The forest floor is littered with hundreds of these bright, unreal looking Fly Agaric. It's really beautiful - like some fucked up fairy tea-party. I kick one over, pick it up and sniff it speculatively.
"Put that down" he says, frowning.
"Shouldn't we like - eat some?" I'm saying. I'm trying to sound seductive and enticing. My nose is running - a lot. I wipe it on my glove.
"No, we shouldn't" he says.
(There are no rabbits to dance for here, the hunters shot them all)
I follow him up the bank. My legs are getting fucked up - the brambles are tearing at them through my trousers and the trees keep pushing me over. I'm still holding the mushroom. When we get to the top I stand really close to him. Too close.
"We could just nibble the edge, it probably wouldn't have any effect?"
He's sighing now, says: "Just put it down".
Walks briskly there, towards the sun, maybe the car.
I watch his back until the trees close in, lick the surface of the mushroom tentatively - once, twice, three times. It tastes of something old - forests, ancestors, decay - something.
(Hush)
The sound of my breath - through my mouth and a sharp crack of gunfire.
I run unsteady in the direction of his disappearance, clutching where the wire wrapped tight three times around my waist cuts into my flesh a little with each movement.
Shit, what just happened? Gunfire in the woods...could mean a lot of things but somehow brings spilt brains to my mind. Not a good idea to go mushroom hunting with wire wrapped around one's waist...
ReplyDeleteSo fucking glad i find u here, writing again!
more?
L.
just the hunters L. when you have to go walking in the woods because there isn't anything else to do. it's only that
ReplyDeletethey were hunting the wild boar
thanks
I only didn't say anything here, cuz the fly agaric story reminded me too much of... something... amına kodum... I once had a Sami shaman (shaman-in-training to be precise) help me meet my spirit guides (want to guess the animal?) and she gave me "essence of fly agaric" (I only know the Finnish term, Muskimoli, used in some medicine against insomnia), and anyway... I didn't know what to say to your story but answer with one of my own and that seemed idiotic. So I said nothing.
ReplyDeleteI liked the wire bit, even though I didn't quite know how to place it. Maybe that's why. Sounded more like self-harm than from some practical reason. It's stort of stuck in the organic body of the rest of the story like, well, a piece of wire stuck in flesh, lol...
but I like it - you know, a story for a story?
ReplyDeleteone day yr gonna out yrself as a 19th c. explorer, surely.
fox, fox! I guess FOX :) mine's a crow apparently.
mm self harm, but un-dramatic & boredom induced.
Oh, the Sami are still alive and well in the 21st century. They are a proud but also a practical people, and the few weeks I spent amongst them were the most peaceful and in some ways the happiest, well, if I say of my life, it will sound pathetic, won't it? So, um, maybe they were just the easiest. Lol. Anyway, Nike was a most modern shaman. She also studied Psychology at the University of Romsa (what the Norwegians call Tromsø).
ReplyDeleteI like crows. A lot. And isn't self-harm always boredom induced? Seriously. I read that boredom happens when we are kept from something we desire so profoundly that we lose sight of what we want. (Being kept from what you want, apprently it's frustration.) Self-harm is another expression of something breaking out that has been locked up in speechlessness. Hence - all self-harm is boredom induced.
ReplyDeleteQED
^_^
don't know - it's more prosaic, or something.when people make you stay in the middle of nowhere wth nothing to take ... pain is - you know - preoccupying? interesting. the fly agaric would've added another layer. i guess he was right that the vomiting and unconsciousness would've made for bad guest etiquette?
ReplyDeletehave you read Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus? i think my favourite fictional shaman is there
Re: Angela Carter - nope, but I'll try to get it. Sounds interesting.
ReplyDelete