The Forest

A man walks on a dirt path. He is alone, aided only by two tools in each hand. The path meanders gently, the foliage along the edges determines its uneven shape amongst the forest. The narrow bit of uncovered earth carved between the trees and bushes is just wide enough for his feet and the metal walking stick he carries in his left hand. His right hand clutches the handle of a black umbrella to shield him from the miniscule drops of mist that come with the low hanging clouds. The man is dressed for a cool day. He wears a long-sleeved purple rain slicker and dark pants to repel the rolling mist. He smiles contentedly in mid-stride, his hands easily wrapped around his tools. The walking stick is a half a foot away from his feet, continuously scanning for rocks and mud and loose earth. His umbrella is raised a few feet from the crown of his head, as though waiting for a strong wind to carry him away. His smile reveals his ease amid the air of fall, which holds the whispers of rain and the yellowing promise of winter. In the distance are lush green pine trees which reach hundreds of feet into the sky, their long needles sit patently while delicate beads of moisture fall onto them, releasing their scent. Creating a green carpet on the forest floor are low-growing ivy with thick waxy leaves. Their leaves are shiny beneath the thin coating of mist that has found its way through the boughs and leaves of taller trees. A few feet ahead of the man are the immediate signs of a changing season. On his left, a large Japanese Maple has begun to shed, the path is littered in patches of leaves in various states of decay…brown and tan and beige carcasses are each in the slow process of transformation. The branches of the maple are covered in soft six-pointed leaves that are all a uniform shade of banana yellow. On the right side of the path, the long curved branches of a fern are completely dried and brown. It is not the mark of fall, but a breakdown of the plant itself. One lone yellow leaf floats in the air a foot from the fern. It is not the maple leaf, for the singular shape has only five points. It floats down from an unseen bough.

The Plaza

The early evening light is the palest of blues. It marks closing time, the end of another cycle of light, to be replaced by twelve hours of darkness. The sun has just begun to fall behind the wall of straight buildings. Dozens and dozens of them make the city skyline. There are the large mirrored homes of finance that reach towards the clouds, the more squat government buildings and the high-rise condos marked on each level by balconies. Interspersed among the modern buildings are the few brick constructions that have managed to survive earthquakes and fires. Adorned with the marks of their craftsmen, they contrast with the straight, sleek lines of modern architecture.
Cutting through the clustered marks of men are geometrical streets. Black and marked with yellow lines, the roads sit without the faintest curve, providing only 90 degree angles in evenly divided intervals. The low golden sun shines against the reflected glass of the downtown buildings like light on sequins, calling out for one last acknowledgment before it says goodnight. Ample rectangles and squares shine like electric gold with its last rays.
The downtown streets are bustling. Men in dark tailored suits and women wearing black heels and fitted skirts flow out of the buildings and into the crowded sidewalks. They are like rivers that ebb and flow with the alarm clock’s set intervals.
In the middle of the financial center is a large cement plaza. The periphery of the plaza is a single row of green grass and sparsely planted trees that are thin and tall as some of the shortest buildings. Two sides of the plaza have buildings that create a wall behind it, but the other two connected sides are open and face two streets perpendicular from each other.
One of the open sides has a single doorway with an open wrought iron gate. The doorway is made of stacked rocks and mortar, but the long walls around it have fallen long ago, leaving only the frame of the doorway and the tall gate itself.
The flow of business people walk through the square diagonally, coming from the corner beside the wall and the street and flowing out through the wrought iron gate. Close to the center of the plaza is a young blond woman with a microphone. She is talking and pointing to the moveable statue of a thick man with a trombone held to his mouth. Coming out of the trombone is a large fake tuna fish. A small crowd of business people are gathered around the woman and the statue. They are laughing at each pause in her speech, nearly doubling over with her jokes.

