deer and girl under the trinity, digital drawing, 2023
It is an earthly aura of feeling attuned to one another. That stare. It is doe eyed and lightly glassed with sunken kindness. Laughing and relating... gathering. Hoping that you would be so courteous to go for a walk together.
"What is your favorite color?"
The voice is human. Human-like enough. Only a bat can pick out the hyper frequencies that humans cannot detect from that voice. It howls and tears through the atmosphere, but left unknown amongst those who have ears.
"Ultraviolet?" I say uncertain on if it is really the truth.
I can't help but clutch the silver heart locket that I picked up from an antique stand outside of the grocery store and think how much I love the color of the gem embedded into it. A deep passionate ruby. I cared for that locket. I crafted that necklace after a long trip to the most beautiful fabric store I could have ever stepped into to find a velvet ribbon to string it onto. I wear it loosely only over a mock neckline for the upmost Victorian modesty. It is my safety stone. A protection. A prayer.
"Come on, let me show you my favorite path through the city." It hums.
I follow and walk alongside them. Rambling about my favorite color and its origin. My attachment for the color violet. How I use an ultraviolet light to expose cyanotypes in my room. It's allegorical symbolism to naiveness. Light showing strength and resilience. A natal name. The flavor of my favorite candies. The powdery scent of incense that burns alongside frankincense in my room to make my room safe from intruding entities.
"It is a color of solitude I think." I wonder. I like solitude. To be left in peace. Silence.
"I hear silence in that color."
The voice transforms slightly enough to become minimally atonal. It laughs with grace.
"You think that a color can evoke a sound?" The form questioned with entrusted curiosity.
"Surely, it can. I would imagine people could sense that from the color black quite often. Or white." I say.
"Both imply an absence. Depending on if it is additive or subtractive light."
The form is silent for a bit. Pretending to preform the color ultraviolet in jest. The light behind their eyes starts to shift. Redshift light comes through their otherwise organically colored eyed stare signaling irregularity setting in, but subtly enough not to notice much.
"What beautiful eyes you have." I stare, slowly becoming more hypnotized.
Their face embodies warmth and care. A porcelain like texture with subtle cool undertones. Their eyes sag with exhaustion and water at the corners. I am overfilled with agape love.
They look back at me as their pupils start to become smaller and smaller until completely disappearing. Revealing only forrest encrusted irises. I clutch my bag that holds wine and cake a little tighter.
"What is that lipstick color?" I ask. I adore it.
"Black Honey" It croaks. Now it makes sense because it is the lipstick balm I was taught to use religiously by my mother.
"May I try it on?"
Its hand rotates down like a lever slowly to offer me to try it on. I do.
"Feel better?" Their voice starts to separate in frequency, resembling a Fennesz aesthetic. We sit there for a few minutes as the sound of crickets and frogs fill the fog. I look up at damp redwoods adorned with lichen.
A deep wrench grows deep in my stomach and I freeze in a soft smile. I stand there still like a doe. A dripping sensation is sent down my abdomen approaching my leg but my neck is so stiff that I can't look down. I let out a sullen sigh.
"But you said you wanted to go for a walk" My tears unpause and start to roll down my cheek."But you said so."
"I do" The frequency shifts sharp enough to signal a siren like polyphonic shriek. Like a piano whose strings are lined with sterling silver.
My cochlea feels morphed and I can't stand upright. The coniferous forest floor sinks beneath me before I leap up into a wobbling race in the opposite direction. Each stride resembling the agile form I practiced so hard to achieve during field sports. Each leap turns into a weightless frolic, I inhale through my nose and exhale from my mouth because my grandfather taught me that doing that was how you utilize your breath most efficiently when long distance running. My eyes are darting through a labyrinth that is multilevel looking for an exit until the arrival to a concrete ruin-like courtyard. I clutch my stomach to discover blood and start to wipe my hands on the bark of a nearby trunk of a tree. It smells like galbanum and oakmoss with a tinge of violet leaf. Undertones of pine tree needles, soil and resins make my hand feel sticky and cold with dampness.
I turn around to see someone new. I can't make out many details other than a presence of scholarliness. I hand them the wine and cake I had been carrying.
A hand reaches out from a long sleeved cowl draped over their body. They have a chain bracelet on, soft but organic contour to each digit signaling resilience. They're wearing an underlayer resembling a cloth armor representative of paladin. I felt loved.
"This wine was made in Antarctica" It says.
"I really don't think it could be."
"In greenhouses. Bright pink lights shine out from them. It's beautiful"
I can see the outline of the bridge of their nose and a glimpse of gray and blue eyes as they whiplash their neck to look behind them.
"Your stomach" The form notices the blood.
I hide it and start to cover it with my red cowl and other woolen layers. I walk over to the creak down ruined steps and wash the damage. The metallic smell starts to resemble more of cedar and algae. I stick my hand down in the water and emerge my arm into the soil. A biting sensation starts to overbear the comfort of the algae texture and my arm quickly retracts. A leech is revealed on my inner wrist. I shake my hand forgetting their nature only to quickly yank it off.
"That do-nothing creature. All they do in that mush is sit and think all day waiting for blood." The form concedes and takes a bite of cake.
I shake my legs of dirt and dampness and walk back up the stairs. The stick of Black Honey floats down the creek. Proceeding the lip balm is the previous detached form with the same organic colored eyes without pupils. I watch it float along until I can't see them anymore. Only to wait for the ripples their body sends back in return.
A soft sound of shuffling sinks into the forrest floor to my left. The billowing of a doe's white tail swings somberly as its glance directs its gaze at me. Glassy and dark doe eyes brings me to safety and I hobble over to share the Antarctic wine.
Lore Reference: Little Red Cap (Riding Hood) by Brother's Grimm and a nightmare of a two-part shape-shifting monster I had a few weeks back.