Ring of Mushrooms

1

It was the cracking of fire that drew you back into the present. The cold hands of reality gripped your throat from behind, digging its chewed and jagged nails into your windpipe. As the radiated warmth of the fire smooshed against your cheeks and made your tears feel cold, you didn't know what to do. Nothing could have prepared for whispers and giggles of the group of friends that you shared your stories with to be turned against you. No one could guess when a knife would be pressed into their back by someone who loved them. Yet here you were, watching as you got humiliated.
He was kind of like the town's father in a sense. He ran the place, assisted with things that you were never told about, yet you heard the praises passed around like wildfire. The man had been swept up by the town, praised and listened to as his wisdom had assisted the town long before you were born. Even though he was famous across the town as the closest thing to a governing body, you didn't know him. No one did you supposed. He was too busy for a family, now too old to have kids. The winkles were set in on his face, his eyes sunken slightly in. You weren't one for gossip, you thought the drama was funny and interesting, but it felt off somehow, you liked the absurdity it just felt like a twisted tale. You should have seen it coming honestly, it was like that in every story you had written, and everyone you had read; the lead was roped into a drama that they weren't meant to be involved in, or perhaps they had been dragged down by someone, who was jealous of their beauty; it didn't matter how it mattered that it happened.
"Do you understand what you've done?" the man's hair was flour white, you wondered if it could blend into a winter's snow. "Well? Answer me!" he screamed at you slamming his hands into the wood of a table.
You weren't quite sure what to say, you hadn't been listening ever since you were summoned. You were shocked to see everyone from your latest storytelling session sitting silently by the wall. Some stood at strange angles so you couldn't fully see their faces. Others sat their noses pressed to their knees, heads hung low. All of them had one thing in common, other than the fact they were all there the other night, they all refused to meet your eyes. You had already known that you had done something that he had deemed wrong.
"I know of the stories." He said it as soon as you were in front of his desk.
The same desk was covered in papers and ink that had soaked into the wood in small black drops. Among these papers was a small journal, one that was yours. You thought that it was tucked safely away. You weren't foolish enough to have hidden it under your bed or your closet, you had a small part of the wall in your room that you could pull back. As far as you were aware you were the only person who knew of it.
"Why do you write such things? Do you know the shame that you have brought upon the town? On your family?"
You were tired of this. Your parents seemed so heartbroken. You knew that this man had so much power in this small town, yet you never knew just how great his grasp on the place was.
"My writing is a shame upon me, not my family," your word was diligently created. You had no respect for this man, he meant nothing to you, in his eyes you were nothing but a misbehaving dog, so to you, he was a whining one. "My work simply needs improvement, I shall write better in the future."
"Fool! You will do no such thing!" His voice was so loud, how could an old wrinkle-covered man be so loud? "Your waste of paper and ink is nothing! It is worth nothing! There is no need for practice, no room for improvement, nothing! You will stop now, you should have stopped long ago."
Did all old people have such boney fingers? You could see the joints so clearly. It was kind of concerning. Did he already have a foot in the grave?
"These stories are ludicrous! They're an abomination! They violate our values, they do not fit in our society!" He flipped through the pages stopping as his eyes found the one he wanted. "This one especially!" He turned the book towards you for a moment before he turned it back and opened his mouth. "Then with elegant steps, she lept, stumbling down the ledge and into the hands of the arms of the man who still hid his scarred face. He was no monster, not like mother had said." he read the lines and you waited for him to shut up.
It wasn't even that good of a story. You had much better ones that broke many more rules of the village, many more that you dared not to put on paper.
"I think," he began, "That you need a reality check." His hands gripped the papers of the story had just shared with the room. With a sharp pull, the papers ripped from each other. The binding frayed and stretched. It pulled apart from itself and the handful of papers was tossing into the golden flame behind him. "You will not write anymore."
The leather journal followed suit. You dashed for the fire as flames ate away at the small book and you pulled it out stomping out the flames as fast as you could manage.
"Tomorrow," he said as you grasped the journal, holding it close to your chest, "Tomorrow we will decide your punishment."
You had already made up your mind, tonight you would leave.