by Gillian Zane
It didn’t matter that she was muddy, a little bit bloody, and quite soggy; she was still a sight. And I was sure she wouldn’t appreciate me ogling her ass or imagining fucking her as I followed behind. A girl like this was probably hit on all the time. I didn’t want to be just another pervy guy, plus what would be the point? Women like this one had high maintenance written all over them, and I certainly didn’t know what to do with a high maintenance girl.
Cutting off the libido with some stern willpower and thoughts of my exes unshaved armpits, I kept my eyes on her, but not to check-her out, no, my eyes were on her like a hawk to make sure she didn’t take another spill or make a misstep. I didn’t want to have to figure out how to get a medevac helicopter into these dense woods. And what if it did happen? What if one of us got hurt and had to go to the hospital? We were teeming with pollen, and I was sure I had ingested enough that my body was now a carrier, if not for the virus than just to pass on the pollen. There was a possibility that we could kill anyone we came into contact with. Hell, we were probably killing each other right now.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I was supposed to do this alone. I was supposed to come out here, and then I was self-quarantining for 6 days, enough for the pollen and antibodies to get out of my system. Here we weren’t even socially distanced. Hell, we had practically been on top of each other.
It was probably too late if it was going to happen. We had been breathing each other’s air for the last hour. We were both screwed.
“Is that a clearing up there?” She stopped in her tracks, and since I wasn’t paying attention, I ran into the back of her, snaking an arm around her to steady us both. My hand was on her stomach which was hard but soft. I liked the way her skin felt way too much, especially for someone I didn’t even know their name. She stayed pressed against my chest, not moving away in disgust, which I had expected.
“What is that?” she whispered.
The pollen was thick here, floating in the air like a swarm of insects flying around our head. The forest had gotten very dense, so much so that not much sunlight got through to the spot where we stood, but a few paces ahead it was lit up, hinting that there could very well be a clearing.
We walked forward, our steps slow and in sync. The woman next to me said something, but the bird calls had picked up in intensity to the point where that was all I could hear. Birds singing and crying and calling to one another.
“Holy crap.” I heard her words as we took a step forward. We weren’t in the clearing yet, but the area around it was thick with plant life, as if it was a barrier. Everything slowed down. I didn’t see a plant, not one plant, only a riot of plants all merging into one. Palmettos as big as houses, kudzu vine hanging off everything with huge purple flowers spilling from behind their leaves. Wild berries grew everywhere as birds swooped down and snapped them off the vines in greedy gulps. Blackberries from what I could tell.
“How can we possibly know what plant it is?”
“Could it be all of them?”
“The probability of that is not possible.” I shook my head.
The bird calls shut off as if someone had flipped a switch.
That was when I heard the other voice.
“Welcome Ezekiel and Miley, I’ve been waiting for you.”
Female with a deep resonating baritone vibration to it. It was beautiful, alluring, and scary. I walked forward without any thought to the consequences or repercussions, and my mouth dropped open at the sight before me. I was Alice, and I had just stepped into the garden with the talking flowers.
The clearing was a circle, almost perfect in its dimensions. It was surrounded by mature trees, nothing special, trash trees as we call them, the kudzu and blackberry vines creeping up high into the sky along their trunks. Once you passed the trees, more palmettos that reached to the lowest hanging branches were the next line of defense, then once you passed those, you were in the midst of phlox and lilies in full bloom, even though it wasn’t Spring. There were Cajun irises, their smell pungent in the air, in full bloom like I had never seen before, and in the center of it all was a circular shaped inlet, an offshoot of the swampy land behind it, full of duckweed and water hyacinth and a plant I didn’t recognize, which was quite rare to happen to me. It looked like a cross between Alligator Weed and Lizard’s Tail, which was an odd combination. There was no obvious pollen secretor. No definite producer.
Movement caught my eye, and I felt a pain in my gut as the owner of the other voice came into view.
