DOUBLE ULTRA SUPER POST and next time I post will be when the story's over. I'm at 8181ish words now, still dunno if I'll actually make it to 10500. My plans for that sixth day of the week that is no longer a week, man. They basically don't exist. I've written through my plans for the 6th day so far, so I'm a little ahead but I still don't know if that's going to be enough.
Now the story continues to pretend it has a point.
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The woman who still could not remember her past name despite all she remembered of her past sat up from the mix of grass and dead leaves. She found it strange that the bird she met that day changed after attaining what she had since inherited from him; for she had not. Or had she? She had been thinking not terribly long ago that she could no longer understand the actions of lesser beings. She toyed a moment with the thought that the way she had changed and the way the butcher bird had might be related in some way. But even now, she could not understand the way the butcher bird thought. Her lack of understanding of normal birds, normal humans, and the long-dead butcher bird brought forth for her no connections and no significant thoughts.
She stood, and stretched a bit. She had laid there in thought for quite a while. She decided to pay the river another visit. When she arrived, she knelt down and put both of her hands into the water, bringing it up over her face to help her out of the daze she'd been in since the end of her last prey. She spotted a squirrel nibbling on something at the forest's edge and wondered if it, too, would have had such affection for death had it been the recipient of the witch's blessing.
She looked back at the forest across the river. In only a few hours, if the weather permitted it, it would look no different from her own forest, at least for a short while. Inevitably, though, they would desynchronize and she would again have that constant reminder that she was trapped -- the only thing about this blessing she disliked.
There was a sudden sound, and the woman turned to again look at the squirrel. It was no longer there, of course. The woman had never gotten used to the sudden, noisy flights through the forest that the rodents seemed so fond of. It always ruined her focus, and then she could no longer remember whatever it was she had been thinking about before their noise so rudely interrupted her thoughts. She decided she would return to the center of the forest, and perhaps try to nap for a while. As she reached the center of the forest, though, she saw a familiar figure awaiting her in the distance: the witch.
"What brings your ugly face back here so soon?" The woman called out to the witch as she drew closer.
The witch smiled, disturbing her heavily-wrinkled skin. "Now now, is that any way to speak to your benefactor?" She responded, her voice harsh.
The woman stopped walking closer when the witch's expression changed to one of surprise. A rare event. "What's wrong?" The woman asked the witch in the same condescending tone she had addressed her with previously.
The witch looked away, and ran a hand down the back of her head, over her gray hair. The woman enjoyed seeing the witch look older every time she visited. She disliked her ever since the day she met her, and would joyfully dance upon her grave should she ever get the chance. "What did you do? Did you absorb a tree's life force, or something?" The witch asked.
"What?" The woman couldn't tell if that question had been a joke or not.
The witch looked at her. "Well, if it wasn't a tree, what did you absorb?"
"Wait, trees can be absorbed?" The witch cackled at her question, and the woman felt deeply offended. The last thing she desired was more of this witch's mockery. "Well? I would like a real answer, please."
The witch answered once her laughter died down. "Well, they're living, aren't they? They grow just like everything else. Why wouldn't you be able to absorb them?"
The woman suddenly felt that she did not know anything at all, and that all her worries from before had been foolish. She knew well that trees lived for a very long time. In fact, she had never heard of a tree actually dying before. She would probably only need to absorb one tree to outlive anything else that ever set foot in the forest. And when her own body again began to show signs of old age, it would take just one tree to reset her to as she was now -- and perhaps it would bring her even further youth than that.
"So tell me why you're here, again? I don't really like the sight of your face, of something so close to its own death."
The witch laughed again, and the woman winced in response, wanting nothing more than to destroy her but knowing full well that this witch was the only living creature she was incapable of killing. "This forest and the rest of the world are going to be in synch soon. Doesn't that excite you at all?"
"No," the woman said, "nothing special ever happened all the other times. Why should I care now?"
"Perhaps it's just my love for patterns, but haven't you ever thought that it could be a sign for what's to come?"
"What do you mean? I have tried crossing your borders when the seasons and time appeared to match, if that's what you're talking about. Obviously, those attempts failed just like all the others."
"I told you long ago that attempting to escape is futile, didn't I?"
"Yes. So what is all this nonsense about a sign?"
The witch smiled; a knowing smile that hid so much from the rest of the world. It irritated the woman almost as much as her laugh did. "You probably wouldn't know this if you didn't even realize that trees are living beings, but the exact time this forest constantly experiences, twilight, has a meaning of its own. An end, and with it a new beginning."
"Nothing will end unless you yourself end it. You know that."
