A Conversation

“I remember you, Dyon, when you were nothin’ more than a lovesick little boy. Oh, look bored and exasperated all you please, but—you had a soul then, and you weren’t afraid of happiness—weren’t afraid to fight to be happy, with everything you had, against everything you-”

“Calla.” He’s rolling his eyes, his voice thick and heavy, dripping with spoiled honey-like impatience. “Is there a point to this? I’m busy, you know, a busy man with no time to walk down memory lane.”

“I’m busy too, damn busy taking care of Ashley. Protectin’ against your nonsense. ‘Cause I think you do have a soul, still, and you’re just too angry or sad or scared or bitter to believe it. Takes determination to last as long as we have, come back life after life… who you coming back for, huh?

“Not yourself. Not Scallion. Sure as hell not me.”

As usual in Red Calla’s fiery, engaging presence, Dyon keeps silent—the only way to keep ahold of his carefully constructed self.

“I’d bet half my hair and a redred flower the both of us come back for the same person. Huh. At least I know it, ain’t foolin’ myself with this reason or that.”

New Souls

The roots, thicker and more twisted than any serpent, squirmed and curled from the tree, divided the Garden of New Souls into nearly equal parts. Two flowers nestled at the Y where two of the three diverged—one down, to the land of the Half-Dead, and one the wiser still follow to a land of goat’s milk and almost finished walls—and though this in itself was not unusual, crowded as the Garden was with flowers, each of the thousands perfectly different, the tree took notice. And unfortunately for the fresh-blossoming flowers, so did the moth.

It had been been meandering, an all-too-comfortable smirk spread across its minuscule face, when it spied a target. In the few sunbeams who managed to pierce the canopy like elf-shot arrows, flowers glinted and fluttered, glittered like falling butterfly wings, and one grew so close to the root it looked connected. A long stem shot up, bent under unseen breezes but somehow still supporting symmetrical spatters of leaves and a tiny flower, puffed silver and lavender.

The gypsy moth grinned and zoomed in to inspect the fragile thing with every-angle eyes, but when it was only a few inches away, a puff of warm air burst up, sending it tumbling. The air carried with it a new scent, a heady smell more invigorating than wine, more exhilarating than new love, a gift that ghosted over the moth’s wings and surrounded it in a cloud.

Even through faceted, red-tinted eyes, the moth could see the sproutling plant curled around its former target. A nest of oval leaves shimmered—green through one lens, blue through another—below scattered clusters of bright flowerbuds just beginning to open. One shone, at the base of the taller plant, yellow with flecks of red, like the sun had planted it herself.

A careful observer could have heard the moth’s tinny laughter as he swooped, lazily, closer and closer, but even the three gray women were distracted arguing over the fates of newly-made gods. And so the bug flew on, rubbing prickly feet together and landing where the pale roots emerged from the ground to soak up the sunlight and open more yellow flowers. Like seeds, the dark eggs were thrust deep into the rootstalk, too small to be noticed for many lifetimes.

Only the tree would be unsurprised, uncounted years later, long after the flowers had bloomed fully and floated off to other planes, returning time after time to compost and rejoin the world, when those eggs hatched. Slick with evil, the crawling caterpillars slunk down veins and up capillaries, taking sharp turns to fingers and brain, licking and tasting and demolishing what they could.

First Sight

My bad on skipping last week… I started one segment five different times before I just ripped my face off instead. And tonight, I’ve found a place to live. I also back-posted some filler poetry for last week.

~

Sunlight floated green on the air, drifting like snow flakes. I could smell the fresh spring—new flowers and sprouting antlers and spilled blood, because baby birds have to eat—and followed my nose downstream.

My foot steps wound through spindly trees, branches brushing my cheeks like a lover’s eyelash and pushing me towards the little stream. Bright, reflective water burbled and glinted under the sun, ribboning through the moss-strewn forest with the sharp dexterity of a knife. Multi-layered melody burst from my throat like a flock of birds, but I did not sing; the song came from me like spider silk, drew me along like Minotaur yarn.

The stream doubled back like thread through the needle’s Eye, curving around a pale ash tree that stretched too tall towards the sky. You sat at the base, one leg extended, toes slipping away with pebbles and dirt. Water splashed against your waist, elbows, legs tangled with current-sanded roots, drifting and mixing like paint. I looked at you, pale lips and unguarded eyes, saw the hair dripping down your cocked, quizzical head, and my thoughts bubbled clear like the deepest icy spring buried beneath the broadest shade tree.

Soft, reedy whistling spun away from you in drifting scraps, caught on the breeze like the scent of warm pie.

I watched you—lips undulating in unthinking music, twiggy fingers wound through dandelion stems, palms yellow and cheerful with pollen. Your eyes were far away, downstream, until a thin, brittle branch cracked beneath my bare toes.

