Location: In A Magical Place Made Entirely Of Food
Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:17 pm Post subject: Modern Day Fable
As intimidated as I am by the thought of someone taking this... I'll risk it, because I'm looking for critiques that I can't find on MySpace.
I've written down a dream of mine, which is another way of saying that I've written something fragmented, lopsided, and not terribly developed, and called it a "modern day fable". Now, this fable might remind you of Japanese Shinto tales, which is what it reminded me of when I first started contemplating the short plot. You may also note the incredible importance of deer and elk in this story (I live in an area where they are fundamental animals in local art and literature). I thought the emphasis on elk would appeal to hunters and tree-huggers alike.
And so, without further ado, I would like to present a modern day fable....
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
A girl who found peace in the wilderness shouldn't work in a dollar store. It seemed to be her only option, given that the owners of the bike shop were not asking for help, and she needed money worse than any other college student she knew. Ever since she had gotten her apartment, she had been having trouble remembering rent, and she longed for the days when housing could be paid for in lump sum.
Her friends suggested that she go and live in a tent beside the Gunnison river. She had, after all, expressed many times how she would much rather spend everyday out on her bike and make each of her hours an adventure rather than sit in a classroom or shop fantasizing about the natural world beyond what humans built. Unlike suffering through a boring day in domestication, she found that she needed no reason to venture out on foot or her bike and wander aimlessly through the wilderness.
It was a well known fact how much she loved that bike. When she spoke of it, her eyes glazed over and she stared off into space as she tried to recreate the feeling it gave her. She never could, but she could always describe it as, if she could go fast enough down a hill, leaping gracefully down the slope like a rabbit or deer.
Her heart was set on experiencing the feeling when she left her shift that day, and she hardly thought twice about swinging a leg over the bike she loved so and finding a trail to race along somewhere. The freedom that came with leaving the town behind and joining the other world mankind tried so hard to conquer was her only incentive. She paid no mind to anything but her own feeling of independence until a loud crack rent the air.
Heart hammering in her chest, she looked left and right, but didn't see a thing. Still, she had enough sense to realize that she had forgotten to wear orange in her haste to go out, and decided to turn around and go back to change her clothes.
She was more cautious along the way back, and had her eyes wide open, otherwise she might have missed the movement in the trees next to her. She halted her bike to peer between the branches and there saw a young buck, his head adorned with antlers that were not up to par for show on a wall, but still magnificent to watch. It took a moment for this girl to realize two things; he was wounded in the leg and was limping pitifully, and that he was headed in her direction.
She knew enough about deer to realize that they could be vicious if frightened, and so her initial impulse was to keep biking and outrun the injured thing. However, she paused and watched it limp ever closer. It seemed to her that this buck had a strange look of helplessness and pleading which demanded her attention. Tilting her head slightly, she thought she heard something akin to a sigh escape the creature.
It came close to her, glassy eyes staring, and did nothing for a moment. Then it opened its mouth. "Will you bury me?"
Our girl stumbled over her bike and fell hard onto her backside, yet still managed to back away a few more degrees despite her pain. The buck also took a step or two back, but did not leave, and she wondered if it was her imagination acting up on her to hear words coming from the beast. She had almost concluded that it was until it spoke again. "I've seen you here before. You impress me, with your consideration, and you seem as though you might help me if I ask."
"...H-how c-can you talk to me?" she asked, trembling from head to foot.
"I'm a spirit here in the forest. I thought I was very clever, surviving for so long as human beings came and started tearing apart this place. I hear it is not so bad as other places, but it seems severe to me.
"My avoidance of humans has carried for nearly a thousand years, when I came here before your town was built. Yes, I thought I was very clever, but I have finally been caught. Those hunters, you see, come every year, and they seek me out personally. I believe they know who I am, and seek to destroy me."
A silence fell over human and buck as the former mulled over what the latter had said. Finally, the girl murmured timidly, "It's only a leg wound...."
"Parasites will soon invade it, and I will be dead in only a few days. I hope that, until then, I can continue to avoid those men so that when you find my body you can bury it and ensure that they know none of my secrets." With this last request, the buck began to turn around and limp back into trees behind him.
"Wait, what if you don't have to die?" our girl pleaded. "What if I know someone who can help you?"
The buck turned his head slightly. "I will trust no other human than you."
"Well, then," she said earnestly, "trust me to find someone just as trustworthy to save your life."
It took a moment for the buck to give what could only be a nod, and turned around again to be lead back into town, where as they walked along people and cars alike stopped to let them pass, all of the humans consumed with awe. Especially the seasonal hunters gathered in various shops and storefronts blinked and let their mouths hang open in astonishment, never having been so close to the live animal as it passed before.
She brought this buck to a veterinary clinic in the town and pleaded with a friend to be able to meet the doctor that day. She and her buck waited for a long time before being visited outside the building (buck couldn't fit through the door), and all the time, she wondered whether or not she should tell someone that she had heard this animal speak to her. She wanted to, but she had not heard him talk since they left the cover of trees and wilderness, and she was afraid that he would not forgive her for revealing such a confidence. In the end, she decided it was best to avoid the subject of how he came to be here, and if he wished to talk to the doctor, she would let him make the decision.
He never uttered a word, however, as a suspicious veterinarian treated his wound. The girl was growing ever more embarrassed, and began to wonder again if it was not just the result of an overactive imagination. She was doubting herself the most when the limping buck stood and tested his stiff leg, walking carefully around the corner and out of sight. She thanked the doctor and hurried after him.
She met him in an alley where he was turned to face her, and she had almost run headlong into him. "I will make a full recovery now, and live another year to run from the men who seek me."
