Black Dog

[Quincunx]

Twin-bodied spirits hugged themselves in the shadows of the moonlight, and suffered. The screams of their triplet body flayed them, and his mortal hands impossibly grabbing her, and the ache in her hands as they passed through his flesh, but worst of all his thoughts scalded: the girl knew how to keep quiet, not a normal girl, girl might not how to not keep quiet, dog-stupid dog-loyal dog-disposable. The twins stretched out to keep within the shadowed sides of birch trunks, and as their sister died, their souls were racked also. Much later, they glided out and curved over the mortal remains: a twig, beaded with leaf buds, more solid than young wood ought to be. One reached down as though to pick up the wand, but while her hand could disturb the soil and leaf mold, the twig fell through her palm. She drew back and stared into the band of green now marking it. Another separation wrenched the twins.

 

Not-touch-world-we.

We-three-bone-revive.

Tripod-not. Cross.

Tripod-strong. (A hint of phosphorescence on that thinker's cheek.)

Tripod-world-strong? We-cross-bone-revive.

World-tripod!

Itself-holding-tripod. (This twin displayed her open palm, the fading slash.)

 

They looked into her palm for awhile, watched the hint of chlorophyll puddle like water in the middle, and evaporate. As it did, the separation faded away, leaving one last thought which needed to be communicated.

 

. . .Dog?

 

Roots snaked through the forest soil in all directions, and they borrowed motion from the network, now sliding a great distance upon the support of a pine tree, now veering around a hostile rock as they stepped from lichen to lichen. The skeleton, accounted and neglected before, signaled to them moreso than the rivulet or the pond. Once again they curved over their object, but both reached down to fondle the bones, the tail and hind legs disarticulated and needing to be set right. They left his skull and forepaw in the water, held fast by the mud and nearly silted over, and left until last the other foreleg and rib cage, when the pretense of a third worker could no longer be upheld. When all was arranged, they drew themselves upright, clasped hands, continued to stretch their bodies to humanly impossible heights, stiffened, and fell. Two wands clattered to earth, striking the last two bones of the tail with two clattering notes, and the tail bones began to writhe.

 

They shifted back to human form, clasped hands, transformed, struck two new bones. Again and again the peculiar instrument played its chimes, and more of the skeleton responded to the notes. Yet there was no intelligence to the motion, just random twitches from a sleeping dog, and the twin spirits lost something with every transformation. Luminous clear skin began to crack like old bark. Their bland faces faded to merely flat. By the time the four legs of the skeleton flipped and jerked themselves free of the silt and leaf mold, the spirits were haggard. Yet they marched on, knotting their palsied fingers together, and pushing themselves upright against one another's new weight to fall and fall again, stagger upright, let their heads droop down, and see the skull, alone of all the dog's bones, immobile. The wands crossed in midair, tapping the skull with one stronger note.

 

All of the bones fell still. Water bubbled against this new and unsilted blockage in its path, building up against the foreleg bones and spilling over the lower jaw. It poured into the mouth, and then was captured by force from underneath, and swallowed. The tongue, and all the other flesh of the dog, reasserted itself. He stood, bent his head and retrieved the pair of dried sticks, stepped out of the stream and shook himself dry, then set off through the forest. His nose led him back to the third stick, and he dropped the others while trying to pick up the third. After snuffling up the leaves, and sneezing, he got all three, and pursued a new scent out of the treeline into the rising sun. Somewhere at the other end of the scent was a man who needed to be watched.

[Harmonious_Echos]

Interesting...very interesting...can't say I understand any of it, but it's got a lot of good descriptives, makes you think. Just not quite sure it makes me think about..except insanity...

[Alisha Readman]

Uh, yeah, have to agree with Harmony.