The Wet Mountain

There is a rocky mountainside, covered halfway up in stones the size of human heads. All the boulders are dark gray and cold and slightly wet. The mountain is wide and tall, but it connects to an even larger mountain range to the north. In the distance, the mountains are brown and barren and covered only in scattered patches of dry grass. The sun is hiding somewhere behind a thick haze of clouds. The light is still very bright, the kind of light that requires squinting. The day seems new, but slightly drained in energy, as though something very intense has just vanished and what remains is slightly diminished. At the base of the mountain range is a receding sea. The water is dark blue and choppy with white caps. It flows out towards the horizon in a hurry, as though something was waiting for it beyond the thin line of sight. The wide mountain is mostly covered in heavy rocks, but as the mound moves closer to a tip, the rocks become smaller and smaller, until they are just small pebbles hidden between blades of dried grass. There is one four foot trail that travels the length of earth from peak to ocean, but there are other scattered trails that are much thinner, only wide enough for one person at a time. Close to the shore is a thicket of trees beside a clearing thirty feet wide. They are as tall and thin as eucalyptus, only they have darker and wider leaves and more full reaching boughs that create a wide canopy. The clearing is smooth and flat and free of all rocks. Because of the trees, it is covered in a nearly green-black shade. The earth here is damp and smells of wet bark. To the left of the clearing and trees is a grouping of dark wood condominiums. The singular structure is angular and modern and would give off a very cold emotion if not for the wood used to construct it. The collection of two-story houses each have double pane windows and wide sliding glass doorways that face the seashore and the thicket of trees. On the lower floor, beside a sliding glass door, is a dead white horse laying on the ground. Its legs are curled close to its body in the fetal position. The glass doors reveal the occupants of the houses. There are people. They are swollen and pale and laying on their backs on the damp linoleum of their kitchens. Their bodies are moist, as are the T-shirts and shorts which clothe their bloated bodies.

Iron Forge

The snow blankets the enormous conifers and distant peaks and the ground, glittering like quartz. The tents in the area form a vague and uneven circle, leaving wide distances between some and almost none between others. There are two varieties, one that is completely enclosed and shaped like a giant mushroom sewn of tanned hides and another that is a simple canopy open on three sides. Everywhere about the encampment, kegs are stacked in pyramids and clumped together in hasty trios. They vary in size from the very small to the enormous, large enough to make a comfortable room for one of the short bearded men littering the camp. Here and there, a keg has been tapped and an assortment of characters is gathered.
The most predominant figures are the short men with their long braided beards and arms and legs bursting with muscles, but there are others as well, a few men, usually armored warriors with a weathered air about them and women as well, with their red hair pulled back in braids and their eyes shining with a hard cold light used to spying stretches of open road or smoldering battlefields. For now they laugh and toast one another’s health and drink frothy brew from beautifully decorated steins.
A tall creature with pale skin and long pointed ears protruding through the silken threads of her cascading blue hair stands apart from the crowds dancing in the center by herself. She wears a red skirt that hangs about her front and back like a loincloth leaving her long legs and toned thighs exposed. Her top barely conceals her moderate cleavage and leaves her mid drift bare. Warmed with liquor and oblivious to the cold, she dances with the sinewy movements of a serpent.
Another similar creature is inspecting a rather large ram, the mount of one of the stocky little men. The creature with the pointed ears looks into the beast’s eyes, ears, nose and mouth while the small man belches and attempts to explain the appropriate way to handle the ram, swaying all the while and occasionally loosing his train of thought or reaching out to steady himself against the taller creature’s kneecap. Every so often, a rider charges into the encampment and the motley crew cheers a greeting. They find themselves a place near a keg or by a small fire where something roasts on a spit and little men already sit around chewing at roasted meats and loosing gristle in their beards.
The sky overhead is a steely gray and a red sun sinks slowly behind the far off neighboring peaks. Horses waiting for their riders stamp the snow and whine to each other and munch bales of hay alongside with rams, while keeping a wary eye on the camp dogs who chew bones with wolfish grins and turn their pointy ears to listen to the laughter and singing of the men.

Mirror in the Garage

The interior of an old garage smells faintly of old wood and earth. The air is cool and damp although soft light still filters in from the row of windows on the very top of the garage door. The cement floor is cold. It is a pale gray color which is free of any oil spots or spider carcasses or balls of dust and hair. It is a large square space that is filled only with half a dozen white washing machines and an old couch which is a few feet away from being in the center of the space. The couch is facing one of the walls. There are no shelves of built-in wood cabinets. No boxes, no resting cars. The walls are covered in white drywall. The couch is long enough for three people to sit comfortably. But it is a stern couch that lacks comfort and padding. The sides have a thin layer of stuffing, but it is not fluffy or good for resting a head. It is somber and very straight. It does not invite a nap. The upholstery is tan. It is made of many woven little strings in varying hues of brown, beige and tan fibers that combine to form a tweed fabric. There are two people on the couch. They sit close, revealing their intimate knowledge of each other’s bodies. There is a young woman, she is slender and has shoulder length brown hair that is mostly straight but has a few waves. The man, who has his arm draped around her comfortably, has a black beard and long black hair that is pulled behind him in a pony tail. He has a black hat on with a short wide bill, the kind of hat made popular by leftist-guerillas in the tropics of Central America. He has a t-shirt that is almost hidden by a black jeans jacket, but left-leaning political messages sprout from the semi-visible garment. Both their eyes are fixed on the doorway five feet away from them. The door connects to the neighbor’s house. The door has a mirror attached to it and they see their reflection. Him, with his hat. Her, with her big brown eyes. They look into the mirror, but not only does their reflection greet them, but they see a portly woman. She is in the mirror, she is behind the door which is actually not covered in reflective glass, but tinted glass. She is motionless and staring at them. She has short blond hair and large breasts. Her wide stomach is covered in the fabric of her patterned apron. The couple looks into the glass and see her, they see the living room which stands behind her. She stares at them, at the couple sitting on a couch in a white garage.

