[IC] Forest

I'm Jonas.

I'm actually a woman. I'm 23 and I live at the edge of a forest. I'm out on my porch alone tonight as i usually am, getting some menial work out the way before sleep. You can hear the dry scuff of my thick soled shoes as they pace back and forward along the boardway. I move wood pieces about, clear scraps of metal i keep for no reason out of the way again, and occasionally you can hear the crack of an axe through a log, as i quietly go about my duties without too much effort.

Effort here is standard. To live a homestead life, a small pinch of muscle is a given. I don't startle the same way another person might. A life, long grounded in nature, makes a person resilient and peaceful inside. I have my thoughts, granted. My worries, just like any other person. But i just go about my doings, and i don't get too stuck down with what i can't control. The here and now is what i see to. This cabin. I've lived here for years. And i keep it well. It's modest compared to contemporary expectation. But it has everything you're looking for. As long as you like junk metal and a whole lot of eiderdown quilts. I kept every one that was passed down to me right to my sisters' own. I was never as delicate with a needle the way she is. I can do clever things with one. Just not embroidery. So i hold to them. And they bring good times. I could probably put my mind to something like that. Yeah. I reckon i could. I'm sure i could be delicate.

Cracks a log chunk in two and tosses the pieces in a pile, with only the gentle lilt of the artless night to be heard around me.

[Exit]

There she is again. Suspended as she is in this place far detached from where I reside. A breath of life in this forest. A forest that whispers endlessly. Wordlessly. Interrupted only by those who live within it's embrace. Interrupted mostly by me and yet somehow not by... this one. She speaks volumes. She's finite and yet so much more than the infinite expanse stretched out before us both. So I visit from time to time and I watch. Watch her move as she does. Easily. Like water over smooth pebbles. Like the creek twenty-four nearly identical trees... that way. I waited there yesterday for the trout snatcher but tonight I am here. With her.

She cracks another log and I look around.

Where's the other one?

The window where I enter is always open. I think it's to let the cool air in. To let this place breathe as easily as she does. So a breath eases me inside and lays me gently atop a quilt I've seen before. Maybe a hundred times now. It's somehow warmer to the touch tonight and smells of... dirt. Fire. Dust. Lavender. Like nothing I've smelled before and yet is a scent I'm very familiar with. It turns into an instinct scratching at the back of my mind. Into a warning... or a dare. Into a path almost as visible to my eyes as it is to my nose and rolls off the edge before me onto the ground below. I watch it crawl into another room and turn the corner before disappearing. It's leading me to her I know... and I'm inclined to follow. Or maybe I'm not. Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe the other one is waiting... but I jump down anyways.

I've brought a gift tonight. I've brought them before. I don't know yet if you've noticed. Little things from where I rest my head. A reminder that you live with me and I with you. I carry it gently as I pass under these wooden arches. Hold my breath as my feet scratch lightly at these dust smudged cold boards. Hold my breath as my eyes dart toward the shadows that loom behind me. Where stray light falters and where she could be hiding. But she isn't.

Perhaps not tonight.

Safety carries me the rest of the way. Past relics of a life I don't really understand. Through the last archway and back outside to where the ocean of a cool night consumes me. It's darker here but that's where she is. Alone. As she often is. My last gift is nowhere to be seen but this night may be different. It has to be. So I fluff my feathers, spread my wings and half jump half throw myself on top of the pile of wood before introducing myself... finally.

I'm "Ke-ke-ke-ke". I'm actually a bird. Not sure what kind. I've never seen myself and if I have I don't recall. But this feels like a good introduction and a good time to drop this peculiar stone from my bea-

...Wait. What in the fuck? That's not that I wanted to give you...

Shits on the wood pile.

[-o-O-o-Fantasia-o-O-o-]

"HAHA Jallows you've brought me a stone tonight i see. And something extra. Well i'll skim it tomorrow and see if it brings us luck. I have a little something you might like if you come inside? But by that guilty look i think you've been in already."

I flap Jallows off the pile to tease him and turn my back on him while still leading with my walk to a treat he knows is coming. I guess it means my work is done for the night. I find a small ceramic pot, prettier than the rest on the mantle, and pull out some small black beetles with a blue shine to their shell. I bit like oil.

"You know these are really hard to find. But you're worth it you know."

I look down for a moment, caught in a passing thought that flinches my eyes narrower to wake me back. I had brothers as well as my sister. I used to collect things for them too. I feel an instant hatred come from somewhere unfair and helpless inside. They should still be here but they were killed by a tree felling accident years ago. Two of them. One tried to save the other and it took both down. It's funny how wood cutting doesn't bother me, but that pot does. Memories, i mean.

I move to a window i tend keep open just to stop the prickling heat of my fire from becoming too much at night. I lean on the sill and take a sharp deep breath in, making the stretch right over the bridge of my nose feel tense.

I'll be seeing the McFaddens tomorrow to talk over more trees on this land. He wants them for cabins and i'll get a good price. He's been in trade with me for years and i don't hold against him the things that have passed. I have an early morning. Looks like rain and that means mudslides if we attempt to drag timber.

"Jallows i'm hitting the hay. See you around."

I climb under my quilt and thank the world than my sister is still alive. I draw the smell of old tarnished posies in from her bedding, and before i know it myself, i'm asleep. With only the bottom half of my clothing removed.

Rain begins to pitter as hours pass through into the dead of night.