#alterego

A speck winding between trees. She was small, and comfortable. The ground hummed slightly, vibrating with a keen energy that threatened to overwhelm the forest. All was smooth and safe until she felt it. The slight buzz that crept along the callouses of her feet. She felt it and she opened her arms to the sky and she whispered “come and get me” and the quiet words had more power than any of her screams ever had, because they buzzed like the ground below her. The air around her mouth squirmed and rippled and it all began.

They found a pocket of kind darkness on the side of the road and hammered in their flag. Rediscovery deserves documentation. For an hour, everything was new. He sat with his nose pressed against the window, she widened her eyes. Plasticity was charming, danger was gorgeous. Her hand rested upon the door handle, tranquil until he turned. Once again, his eyes filled her with such energy that she fumbled at the handle and flew out the door. He followed.

A boy sat huddled in the sky and whispered secrets that gave color to colorless things. He wove his life with moonlight and began to climb down the shifting web. Every day when the sun rose he spread out across the sky to keep from falling. The breath of billions held him.

It’s a long process, coming down from the sky.

A thousand years later he reached the earth. When he did, things were so different that he stayed in corners and listened to other people’s secrets. And when the sun set he wove them with moonlight so the secrets wouldn’t have to be alone.

She was pushing around a wheelbarrow when the fire started. The handle caught flame and tickled her fingertips, leaving a trail of smoke under the moonlight. A coyote prowled behind her. Her hair became red and her teeth leapt from her mouth like sparks when she finally laughed.

When she did, the sun rose, and the sun was her. Her laughter blew along the tumbleweed and certain overlarge hats.

When the end of the day placed her back home, she noticed a different way that certain people looked at her. A laughing, dancing, sparking way.

And that was how she knew that everyone will spend a day as the sun before they die.

They sat and picked thorns off a cactus. They whittled away at its edges with small knives. They held it up to the sun and whispered a few songs.

Some chickens eyed them suspiciously, but the people passed them by, forgetting to look. That made them smile.

Somewhere the wind started to blow.

It was windy.  The girl clutched her woolen sweater, pulling it tight against her skin to keep the icy cold out. She circled the hole again and again, moving slowly. There was nothing on the bottom yet, just a shimmering montage of images she could only see when she stopped and sat and dangled her feet off the edge. There were people watching, and there was someone across the circle, always on the other side now. She could not remember, but maybe they used to circle the hole together. Maybe she didn’t used to circle the hole. Maybe she used to be in the hole, or watching with the others. No matter, her bare feet pulled her with even steps and an even pace around again and again. The wind rose and she breathed it in deeply. It swirled around her, faster and faster. She felt her thickly gloved hands move away from her sweater, almost voluntarily. The wind found its way around her body. It lifted her by the arms and she looked up to see the other who was circling across from her. They would always walk separately, bound to the same fate without ever touching. She closed her eyes and with all of her strength pushed on the ground with her numb feet. The push was not much, but the wind picked her up gently and she felt herself twirl around and around. Slowly, the ground gave way beneath her as the hole grew. The other was now sitting, his feet dangling off the edge. He was watching. The wind enveloped her now, like a thick blanket of snow, and she was scared. She did not want to go. She wanted to go back to the ground and sit with her feet dangling off the edge and stare into this boy’s eyes. But she had already let go. As she drifted downwards, she felt a tear fall upon her face, and she dropped one in turn. Looking down into the blackness, she watched the tears fall and the montage of images brighten, and she smiled tentatively.

“You are a story”

“Thank you”

“Just doing my job”

“Thank you, really”

So the storyteller sighed, content, and went off to tell more stories

A wolf with a stone in a city wrapped with Christmas lights, fur concealed by a light mist, prowls the streets in search of the moon. Finds a pretty golden thing.

Shiny, sweet, soft

Sinks her teeth into his neck and he laughs. He strokes her back and she curls up. They catch the moon and hide it behind their closed eyes.

Es from Alter Ego redrawn!

Balter festival Chepstow ready