Moss! Moss! Moss!

Fantasy Prompt #9: Scout's Honor

The portal was not instantaneous, as you might imagine a portal to be.

It was a prickly place. And it hurt passing through it. Like some ungodly birthing canal, the walls were lined with prickers or pineapple skin or the throat of a toothy fly trap that nicked at my skin as I toppled upwards.

It was too fast to right myself. I tumbled, flailing through the tunnel for what must have been a day and night and day again until I saw the light. It began as just a dot, yellow and as far away as a pin prick in the night sky. But with each passing hour, it grew and grew until I was blinded by the shine. And then I was spat out, bloodied, covered in puncture wounds and retching from the spinning, onto a meadow of moss.

My face lay swaddled in the soft green. I stayed there, relishing in the feeling of weightedness again, clutching the spongey thing in my fists. I watched, bleary eyed, as the portal yawned closed and disappeared. And then I was alone, looking over a scape of brilliant spores.

The ground was a petri dish of moss clouds of every color and texture—violet and black and green and red, fingery leaflets and stemmy, flowering stalks. It was dry reef, and I was the boney fish tucked in its folds. Though I felt no wind on my cheeks, the ground rustled. Or did it breathe?

Before my arrival, I knew moss only to grow as a companion to the trees, a shawl for their roots. Didn’t it like the shade? The dampness, the rotifers and salamanders, the taste of rotting leaves? But here, there was no shade, there was no tree or shrub or worm in sight, and yet the moss grew abundantly, spritely, bursting with life and seed and with a hue of golden light cast over it (though I saw no source in the sky).

Perhaps the sun was so vast here, and so close, that it filled the sky entirely? I laughed into my moss pillow. What an absurd thought that was, a sun so big it had no end. At the tensing of my muscles, my portal wounds stung and bled.

I pressed myself upright. The ground took another breath. I rose and fell with it like a polyp on a lung. And something in the distance, what I thought to be a particularly tall sporophyte, moved in an animal way. It’s head, that I first believed to be a seed capsule, turned to face me. And its body began a slow, determined approach.

I stood, then, weeping blood still from my wounds, and called out to the silhouette.

“I come from the Mangrovelands!” As quickly as the words left my mouth they were sucked up and swallowed. There was no carry. The moss feasted on the sound. And so I tried again, louder this time.

“I bit into a portal pear, it was a mistake!” Again, the spongey ground gorged my words. The silence rang in my ears, so soundless was the air that tendrils of nausea wove around me.

And though I could not reach it with my voice, the faraway thing grew nearer. It was too late to hide amongst the lichen or blanket myself in moss, and so I lifted my chin and limped in its direction. A friend, I hoped.

A freewrite inspired by Fantasy Prompt #8
Time: 30 minutes
Song of the day: Time & Life (Ugh, this one is so good.)

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Campers! Good news!

Fantasy Camp™ is growing, so we’re building more cabins and yurts and geodesic domes and treehouses and evil lairs to hold you all. Please put in a request ASAP if you have a lodging preference. Waterbeds are available with advance warning, but only for gilled campers because we can’t afford any more drownings. Our deductible is high enough as it is.

What do you think ‘the thing’ was in this freewrite? At first, I pictured a big praying mantis, then a living log, then a pill bug (also regionally known as a butchie boy, roly poly, woodlouse, slater, or potato bug). But wouldn’t it be even cooler if it was a clone of the narrator, but she’s blind? And since sound apparently doesn’t travel in Lichenland, our narrator would have to find some other way to tell her that they are the same person? Just riffing here.

Anyways, thank you for being here. I love Wednesdays! I get to hear from you wonderful and talented and creative humans. And while you’re here, I need to debrief The Substance. If you’ve seen it, please LET ME KNOW.

On a related but unrelated note, I have a spooky, non-fiction surprise coming to your inbox next week.

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Okay, let’s write together.

• Find a comfortable space

• Set your timer for 20 minutes

• Sink into your imagination

• Remember: It is safe to write from the depths of your soul

• Share your creations in the comments or DMs, if it pleases you

Optional: light a candle or put a little totem beside you.

Fantasy Prompt #9

A Scouts Troop is mysteriously separated from its leaders on a camping trip deep in the woods. While they argue over what to do next, a terrifying and supernatural event makes it clear that they are not alone out there.

I never got to be a Girl Scout, so you can expect I will be serving jealousy and revenge in next week’s freewrite. Much love to you all (except anyone who got to be a Brownie in middle school and walk in their local Memorial Day Parade).

Love, laugh, live by the sword,
and also, Scout’s Honor,
Madeleine