Weekday Entertainments

In The Forest

The forest was always silent when the sun was up, but it sparked to life when sunset came. That's when the owls would awaken and being their work, flapping the drowsiness out of their stale sleepy wings, opening their round eyes and waiting for their signal to begin the nightly march. When from afar, a horn bellowed and echoed through the leaves, rattling the branches and shaking awake any creature still hidden in the comfort of their daze, their ears perked and their tails wagged, and their eyes all met before hurrying in the direction of the continuing sound. Like a blaring morning alarm, it would not stop until the animals reached their destination, the owls took a special course.

Swooping to the ground, their claws dug into the laced train of the dress the girl wore. Standing at the center of a ginormous leaf pad, dressed in royal gowns, draped over her skin as if it had been laid by the delicate fingers of a fairy, and by fact it had, she had been dressed by fairies. That's what she called the little hummingbirds with puffed out chests and melodious chirps that sang to her while dressing her, and setting the floral crown atop her head, and weaving the vines and petals through the braids and tangles of her tumbling hair. The girl raised her hands into the air, and as if on cue, butterflies speed at her gracefully and planted their feet on her skin, while bears crawled on all fours toward her, inching closer and closer, their fur rippling under the cast of the still lowering sun and the growing moon in purplish hues of red. Streaking across the sky, and flashing against everything below, making the girl glow where she stood, where the bears lifted her leaf pad and placed her carefully on their backs. The owls flapped behind the bears as they carried the girl away, the train of her dress, seemingly miles long hooked in their claws. She stood without concern or worry, the defiance in her stance made all the creatures stare as she paroled through the night forest.

She was their queen, their one and only, the only force to be reckoned with in the forest, and through the night she roamed through the trees, her feet barely grazing the ground after the bears had done their part, the villagers seemed to hear a ghost, a spirit wandering the night. And when morning came, her feet carried her to a great tree, deep in the heart of the forest, in the midst of a natural moat, between a bed of flowers and past the den of the bears who guarded her in the day. With each step she took, through the flowers, through the water, through the grass, the hummingbirds did their work in reverse. They picked off the fabric from her body, and untied the knots and braids in her hair, letting the flowers tangle freely in her hair. Her figure folded into the visible roots of the tree, her hair blending with the glass and the flowers earthing themselves, rooting and sprouting anew. Her skin paled and shifted, hardening like the trunk of the tree, and she laid in silence till the sun began to hide, and she began again.