The Girl Who Pulled A Forest Out Of Her Ear

Barely awake, she bored into her sleepy eyes in the mirror, pulling parts of her face to catch the morning light in differing ways. She sighed, discontented. 

“She was going to be late.” she thought. 

She wasn't. She never was. She was always annoyingly early. Turning her face to better display the side she had decided was her best this morning, she frowned at her ear. A small white bud protruded from it, no bigger than a sunflower seed. Or was it a mushroom? Or some sort of horrible fungus of the eardrum? Or perhaps earwax? Craning her neck and edging closer to the mirror, she peered at the imposter suspiciously. Lightly brushing her fingertip against the object, she sent it bouncing back and forth like a spring toy. Recoiling her hand quickly, she frowned. It didn't feel sticky or dry like earwax. It felt varnished like an ivy leaf or a tired, leather bag. Delicately, she trapped the leaf, or whatever it was, between thumb and finger, halting it's joyful bouncing abruptly. Asserting the minimum amount of strength possible, she tentatively pulled at the paper-white protrusion. This minimum of force was enough. The object travelled further and further away from her ear until... 

She stopped suddenly and released the leaf. It fell and rested sedately half-way down her neck. Her eyes narrowed as she peered closer at it in the mirror. A thin, green thread joined the leaf to her like an umbilical cord. Several more of its friends had joined it- there were now seven or eight little white leaves spaced out randomly along the thread. Unsure as to what else to do, the girl continued to pull with slightly more force this time. More and more of the white leaves joined their compatriots as the vine continued to multiply. Becoming slightly frantic at this point, the girl began to pull at the thin vine with increasing speed as it piled up in messy ovals on the desk in front of her. The girl’s escalating panic was rudely interrupted by a delicate rustle close to her ear, like someone turning over quickly in silk sheets. She paused. 

In between two leaves sat a large flower with thin petals. The girl carefully took the flower in her hands and gazed at the vine for the first time without the aid of the mirror. Rubbing her thumbprints against the outside petals she marvelled at it’s apparent serenity. Unexpectedly re-energised, she grasped the vine again and pulled with increased determination. Her only thought now seemed to be to pull- to pull and pull and pull she did. Her task seemed to be getting easier and easier until she felt as if she was no longer pulling- it was falling out. No! Not falling but running! More and more leaves and flowers appeared and the vine started to separate into offshoots- short and stubby at first but then the offshoots began to have offshoots and those offshoots had their own offshoots. The vine and leaves and flowers piled up around her until it seemed that there was more vine than room. Now drowning in this new plant life, she began to get tangled. She tried to remove the tiny threads and escape but is hard to distinguish when everything is green and white. Finally, she began to lose balance and toppled forward, hitting the soft dirt with a small thud, a blanket of vines to catch her. Crawling forward slightly, she managed to free herself from the cocoon of foliage and make her way back to her feet. Her hand instinctively flew to her ear but after a thorough inspection, she discovered no further plant life. Tilting her head to meet her shoulder, she heard a faint rustle and a small amount of fine soil leaked out, making a small, neat pyramid on the ground. The air seemed to smell of warm, salty butter and steam and the ground was patchy. A portion of loose, fine dirt here, a tuft of thick grass there, a malt of knotted vines every so often. Thin and endlessly straight trees stood neatly all around her- their roots so overlapping that they could have easily formed one organism. Maybe they did? This new place raised endless questions the girl felt were unlikely to be answered to her satisfaction. The very idea of a question seemed at odds with her surroundings. It almost seemed rude to question or even think of questioning this new world. The forest was perfectly content with itself, why would she disrupt that? What surrounded her made perfect sense to her eye, as if she had been staring at it her whole life and no sense whatsoever to her brain. She decided to step tentatively towards the trees. Her first steps surprised her. The ground beneath her thin boots didn't seem to equate to the ground she saw. Her feet felt solid rounded stones- uniform but slightly warped from use while her eyes saw a messy web of roots, all varying in width and shade. The ground seemed to be both man-made and grown naturally.    

“What was natural anyway?” she thought.

 “Natural” had always been a matter of opinion to her and therefore, in her opinion, non-existent. Without hesitation, she marched on over the naturally man-made cobbles and further into the gloom. A gloom that appeared to be warming. A canary yellow light passed rhythmically back and forth and occasionally up and down between the distant trees. As she drew closer to the source, however, the trees multiplied, diverting her path more and more. The trees had become a crowd, each pair she passed needed it's own negotiation. Every tree she overtook now needed a gentle tap on the shoulder before she could squeeze past it. Despite their similar appearances, each one felt different. Some felt like skin, others like scales, sandpaper, wood, plastic, fur- some warm, others chilling. After some time climbing, she reached an oval clearing- all trees focusing inwards at the performance. The canary yellow light was a tree itself- of a different breed than the others clearly. Delicate with windy, thin branches, sporting cotton bud flowers and completely ablaze with canary yellow fire. The surrounding trees watched completely motionless as the performer skipped and swayed to a soundless tune, leaping into the air every second or third step and twirling around an invisible point. The yellow fire traipsed behind it like pigtails as it landed soundlessly. Its movements were a hypnotic ballet and the girl stood in awe. Transfixed by the ritual, she barely noticed the oval widen as the audience backed further and further away. She was now at the centre of the performance, completely surrounded by its warmth. The dancer filling the entirety of her vision, it's speed increasing, loop after loop, more after swooping more. The trail of yellow fire began to spill together, endlessly turning and twirling around her as individual branches began to form bands. Some thicker or brighter than others, some barely visible at all. All forming a cylinder of stripey light. The lights were so inescapable they made her head buzz. In fact, the whole world seemed to be vibrating like a thousand purring cats in overdrive, inches from explosion. The light had somehow found its way under her skin, burning with an icy intensity through her fingernails, her tongue, making her hair stand on end. 

In an instant it was dark. There was nothing and she felt nothing. The nothing began to trickle out of her, slowly at first, ambling really, until the gates opened and all at once the darkness was gone. The girl took a sharp breath in. Dehydrated and deflated, of everything. The pressure took less than a second to build. She exploded loudly all over her room, pieces of body lay in a variety of sizes and shapes on every surface. She turned her remaining eye to survey the scene.

“Well,” she thought,  “she may be late today.”