fallen tree

as i was saying, in the dream, the girl was lying in a dark room with a shallow, blue tiled bathing pool, the sapphires glistening beneath the water. she was submerged only slightly in the bath, with soap foaming over her bare skin. she thought she was beautiful. the person from her past was there in a corner, watching her silently, as though she were a deer in the woods, unknowing of the great white wolf nearby. a predator, maliciously eyeing its prey. the girl rose slowly, drying her clean body with a sun soaked warm towel. she admired herself in a vintage, gold plated mirror, her reflection lit only by the candlelight from beside the bathing pool. she ignored the watchful eyes of the wolf in the corner. she observed, instead, her bare feet as they hit the tiles, walking away from the dark room, into the fluorescent lights of a hotel hallway. she made her way into the wolf’s den, seemingly knowing her way without looking up. she let the towel fall, and put on some clothing, watching herself in a new mirror as she did so. in this reflection, she did not look so beautiful anymore. the bright lights showed the features that the cool, dark room had hidden. her unattractive qualities she disliked so. the wolf approached her while her back was turned to him, looking calculating, and domineering. she submitted herself then, turning away from the mirror, in acceptance. she was happy to look away, and to see the wolf - she had been waiting for him. but her eagerness to submit to his claws made the wolf back away, now. the challenge that had once intrigued him about her, had disappeared. she had given herself up, and her willingness to accept his pain, possibly even yearning for it, as she had learnt to find it endearing, seemed to be the quality that overpowered her reflection now. he backed up further, then, looking truly bored. and then, the bone crushing sentence, as she looked up to him with her doe eyes, inching towards him, a hand outstretched to his chest, made a collision with her. “maybe you should leave.” she leaned closer, insisting, silently. he put a placating paw on her leg, in an apologetically kind way, and the gap between them shone through, ever so evident. it was clear now, as he grew taller, that he towered over her, overpowering her. now the power difference between them was clear. he was a predator, she was a prey, and they were not equals. everything would forever be on his terms, when and where the two’s lives would meet and occur together. it was like that before, where he dictated the time and place, when he asked her to stay, when he asked her to leave, and when he asked her to be patient, and quiet. and now, his inquiry was her distance, when in the past it had been to close any negative space between the two of them. but her eagerness was new. in the past, she had been cold, withdrawn, maybe even bored of his interest, as she let herself be drowned beneath his claws. she accepted whatever he wished of her fate. she didn’t try to run, or fight him anymore. he could choose life or death for her. mercifully, he seemed to always just choose life at the very last minute, if only so that he could repeat this event in the future, this risk entirely at his hands. now, perhaps, he didn’t care to be the decider of what her life became. he wanted space, he didn’t want or like this new side to her - the side that cared, craved, wanted, and maybe even needed him, and this ongoing game he played. and so she left. but not before asking for an explanation. he smiled weakly, and did not give it, but went quiet as another creature entered the room. he resembled a lion, trumping both the wolf and the deer in the predatory chain. while the wolf had the mercy to walk away with his head down, offering her the benefit of the doubt, and of consideration, the lion was different. the lion had no issue in rattling off a list of her worst qualities and traits - everything she hated most about her external vessel. what interested her, was he could say nothing bad of her spirit, for the two were separated, and the latter was invisible to him, because he chose not to see it or look for it. the girl shamefully left the room, and was now in an open range of peaceful trees, wavering from a calm breeze blowing from the snow crested mountains in the distance, adorning the horizon. somewhere on the slow trek up the steep hills, the wolf approached her, reconsidering his words and decision. the moment her back was turned, and she herself was slightly less attainable, he found interest in the game, and in her, again. she kept walking, slower now, silently inviting him to follow, and hoping he would. and then something strange occurred, with a gait of wind. the girl fell, onto the soft earth, her body crushing the branches beneath her, strewn on the ground. she lost her vision, and regained it from a new angle. i could see the scene play out now from a birds-eye perspective, quite curiously. the wolf panicked, pawing at her limp body. the game was over, and she had lost. but he was not victorious. quite the contrary, he paced and whined. he watched as a fallen pine tree enveloped her, her body was being enclosed by the trunk of the great pine tree. the wolf desperately and hopelessly dug through the bark, trying to find her, but she was gone. her spirit was already flying high with the ravens, in the sky, watching him, now. watching the ending of her earth-bound vessel below.

the girl’s vessel, her body, had been tired of being the home to a spirit who disliked it so. it had grown weary and depleted of being under the persistent weight of ridicule, speculation, and criticism of other beings. and so, the vessel let itself go, from the girls spirit. and by doing so it became a spirit too, warmly enclosed in the embrace of another fallen being, a fallen warrior; the great pine that had spent decades standing tall and strong until it all became too much.