Little Red, part 1
A whole ecology had sprung up around the strange demographics of the town. Its dye factories spewed fumes that drove frail grandmothers to live in clearer air on the other side of the forest, and as a consequence there was a more or less constant flow of young girls in brightly colored cloaks traipsing through the wood with baskets of food, which in turn supported a number of stalking wolves who preyed upon them, and not a few brave woodcutters found themselves wives by rescuing girls from such wolves. And so it went in the Darwinian way, girls and wolves and woodcutters each learning new tricks to survive and thrive, or playing out their own brief tragedies.
At any rate, after several generations of such natural selection, we find a particularly canny old wolf, who we’ll just call Wolf, shadowing a particularly juicy girl, easily observed in her vermillion cloak, and not for the first time. Wolf had learned this girl’s usual route, and carefully studied her, biding his time ‘til today, when the hopeful woodcutter of the moment was out of commission with a sprained ankle -- a mishap sustained in his official capacity, felling a tree. With the odds thus improved, Wolf intended to make his move today, soon, after the girl passed through a certain clearing.
But to his surprise, once in the clearing the girl began to act oddly. Her steps slowed, and she began to look confused, uncertain, though Wolf had seen her take this very path many times before.
In the quiet of the woods, then, he heard her speaking in a soft voice, and he froze for a moment, at first thinking she was addressing him.
“Please, let me go, just for a moment,” the girl said. She shook her head, took a single decisive step along the path, then staggered sideways.
“Just a short time,” she begged of no one. “You never let me, in daylight, out of doors. Just once, today, please, sister.”
Her expression shifted, twitched, and she seemed almost to be snarling. She bunched her fists, then just as suddenly relaxed her hands, face, and body, and sank slowly to her knees.
With a fluid shrug she dropped the red cloak to the grass, then unlaced her plain shift as well, and before long, she was fully undressed, her lush form bare before Wolf’s eyes, but he was paralyzed by the strangeness of the scene.
With a low moan, the girl bent slowly forward, and yet somehow at the same time she seemed to be leaning back, or her shadow leaned back, or she was reflected in nothing but the very air. Silvery clouds suddenly passed in front of the sun and the light in the clearing changed, or maybe it was hours, not clouds, moving by, but by the time Wolf had blinked twice he saw not one girl before him, but two. Back to back, they straightened and stood up.
They were identical in form, as twin sisters, but Wolf could tell in an instant which one was the bold, fearless thing he’d been stalking, and that the other was someone very different.
That one moved as if she were new to her body, as awkward as a wet foal, her glance darting every which way; now to the leaves on the trees above her head, now to a fern at her feet, now to a crow gliding past. The other, the one Wolf thought of as the first, the original, folded her arms and glared at her doppelganger. The new girl breathed in deep as the clouds parted again, drinking in the place and the air and the moment, and Wolf wondered what sort of person this was.
“Enough,” said the first.
“Not yet,” said the other, stepping backwards in a slow expanding spiral, her head tilted back to take in the blue of the sky and the warmth of sunlight on her face.
“Now!” barked the first. She slowly lifted her closed fist, and though they were five paces apart, the new girl winced and hissed in pain. The fist tightened and the new girl doubled over.
“P-please! Just another--” she began, and was cut off by her twin’s growl, and even from where he hid and watched, Wolf could see the first girl’s knuckles whitening with strain, and the second lost her air, as if kicked in the gut. She fell to her knees, and the first moved quickly behind her, turning, sitting back to back, and again time went strange and they blurred and became singular.
The girl stood on shaky legs, and perhaps a bolder wolf would have moved then, but Wolf’s line had done well for generations by never attacking prey they didn’t understand, and so all he did was watch. She walked back to her fallen clothes, and Wolf had to move a little ways around a tree to keep his view. Carelessly, he broke a stick underfoot, and though it seemed a whisper, the girl turned suddenly to stare in his direction.
Wolf froze. Surely she could not see him. Surely not.
