eyes of the observer

forest green

a girl and footsteps

left behind

by the stream

The girl left footsteps in the forest. She had just lost her head.

The loss of brain matter and skin was no issue, however, for it had all been replaced by a big, puffy flower. She listened to the chirps of small birds she would never see. She did not bleed; she did not weep. It seemed right, well deserved, just.

She paused, feeling her new self, the vibrant violet petals dancing in the wind above her head.

Out of the black, a voice spoke out. It was deep, one of an old man almost ready to die. “What are you doing here, girl?” it said.

The girl turned around. A lemur stared back at her from atop a branch of a leafless tree. “What are you doing here, girl?” it asked again, the eyelids that covered his neon-yellow eyes blinking thrice.

Hands attached to her hips, leaning forward, she shouted: “My name is not ‘girl’! My name is Poire!”

The lemur cackled. “What a funny name that is, girl. But perhaps you should not be yelling at me for having no knowledge of what you had yet to tell me, hm? This forest can be a scary place. You should not have making enemies marked as a priority on your list.”

Poire expected a large man to step out from behind the bark at any given moment, yet nobody came. “What list?” she asked after a minute, playing with her braid that should have been there but wasn’t.

“If you ceased to twirl your imaginary fur and looked down, you would see it, girl.”

“I will hit you if you continue to call me girl, Mister Lemur,” she told him, but nevertheless obeyed the order and peeked at the dirt beneath her shoes.

There was, in fact, a list.

Poire crouched over. She picked up the crumpled piece of paper and squinted at the faint squiggles with boxes at their ends. “Does this belong to you?”

She held up the note.

The lemur shook his head. “Why, it belongs to you, of course,” he said.

Poire frowned, delicately dusting off the bits of leaves that clung to the ivy dress she received yesterday, before reading the list aloud.

“One, make enemies— Hey! I never wrote this!” Poire stomped her feet. Her shoes sank a little deeper into the soil. The noise of nearby crickets grew louder until they sounded like unbearable screeches. Poire covered the empty space where her ears should’ve been. “Make them stop!” she cried, shutting her eyes tight.

The crickets ceased. With the exception of the swinging leaves that caressed one another in gentle sways, the whole forest went silent.

Poire’s arms dropped back to her sides.

She faced the lemur. “Now then,” he purred, “why don’t you read the list, girl?”