The Sad Thing In The Forest
As a young man, barely old enough to watch over my father’s sheep in the vast green hills behind his home, I once came across a young naked girl weeping at the feet of a tall goddess who’s beauty was beyond description. She wept at the goddess’ bare feet in the middle of a lush forest that I often frequented, lifting and dropping her tear painted face as the goddess scowled at her behavior, as if she found the despairing adolescent repulsive. I looked on from afar, afraid that if I ventured too closely the goddess would turn her disgusted gaze in my direction, but in the act of adjusting my position I accidentally stepped on a fallen branch, alerting both women to my presence.
The goddess, who’s shining bronze hair covered half of her glowing face, lifted her chin at me and pointed with an unwavering hand. The girl, who’s eyes regarded me helplessly, continued to sniffle at her feet.
“Who goes there?” the goddess asked. Her booming voice threatened to snatch every ounce of bravery out of me.
“Only a poor field boy,” I answered meekly, stepping out from behind my waist high berry bush. “A field boy away from his loving mother and father, who both make a living tending to the needs of animals.”
The goddess scoffed at me and raised a razor-thin eyebrow. “A cattle farmer?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Then come, boy,” she ordered. “Come stand at my side, and witness what happens to a mortal who speaks lightly of the celestial.”
At that, the young girl wailed and threw herself flat onto the forest floor. I watched and pitied her as her haggard back rose and fell in shuddering fits, each fit in rhythm with her wretched sobs.
“Oh, please!” she cried, grabbing onto the goddess’ ankles so tightly that all color was lost in her knuckles. “Please, spare me! Spare a girl who knows not of what she speaks!”
At that, the goddess violently kicked her away, sending the youth flying through the air to slam into the broad truck of a nearby tree. I heard a sickening snap, and the girl screamed in pain as she sat up along the tree, cradling an arm that had been broken cleanly in two. The goddess turned to me and frowned at the worry on my face, and then pointed at the girl as she recited an incantation with words that I’ve never come across again in all of the years of my life.
“You will never ridicule the gods again,” she muttered after the incantation was complete. And then, as if I was watching something happening within a horrible dream, the girl cried out in agony as her body folded in two and began to morph.
It was an entirely wicked thing, being made to watch the poor girl squirm on the moist ground of the forest before us. She yelled at the top of her lungs in pain as her body twisted out of its natural shape; her arms split into three separate appendages, all coated in a shining black armor that throbbed with every cry that came out of her throat. Her legs trembled uncontrollably as coarse patches of a hair unlike anything I’d ever seen grew from her widening pores, and her breasts popped into mists of blood to reveal an insect like system of organs underneath. It was a disgusting display, a transformation that I still hope might one day leave my memory forever.
For you see, the result of the metamorphosis revealed no creature. The goddess was not one to grace the girl with the mercy of completion. She appeared as an artist’s painting appears when a brush is thrown against a canvas with no plan. A failed experiment, one that should’ve been put down immediately, but was allowed to live because the goddess, for reasons not revealed to me, wanted to make a horrific example out of the girl.
The goddess’ grin was filled with malice as she looked over her grisly miracle, and she turned from the moaning thing on the ground to me in a way that made my skin crawl. “Tell all who come across your horrid form, girl, that to mock the gods is to call upon the wrath of the merciless.” Her voice was an echoing song of contempt. “Not a word of disrespect shall be tolerated, and none shall be forgiven for their blasphemy. Tell them, girl. And weep. Weep with abandon, because you will never speak, or eat, or sleep as a woman ever again.”
So said the gloating goddess. Who, despite all of what was supposed to be the limitless wisdom of an all-divine, could not fathom how senseless the suffering she’d created was. There was not a spark of understanding in her colorless eyes as she watched the girl-thing scramble up the tree behind her to sob alone on its highest branches.
The young are proud and ignorant for a reason, as we all have been at various points in our lives. Time, experience and mistakes mold us all into wiser, more accepting persons. But the goddess did not care. And my sorrow at witnessing such a young girl suffer was immeasurable as I listened to her wail on and on while the goddess grinned in satisfaction at my side.
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