Simple Stories
Published by Papaveria Press in 2002, Simple Stories is a collection of microtales rooted in the fabulous. Imagining the symbiotic nature of the relationship between the cycles and events of women's lives and certain flora and fauna known for their transformative properties, these tiny tales blur the boundary between plant and human life. A woman's existence is often one of pain and danger, and it is to the meadows she has historically looked for healing and restoration. These stories explore the idea that what is in the meadow may also be looking for her. This version has been edited for the web.
SIMPLE STORIES
On a grassy hilltop, the sisters stretched toward the sky. One by one their petals opened and their leaves unfolded into the morning light. The sun shone down upon them as they grew, strengthening their stems until they were able to uproot themselves and walk away from the meadow of their birth. They stood, wrapping their leaves about them and folding their petals over their skulls, shaping themselves as they went, each down the hill in a different direction, responding to calls that only they could hear. It was time, you see, for them to fulfill their purpose.
Artemia walked through tall grasses that whispered in her ear as she passed between their stems. All that was visible of her were her golden curls dipping up and down as she chased the insects that crawled between her toes. Specks of grassy dust floated in the air above her as she made her way cannily to the field's edge. Great furrows of earth made by mighty beasts and their men spread out before her widening eyes and beyond that, a cabin had tucked itself into an outcast thicket of slender trees. Artemia crossed the trodden earth and walked over to the cabin's single window for, being a curious flower, she had the urge to peek inside.
There, on a pallet of leaves and straw, lay a young woman. She twisted and groaned as she was held open by two other, older woman. They dug greedily at her loins, as though to pry their own youth from between her legs. The window was sealed and smoke from the hearth clouded the room. Artemia crept through a slit in the wooden door and entered the cabin, where she carefully opened the window and moved slyly between the two women to hold the girl's head in her leaves. Their vision blurred and they sat unmoving, barely aware of the pale skin of Artemia as her scent wafted into their nostrils.
Gently Artemia stroked the girl's temples and gently she stroked the girl's womb, and as the air cleared the young mother's flesh went numb and she sighed. Leaning into her when she tightened and easing her back when she became loose, Artemia and the girl developed a rhythm of waxing and waning moons and tides flowing in and out, until the last wave broke and a watery babe rushed into waiting hands. The girl sighed again, wearily, but her eyes glowed with joy when the babe, swaddled and bloody, was placed into her arms. The women sat and shook their heads, clearing their noses of the last of the odd perfume. Artemia crept back through the door and planted herself into the dirt beneath the window, and turned her face to the sun.
Somnia walked slowly, blowing in the breeze that followed her down the hillside as she turned her head from side to side, taking in her surroundings. The meadow was wide and flowers grew prettily between rocks, and their stems seemed to wave as she passed by. The sun above blazed a trail of sparkling mica and Somnia followed the glittering bits of stone until she came to a formation of large rock at the edge of the field. She stopped as from behind it she heard a soft whimpering. She stepped carefully around it to see what she would find.
There, huddled in a crevice, was a young girl who sat on the rough stone clutching her middle, rocking back and forth as if wounded, a basket of herbs overturned at her side. Somnia caught the scent of warm blood on the air and sat down on the ground nearby. She began to sing in a quiet, lilting voice of falling leaves and seeds blown on the wind. The girl, lulled by the sound, looked out from behind her tears at the figure that rested beside her. Somnia sang on. She sang of winter snows and the fresh shoots of spring, of the warm sun and budding leaves, and as she sang the girl廣 tears stopped and her eyelids drooped. Her hands fell from their grip on her stomach as her pain slid from her body and soaked into the earth below her, and finally she rested upon the warm rocks.
On Somnia sang, of warm rains and flowers growing where blood had fallen to the ground until the girl slept and dreamed herself to be a flower, growing strong and tall and one day planting seeds of her own. Somnia saw the lines in her face fade away and let the last words of her song drift off into the air. Easing herself between the rocks, she dug her feet into the good earth beneath them, and there she waited for the girl to wake.
Millea took the quickest way into the wood at the edge of the meadow, turning her head upon its stem to gaze into the moss-green depths of the shadows among the trees. The size and shape of the leaves that had drifted to the ground enchanted her. Nettles bowed out of her way. The day was warm and she had no cares and when squirrels tumbled in the roots and limbs, Millea laughed at them. On she went, through hedge and vine, until she came upon a wide path in the wood. This she followed, around curves and over fallen trunks, until the way grew wider and the ground more firmly packed. The road met another and Millea turned, called on by the waving branches above her head.
It was not long before she encountered a strange and huddled creature by the side of the road, ragged and bruised and tired. The creature did not stir as she approached and so Millea, wondering, sat down beside it. Hours passed and still the creature did not move—though Millea supposed it should—and so she tickled its leg with her many hands. The creature shifted and looked with a lifeless eye at Millea from behind a snarl of hair. It was a woman's eye, and Millea saw that its edges were dark and that the matter crept downward, soaked into and dried on the woman廣 robes. Millea saw that the woman could not move. Her arm dangling uselessly on the ground, her leg bent up and under her, the woman sat on the side of the road, helpless. As Millea edged closer to her, the woman only stared.
