{Taking place in a parallel universe,
which is very much like our own, yet is entirely imaginary}
Astra the Witch was heading home
from a professional convention. Regretting her choice to take the train instead
of driving, she wheeled her small suitcase, filled with new samples of rocks,
herbs, potions and creams, up the steep road leading to the station. The images
of the last three days flashed before her eyes: the woman whose daughter won't speak
to her, clinging to the feet of one of the leaders – Tarja, known in her regular
life as Ellen. Tarja seemed so uncomfortable, but she lifted the woman, made sure
she was listening, and said "Your strength is her strength. Build yourself
up in strength, and you will see." Now, even if the daughter doesn’t come
back, the woman would survive the ordeal, thinking she was giving her daughter
strength by being strong. "Clever Tarja", - thought Astra, puffing. After
all, we do not see the future, as it's not yet revealed, except in some rare
cases. We see hints, possibilities, and options. "What would I do if that
was me?" – she thought, thankful yet again that her own children remained
in touch.
She thought about the desperate
woman who followed her around for the entire second day at the hotel. A woman
unable to make decisions, someone who freezes for hours, holding two bottles of
shampoo, one in each hand, and a fridge full of yoghurts could send her into a stupor
for a whole day. Someone who nags any
person in a position of authority for guidance, instructions, and help, but
then doesn’t follow a word they said, because she won't dare act in any way at
all. Astra took her aside, sat her down, and helped her re-write her
"no" into a "yes", on a scrap of paper, returning her into
her body, and accepted a much lower fee than was customary, as the woman said
she had no money. One re-writing wouldn't help much, of course, as she has to
keep re-wiring her brain, but Astra had high doubts she would. The indecisiveness
might be too deeply entrenched.
Astra dug up her return ticket,
and passed through the gate. The guard was dozing in the shade. On this tiny
station there weren't enough passengers to cause any loss, even if they all
travelled for free. She shook the sand out of her shoes, and fanned herself
with a newspaper. The air was ringing with anticipation, the power of the
coming train ringing in the rails. With a quick swipe, she grabbed a frog that
was hiding under her bench. It was a rare kind, its toxic skin producing a
hallucinogen perfect for some treatments, yet rather unpleasant if ingested,
not inhaled, as it should be. She shoved it gently into her suitcase, willing
for everybody in the station to forget what they just saw.
The ride was long and steamy, and
eventually, thinking of the baby with the scaly skin that they all took turns
treating, she put up a protective shield around herself and fell asleep, remembering to set
her brain to wake her in two hours.
Looking at her puffy, creased face,
reflected in the train window, Astra regretted not driving, - yet again. Yet,
trying to keep her eyes open on the long drive wouldn't be that much fun,
either. Her clothes felt as if she hasn't changed them for a week, even though they
were fresh that very morning. She felt her skin crawling with streams of sweat,
down her back and in between her legs, and from under her bra, slow, persistent
tickling. Astra passed a hand over her face, and the bags under her eyes got
just a touch lighter. Anticipating a long, luxurious bath, and wishing she was
already in it, Astra dragged her tired self and her stuffed bag to the
long-term parking lot.
Her car had a surprise in store: an
impressively-sized dead locust on the windshield.
Astra was beginning to feel
anxious. This was not a good sign.
Sniffing around for other signs of
aggression, she peeked under the car, just in case. Sure enough, there was a
fresh and steaming pile of excrement, located strategically right in front of
her back wheel. However she might try, she couldn't avoid driving through that.
Astra held her tongue, because nothing could do her more harm than grumbling
and complaining. Any negativity on her part would only intensify whatever it
was, that was invading her space. She searched her mind for reasons to be
thankful, and right there and then, she found none.
Well, at least the car wasn't
damaged, she thought, and at once, a sparkling wave of gratitude washed over
her, mixing with the sweat and tiredness.
She got in and revved up the
engine. A "Buick" from another era, rusty and creaky, so old that
people turned their heads to have another look at it, crawled slowly out of the
parking lot, smelling like a lavatory. The town centre slowly floated by, the bank,
bakeries and fashion outlets, restaurants and crowds, and dusty trees that
stopped growing as soon as they were planted. As she got closer to the
outskirts, the trees got bigger, and the crowds – smaller. She whistled with relief,
listening for the noises in the engine and the fluttering of her heart at the
same time.
After about twenty minutes the
town stayed behind, and soon she was right in the middle of the Forest. The
tops of the pine trees made a soothing noise, very much like that of the sea.