“Welcome, my children.” The crone smiled a mostly toothless grin at me. She was naked except for a pair of Shrimp boots which went up to her knees. Even though her face was wrinkled and aged, her body was young, obese, and she seemed to be pregnant, but because of her weight I wasn’t quite sure. She was beautiful and hideous, all mixed together in a weird juxtaposition of ancient luridness and modern beauty. I saw she crouched over the woman I had rescued, who lay at her feet unconscious, and I had time to register fear as I too crashed to my knees before her. Crashed before the crone. The goddess, her red hair swirling around me as the crone’s face morphed into the beauty of my mother.
7
“Sip your tea, darling.”
The glass in my hand was sweating. The water dripping on my knee, clad in pants I didn’t recognize. Linen. I never wore linen. Too Southern for me. I lifted the glass to my lips, the liquid inside overly sweet, but refreshing. I placed the cup on the table next to me, looking for a coaster because I didn’t want to leave a ring. My mother had pounded that habit into my head. There was nothing there, so I placed it on the wood, naked.
Sitting back in the chair, I marveled at its comfort even though it was patio furniture. The spot I was nestled in looked out onto a lush garden. Based on the plants growing, we hadn’t gone too far from the swamps, lush Southern iris’ bloomed, interspersed with Amarillos and gardenia bushes that were in full bloom even though they shouldn’t be blooming at the same time. For that matter, I saw a Camellia covered in flowers, which was definitely out of season. I wondered how the gardener was coaxing them to bloom and still keep them healthy.
A dirt road and path led to the porch I sat on, there wasn’t a car in sight, and when I glanced up at the sky on the horizon, there wasn’t a plane anywhere. Birds were everywhere, soaring above, and in the branches. A flock of very agitated ones perched in a tree near the perch and made their discontent known. I couldn’t control my curiosity as I spied a vine growing onto the porch, the leaves were huge with large purple flowers that gave off an intense aroma. I had seen the same vine in the clearing, and when I touched the leaves, I jolted out of whatever lull I had been in. I remembered the clearing. The voice. The crone. And then nothing.
I swung around and saw the woman I had hiked with, the woman I had pulled out of the swamp. She was in a chair next to mine. Her eyes were closed. She was also clean and dressed in a sundress that accentuated all her best assets. Her chest rose and fell as if she was in a deep sleep, and I couldn’t help but notice she didn’t wear a bra, showcased by the plunging neckline of her dress. Her hair flowed around her shoulders, long and full with a slight wave. It had been tightly woven in a bun when I met her, but now I saw it hung almost to her waist. It was beautiful and lush and I wanted to touch it. I want to run my hands over her thighs which were exposed as her tiny summer dress rode up her legs.
“She could be yours,” the same voice I had heard in the clearing crooned. A woman stepped onto the porch. She had come from the garden, her arms laden with flowers. She was beautiful, her skin the color of tilled Earth, her hair like a red flame. She picked up a vase and placed the flowers inside, revealing her belly, swollen with life. “Together, you too can create life, experience the joy and carnality of creation.” Her voice was but a whisper, and I couldn’t tell if she spoke aloud, I didn’t see her lips move.
“Drink your tea, dear.” This time the goddess’s lips did move, and I watched the woman’s arm come up and she took a d
rink of the sweating glass of tea like I had, her eyelashes fluttering. As her throat moved when she swallowed, those eyes shot open. She saw the goddess first, and her eyes narrowed in mistrust. Her hand reached for her stomach and she made a squeak when she realized she wasn’t dressed in her clothes. She looked around in a panic but when she saw me, she calmed down. Her hand went to her heart, and she closed her eyes for just a millisecond before she leveled that glare at the goddess.
There was a rustle of leaves and the sound of claws on wood as a large dog that resembled a white wolf bounded up the stairs and placed himself between the goddess and us. He raised his haunches, dropped his head, and began to bark menacingly at the woman, who startled with the onslaught of intense sound, the tea that was still in her hand slipping out of her grip and crashing to the ground.
