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okaywolfYou&& (working title) is a queer novella about when home is other people, including the monsters lurking in the woods. Check out the about page here. You&& is a sequel to Sometimes The Mountain Buries You.
You spend some time reflecting on Basin while you plan the expansion to your home and while you eat the things that shouldn't be here. You spend a lot of time eating the things that shouldn't be here, in a cathartic, self-destructive way. Whole days are spent lying on cedar boughs, waiting to heal from stitching yourself together while you visualize space for fire, a washbasin, ample space for tattooing and medical care.
Copying Basin's small cabin is not your plan. Is not desirable.
Instead, you work with every memory of indoors you've observed from Basin, Juniper, Basin's neighbours, and other humans who—rarely—near you in the woods. Work with them until they fit. What actually suits you, suits your body, and what you actually find comforting.
Making things feels good. It keeps away the restlessness when you don't have a thing that shouldn't be here to eat.
Harvesting and placing cedar boughs for bedding sets your mind to ease. Mapping trees with shifting twig and needle exercises the capacity of your memory. Rotating rocks flexes your senses. It all settles you, keeps you a kind of aware and calm that makes the hours of the days hold their shape and serve you in turn.
You start building little houses. Little groups of stone. Little assemblies of sticks.
They start housing something you are hesitant to touch.
You next visit Basin on a Tuesday, eager for a human meal after days tracking a particularly mobile thing that shouldn't be here left little in your digestive system. With only minor scrapes and fresh heal of mending yourself to show, Basin troubles.
They serve you the meal regardless, and sit in suspicion of your silence while you eat and peruse what they know—a fair bit—about building home-sized structures.
There's still pain; heart-weary and heart-ache in their cognizance of you. It wells up with a warmth that is growing as distance grows from when they lived in the town with Sheppard and the other person they thought of every time they thought of Sheppard, a warmth akin when they look about the cabin and their eyes land on a blanket here, a zine there, an illustration affixed to the fridge. Warmth that is a type of home you don't understand. A type of home from the people they love who are gone.
You are finishing off the meal, they are still thinking—differently than suspiciously—about you in their head. "Hey, can we have a conversation about this instead of you read my mind and come to your own conclusion?"
Startled, you call, "Yeah, sure, okay," before you can pull what they intend from their head.
Basin's expression is a tug on their eyebrows as they try to figure why you reacted such. "Look, Tern," they put their empty mug—not their favourite—in the sink and pick up Juniper from where he purrs on the eclectically acquired chair nearest you. "Most of my friends know about things like you, have had experiences with things like you."
Experiences that range in quality, you gather.
"O, kay."
"But not all of them."
You nod. On your plate, the barest smear and crumbs of the human meal waits for you. You wish Basin had waited until you were actually finished eating.
You've learned and been reminded enough times that Basin would rather not introduce you to other people. Now you learn that Basin includes most of their friends on that list.
"So how can I let you know not to come here?" They're not asking how can you let them know you need medical assistance, they're frustrated you've probably pulled as much from their head—that they are troubled with your frequent, nonessential visits. It's been months since you've last needed Basin's medical assistance, they are skeptical you will need it any time soon.
"Do you, know about, rocks?"
Basin frowns.
"Do you, know about, winds?" you try again, to a deeper frown. "Rocks, it is, then."
In the woods, you rotate rocks so that they 'face' each other. They relate even if they weren't hewn from the same larger rock, and relate better if they were. You use this to know conditions of what is growing where—how many berries how ripe, recent deadfall, proliferation of mushrooms—to know what tumultuous weather has done to a region without surveying yourself, and further track the things that shouldn't be here. They slip out facing each other though—by tremors, passing wildlife, and passing things that shouldn't be here—which pushes away the other rocks facing it.
You tell Basin to put a sizeable one, larger than their fist, on their porch. They can't move it out of place and back again with the required precision, so you tell them to turn it a half circle when you shouldn't come to their cabin—you'll compensate their imprecision with the facing rock, check every time it's out of alignment if Basin's rock is welcoming again.
They aren't familiar with these things, not personally, not this. You ask, instead of sifting and pulling their mind, even though you can now do so much without the splitting pain in your head, because Basin prefers it.
Basin knows about leaving things where they are—a smart practice. They have a handful of stories from friends who didn't. They've known a number of people—a very small number—who intentionally touch things like you and rotating rocks.
After assuring Basin that rotating a rock on their porch won't invite broader issues, you leave to feel the good of making the connection to the rock on Basin's porch. You realize, once you've found an appropriate rock for each of your approaches to Basin's small cabin to face the one on their porch, that you had forgotten the purpose of your trip.
