On Walking Into Trees

 Once upon a time, but not very long ago, but also in a place that wasn't this place, a woman walked into a tree. The tree wasn't anything special. At least, not in this place. And the walking into it wasn't anything malevolent. 

    But things escalated quickly. 

    You know how things go. Particularly in a place that isn't this place.

    They go something like: woman walks into tree. Tree puts up defense mechanism that is something like a turtle without a shell suddenly getting one, but it's spiky all over. Spiky shell on tree sticks woman good and hard. Woman gets angry and lights tree on fire.

    It was a sad state of affairs. Indeed, the tree went up in flames like a grease fire made out of a liter of goose fat.

    And in no time at all, the tree was gone.

    The woman looked at the char on the ground and had feelings. They weren't good feelings. In fact, she felt quite a number of not good feelings. 

    So she stepped into a time machine. And went backwards.

    (Now might be a good time to remember that the walking-into-a-tree place is not this place. And that this is a fairy tale)

     This time, the woman watched out for the tree. And then she asked the tree some questions. As it happened, they got on quite well. Which all goes to show that you can torch a tree too soon.

Popular posts from this blog

The Library at the Edge of the Universe

 There was, of course, a library at the edge of the universe. It was built to fit the space. That space, for the moment, was infinite. But it was the kind of infinite that was smaller than other kinds of infinite — both space and libraries are funny that way.     This library had an agenda. Most do. But this one's was more specific than most. It wanted to hold all the books in the universe, whether they liked it or not. And it got the books by poking and prodding the universe in all kinds of different ways, until it gave up the literary ghost. Well, all the literary ghosts.     So. There sat a library at the edge of space that housed all the books in the universe. It mostly sat, anyway. Sometimes it stood. Occasionally it stretched a bit. And on two occasions, yawns were recorded as galaxies doing a funny little seismic shift.     It might yawn again. In an eon or two.     Because it is waiting.     It's been waiting for an infinite amount of time. One of the smaller infinites
Read more

The Shadows

The light shown on Anya’s fingers. It curled around her palm and danced. This, she thought, was the sheer pleasure of having magic.       But in the midst of her play, a shadow grew.   It was not unexpected; it was the cost of doing magic, for it always begot shadows.   But it never ceased to offer discomfort.   If she could find a way to practice her craft and leave behind the adjacent darkness, she would.          Anya was not fond of the dark, or shadows, or of the sense of unease that grew whenever she let the flickering brightness dance.   But, too, there was a feeling of wholeness in her work.   How could that be, such fulfillment when darkness lay about her?   A constant wonder—the weight of it only born by extinguishing the light for a time until she could bear it again.       Today was such a time.          Anya took the light, and threw it at the darkness.   The next breath, and it was gone.   Elimination brought palpable relief, while at the same time she felt the loss of
Read more

As Usual

 Once upon a time, when the air was colder and the nights more dark, a fire gleamed in the distance.      It moved and crept and finally it swept, the whole world engulfed in it's flames.     When the flames died, all that remained was char. For a time.     Until the first shoot rose. The thought of fire died a death made only by forgetting.     And, as usual, the world went on.
Read more