"I'm very happy to hear that," she said.
"Why did you have the will to save me, when I did not?"
She thought about this a moment, then said, "I wanted to show you that you did have the will to live, and you shouldn't be ashamed of having it." Having divulged as much, she leaned forward and kissed him on the edge of the nose. He snorted, shaking his head slightly, and took off again along the alley, disappearing around a corner again. This time she didn't follow, and instead walked back to her apartment only to be unable to sleep for the rest of the night.
---
Weeks passed, and though she went out every day to the same spot where she had found him, she did not see her buck again. Everything seemed to be still when she came into the wilderness now, and not even a breeze stirred the trees or the grass around her. Every time she came back to town without having seen him, her heart sunk a little lower. Her normal sense of adventure had been quelled, and she now felt despair every time she visited the ground that had liberated her.
Eventually, she stopped going out. She spent much of her time indoors trying to focus on work and school, and little on anything else. There was no longer a desire to go out among the flora and fauna, as she now associated it with a pain of what she thought was being abandoned.
It wasn't until those with a hunting licence began milling around again, on the anniversary of her strange encounter with the spirit buck that a few of her friends asked her on a hike. She accepted, though a feeling of dread didn't escape her attention. She was not entirely sure that she really wanted to go, given that it might remind her painfully of her last true adventure. Charismatic as her friends were, and worried terribly about the change she had undergone over the past year, they convinced her that she couldn't continue to sit around in her apartment while her true passion lay in the outdoors.
She barely had any fun, however, dressed brightly in orange and trumping along a predisposed path. The thought occurred to her to turn around and bid her friends farewell when one of them cried out. "LOOK! Look at that deer!"
She ran around him to have a look, and was surprised to see that it was her buck, gazing at her serenely a few yards ahead. His ears perked up and he disappeared around the bend in the trail. Overcome with joy, she sprinted to keep up, despite her friends shouting at her not to be silly; they had not heard it had been her to lead the buck into town the previous year and thought she was simply being absurd.
It was sudden. Another loud crack, like the one she had heard the year before. A shriek, though she couldn't tell if it was hers or another's. She fell heavily onto her side, and felt a warm, sticky liquid dampening her orange vest. All throughout her body there was an excruciating pain, and she shut her eyes against it, though it made no difference whatsoever. The scraping of boots against the dirt trail could be heard, and the sound of someone weeping bitterly.
"Oh my god! Oh my god, I-I...! I didn't m-mean to hit her, I swear!"
"Does anyone have a cell phone???"
"Quick, call 911!"
All else was silent.
---
The hospital was nearly silent except for her doctor's words. "Luckily, the bullet missed her vitals. There's little else we can do but keep her here until the threat of infection passes. I suggest you all go home and get a good night's sleep."
"Thank you...."
"Yeah, thanks..."
After all of her comrades left, and the emergency doors closed once more, the doctor expressed his astonishment that such a thing could happen with a sigh and the shake of his head. He wondered what could possess a young woman like this one to run after an elk like she had done during hunting season. She should not have done so at all, considering how brutal elk could be when they felt threatened.
He blinked and whirled around quickly, but there was no one wandering the hall behind him. He had thought he saw the shadow of something pass across the wall in front of him, but he supposed it must have been his imagination. After all visiting hours were over, and no one at the desk would have let anyone in now. Shaking his head a little, he walked back down the hall, hoping he wasn't terribly deprived of sleep, as he had a little more work to do before his shift ended.
The shadow held still to allow him passage, and then continued on to our girl's hospital bed, ducking in and out of sight stealthily when it saw a physical being approaching. It reached the curtain around her bed and pulled it aside, now in the form of a young man with long brown hair and dark eyes, who walked carefully, leaving no sound that might attract any official. Sneaking into such a place would have caused suspicion.
He reached a place right beside the sleeping girl, whose head had lulled onto her shoulder in sleep. His gaze was almost curious as he looked down at the human who had risked her life to follow him. Why? He had no idea. Perhaps, like himself a year before, she had given up the will to live. How sad, he thought, when there were so many surrounding her today that loved her and wanted her by their sides.
So, without devoting another thought to his decision, he kneeled on the hard tile so that he was almost level with her. "I want to show you that you do have the will to live, and you should not be ashamed of having it."
And he placed a tender kiss on her lips so as to communicate with her in her sleep.
It wasn't very long at all until she left the hospital and she was finally cheerful again. Anyone who would listen would be told that she had the strangest dream the night she was admitted, about a young man sitting by her bedside, waiting for her to wake up so that he could finally have the chance to speak to her again.
Of course, despite what her friends would tell her about its meaning, she had quite different ideas as to what it must have meant.
The END!
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Note: This is Lys here to let everyone know that they shouldn't go around kissing elk on the nose. Lyme Disease is still a very real threat. Thank you.
Also, if you have any idea what I should call it, I am perfectly open to suggestions. _________________
Location: In A Magical Place Made Entirely Of Food
Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:55 pm Post subject:
A LIME is green. However LYME disease, I believe, is associated with ticks. Like West Nile Virus comes from Mosquitoes, Lyme Disease comes from Ticks. It's a big concern up here because a lot of animals, including birds, have some pretty big ticks, and they can brush them off onto foliage. You have to be REAL careful walking in the woods here, lest you acquire a parasite.... _________________
Location: In A Magical Place Made Entirely Of Food
Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 3:39 pm Post subject:
She thinks you're silly too, VRap. Oh well, no shame in being silly and awesome at the same time.
I'm likely going to revise this somewhat and then submit it to and Honors literary magazine. I had a few people edit it and I want to see if I can at least get their attention with it.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Join! (free) 
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
