Day 89 Writing Short Stories

Hidden Universe

Under the flowers, a world so alien to most left him baffled by how carelessly people moved through it. There, in this minuscule world, reality made more sense to him than what it could offer elsewhere. Not that was true for many, and for good reason. His view, if asked of any other living being, was very limited. Yes, there was magic and merit to fungi and all the critters in the world, but it was not all there was. A greater meaning lay beyond, and others turned into stars or the deep oceans for it. But if he cared about the discord of voice, the constant curiosity that drove him drowned it out.

The curiosity that would soon turn his world upside down in a very and highly twisted way. The way a skilled storyteller would paint the world anew.

He licked his thumb and, with his moistened finger, shimmied the plastic bag open. He slit the collection of mushrooms inside the bag, humming as he did it. He had been spending all day in his hidden universe, searching for clues of the rare mushroom he had found in his grandfather’s collection. All the library and research books he had devoured had no mention of the mushroom his grandfather had gathered and immortalized into a painting. But the specimen was true. He had it inside a jar, preserved.

The woods around him were silent as he half walked and half crawled over the moss in search of his precious miracle. In a way, it was watching him, wondering when and if he would step through the shimmers of reality that attached the world to the past, future, and possibilities. And then he slipped out and into the unknowing, only the trees and the squirrels as witnesses of the transaction of universes.

As someone with a limited view and intense curiosity, he didn’t notice the exchange his world made with another. He crawled on the moss that was now slightly off-color, thinking the light cast between the clouds was playing tricks on his sight. Then he stopped, just next to the roots of an old fir tree. There it was, what his grandfather had found: big and juicy and real.

He reached for it, intent to pull it out of the ground, but he stopped himself. A shadow had grown long and strong over him. He turned around, seeing a beast unlike anything his heart had known, yet so familiar that he knew what it was. It was a stag of sorts. A stag, whose antlers were covered with moss, hung from every horn like jewels. Its hide was golden brown, dotted with white. All that was acceptable, but its intelligent eyes and the words it spoke made it so unlike. The words were utter gibberish, but he knew he was meant to know them. They spoke of mushrooms and realities, and then the mushroom, the strange forest, and the stag was gone, and he leaned against a fir tree so common that it didn’t make hearts sing—not at least hearts of those who had no wonder and awe of nature.

His heart was beating fast. He knew he had to get back to the stag and ask why.

—

I’m not sure what to make of the story. Not sure at all. What I got today was a comic magical realism quest done in an omniscient third person. I tried to write in the comedy, but I couldn’t. It didn’t come naturally there. Raymond St. Elmo and his wonderful books are better at combining humor with magical realism.

But as I wrote, I felt the strange curiosity the Moomin characters have about everything and all, and the story somehow mimicked that with the wonder I feel when I roam the woods with my camera and macro lens. I have yet to slip into another reality, but who knows when that happens. But more often than not, I have had the feeling that the woods are watching. They are always watching. More alive than we think. Not alien, not magical, but alive.

Thank you for reading! Have a wonderfully curious day and see you tomorrow ❤