Day 134 Short Story #2

*Note: This story is really-really rough, and I've never edited it. I wrote this one.

Luca's Land

Hello Mr. Caterpillar.

  You’re pretty, so I hope you don’t mind if I pick you up. My name is Luca.

  I’ve seen you around Mr. Caterpillar, I wonder if you’ve seen me around perhaps? Momma says that people are always watching me, so I bet you have seen me. But, I think that Momma only says that, because she thinks I’m a peculiar kind of 9-year-old girl to have for a daughter. She thinks that because I use words like peculiar sometimes.

  Look at where we are, Mr. Caterpillar.

  I like being here in the forest. At first, it seems so eerie and quiet. It seems like a refuge from the noise of the out-sider world. I’m an insider, though, so I don’t mind the eerie silence.

  Some people don’t like the silence of the forest, but they don’t stay long enough to hear how loud it is in here. We are loud when we use our voices in our homes, but to the out-sider world, no one hears and we seem quiet, because they are so infinitely louder than we.

  The birds are singing their sweet tunes from above, and every time I turn to look my serenade in the face, I find that I do not see them. The winds rustle the leaves and thin branches, and little columns of forest ground debris rise and fall. While at home, we in-siders are very loud, ehh Mr Caterpillar.

  The birds and the rustling and winds harmonize, and soon after a rhythm of the forest forms. Then I dance. I dance however which way I like, and I scream, and I laugh, and I am so very loud.

  Sometimes, I spin and I spin until I feel as though I’m walking on the sky, and my insides are outside. My insides are outside.

  Sometimes, Momma worries about me. Sometimes, I am quiet for weeks. Sometimes, I only want Momma to love me. Sometimes, I only want Momma to leave me in the forest to live with little caterpillars like you.

  Momma doesn’t like it when I go the forest. Momma thinks it’s dangerous, but I don’t. Especially not when the deer are my friends.

  So I always come here. In the early days, I used to take off my shoes, and leave parts behind as I traveled deeper into the vicinity of the forest. I would leave behind my shoelaces, then my socks, then my shoes, one by one. I didn’t want to get lost, you see. But I never get lost anymore. I don’t think Momma gets lost in here anymore either, because of all of the times that she has come to take me back to the outsider world.

  I remember the last time that she came to fetch me.

  You see, my momma tells me that my blonde hair is beautiful. But, I don’t like it… In class, Ms. Simmons scolded me for pouring brown paint on my hair, but I told her that I wanted my hair to be like the trees and like the leaves fallen, I told her that I wanted to be like nature and so I wanted brown hair. Ms. Simmons stared at me, and took the finger-paint and before she walked away she told me that I ought to start thinking. I told her that I was, and I do, and I always will. I told her that I was special and that I had my own “Luca Logic”.

  That day, I ran away after to school, into the forest, with brown paint still stained against my blonde hair. I sat in the forest for hours, until Momma came and ruined my sanctuary. She screamed and screamed.

“Luca! Luca, baby! Please!” she said. I didn’t respond though, I wasn’t ready to go home.

  But, as she crept nearer, I could hear the birds stop singing, and I could feel the tension in the Earth. My bare feet, toes deep in the marshy soil, could feel how my outsider mother plucked the heartstrings of the land out of tune.

  She found me, and she put her arms around me, and then I realized how cold I was. My poor Momma... I screamed. My momma was scared, because I was never too loud in the outsider world, but I screamed all the same. I don’t quite know why I screamed.

  Mr. Caterpillar, I want to know why I screamed.

  Just as I finished telling you Mr. Caterpillar, you inched yourself to the base of my palm. And just as I was about to put you in a jar, to keep for forever, you died. Fare well, Mr. Caterpillar. I will leave you in peace.