Darkness All Around

Dark, dark night of dewy grass and forgotten lots. A car is parked alongside a misty road, a white four door Sedan with rounded edges. Three doors are open and the overhead light is on, illuminating the interior of tan upholstery and carpet. Moored in a little bay of black asphalt, it glows warmly like a candle in a dark room. Around it the mist roll and curl and obscure dark stretches of road beyond the small empty parking lot and vaster blankets of green grass. It eclipses the yellowed bodies of naked trees whose leaves have blown far away, leaving only a few little golden tokens spread about the bed of grass.
The sky is void of the twinkle of stars huddled behind the invisible cover of clouds. Without street lamps or the light of civilization, the sky above is unfathomable and inky. The headlights of the parked white car shine out a few feet from its nose, casting their beam over the grassy floor and sea of sparse trees being swallowed by the voracious fog.
A tall young man stands in the parking lot embracing a young woman. He is clad in a bright red cape donned over crisp blue jeans and a new polo shirt of a dark navy hue accented by a band of lightly colored stripes that encircle his chest. The red satin horns of a devil are pinned on his head. His face is clean shaven, his short cropped hair is dark, his eyes are gentle and deer-like. He is engaged in pressing the girl enthusiastically to his breast, his cape rippling in the breeze that moves the white fog around them in sheets of mobile moisture.
The woman holds a video camera in one hand and presses her blonde head receptively into his heart. Her clothes are shabby and oversized, faded wide-leg denim coupled with a baggy long sleeved T-shirt.
A milk chocolate skinned black girl with silky rings of curled hair falling around her Egyptian looking face stands apart from the couple, hovering near the car. Her arms are crossed in front of her body and she stands with her weight resting more heavily on one leg than the other, like a crane poised in the banks of the Nile. Her brows are expertly shaped, her lips are glossy. She wears big slim hoop earrings and a white shearling jacket with slim jeans that accent her diminutive physique.

Dirt Parking Lot

There is a narrow street that comes from a bustling downtown far in the distance. As the road curves, two large white grocery stores are all that is left of motion and commerce. The buildings have no distinguishing features other than being extremely large and brick-like and off-white in color. From the curve in the road, just past the stores, the road descends at a very slight angle and opens up into a large rectangular parking lot. It stretches for a quarter of a mile, then turns once again into a narrow road that leads to suburban neighborhoods far in the distance.
The boundary of the parking lot is defined by tall green-topped pine trees that stand parallel to each other for the length of the lot. There are aging brown needles on the ground right below the trees. The surface of the parking lot is a light brown compact dust. There are a few small gray rocks strewn about the lot and a few large boulders beneath the surface of earth that create slightly raised bumps, but otherwise, the parking lot is a level surface. Just a couple of feet from the base of the pine trunks are parked cars lined up side by side. Just a single row on each side of the parking lot…. red, blue, tan, black and white cars sit silently beneath the trees. The center of the parking lot is a large open space that is free from any metal or rock or bump.
The sun is shining and the needles of the trees shuffle slightly as drops of light-coated raindrops fall from the sky. A young white man with short disheveled hair and white pants is in the center of the lot. His hands are raised and his palms face the sky. He is twirling and spinning, turning around and around. A couple of steps from him is a young, plump woman with a long, flowing skirt and a white spaghetti-strapped tank top. She is balancing one young baby on each of her hips. She is spinning and twirling, gripping the children tightly as she moves. A couple of steps from them is another young, slender woman with brown hair and olive skin, she is spinning and twirling and turning, her hands are raised up, her palms open to the raindrops as they cover her in glistening drops of blue and white light. The three of them form a loose triangle. Beneath the rain and surrounded by empty cars and imposing pine trees, they spin. The rain moves down upon them, soaking them in drops of glistening liquid. The sun is somewhere close, unhidden behind a cloud.