The explosion of liquid and glass had the dog becoming even more agitated and the goddess’s face scrunched up in rage and annoyance.
“Enough!” The goddess raised her voice, and all went quiet, even the birds in the trees. “Go back to the woods, Benjamin,” she ordered the dog who obeyed her immediately, leaving much quieter than he had come.
“Where are we?” I was done with the entire mess. The goddess sighed loudly and leaned against the rail, and as she did, vines began to reach for her, wrapping around her legs and slipping under the dress she wore.
“The possible future,” the goddess said. She turned and leaned over the railing and looked out onto the green lawn, her breasts spilled out of her dress full with milk and they dripped down onto the grass below. Where the liquid touched flowers bloomed. “You’re in here,” she turned and tapped her head and then pointed to me and the girl next to me.
“You’re in my head?” the girl rasped, her voice sounding unused and harsh.
“Sort of,” the goddess shrugged and gave a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, tucking her breasts away and wiping the liquid onto her dress. It left a milky white stain. “I can’t fully get inside your head until you let me, until you give me permission. Old rule, but it still holds me in place. We’re in a plane of existence I created and invited you to, you’re my guests. I did offer you tea.”
“You need to explain yourself, now,” I demanded, finding courage I didn’t think I had.
“I was about to, Ezekiel.” The woman frowned and looked at me with disappointment.
“No, you’re talking in circles.” The girl next to me spoke up, and I was grateful for not being alone.
“Circles are the foundation of life, that is a compliment.” She smiled and winked, and I felt my stomach reject the tea. I threw it up and grimaced as I saw the mess on the porch I had made. Vomit next to glass and spilled tea. The anger that had simmered beneath the surface of the goddess resurfaced. Her face contorted and instead of the ripe mother, the old crone stood in front of us.
“Spit it out,” I hissed.
“My other recruits were never this hostile. They welcomed me as their goddess. I let them take me on this porch, opened myself to them so I could enter them as they entered me. Changing us both. I am the Mother. I’m here to propose a regime change. You’ll help me.” The beautiful goddess supplanted the crone, her swollen belly gone, now her body naked, her nipples glistening and the thick hair between her legs shone as if wet and ready. I felt my dick harden instantly, a traitor. The woman was temptation, but it was fake. It was a show. This is not what she was.
“More circles. Explain yourself, or let us go now,” my counterpart said and the goddess woman sighed loudly and rolled her eyes as if we were bothering her. She sat down in the chair opposite us and spread her legs, her hands trailing across her breasts and belly.
“The world is changing. What was once a garden paradise that housed the humans who were such a fun creation has now been polluted and overrun. Your race has bred itself to extinction levels, pumped the air full of pollutants, and acted like a bunch of spoiled brats for the last millennia. It’s time for a change. I’m asking for your help, for your guidance to bring the human race back into the garden. The ideals both of you promote, both of you have so adamantly backed in your short lives, I’m asking for you to step up and help me finish it. Money where your mouths have been, so to speak. Together, with your new gifts, we can turn this apocalyptic world into a utopia.”
Her words didn’t ring true. They didn’t ring right. It sounded like an idyllic future, but here I sat held against my will by an unknown.
“How would we help you, if you are the Mother, the Mother I think you are implying, why would you need a human’s help?” the woman next to me asked. “And put some clothes on, you are not tempting me, you look like a cheap hooker.”
“Miley.” The Mother’s face broke out into a big grin that hid a frown. She sat up and was clothed. “You give yourself no credit. I might be the Mother, but I bring about creation, I birth new ideas, new life, I cannot do what is needed to be done. That is why I need you. Humans are not useless; they are a creation of mine. A beautiful creation that has just gotten a little out of hand. Like a beautiful invasive flower in the garden, you plant it and watch it grow, but soon it is choking out everything else in the garden, so you need to cut it back.”