Astra loved lying down on her wooden terrace and looking up, at the swaying
ocean of needles, smelling of tar and freshness. The mossy smell of the fallen
needles underfoot was another one, entirely. The needles absorbed the steps,
bouncing back when you left them behind, and eventually became the very soil
that the Forest stood on and fed from.
Her village, made up entirely of
very educated and perpetually tired downshifters, had less than a dozen houses,
hers being the one in the middle, just because she moved there first, and the
then rest of them followed. She parked, and pulled her suitcase out. Finally…
soon she will enjoy a luxurious bath with some of the new oils…
Yet, the door would not open. It
opened inwards, so that she'd be able to get out when snowed in. The lock was
open, but the door would not budge, as much as she tried to push it, as if
there was something stopping it from the inside. A wave of panic rose right to her
throat. She briefly considered calling for help, but then realized people would
laugh. She was the witch, after all.
She looked through the window, and
saw some movement inside, but not much else, as the reflection of the sun was
blinding her. She sat down on the veranda, and tuned in into what might be
inside her house. She saw a mass of small things, crawling and shoving and
falling over each other. Cockroaches! Enough of them to stop the door from
opening! She felt queasy. "In addition, cockroaches don't live in the
forest", the thought.
Horrified, Astra backed off down
the steps.
It was time to reconsider her
actions in the last month or so. Her thoughts were racing, and she was actually
too hungry to think. Willing her mind to obey, she went over every event since
last Sunday, noting what might be the cause.
She recalled the brief scuffle
with one of her colleagues, who insisted that the plague came from medicines,
and that doctors had an agenda, and insisted that she would never take her child
to a doctor, even if their lives were in danger. "Stupid woman", - Astra
muttered to herself, but Amaranth, that was her name, heard her, of course.
Astra said something about reading research papers, Amaranth retorted that they
were all fake, of course, and no research actually took place. "May you
see light,"- Astra bowed and left the argument with the customary
disagreement phrase, and walked away. Amaranth screamed the same phrase to her
back, which meant that the argument was resolved civilly, no grudges held.
The scuffle would explain the turd
under her car, but not the infestation. She kept on searching.
Maybe she wasn't loving enough to
the undecisive woman? Perhaps… it did not resonate as truth, though. She was loving
enough.
Cockroach was a creature that could
not be killed. They could be squashed – then get up and walk away. They cling onto
life… they are the Nature's cleaners. And then it hit her – they were actually
doing her a service. They were clearing out something else, way worse and more
sinister than them. They came to warn her.
This time, the door opened.
Her floor, her beloved carpet, the
table – everything was a brown moving mass. Overcoming nausea, she stepped in.
In the middle of the living room, right where the moving carpet was the
thickest, she could barely distinguish a pile of something. Shoving the roaches
away with the broom, she could just make out a half-eaten rug doll. She
immediately recognized it as the kind usually distributed by the horrifying
sect that believed in mass suicide as a means of saving the world. They soaked
those dolls with the extract of Ophiocordyceps fungus, the one that arouses an irresistible
urge to commit suicide in anyone who touches it and inhales the fungus spores,
and threw them in through the window at night. The victims are then found dead
in the most bizarre and gruesome positions – she had seen the pictures in the
newspaper, whole families gone in a single day, with no traces or fingerprints
to lead the police onto the sect members. Astra could feel her knees bucking,
but she held onto the door and managed not to faint. The cockroaches, with
their irresistible desire for life, were immune to the fungus of suicide, of
course. They were the very opposite of suicide; they came to symbolize life. They
saved her life today.
Sweeping the masses of roaches out
of her way, she took a loaf of bread out of the freezer and quickly defrosted
it in the microwave. Then she crumbled it outside in the garden, muttering
words of gratitude. The army of roaches slowly flowed out of the house towards
the bread. When she went back in, there were barely any of them left. Not
daring to approach the rag doll, she dialed the police. "Be gone!" –
she whispered, - "or the cops will think I'm a nasty dirty witch!" With
that, the last of the cockroaches disappeared in the pine needles."And thank you!"- she added.
Chewing the once slice of that bread she kept
for herself, she lay down on her veranda, at last, crying and laughing, floating
on the smells of the pine forest and pure, undiluted high of being alive, with
all its sweat, turds and roaches. She could dream and doze for a while, safe
and oh so grateful, until the police showed up, at last.
