I am so happy that I got this chapter done #fantasy

9 notes · View notes