Millea reached out to her then with her thousand feathery hands, each caressing the woman until she felt as though a thousand fuzzy caterpillars crawled over her flesh, into her flesh. Millea wrapped her roots about the woman and sunk them into the moist earth beneath her, and then folded her arms around the woman廣 waist. Each of her thousand hands slipped into the pores of the woman廣 skin until she grew her own hands and her roots settled into the ground. The woman, face to face with Millea, could no longer tell where her own body ended and the earth began and she was happy to be so held. Surrounded in safety, growing greener and stronger, there by the side of the road with Millea entwined within her, the woman raised her head and laughed.
Bella was a tall girl whose long strides took her quickly down the hillside. Light dappled her skin with purple hues as she moved. The grasses bent before her and she inspected every thing, living and dead, that crossed her path. Soon she came to the deep wood and entered, wondering what she would find beneath the trees. Things grew there that did not grow in the bright sun of her meadow; mosses covered roots and vines encircled the limbs that swayed in recognition of one living thing to another as she passed below them. The sound of trickling water drew her onward until she found herself at a small pool where there sat a creature like her, but not like her, sitting at its bank.
He looked up and saw her body standing before him and a terrible smile crossed his face. Jumping up, he threw her to the ground and knelt upon her, holding her down with his knees while his hands worked the ties of his trousers. Undone, he spiked her down on the good smelling earth, while she lay still and watched him do his work. He pushed and pulled and grimaced mightily, so very pleased with his catch. His skin caught fire and he felt a boiling inside him and his grin widened, for he knew release was near. The boiling grew, however, and did not bring him to the sweet relief he craved, but instead increased in fierceness with every thrust. His head began to pound and his vision blurred. Onward he pressed, sure of the outcome, but as he looked down upon the body beneath him his heart began to beat so quickly he could not catch his breath. His pupils slowly widened, covering the blue of his eyes with the black of night. Finally, when there was no color left in them at all, he could see.
Below him was a girl unlike any he had ever known, and a great fear overcame him as he saw, clearly, that her skin was not the color of his own and her limbs were naught but leaves. He tried to heave himself away; he writhed and jumped but no amount of effort freed him from his sight until, with one last push, he rolled himself from atop her body. He lay on the ground amidst the ants and the mosses, staring at Bella until his life poured into the earth. Bella sent her roots into the dirt in that very place, taking her nutrients from the mulch beside her, and watched as the sun began to set.
Alchemilla, smallest of the sisters, tumbled down the hillside with the exuberance of youth, her yellowing fronds bobbing as she went. There was so much to explore, she did not know which way to go and felt, in her joy, that all ways were equally good and so she let the grasses be her guide. Whichever way they lay, she followed. Her feet took her here and there as the wind blew. Being a tiny creature, Alchemilla's steps were not so wide, and the sun had crossed the sky by the time the breezes carried her into the forest where all was still and the grasses ended, leaving her by the trunks of tall trees with no sure path ahead. Far above, Alchemilla saw branches spreading out to form a web of green against the sky. The earth at her feet was covered with leaves.
Nothing bent in any particular direction and Alchemilla hesitated there at the forest廣 edge as the sky deepened to rose and the shadows stretched out beside her. It was then that she heard, in the distance, a soft, sweet warbling in the stillness of the drowsing wood. Alchemilla was drawn to find its source. On she traveled as twilight crept in about her, until at last she came to a cottage in the wood. It was from inside the cottage the singing rose, softer now that night was falling, and Alchemilla was lured to the sound. About the dwelling grew wild hedges, and flowers, closed now for sleep, rested within the roots that spread their way over a stone step. Her legs were tired from her journey and she sat, ever so quietly, upon the mossy stone and let her limbs droop there by the light of the moon.
Behind the walls an ancient woman tended the hearth, her song now softer as she prepared for evening's rest. Her skin was wrinkled and her hair no more than silvery wisps upon her head. Her hands were the claws of a bird, yet her voice rang true in the deep wood. With the coals of her fire banked, she slipped into her bed as the last strand of her song drifted into the night. Alchemilla, weary from her travels, curled her body onto the stone and fell asleep as the woman said her evening prayer.
In the bright morning the old woman found Alchemilla, dewy and small and drooping, sleeping on her step. Alchemilla opened her green eyes and looked up into the crevices of the woman's face, looming closer as she stooped to gather Alchemilla into her arms. As she carried Alchemilla into her cottage, a new strength infused her body. The wrinkles that had lined her skin smoothed over her cheekbones to reveal the solid plateau of a younger woman's face. Her crooked limbs straightened and the gray in her hair slowly faded into the crimson of her youth. She placed Alchemilla on the sill, potted in a bit of crockery that had survived the ages with her, where the sun shone brightly upon her broad leaves. Alchemilla nestled into the dirt and stood upright again as the woman began to sing a new song.