Your eyes found mine like sunflowers chasing the sun, but they were pale moon shadows. Glimmer-gray with shifting faces, shining with a light I’d never known, they snapped to mine. Things swam as my nerves ripped free of my surroundings, and I felt bones shatter between my sure fingers.

Memories flooded me, coated my veins in changing tattoos. Not memories I could recall in my own life, but they were mine, without a question, pouring over the gates to remind me. Red blossomed into my vision, shutting out the warm day like falling curtains, thunking to cover a scene gone wrong .  And the thunk alerted me that something had gone wrong, that the warm green day was being covered with tattered pasts…

Blinking hard, fighting my own unknown memories, I stepped forward and reached out my hand. I grinned even as I felt the memory’s urging at the back of my head, tugging at my willpower, my friendly face, like serrations clawing through a thick rope, fraying threads pulling loose one by one.

I grinned, my friendliest grin, and reached out my hand. “Hello,” I said, impeccably. “I’m Dyon,” I murmured in the subdued language of those who live and breathe the woods.

You grasped my hand with fingers that felt like they might break apart, melt like a spun fragments of sugar in the rain, and your pale lips curved nearly into confusion.

In struggle,

Bargain Puppy

The Playground II

“So, all this…” Matty gestures expansively, vaguely, around his spot on the slide. “You just chasin’ tail, or what?”

“Can I assume that by ‘this,’ you refer to the gathering, all of us making our way here (seemingly of our own accord), here of all fucking places! To the absolute boonies, where our diminutive little Ashley has been tucked away for so long, hiding and waiting in turns—and now it’s as if some swirling vortex beckons us closer with soft words and garish lips?” Dyon’s eyes sparkle unreadably, though he may be amused at the surprise and dawning derision on Matty’s face.

“You are exactly the type of right bastard to destroy the known universe for a quick lay, aren’t you?”

“Well, whether I am or not—which, of course, I am—that hardly matters now. Because this is much more than that, dear Matty, much more.” Saying this, he wears a somberly sinister face, voice deep and slow with hidden meaning. But the mask buckles, his mouth spreads wide in a chuckling grin. “Are you trying to look glad or reproachful? You know you’re incapable of those. And obviously,” he rolls his eyes, “obviously, I’m only joking.” He wanders off a few steps, towards the all-purpose sports field, empty save for a cartwheeling redhead. He murmurs under his breath as if talking to himself before calling over his shoulder, “Just checkin’ up on friends, man, just checkin’ up on friends.”

Matty frowns and shakes his head. “I feel like I need one of those little kids’ spy decoders around you. I never know when you’re outright bullshitting or when the world’s lies are your truth,” he comments, taking uncertain steps after Dyon.

“Silly Matty. Do you think I could tell the difference, much less tell you? I have no plans and no foresight, and am seldom on speaking terms with reality.”

From the top of the swing set, Cardea’s voice calls out, neatly preventing a response from Matty. “I’ve been thinking, and it may be it wasn’t Calla that woke Ashley up. I think she’s just here to catch the fall out.”

Dyon walks over to the swings in a slow but determined beeline and stands on the swing directly beneath Cardea. “Yeah, Card? And who do you think woke little Ashley up?”

“I think it was you. Ashley had everything closed and quiet and sealed, until the first night you came back. You could have known what would happen, but you did it anyway, with that accordion, and everything came spilling out.”

Matty folds at the base of the swings, glances between the two backlit by the setting sun and whispers to himself, “I keep thinking that if I just spend enough time around him, it’ll all start making sense someday. But… no. No, not at all.”

“Interesting hypothesis.” Dyon squints up at the balancing boy, now walking improbably along the top rail. “But where does it come from?”

“We can’t go pouring our whole self into something, into someone, and then have that snatched away and be just fine. You know that. And especially if we go back home, back to our haven and base and it’s gone…”

“Is there a thought you’d like to finish up there?”

Pursing his lips, Cardea gazes down, examining Dyon’s frankly questioning face. “I’m not here to get myself involved.” He rocks back and forth in the wind whipping through the tree tops.

“Too late for that. Might as well give up.”

All three turn their heads as a deep bark melts into a resounding howl. A dog, like pale butter, trots out from the thickening shadows rimming the field; a whoop shatters the tense fog hanging between the men on the swings. Dea’s teeth shine in a freckled smile as he clambers and slides to the ground. Words float back behind him to the remaining two—one bemused, one perplexed—on the playground: “Lovely seeing you boys, gotta go!”

The dog runs now, too, muscles bunching under red-dusted fur, runs alongside Dea until, as one, they turn, lunge, wrestle. Scallion flashes a white-blaze stomach, growling and rolling gleefully in the ankle-high grass.

Matty stands, casting a long, twiggy shadow across the ground. “Feel like filling me in?”

“Not a chance,” Dyon laughs, hopping down beside his grim companion.

In struggle,

Bargain Puppy