WOODENWORLD

By Raya Gupta '25

Wooden flowers with wooden petals and wooden pollen. Wooden house full of wooden people surrounded by wooden meadows Wooden birds flying in the sky and wooden squirrels scampering up trees. There are wooden children jumping on a wooden trampoline with wooden springs, their wooden hearts racing as they approximate flying, the closest they will ever get. Their dreams soar with their limbs higher and higher and higher They keep reaching even though they know they will fall.

Joy surging through brightly lit wooden veins; infectious laughter. Wooden feelings and wooden chatter in the air Wooden clouds suspended by wooden stilts, hovering above wooden mountains that reach into a wooden sky. A wooden world. Wood is polished and beautiful and complex Wood is hard and tough and won’t break A wooden world is strong and kind to wooden hearts.

There is no color in a wooden world, only brown, but brown is the only color. That is, there was no color until the day the red robin flew into the wooden world by accident The wooden huntsman shot down that scary scarlet beast and it bled scarlet blood, dripping onto the wooden trees. The wooden people put the scarlet bird into a wooden pot and cooked it over a wooden fire They weren’t hungry, just curious

Most wooden people only taste Only taste buds were carved into their faces But the huntsman and the mayor and the doctor have wooden eyes that can only stand to see wooden things The scarlet bird stewed with a wonderful smell, but none of the wooden people knew it The huntsman decided that the scarlet bird was ready when it was roasted brown and the wooden people all lined up for a taste One by one they took eager bites and spit it out, smiles glued on their faces. Wooden disgust.

Who created the wooden world? A beautiful world that can’t stand the outside.

The wooden people don’t care, they don’t wonder. They only smile their wooden smiles.