“Cut it back? What does that mean? What do you want us to do?” I fired off too many questions for her to process, but she only blinked as if what I was asking was idiotic. I remembered a psychology professor when I was getting my bachelor’s degree made that same face at me.
“It’s simple, and it has already begun, so you might as well join me. My plants that I’ve recruited have begun the process, but it’s not enough. There are too many of you. Too many humans. With your help, we can change it all. The hungry, the unloved, the weak, bring them back into the fold, back into the Earth where they can be useful instead of drains on the ecosystem, and then the remainder of you humans can live in paradise. The strong, the fittest will be free. Free of your worries, free of what ailed you.”
“The weak and unloved? What do you mean?” Miley asked.
“For too long your population has been too large to be accommodated. This has led to rampant poverty, sadness. It’s why your own suicide rate is so high, even humans know deep down inside that they are not welcome anymore. Your politicians scream it on the news. Your fiction writers repeat it ad nauseam. Humans are a terrible species. You are like locusts, breeding and consuming, but not to help the Earth like the insects are made to do, to help decomposition, no, you bring nothing to the table. You consume and pollute, consume and pollute until there will be nothing left to consume. But it wasn’t always this way. You aren’t really a bad species; it’s a product of your reproductive ability and lack of natural predators. Once that is rectified, once you can go back to living within small communities and with something to fear, everything will go back to how it should be.”
“You’re talking about population reduction and institution things that eat humans?” Miley stood up this time and the goddess flinched slightly. I was surprised by this, why would this being be scared of Miley?
“There are billions of you, a few billions brought back to the fold won’t matter in the end, it will only make life flourish.”
“Billions?” I asked in shock.
“My plants will achieve the first culling of a couple hundred million, but they can only go so far without your help.” She turned and looked out onto the garden again.
A clattering and then the crunching of glass. I looked back to find the woman named Miley approaching the goddess, and her entire being, the tight ridge of her shoulders, the clenching of her fist, was not in a very welcoming position.
8
“You expect me to sit here and listen to you speak of mass murder like it is nothing?” I walked over the broken glass hoping a shard didn’t penetrate through the strappy sandals this lunatic had dressed me in. I was wearing a sundress and a pair of strappy sandals that I wouldn’t have been caught dead in. I wore no bra, and from the feel of the way the dress rubbed against me,
no underwear as well. It left little to the imagination, like I was some kind of sacrificial virgin. Whatever this woman was playing at, I was not down for.
The woman who referred to herself as Mother smiled at me as if I was a dumb child. I never liked to be condescended to.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“I am the Mother.”
“You are not my mother.” I shook my head.
“But I am. I have birthed all. The Earth is my child and all that live upon it.” My skeptical side wanted to scoff, but her words rang somewhat true. I knew that she was the Mother. I knew that she had given life to some of the creatures that populated this planet, but the Earth being her child didn’t sit well, there was something wrong with that statement.
“You are our Mother, yet you plan to kill us?” The man that had come with me here, the man the Mother had referred to as Ezekiel stood and faced the goddess with me.
“You make it so personal, so individual. Your people are unhappy, they are starving and scared. They have spread to every area of the Earth and have no respect for the other living things around them. They fight. They war. They hate each other. They preach climate reform and other nonsense but then use it to line their pockets, instead of actually save the planet. The point fingers at each other as if other humans are the enemy. They hate each other. Why should they not come to an end?
“In nature, when there is a drain on the group, that thing is eradicated, a sick member of the herd, a pup born with defects, killed. Humans have defied this basic rule of nature for the last couple centuries and now it is time to enforce it. The sick are supposedly cured, but all that is usually done is they are medicated until they can no longer feel the pain. The handicap are given chairs, and non-profit organizations to help them live, even though they contribute nothing to the group. The mentally ill are allowed to breed and make more mentally ill. Weak genes populate the earth because they have no logic to inhibit their breeding. The dumb make more babies. Those that will remain will be much happier with the changes, in fact you’ll thrive. With your help, not only will you survive, but you will be gods among men.”