Salis

Salis continued on her southward course, dodging thistle and briar, cobweb and lowing-hanging limb, but eventually found herself precisely where she had intended to be: lost. It was one of those sorts of arguments of which you can never afterwards remember the cause that had sparked her juvenile fury and burned a path through the woods. She had sharply pronounced her intention of running away, and, in step with her under-breath cadence and the slam of the screendoor, marched headlong into those solemn deciduous boughs with every intention of getting lost — of making them sorry.

But now this spiteful victor was losing her resolution. She was lost. They weren't lost. She knew where they were. But she had no bearing on her own relation to them. So it wasn't long — no, far less than long — before Salis gave up her frantic attempts at discovering some landmark or memorable trail and sat herself upon a fallen ash and wept.

After no more than the customary time of sobs and whimpers had past, she looked around to associate herself more closely with her situation: she was truly without even intuition to guide her home.

There is a childish innocence that brings not exactly courage, but suspension of fear. Courage knows what it faces, fears it, and triumphs over the fear. Innocence stands before certain peril and does not know what it faces, so cannot fear when fear would do it good. Innocence is composed of many good things, but it does have its troubles.

Now, there is an animal fear that instinctually reacts to a plain and immediate threat, like a growl or bared teeth, or to the absence of something to which it is used, like a mother or light — when I say fear, I don't mean that. There is a higher fear and it is more able — this is the kind I mean and it cannot be the property of innocence.

Young Salis had been trying to grow out of her innocence for some time (though she did not know it), and so she feared. This fear might have given way to courage, but as she looked around through ebbing crests of tears, the fear she ought to have felt much longer, and rightly so, unnaturally withdrew and vanished. Whatever chance at courage she might have had receded along with the fear, and she stood in an artifical and ignorant innocence quite below her years, with no care for the future.

Knowing neither how to be brave, nor how not to be, Salis swiftly forgot her present jeopardy and occupied herself with admiration for the tiny multitude of variegated forest flowers around her feet. This flower of lavender hue and crimson veins; that flower of brilliant red, seared on the edges by yellow; another in seeming indecision between orange and mauve — not two were alike in kind or color, excepting the pure white prospers, demure among the rest but gifted with the most extravagant and pleasing forms.

One bud alone, no bigger than a thumbnail and cast in sunny gold, drew her fancy from the jolly forum — it being set a little way off from the others like a naughty child or a sacred station. Being that much more beautiful to her — I can't say if it would have been quite so attractive to other little girls — she stepped carelessly forward to more closely appreciate its lines; and, with her third step, Salis' attention caught on a very unexpected sound from underfoot: a hollow wooden clump!

end of the world

I lifted my parcel to the top of my shoulders, grunting as the weight shifted and I nearly toppled over. The person in line behind me coughed as if to warn me against clumsiness; it would throw off the entire assembly’s production for the day.

“Sorry, Smith,” I murmured under my breath, digging my feet into the earth beneath me to steady myself.

“Stop talking. You know it’s not allowed on the line,” he grunted from behind. His breath was hot on my back; he was practically on top of me. I marched in silence, legs burning, arms numb, thinking only of the possibility that I was the slowest one in the line, my weak legs causing the line to lose precious daylight.

We reached the base of the mound. I shrugged my shoulders and used my forearms to nudge the parcel to the ground in front of me, panting to catch my breath. The bigger men filed in behind me, nudging me to get out of their way. One of them grabbed my parcel and pinched it with his teeth, clawing his way backwards up the enormous hill, stacked sky-high with rations, to drop off my hard day's work and tout it as his own.

"Hey! That's mine!" I shouted to him as he scurried away. He didn't answer, knocking over packages and stumbling past the others as he escaped.

I noticed a parcel sitting on the ground at my feet, untouched, and nearly identical to the one I'd lost a few moments ago. I looked to my left, to my right, and stealthily kicked it to the other side of the hill away from the main entrance. When no one noticed the kick, I steadied my nerves and picked it up. I strapped it to my back and crept up the stairs to the entrance of the depository. This poor fool. Now I'll get my rations after all.

I'd almost reached the depository via my detour when I noticed a dark shadow pour over the hill. I looked up to find the source of the shadow with my eyes but I couldn't see anything - it was as if the sun was being blocked by something huge, something dark and sinister. I heard rumbling, and then I felt the ground below me erupt with the stampeding sound of hundreds of factory workers, screaming and running from the entrance to the depository. Arms outstretched, looks of sheer panic on their faces, they sprinted towards me with no regard to their parcels or mine.

"Smith, run, get out of here! It's going to kill us!" screamed a familiar voice, rushing past me before I could see who it was.

"What's going to kill us?" I yelled, starting to panic.

"It burns! It burns so badly!" Someone was whimpering as they limped from the doors and down the hill. I didn't recognize his face because it was soaked in a brown, slimy liquid. It looked like his mouth was melting. "Acid, it's acid!" he moaned, grasping at his face as he pushed me aside, running into the endless grassy field at the base of the hill. I was still standing near the entrance as more and more people poured out, screaming in terror as I stood, awestruck.

Suddenly I saw it. The brown liquid was bubbling up from the entryway, spewing from the mouth of a red cylinder that was held, floating mid-air by the massive shadow. The stream gurgled and erupted as the acid exploded from the doors, washing away the wirey bodies of my former coworkers, forming volcanic streams of murky runoff down the hill. It washed away the ground beneath our feet, our hill, our depository, our rations, our livelihood. It disintigrated lives.

I stood without moving, clutching the unsteady ground below me as I watched the liquid wash over my feet, up to my abdomen, pulling loose the grains of dirt that were piled so meticulously to build our home. I closed my eyes and tried not to feel the bubbles swell over my head, fizzing and popping as I lost my breath, body swept to the bottom of the hill among countless others, hearing echoes of laughter from the great mass hovering over our colony.

"You stupid bugs, why would you build a house out of dirt?" he cackled as my vision faded for the last time.

Free-Write from the Chow Bar

the card we drew said "the Hollow Sound"... This is what came of it:

Via Patrick.

And mine:

more farming memories (probably because i am aching to go outside and enjoy the weather)

The Bull

Brett put on his boots to drive the four-wheeler;
I put my retainer in my pocket.
My cousins were still cleaning the sheep shearing,
chasing tufts of wool lilting on the breeze,
settling on the surface of the cow pond.
When he started the engine, my heart jumped - 
Clutched the vinyl seat with my fingernails,
all the while hollering with Brett at the men
in the mud, rakes in hand, toiling while we rode.

Soon we were on the dark side of the hill,
couldn't see the sun past shadows of grass,
and there was The Bull -
grazing, staring, tail whisking flies with fury.
and then The Engine Died -
coughing, sputtering its last dying breath
spitting just enough exhaust to catch His eye;
We froze in our seats, reluctant to breathe
or talk. He snorted fire. He blinked slowly.
We jumped at the same time when he charged us,
leaping into certain manure (or mud),
scrambling like june-bugs flying to the porchlight.
His horns ripped through aluminum siding,
splintering the ATV down the hill.
We saw it land in the ditch, glancing back
as we sprinted, screaming, with arms flailing.

Progress

He did not know how to love well,
      but he loved as well as he knew.
And now not one can love so well,
      Than he who did what he knew.

And plodding on to do, not think,
      he learned a good deal more
Than he who plopping down to think
      forgot to do any more.

I'd only one thing have you learn:
      to do what you know to do.
Oh, my friend! the things you'd learn
      if you'd do what you know to do!