| General Fiction posted June 25, 2017 |
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potlatch prose
Wonders in the grass
by LIJ Red
The throaty laugh of the Witch of the South rang louder and louder as Perra shrank and shot into the sky. The witch's dark eyes, beautiful when calm and amiable, glittered like ebon portholes of Tartarus as she laughed and slammed the hatch of her magic chariot.
Help me, godslapper, Longinus of the Temple Guard, catch me, save me, Perra tried to scream as she shot through the light of the full moon, her weightless limbs pinwheeling as she entered the vacuum of space. Then the galaxies were in great bubbles around her, and black holes with gaudy flaring accretion funnels and disks were eating them.
The Witch of the south had called her name, and extended her arm with snap, and from her fingertips the magic crystals engulfed Perra like sparks from a grinding wheel a parsec in diameter.
The flashing of the crystals stopped and Perra fell through endless icy night.
The sun, a yellow speck, grew into a disk and ducked behind a dark planet as she hurtled near a black ball that blossomed into a great silver moon as she passed it.
The air screamed in her ears, louder and faster until her face and ears burned with the rush of it. Then soft green branches whipped her body as it tumbled through them to strike the fragrant dirt with a jolting thump.
"Longinus!" she screamed, but the sound seemed tiny and lost in the tangled canopy of green that had covered the moon and stars.
Where was her companion, that aging stout warrior, that fearless old man who backhanded the very deities?
Something moved under her feet, under the coarse black soil itself. As her eyes grew accustomed to the faint light, she saw the horror. It was long, and serpentine, with a pale belt and ridges around its ruddy body. It moved by thrusting its tip through the crust of the earth, then sucking its bulk into that tip. It was as large as her slender thigh. It had no limbs, head or eyes that she could make out.
It ignored her and moved away. Perra ran, jumping over the green trunks of huge plants, ducking under the broadsword blades like those of grass.
There was a explosion of movement.
The crawling creature was under attack. An elephantine beast, with hair like ropes of gray moss, had siezed it in long, pointed jaws lined with yellow fangs. There was no blood, just brown ooze, as the hideous beast, its eyes black shiny balls set in its triangular head, tore the long creature apart and ate it before her eyes.
Perra wanted to run, but where should she go? The jungle seemed dark, endless and impenetrable.
Where was Longinus?
Her head swam, and she felt faint.
Fall down here and you're dead meat, she thought, but the darkness closed slowy, inexorably in.
Tommi Sansen opened her eyes. She was in a hard bed, wearing a gown that was wrinkled and wadded. One arm was entangled and restrained, and IV needles hurt when she tried to move it. She was hooked to a Emergency Room monitor system.
"All right," a pleasant deep voice said. "Guess who's back in the real world."
"Nathan!" she exclaimed, extending her free arm to hug the county sheriff. "What the blue blazes?"
"You and Deputy Death pulled over a couple of young Guatemalans in a Civic. The cute little girl driver called you a bitch and threw a baggie of uncut cocaine in your face. Enough got in your nose to send you to lala land for hours, and scare the hockey out of your boss man."
"Did I fall face down in the grass?"
"Kerflap. The senorita popped it in gear, and as they left, Death put twelve forty caliber slugs in the trunk, tires and gas tank, and the gals' butts. They are recovering in the room next door, under guard. You are going to have to tell me about your trip. You babbled away for a while. Sounded like a doozy."
The throaty laugh of the Witch of the South rang louder and louder as Perra shrank and shot into the sky. The witch's dark eyes, beautiful when calm and amiable, glittered like ebon portholes of Tartarus as she laughed and slammed the hatch of her magic chariot.
Help me, godslapper, Longinus of the Temple Guard, catch me, save me, Perra tried to scream as she shot through the light of the full moon, her weightless limbs pinwheeling as she entered the vacuum of space. Then the galaxies were in great bubbles around her, and black holes with gaudy flaring accretion funnels and disks were eating them.
The Witch of the south had called her name, and extended her arm with snap, and from her fingertips the magic crystals engulfed Perra like sparks from a grinding wheel a parsec in diameter.
The flashing of the crystals stopped and Perra fell through endless icy night.
The sun, a yellow speck, grew into a disk and ducked behind a dark planet as she hurtled near a black ball that blossomed into a great silver moon as she passed it.
The air screamed in her ears, louder and faster until her face and ears burned with the rush of it. Then soft green branches whipped her body as it tumbled through them to strike the fragrant dirt with a jolting thump.
"Longinus!" she screamed, but the sound seemed tiny and lost in the tangled canopy of green that had covered the moon and stars.
Where was her companion, that aging stout warrior, that fearless old man who backhanded the very deities?
Something moved under her feet, under the coarse black soil itself. As her eyes grew accustomed to the faint light, she saw the horror. It was long, and serpentine, with a pale belt and ridges around its ruddy body. It moved by thrusting its tip through the crust of the earth, then sucking its bulk into that tip. It was as large as her slender thigh. It had no limbs, head or eyes that she could make out.