"This was an experiment that relied upon the very nature of food chains. You certainly sped up the process a great deal by eating the shrike that had come before you, but this doesn't end with you, you know."
The woman rolled her eyes. "And what do you expect would be capable of killing me, if not yourself? Of course, you're the scientist, so you can't interfere. I will live here, immortal, forever."
"You don't seem to realize just how much time has passed. Nature doesn't remain the same, oblivious to itself."
"Maybe on the outside. But here, nothing changes."
"You're quite the arrogant one, aren't you?" The witch smiled again.
The woman averted her eyes with disgust. "What do you expect could possibly kill me? I'm not like that pathetic bird. I'm not about to let myself die. Destructive weather cannot reach me here, and even if you were to send a lion in, it would have no chance against me."
"Perhaps," the witch said, nodding, "but have you ever considered other possibilities? For example, disease or some form of toxin?"
"If either of those things killed me, your experiment would still show me to be the end. A disease isn't considered living, right? So if I die to a disease, there is no inheritance of my power. Your experiment simply ends there. And if I were to die to some animal's venom, surely this would happen only after I myself killed whatever wretched thing happened to bite me."
"I suppose. That would be a rather droll result, but it is certainly a possibility."
"You mean it's the only possibility, and it's still never going to happen."
The witch looked at the woman, narrowing her eyes slightly. "Don't you want to be free again?" she asked.
"Sure. Nothing would make me happier than to be able to roam the world freely again."
The witch shook her head. "You will be free only on the day of your death."
"Then I suppose I will never be free. My days will continue like this forever, and eventually you will die. Both this forest and I will outlast you."
"And you are alright with that? I would think you'd welcome death."
The woman looked down at the witch condescendingly. "I'm not stupid like that bird. If I had to choose between freedom and life, of course I would choose life. How am I to enjoy freedom if I'm dead?"
"I suppose you wouldn't."
"Yes," the woman nodded, "so why would you question my decision to live?"
"Because life itself can become an unpleasant prison, can it not? Sometimes one is simply better off dead."
"No, they'll never be better off dead. I don't know what you witches believe in, but to me, at least, death is the end. The end of all thoughts, the end of all experiences, the end of all."
"The end of all suffering, too."
"Too bad you won't know it."
The witch placed a hand on her hip and gave the woman an odd look. "How did you come to think of life as the most important thing, anyway?"
"What do you mean? It's natural, isn't it? Mortal beings always live in fear of their eventual death."
"But you're no longer mortal. As you say, you can easily live forever."
The woman shrugged. "Nevertheless, I will continue to fear my death, even if there is no chance of its arrival. Even the bird you had trapped here before me still feared its own death, though it wanted to die."
"It is one thing to fear death even when death is nowhere in sight. It's a completely different thing to think only of your continued survival, and consider nothing else. Your current way of thinking is exactly how the so-called 'lesser animals' see the world. But you weren't like this before."
"As if you'd know anything about how I was in the past."
The witch laughed. The woman was thankful this laugh was very short-lived. "I may be a witch, but before that I am a human. I know how they think. I also know where you came from, and the stories that began to circulate about this forest shortly after I enchanted it. Surely you remember the first day you met me. You called me a witch before I even introduced myself as such."
"What are you getting at?"
"Back then, you were different. You ran into this forest despite the warnings that it was enchanted by an evil, cruel witch who gobbles up little children like you yourself were at the time. The woman you are now would never have taken such a risk, even if it were possible that the stories were false."
"Then I truly have transcended my humanity. Now do me a favor and leave. I'm sick of listening to you."
The witch chuckled. "Fine, fine. I will in a moment. I just wanted to check up on you, anyway. But there's one last thing before I leave."
"And what is that?" the woman asked, not hiding her annoyance.
"You know that humans don't think the way most wild animals do. They are reckless, and have concerns other than procreation and survival. Do you want to know how humans proceed with such a life despite their mortality?"
"Not particularly," the woman began, turning her back on the witch, "I'm not a human anymore, so it doesn't matter to me. And if I was still human, I wouldn't need a hag like you to tell me."
The witch smiled and continued despite the hostile response. "They go about it pushing aside the knowledge that they might one day die, but never once forgetting that everyone and everything around them will one day disappear. That allows them to appreciate everything that you've forgotten to."
The woman took a moment to let the witch's words sink in and make sense. "Irrelevant to me, as I thought," she said. After a moment of pleasant silence, the woman turned to face the witch again, but she was already gone.
NOW GUESS HOW IT ENDS.
LCN WRITING WEEK, i had not a better name, sorry world.
Mar 25 2013, 03:00 AM
click to read.
Shiokazu LCN WRITING WEEK Mar 25 2013, 03:00 AM
