Elan Mudrow
Smidgens
The Harvester and the Crone
He was an old orchard, still in the shape of rows. But time had scattered his buzzing and his feet made noise upon layers of fallen twigs. Still, he searched, moved with purposeful steps, noise and all.
She knew he would find her. He wanted to find his lost one. He’ll want her to kiss him like in the old days, when mornings were late and cars passed by on their way to work, headlights on.
She wouldn’t, couldn’t, kiss him again. Being close to him, an aura away, would feel strange, familiar in an unsettling way. Best to see him in the night. If he surprises her, let it be during the night.
She knew how he worked. He potted hard seeds, watched them sprout and with careful interest, plucked them before maturity. He harvested and ate tender plants.
He had a power of light. His house was an array of lights, growing lights, natural light, night lights, always on in one way or another. He said, “I want to see, always, all of the time. I always want to be clear on things.”
He could see, but see what? She remembered him looking at her inside his house of light, with depthless eyes, irises with holes inside them, as if they were wells that had no bottom.
Why wasn’t there light inside his eyes? Perhaps that’s why she had loved him then. She wanted the darkness to surface, the hidden things he refused to show, a truth, an honesty, no matter how dim that reality would be. But he entangled her in light.
She escaped his little greenhouse, bolting towards unknown empty lots of life, streets, dirty kids with big hearts, confused adults with compassion worn on their sleeves. People blunt with darkness. It’s inside those living empty spaces where she became fascinated by the littlest scraps she found. Things she could see in the dark. Not one shape was like another and darkness let shadows move, whole lifespans, even death, move. “Funny,” she thought, “how we brush away the truth by using light.”
She knew he was coming. She sensed movement, the oceans rose, the forests burned, cities bulged. She would smell him before he showed himself. He smelt of old fruit, searching for the young bud, the vulnerable shoot reaching for the sun. He pretended to be the sun, an old trick of his.
She will touch him, not with her lips, but with words aligned by the absence of light. She will let her wings unfold, made of a shiny transparent film. She had bloomed. She was beyond seeds.
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Elan Mudrow 
“Your eye is the lamp of your body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light; but if it is not healthy, your body is full of darkness. Therefore consider whether the light in you is not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, with no part of it in darkness, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its rays.”
– The Words of a Gracious Nomad <+3
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Thanks my friend. Yes, a blooming and you will.
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Elan, I’ve been waiting for you to write this piece. Thank you for that bloom at the end. I hope I can, too.
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Lovely writing.
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Beautiful write up. I could imagine myself in the picture.
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Lovely, filled with amazing images. Your writing seeps into my imagination. Thanks.
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”She knew how he worked. He potted hard seeds, watched them sprout and with careful interest, plucked them before maturity. He harvested and ate tender plants.”
and
”She had bloomed. She was beyond seeds.” – had me desperately grateful she got away, perhaps maybe.
The juxtaposition of magic realism and the prosaic cars and city particularly successful. A stunning work!
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I feel I begin to understand this, but even the one reading has layers rolling among themselves, like they’re teasing and playfully letting me see things!
I think the lines – “He potted hard seeds, watched them sprout and with careful interest, plucked them before maturity. He harvested and ate tender plants.” – particularly both insightful and alluring.
Wonderful work, Elan!
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Fascinating story! I was taken in and held by your words.
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Whoa. Love this.
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Thanks!
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Oh, you have such power with words! I wanted to keep reading, more, more, more! Beautiful!
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Beautiful! Thank you.
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