Verdant Freckles Allyson Shaw

Verdant Freckles Allyson Shaw Allyson Shaw

A sole, green dot marked his skin. Unnoticed by its host. He carried the thing as it lay dormant. Waiting. It was not long until green peppered his skin.

Verdant freckles. He was aware now. And the dots turned to bumps. Every pore fertilised ready for its own growth. That first dot, the heart of the being, led its troops forward. A spindly thread appeared. The boy tugged it out. Painful. He separated skin from thread. But the boy could not see the root of the pest Agitated now, threads sprung up, weeds everywhere.

Prepared, the boy knew what to do. He understood how to win the game. But with every tug his organs shifted too, snagging until the thread gave way from the boy’s force. And this did not stop the plant. The boy could not uproot every thread.

And the green dots, the spawn of the threads, were unshakeable.

It was a race against the being. The boy stood facing his reflection. Frantic. He tried to smooth his skin, a battle against the plant and pain. No victory led him closer to the end, a war of attrition. The boy could not rid his body of the thing. He sat and watched one of the freshly plucked green bumps turn once again into a climbing thread. It ventured from his skin, leaning, trying to feel more. He let it. And watched as it thickened. The thread grew tall enough to run across his skin, between the bases of its fellows. The boy was transfixed as the plant wandered: skirting around his forearm, criss-crossing and latticing his pale flesh. A leaf sprouted, and the boy cried. —

After his surrender, the plant moved without interruption. From below, it riddled its way along the boy’s bones. Tentacles swam flowing in the river of blood, spinning around his veins and arteries.

The boy continued to move with the knowledge he’d succumbed to the being.

Words caught on the threshold of lips, balancing there in his mouth, yet unable to escape and call for aid – as the plant pinned his tongue down with green twine.

He could not speak at all. And even his thoughts whispered to evade the everpresent plant. The boy stumbled around in the overworld, a microbiome within the big world. But even this movement was too much agency. He must be stopped. The tresses paused. As one they extended their green arms, and the threads found they could finally reach far beyond the boy. Vines latched onto the ground. And the boy broke free—but never mind, reinforcements would come. The being strengthened. Threads turned to ropes. The boy was pulled tight, the translucent threads bound and braided together as coordinated cords. Twisting with a focused purpose. The boy was stagnant. Succumbed, cocooned, the boy was consumed by the plant. Where was the division between boy and plant? Weed and flesh.

The being sapped from the boy’s life. And a new integrity was created. A tree for wanderers to amaze at.