In the Glade

In the glade, a transfigured sound swoops down from above, a curdled shout, metamorphosed musical, then dives and dies and shatters on the half-wet rocks, becomes innumerable hisses. Angles are twisted to deeper dimensions by the illusions presented, the qualities of the air providing false distances of sight line and resonance: One could fall here, into the gaping pit, or rise all at once to a great height, and assume only a step forward. Worse, the earth sucks like a wet silt, where it is at all not mud or water, and the protruding stones slip and scrape with moist moss and sharp edges, yet due to the light neither shine or cast true shadows.

It was warm, and everything hummed.

Although properly booted and wrapped, they moved haltingly and with a torpid caution. Where they went slowly, they were frozen pitch with hairs and skin and bones beneath; where quicker, they shifted in shocks, turned in curious arcs. They did not speak, as the words, they knew, could be lost and twisted, nor did they look to each other. Rather, they held hand to hand, moved with side to side, tethered at the waist. A pull or a quick grip had a meaning, as did a doubled tug, a twist, in its own right a letting-go, though they dared not. It took the better part of the night to cross, and they retired without speaking.