After a cold moment, her eyes began to rove the trees, looking for the source of the sound, but after all, forests are full of small twig-breaking noises, and she soon enough relaxed and dressed.
Wolf watched her move on from the clearing, and he wondered.
Failure 5 - 1/12/2011
At any rate, after several generations of such natural selection, we find a particularly canny old wolf, who we’ll just call Wolf, shadowing a particularly juicy girl, easily observed in her vermillion cloak, and not for the first time. Wolf had learned this girl’s usual route, and carefully studied her, biding his time ‘til today, when the hopeful woodcutter of the moment was out of commission with a sprained ankle -- a mishap sustained in his official capacity, felling a tree. With the odds thus improved, Wolf intended to make his move today, soon, after the girl passed through a certain clearing.
But to his surprise, once in the clearing the girl began to act oddly. Her steps slowed, and she began to look confused, uncertain, though Wolf had seen her take this very path many times before.
In the quiet of the woods, then, he heard her speaking in a soft voice, and he froze for a moment, at first thinking she was addressing him.
“Please, let me go, just for a moment,” the girl said. She shook her head, took a single decisive step along the path, then staggered sideways.
“Just a short time,” she begged of no one. “You never let me, in daylight, out of doors. Just once, today, please, sister.”
Her expression shifted, twitched, and she seemed almost to be snarling. She bunched her fists, then just as suddenly relaxed her hands, face, and body, and sank slowly to her knees.
With a fluid shrug she dropped the red cloak to the grass, then unlaced her plain shift as well, and before long, she was fully undressed, her lush form bare before Wolf’s eyes, but he was paralyzed by the strangeness of the scene.
With a low moan, the girl bent slowly forward, and yet somehow at the same time she seemed to be leaning back, or her shadow leaned back, or she was reflected in nothing but the very air. Silvery clouds suddenly passed in front of the sun and the light in the clearing changed, or maybe it was hours, not clouds, moving by, but by the time Wolf had blinked twice he saw not one girl before him, but two. Back to back, they straightened and stood up.
They were identical in form, as twin sisters, but Wolf could tell in an instant which one was the bold, fearless thing he’d been stalking, and that the other was someone very different.
That one moved as if she were new to her body, as awkward as a wet foal, her glance darting every which way; now to the leaves on the trees above her head, now to a fern at her feet, now to a crow gliding past. The other, the one Wolf thought of as the first, the original, folded her arms and glared at her doppelganger. The new girl breathed in deep as the clouds parted again, drinking in the place and the air and the moment, and Wolf wondered what sort of person this was.
“Enough,” said the first.
“Not yet,” said the other, stepping backwards in a slow expanding spiral, her head tilted back to take in the blue of the sky and the warmth of sunlight on her face.
“Now!” barked the first. She slowly lifted her closed fist, and though they were five paces apart, the new girl winced and hissed in pain. The fist tightened and the new girl doubled over.
“P-please! Just another--” she began, and was cut off by her twin’s growl, and even from where he hid and watched, Wolf could see the first girl’s knuckles whitening with strain, and the second lost her air, as if kicked in the gut. She fell to her knees, and the first moved quickly behind her, turning, sitting back to back, and again time went strange and they blurred and became singular.
The girl stood on shaky legs, and perhaps a bolder wolf would have moved then, but Wolf’s line had done well for generations by never attacking prey they didn’t understand, and so all he did was watch. She walked back to her fallen clothes, and Wolf had to move a little ways around a tree to keep his view. Carelessly, he broke a stick underfoot, and though it seemed a whisper, the girl turned suddenly to stare in his direction.
Wolf froze. Surely she could not see him. Surely not.
After a cold moment, her eyes began to rove the trees, looking for the source of the sound, but after all, forests are full of small twig-breaking noises, and she soon enough relaxed and dressed.
Wolf watched her move on from the clearing, and he wondered.
Failure 5 - 1/12/2011