Flash fiction by Anita Goveas
The End of the Wood
When they come for me, because they always do, to turn me into something else, I want to be a book. A book called The End of the Wood. Because that's what the Celts called this place. I'm not old enough to remember that, but I'm old enough to remember what was here before The Crystal Palace.
You need roots, that deep, satisfying system of down-flow and up-flow. But the air, that brings the tools for growth, for ripening, that's often forgotten. It brings the sounds of occupation too. They float carelessly and surround me.
When they moved the Palace of Crystal here, where there was just tender grass and burgeoning shoots, I was still putting down tendrils. What floated on air currents were shouts of warning from sturdy men, and the chime of metal on metal like a robin's song. They brought so much glass. Air and light trapped with sand and fire.
They dug deep, hammering down. Droplets were forced upwards, ears becoming clouds. They made a column of twisting, writhing water with their molecules of exertion. Under the earth, escaping droplets streamed in panic, through piplets and conduits, bufffeted by currents. Huddling together for refuge into what they called a 'lake'. I was smaller then or I would have tried to stop it.
To celebrate this frenzy, more men flowed to view it. They emerged from the Earth from tunnels and tracks. They also brought a woman, speckled with carbon and round like a plover's egg. They fanned around her, leaf-life, as if she was light. The spring breeze brought murmurings, her name 'Victoria'.
Crowds ebbed and surged. I thickened and sprouted and released my catkins on currents of air. Eighty springs drift by, and the the air starts to crackle. The currents are disturbed and menacingly swirl. They bring cracking and booming, shouts of warning and chiming of metal on metal. As the Palace of Crystal flames, air and light are freed.
When they come for me, because they always do, to turn me into something else, I want to be a book. A book called The End of the Wood. Because that's what the Celts called this place. I'm not old enough to remember that, but I'm old enough to remember what was here before The Crystal Palace.
You need roots, that deep, satisfying system of down-flow and up-flow. But the air, that brings the tools for growth, for ripening, that's often forgotten. It brings the sounds of occupation too. They float carelessly and surround me.
When they moved the Palace of Crystal here, where there was just tender grass and burgeoning shoots, I was still putting down tendrils. What floated on air currents were shouts of warning from sturdy men, and the chime of metal on metal like a robin's song. They brought so much glass. Air and light trapped with sand and fire.
They dug deep, hammering down. Droplets were forced upwards, ears becoming clouds. They made a column of twisting, writhing water with their molecules of exertion. Under the earth, escaping droplets streamed in panic, through piplets and conduits, bufffeted by currents. Huddling together for refuge into what they called a 'lake'. I was smaller then or I would have tried to stop it.
To celebrate this frenzy, more men flowed to view it. They emerged from the Earth from tunnels and tracks. They also brought a woman, speckled with carbon and round like a plover's egg. They fanned around her, leaf-life, as if she was light. The spring breeze brought murmurings, her name 'Victoria'.
Crowds ebbed and surged. I thickened and sprouted and released my catkins on currents of air. Eighty springs drift by, and the the air starts to crackle. The currents are disturbed and menacingly swirl. They bring cracking and booming, shouts of warning and chiming of metal on metal. As the Palace of Crystal flames, air and light are freed.
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Anita Goveas is British-Asian, based in London, and fueled by strong coffee and paneer jalfrezi.. Her stories are published and forthcoming in the 2016 London Short Story Prize anthology, the Word Factory website, Dodging the Rain, Rigorous, Pocket Change, Haverthorn and Riggwelter. She tweets erratically @coffeeandpaneer
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