Tales On The Fly

The creeping greenery slowly--methodically--closes in on the lonely stone. For years they have held their positions, neither showing their cards or looming intentions. With all the chaos of the surrounding wood providing endless opportunities for advancement in distraction, none have shown the slightest hint of making good on it. They have only held to their own steadfast movements and machinations, giving no hint of their desires to the wide-eyed sychophants that surround them.

Elsewhere in that same wood, a servile tree hangs tall above its neighbors, its canopy stretching as far and wide as its frame can hold. In no season that transpires does its bulk of outward stores keep its freshness. For all is picked with no respite, for either thieves or their tasteless appetites. With blind eye it regards. With blurry gaze it carries on.

Above the disparate fray lies the blazing Sun, casting rays with trite abandon. The clouds, though abundant in the placid sky, avoid its glare as loyal accomplices.

At least, that is what only a fool would be led to believe.

For neither the Sun or the clouds form thoughts of their own. They simply are, and as dictated by their nature, form such an impression of consciousness only through the minds that witness them.

As for all those that remain:

Only a fool would believe they, too, were without capacity to plot.

For only a fool would thoughtlessly stumble, regardless of the shifting heavens above, into the wood where such things operate in secret anonymity.

At least: more than once.

As the fool stepped so callously into the entrance to the forest vicinity, all within was caught in sharp relief to the trained eye. Had such a fool had an eye for such things, retreat would have been preemptive. But, of course, this wasn't the case. Onward this stranger went, pace lacking falter as it continued unwaveringly on, piercing the sanctity of the domain with blind, tasteless appetite.

With well-trained skill the residents held their illusions, alerting neither invading nor evading predator. With peripheral visions, each and every atom spied on, gauging; contemplating; abhorring.

Undaunted, the intruder adventured on, head and eyes swiveling with almost drunken exaltation, trying all at once to taken in every grand wonder that could appease such starved senses. Any hope of subconscious indication had buckled under the onslaught of inundation far beyond any means of recuperation. For all intents and purposes, the conscious mind had found the domination it never before had dreamed was possible.

Some time later (no exact length could be gleaned in such a place as this, where beauty seemed to shine on, unencumbered by deviations of light), the fool found what had been in sight for so long, though no goal had truly preceded it with intention. It was a clearing, not far off in the distance. It appeared naked, save for a lonely stone at its center, and a circumference of greenery not unlike that of a like-colored iris.

While the stranger had been seized by an energy unimagined upon first arrival into the wood, the power had faltered enough that cause for rest had sunk its fangs in ever so slightly. It stood to reason that, in a place where it seemed every atom had its own individuality, that the significance of a focused point still had much to say. Even in this place, points seemed apt to sting.

Marked by an almost alien sense of culmination, the fool approached the stone and, by almost blind indulgence, sat down on it.

At that very moment, the illusion faltered. The beauty that encased the invader faltered, ever so slightly, and was in full bloom once again.

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