New Material: Bayou Story

Rough draft work for what I'm calling my "Bayou Story," which is about a teen who, on vacation to visit her grandmother in Texas, makes a startling realization about her lineage thanks to her new friendship with a mysterious older woman. However, there might be more to her family history than reality allows, and her recurring dreams (like the one below) intensify the longer she stays here. Enjoy!

~~~

I’m not walking. I’m floating.

However, I feel a sense of connection with the earth and its lush undergrowth. It is dusk, the time when birds recede and crickets take over, one type of chirping replaced with another. I can hear their harmonies, a symphony of high and low notes, and they lull me.

I am in multiple places at once.

One part of me stays behind and examines multiple leaves from the same plant, heavy with moisture, to feel which ones are most supple and full of nutrients. Another part casts about eyes sharper than a human’s with a gaze quicker than a snake, in search of bones left behind by decomposition or something similar. And the other part keeps ahead, nearing the bend in the river and watching for predators or humans.

I only forage tonight, for pieces necessary later, but this is often my favorite time. It is when I am alone—well, not truly alone, but surrounded by thousands of night creatures who watch me and question what it is I do and who I am. I tell them that I bring no hostility, that I am a being who means them no harm, one who seeks parts of the natural world to bring into the human world for my rituals. I take what they leave behind. I ask also that they return the favor and don’t harm me. We seem to live in a comfortable agreement.

My weathered, sun-darkened hands place the leaves in my bag that’s already filled with other bits of this sodden bayou; I gently press them down onto the moss, bark, and hard red berries that crowd the space. I stand, feeling at once a command of the space as well as a humbling inferiority: much of my living comes from the power of this bayou.

My second self, the one looking for bones, finds none but takes a couple of feathers on its way back. And my third self, confident in its knowledge that there are no people or gators nearby, turns back. Under a now-indigo sky and with a wind that disturbs no part of the environment, my selves gather back into one.

~~~