The Mountaintop

She had been on the mountaintop since the early afternoon the previous day. She had watched the birds and the lone hawk that swept over her in circles again and again, as though he had something specific to communicate. She searched his feathers and form for a message, letting the tenuous sparks of insight fall to her like snowflakes.
The afternoon had stretched long and wide, opening its tunnel of curiosities as the sun arched across the sky. She walked the path of the day without fear of a setting sun, and soon, as she knew would happen, the light turned golden and then slowly drifted below the long mountain range in the distance. Her vision blurred and she opened her arms wide and lay back on the firm soil of the earth, letting blue twilight spill over her like the sweet arms of death.
Blue turned to crisp black and without light, her body quickly grew cold. She kept her eyes wide, letting the blackness and flickering stars roll and tumble over her with possibilities, letting it drag her mind into depths that daylight preferred to avoid.
There were demons and they laughed and giggled. There were animals with horns and a lilting flute somewhere in the distance.
The wind moved over her and a nearby howl danced with her fears. Dark time lasted for an eternity, just the slowly arching crescent moon marked the movement of the earth and her body’s place upon it.
Her body held onto the deep worry that came from childhood and her parents and the movies she had seen. Her mind clung to visions of chains and bumpy demons and the sounds of crying. She knew she held on to the light, thinking that it alone would ease her deepest fears.
Just as she clung to the daylight, she held on to the world, to the flowers and plants and dreams that she could see. As she looked, she saw the nightmares of her youth and the cold waiting chains of years within a sphere of words she had never asked for.
The long night opened its tunnel and she walked in, letting herself be filled with its chill and rich sounds of pain and mystery. And then there was a chamber without words. Here, she was truly scared. Here, she had no body, no role, no purpose. Here, she was nothing.
Then the nothing found its way back, it found the body, the fears, the worry. It found all that it ever was. But it brought back the memory of the chamber. Her eyes were wide once again, and she knew that to live in the light, she would have to learn to voyage in the dark.
She lay on the mountaintop as morning light spilled into the world of a newborn day, and she drank in the pale pink light, letting it come into her like the semen of the sun. She opened her arms wide, letting the day bathe her in its clarity.

Cutting The Cord

She takes one small breath, her first. The earth has opened up with light, long awaited through the long meaty tunnel. It is cold, her body feels a sensation without description, a pain without concept, just the raw brutal force of chill on still warm flesh. She takes another breath, her second.
A woman is crumpled against the backseat of a four-door car. Her open white thighs reveal streaks of pale blood that have yet to dry. She leans against the cold vinyl seat of the car, exhausted, sweaty and smiling. Beyond the window of the stopped car, there is night all around. A moon glows somewhere in the sky, only no one notices. The wind beats against the window of the round-edged car. And inside, in the yellow glow of an interior light, they can all see, something has come out.
Creation has turned along the wheel. For a moment, they all ride the second hand together, watching, breathing, crying as a new being emerges into the human realm. It has come, from a place that knows no buildings or cars or sympathy. This new thing, this new creature comes without language. Without concepts. From one realm into another, tonight, this thing has come
The night is cold. The young body feels the air with stark attention. This is the steady re-supply of nature. Whatever words and thoughts and explanations were used to create this little being, this is nature multiplying. This is creation. This is change. Replacement. One body spawns another. One gives as another takes. The night is so dark.
After the pains have left, the crickets take over the sounds in the darkness. They are in between towns. Like a piece of blood cut in the cord that must be tied. With this birth, they are bound.
The baby will learn, the baby will follow and imitate and the habits will be passed. From one generation to another. This new life will be stamped with all that has come before. It will turn into the human, it will live in this realm, in the world of language and thoughts and the mind. It will grow, until one day, it too will re-supply the earth with another young form, a new little body that will also come thoughtless and empty of language.
But now, the night is cold and the crickets sing. A little baby breathes. The force of creation moves.

Cloven Foot

She looked at the painting for the first time. It rose from the wall, levitating in its massive form and monumental message, leaving its gold frame far behind on the white background. Small and open-mouthed next to its size, she gazed up at the man that was not a man, at the animal that was not quite an animal. The beast that was not on all fours, but wearing a tailored jacket and a small hat that had holes for his horns. His face was red and long and hairy beside the ears. He stood in the middle of two iron gates, held slightly ajar with the weight of his body. Behind him a city burned red and hot. His lips betrayed a small, sly smile. Half a dozen women with large round bellies were in various states of falling, some lay lifeless on the cobblestone streets. Babies lay in piles by closed wooden doors. Just behind the gate was a copulating couple on fire, streams of smoke rose from their flesh into the dark night. He stood at the gates of this mayhem. His kingdom or his punishment? His legs were long and hairy, with thin ankles and the strong thick thighs of a horse. His penis was long and engorged, sticking up like the black spikes of the metal gates. He leaned on one of the open gates, leaning just slightly on his right elbow in a gesture of satisfaction and contentment. A creature completely comfortable in the chaotic setting of smoke and dim, reddish lights and the smoking couple and fallen babies and women who would never be mothers. His left foot reached out to her, a cloven foot of gray with streaks of black. His other foot hung back in the shadows, five toes of a pale, reddish hue. The ground below him was a mixture of dirt and black ash, beyond was a barren landscape of dead trees and smoking bushes.
“This is us,” she thought. “Our lineage vilified and made shadowy and dark and full of horror. This is the full blooded fear of man. The fear of birth and death. The fear of sex and pussy and earth and the mushrooms which spawn beneath the visible surface. We have watched through centuries, as large skirts have given way to slips and then jeans. Watched as the fires burned flesh and the screams curled with the smoke. We have watched it all. The vilification. The quest turned to the dirty kiss. We watch still, knowing, just as the smile implies, that what we do will always remain in the realm of the mushroom and the roots. The fires will come and play with the land and play with our flesh and we will be of the darkened shadows and the red clouds. We are of one, of the other, of earth and air, stardust and bright light.”