Mother Nature

Winter’s ghostly footsteps echo in this hollow house. Manifesting in sodden sheets, deserted of frost. As the moonlight spilt in through the windows, the dust coating the banister glittered. My feet padded down the stairs. The wood was cold and gnarled to the touch. I wished to soak myself in the moonlight, to bathe in its majesty. I reached the front door and pressed my head against the cool windowpane. Upon exhaling, my breath painted the glass in steamed condensation. Outside, the evening looked foreign. Branches carved through the night, adorned with shadows, cloaking them as threatening misers. The thick black velvet swam in and out of their outstretched hands, dipping between boned fingertips. I gazed longingly beyond the glass. Aching to be part of the scene before me. A chill climbed the base of my spine. My skin prickled in the wake of the icy air that danced around me. Bleeding through the battered wooden slates the door consisted of.

My hand reached out in front of me, finding the familiar shape of the doorknob. The metal cool and smooth in the palm of my hand. I could feel my grip tighten and the knob beginning to turn in spite of my reservations. A gust of wind threw the door into me. I stumbled backwards, clutching my hands to my forehead and reeling in shock. Winter’s lucid dancers circled me, ducking and diving through my clothes. I felt exposed. Naked to the elements. I straightened myself up, my eyes falling into the vortex ahead. It seemed endless.

The darkness went on forever and ever. No stars studded the sky. A cascading blanket of blackness enveloped all in its wake, only parting for the moon. I began slowly edging towards the twisted trees. The wind howled in desperate cries of agony, tearing itself apart as it crashed into the unwavering branches. Gingerly, I began descending the two stairs separating my bare feet from the jewelled grass. The cold wetness saturated my toes. I persevered onwards. Wading my way into the night. The branches loomed above me as I got closer. Those withered fingers arcing over me, tearing through the darkness.

My eyes dropped only for a second before a claw hooked the neck of my dress, ripping through the fabric, and dragging my feet from the earth. I found myself suspended in the air, thrashing my legs in futile resistance. My dress cut into my throat. Panicked gasps for air erupted from within me. My hands desperately pleaded with my collar, trying to prise it away from my neck. I heard the fabric of my dress begin to give way, the threads being prised apart.

Though I know I must only have dangled there, helpless, for a few seconds. The time that elapsed seemed to move unnaturally slow. My agonised bleats sliced into the night. The sound of my oesophagus being crushed ruptured through my ears.

Before I had time to register any kind of thought process, I felt the grass crush into my knees. A harsh thud transcended through my body as I hit the floor. I collapsed. Falling onto my side in a foetal-like position. The bejewelled grass from before now cradled my face and inched its watery clutches across my cheeks. Blood flooded my ears. Exterior sounds becoming desolate in comparison. Contrapuntal compositions trickling further and further away from me. Flimsy blades of grass scrawled the whites of my eyes. I clenched my eyes shut. Wrinkling my face. In feeble defiance, I brought my hands to my head.

Then it came, perforating my disillusioned cocoon.

“Scccc”.

Violent hissing cracked me open. Shards of sound struck me like daggers. Percussive echoes came crashing like waves, rolling over each other.

“Cccc” the sound persisted. Creaking. Rusted vocal chords too tightly strung. Crackling in the air.

“Cccreature” it hissed. The word finally clawed its way out. Crunching in the air.

I turned to lie on my back and searched for the owner of this haggard voice. Pushing my palms into the ground, I rose. My dress ripped beyond repair, it blew behind me, parting like curtains. My pale flesh glowed in the darkness of the night. White-bellied skin, so delicate, exposed. Stumbling in confusion, I crept towards the trunk that towered over me. My right hand outstretched. My eyes failing to adjust to the deep black that seemed to saturate all that dared exist in this night-time world.

Then. I halted. Frozen in fear.

Great wooden arms began reaching for me. Each stretch, cracking and groaning. The bark at first resembled some kind of crest. Slowly rearranging itself before me. Decoding its own puzzle pieces until the parts laid in place, becoming what I could only describe as some kind of face. The contorted face of a dilapidated host. Barren of life. A tortured soul immortalised in periderm. The shell of a being.

“Hello?” I whispered. Unable to quite believe the sound had indeed left my own mouth.

“Cccreature” it moaned back to me.

Before I had time to reason, I found my fingertips tracing the deep grooves in the creature. The lightest of touches, just skimming the harsh gnarled wood. Instinct snatched my hand away. A warm wetness began to run down my hand, down to my wrist and dripping down to the earth. The dark robbing me of sight, I held my hand before my face unable to discern where this liquid was coming from. My hand only inches from my face but still barely visible. With that, my finger began to throb. My heart beating in the pad of my index. I felt my hand fall to my side, suddenly becoming too heavy to hold. I felt my body drooping. Limp.

The ground softened. Melting around my feet. I felt myself sinking. The grass warping below me. Slowly. Welcoming me. Swallowing me. I looked down and saw the earth at my ankles. Absorbing me to become part of it all. The once solid flooring now moulded like clay. Collapsing beneath my weight.

I sank further and further until only my neck protruded. I took one last look at the sky. The stars emerged to bid me farewell. Twinkling eyelets seeping light from another world. They danced above me until they blurred. Streaks of white smeared my vision as the darkness edged into view. I refused to close my eyes. I wanted this painting to be my final sight. I studied it in an attempt to download it into my memory in its entirety. The earth pulled me under, and my world turned black. My edges melted away, my outline fusing with the earth until I had no end and no beginning. There was no longer a ‘me’, only one beating, breathing organism. I felt every movement and growth as though they were my own. I suppose they were now. I felt myself sway with the wind. I felt my roots reaching outwards in a desperate search for moisture. I felt the river’s current tearing through me. Creating jagged seams where its relentless erosion had managed to rip into me. My cliffs crumble and fall into the ocean. My trees, hacked and slaughtered before they could climb closer to the light.