It ignored her and moved away. Perra ran, jumping over the green trunks of huge plants, ducking under the broadsword blades like those of grass.
There was a explosion of movement.
The crawling creature was under attack. An elephantine beast, with hair like ropes of gray moss, had siezed it in long, pointed jaws lined with yellow fangs. There was no blood, just brown ooze, as the hideous beast, its eyes black shiny balls set in its triangular head, tore the long creature apart and ate it before her eyes.
Perra wanted to run, but where should she go? The jungle seemed dark, endless and impenetrable.
Where was Longinus?
Her head swam, and she felt faint.
Fall down here and you're dead meat, she thought, but the darkness closed slowy, inexorably in.
Tommi Sansen opened her eyes. She was in a hard bed, wearing a gown that was wrinkled and wadded. One arm was entangled and restrained, and IV needles hurt when she tried to move it. She was hooked to a Emergency Room monitor system.
"All right," a pleasant deep voice said. "Guess who's back in the real world."
"Nathan!" she exclaimed, extending her free arm to hug the county sheriff. "What the blue blazes?"
"You and Deputy Death pulled over a couple of young Guatemalans in a Civic. The cute little girl driver called you a bitch and threw a baggie of uncut cocaine in your face. Enough got in your nose to send you to lala land for hours, and scare the hockey out of your boss man."
"Did I fall face down in the grass?"
"Kerflap. The senorita popped it in gear, and as they left, Death put twelve forty caliber slugs in the trunk, tires and gas tank, and the gals' butts. They are recovering in the room next door, under guard. You are going to have to tell me about your trip. You babbled away for a while. Sounded like a doozy."
Help me, godslapper, Longinus of the Temple Guard, catch me, save me, Perra tried to scream as she shot through the light of the full moon, her weightless limbs pinwheeling as she entered the vacuum of space. Then the galaxies were in great bubbles around her, and black holes with gaudy flaring accretion funnels and disks were eating them.
The Witch of the south had called her name, and extended her arm with snap, and from her fingertips the magic crystals engulfed Perra like sparks from a grinding wheel a parsec in diameter.
The flashing of the crystals stopped and Perra fell through endless icy night.
The sun, a yellow speck, grew into a disk and ducked behind a dark planet as she hurtled near a black ball that blossomed into a great silver moon as she passed it.
The air screamed in her ears, louder and faster until her face and ears burned with the rush of it. Then soft green branches whipped her body as it tumbled through them to strike the fragrant dirt with a jolting thump.
"Longinus!" she screamed, but the sound seemed tiny and lost in the tangled canopy of green that had covered the moon and stars.
Where was her companion, that aging stout warrior, that fearless old man who backhanded the very deities?
Something moved under her feet, under the coarse black soil itself. As her eyes grew accustomed to the faint light, she saw the horror. It was long, and serpentine, with a pale belt and ridges around its ruddy body. It moved by thrusting its tip through the crust of the earth, then sucking its bulk into that tip. It was as large as her slender thigh. It had no limbs, head or eyes that she could make out.
It ignored her and moved away. Perra ran, jumping over the green trunks of huge plants, ducking under the broadsword blades like those of grass.
There was a explosion of movement.
The crawling creature was under attack. An elephantine beast, with hair like ropes of gray moss, had siezed it in long, pointed jaws lined with yellow fangs. There was no blood, just brown ooze, as the hideous beast, its eyes black shiny balls set in its triangular head, tore the long creature apart and ate it before her eyes.
Perra wanted to run, but where should she go? The jungle seemed dark, endless and impenetrable.
Where was Longinus?
Her head swam, and she felt faint.
Fall down here and you're dead meat, she thought, but the darkness closed slowy, inexorably in.
Tommi Sansen opened her eyes. She was in a hard bed, wearing a gown that was wrinkled and wadded. One arm was entangled and restrained, and IV needles hurt when she tried to move it. She was hooked to a Emergency Room monitor system.
"All right," a pleasant deep voice said. "Guess who's back in the real world."
"Nathan!" she exclaimed, extending her free arm to hug the county sheriff. "What the blue blazes?"
"You and Deputy Death pulled over a couple of young Guatemalans in a Civic. The cute little girl driver called you a bitch and threw a baggie of uncut cocaine in your face. Enough got in your nose to send you to lala land for hours, and scare the hockey out of your boss man."
"Did I fall face down in the grass?"
"Kerflap. The senorita popped it in gear, and as they left, Death put twelve forty caliber slugs in the trunk, tires and gas tank, and the gals' butts. They are recovering in the room next door, under guard. You are going to have to tell me about your trip. You babbled away for a while. Sounded like a doozy."
A shrew, about an inch long, eats its weight in worms and bugs every day.
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