Dead Willow by Joe Sharp

Author:Joe Sharp
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Joe Sharp
Published: 2014-05-14T07:00:00+00:00

Willow, 1870

He would never have actually seen the sun, had it not been for the woman.

Willow felt the sun’s rays like stabbing knives into his eyes, a simile he now shared with her. Pain, as a concept, he understood, but as a sensation, it was agonizing. It was the same heat and cold and thirst and hunger he had experienced in the ground, but bark was not skin, and limbs and roots were not arms and legs.

How did these humans survive in these extreme conditions? And not simply survive … but thrive. Willow was feeling threatened even as the warm sun touched raw skin and the blustery wind rippled tiny hairs on arms and back. The more of the woman that cleared the soil, the more the sensations flooded his thoughts and feelings. Each finger clawing dirt, each muscle pulling for the surface like a swimmer through water, brought new dangers for which he was not prepared.

But, the woman was prepared.

The primal urge to breathe air and feel sunlight and stand freely on two feet drove the woman to battle her way up out of the ground. The sensations that Willow thought unbearable, she saw simply as the cost of doing business.

It was not a feeling that was familiar to him, but the skin-crawling paranoia that made him want to draw up into a ball, the woman identified as shame, and she was fighting it. The more skin that was exposed to their surroundings, the stronger the pull to sink back into the protective earth. Words like nakedness and immoral and indecent clouded his vocabulary. They seemed to serve no purpose other than to confound his progress, but he couldn’t deny their power.

He. She. There was also an undeniable purpose in these words, a power. And, though the woman was female of this species, Willow did not identify himself with her. Yet, he was her. It was to be a complicated transition.

The woman … or was it him? … snapped roots and tendrils from the new flesh as it, as he, emerged from their interment, patches of soil and worms and leaves clinging to its nude form. Her arms wrapped protectively around as a cold blast reminded them of their vulnerability. They could not hide beneath the tree much longer.

The woman remembered the path that had led her from the desolate town to the dark shelter of the giant willow tree. They took a tentative step from the tree, then another. Her feet settled into the soft loam with each hesitation.

The Willow was not going back.

He pressed forward until she crept out from under the shade of the tree and felt the stark rays of the sun on his bare skin. The paranoia fueled their rush to the safety of the next pine or dogwood or scrap of sagebrush that lined the footpath into town. The trail was overgrown, and Willow wondered if the woman was the last one to have used it. He had been preoccupied with her, and had not sensed another presence.

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