You spend some time reflecting on Basin while you plan the expansion to your home and while you eat the things that shouldn't be here. You spend a lot of time eating the things that shouldn't be here, in a cathartic, self-destructive way. Whole days are spent lying on cedar boughs, waiting to heal from stitching yourself together while you visualize space for fire, a washbasin, ample space for tattooing and medical care.
Copying Basin's small cabin is not your plan. Is not desirable.
Instead, you work with every memory of indoors you've observed from Basin, Juniper, Basin's neighbours, and other humans who—rarely—near you in the woods. Work with them until they fit. What actually suits you, suits your body, and what you actually find comforting.
Making things feels good. It keeps away the restlessness when you don't have a thing that shouldn't be here to eat.
Harvesting and placing cedar boughs for bedding sets your mind to ease. Mapping trees with shifting twig and needle exercises the capacity of your memory. Rotating rocks flexes your senses. It all settles you, keeps you a kind of aware and calm that makes the hours of the days hold their shape and serve you in turn.
You start building little houses. Little groups of stone. Little assemblies of sticks.
They start housing something you are hesitant to touch.
You next visit Basin on a Tuesday, eager for a human meal after days tracking a particularly mobile thing that shouldn't be here left little in your digestive system. With only minor scrapes and fresh heal of mending yourself to show, Basin troubles.
They serve you the meal regardless, and sit in suspicion of your silence while you eat and peruse what they know—a fair bit—about building home-sized structures.
There's still pain; heart-weary and heart-ache in their cognizance of you. It wells up with a warmth that is growing as distance grows from when they lived in the town with Sheppard and the other person they thought of every time they thought of Sheppard, a warmth akin when they look about the cabin and their eyes land on a blanket here, a zine there, an illustration affixed to the fridge. Warmth that is a type of home you don't understand. A type of home from the people they love who are gone.
You are finishing off the meal, they are still thinking—differently than suspiciously—about you in their head. "Hey, can we have a conversation about this instead of you read my mind and come to your own conclusion?"
Startled, you call, "Yeah, sure, okay," before you can pull what they intend from their head.
Basin's expression is a tug on their eyebrows as they try to figure why you reacted such. "Look, Tern," they put their empty mug—not their favourite—in the sink and pick up Juniper from where he purrs on the eclectically acquired chair nearest you. "Most of my friends know about things like you, have had experiences with things like you."
Experiences that range in quality, you gather.
"O, kay."
"But not all of them."
You nod. On your plate, the barest smear and crumbs of the human meal waits for you. You wish Basin had waited until you were actually finished eating.
You've learned and been reminded enough times that Basin would rather not introduce you to other people. Now you learn that Basin includes most of their friends on that list.
"So how can I let you know not to come here?" They're not asking how can you let them know you need medical assistance, they're frustrated you've probably pulled as much from their head—that they are troubled with your frequent, nonessential visits. It's been months since you've last needed Basin's medical assistance, they are skeptical you will need it any time soon.
"Do you, know about, rocks?"
Basin frowns.
"Do you, know about, winds?" you try again, to a deeper frown. "Rocks, it is, then."
In the woods, you rotate rocks so that they 'face' each other. They relate even if they weren't hewn from the same larger rock, and relate better if they were. You use this to know conditions of what is growing where—how many berries how ripe, recent deadfall, proliferation of mushrooms—to know what tumultuous weather has done to a region without surveying yourself, and further track the things that shouldn't be here. They slip out facing each other though—by tremors, passing wildlife, and passing things that shouldn't be here—which pushes away the other rocks facing it.
You tell Basin to put a sizeable one, larger than their fist, on their porch. They can't move it out of place and back again with the required precision, so you tell them to turn it a half circle when you shouldn't come to their cabin—you'll compensate their imprecision with the facing rock, check every time it's out of alignment if Basin's rock is welcoming again.
They aren't familiar with these things, not personally, not this. You ask, instead of sifting and pulling their mind, even though you can now do so much without the splitting pain in your head, because Basin prefers it.
Basin knows about leaving things where they are—a smart practice. They have a handful of stories from friends who didn't. They've known a number of people—a very small number—who intentionally touch things like you and rotating rocks.
After assuring Basin that rotating a rock on their porch won't invite broader issues, you leave to feel the good of making the connection to the rock on Basin's porch. You realize, once you've found an appropriate rock for each of your approaches to Basin's small cabin to face the one on their porch, that you had forgotten the purpose of your trip.
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Date: October 27th, 2024 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: October 31st, 2024 06:01 am (UTC)