01-16-2019, 09:37 AM
no matter what they say, I am still the king
Interesting, isn’t it? How running from something can be so easily hidden as ‘hunting for something’. They’re very similar, don’t you think? WHen you run from something, you’re going towards something new- hunting for something new, perhaps. Are you hunting for peace, or are you running from the placating boredom you have always known?
You are so lost in your thoughts, a squall of emotions inside your head, a determination detonating inside your mind -- You are not so young! You are not so naive! The world is not so treacherous! You can move freely without trepidation! The long grasses of Loess, the bubbling of the river fighting hardening ice, the crisp cracking of snow, the scratching of tree limb on tree - the world is not so scary!
Except the world melts with the sun.
There are snakes in the grass, fractals of freezing ice waiting for you to crash through, snow banks daring you to drift too far close, branches bare of bark beckoning you further and further into dark forests. The world melts into a different monster when the sun sways lower and lower. Your bravery could be mistaken for brashness. Your lackadaisical approach to new lands can turn into a loss of your way. Perhaps you are younger than you thought, with your foolishness for traversing so far from home.
Is this the peace you were looking for? That sunset- so soft on the horizon, those chirping birds- caressing you with a goodnight song, the soft snow - sinking you deeper into the woods. Peace can so quickly turn to peril, when you least expect it. The melting wax of the night mixes into these small gifts of peace; and no longer are they quite so gentle. Instead, they will come careening down on your calm little world; your mission to hunt down peace will end with the night hunting down you.
He watches. He surveys your serpentine body from the recesses of the forest.Your scales catching the last of the light flickering in the forest, an S.O.S blinking in the dark. Is He hunting? No - perhaps not yet. He is just watching for now. Watching you swallow down the unnerving thought swirling inside you saying that yes, perhaps you are lost. Perhaps that target of peace you so readily stalked has escaped into the dusk. He can feel your beating pulse, quickening in the thick of the night. Your chest constricting like a snack around its prey, tightening with the knowledge that yes, you have lost.
He moves. Silencing his steps on the crust of snow, he moves closer through the forest, as silent as a snake in the long grasses of Loess (remember that place? Where you were so close to home?). He emerges from the copse of trees, stepping towards your ever-diminising space of peace; uncloaking his dark body, moving through the jail-cell tree trunks with unnerving quiet. “It’s awfully dark out for someone as small as you to be here alone. There could be dangerous things out here.”
Lost, an adjective, denoting something that has been taken away or cannot be recovered. Yes, you are lost, my scarlet scaled girl, you have stepped into the night, into the maw of a magician; and what you will lose here cannot be recovered.
∞
and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in