driftwood twig

[dream]

there once was a raven. or was it a crow? it perched in the shadows of dried leaves, calling caw, caw, caw. but it didn’t matter to the grasshopper there or the beetles or the nearby frog on the mossy rock. they had larger problems. but to the human there standing beneath the raven, it mattered greatly, for it was an omen, so he mused, though he would ignore it for a time.

when a twig of a tree becomes just barely overextended, it can become dry and unwell. the tree has no use for it then, and the little twig knows it, and so it withers away into hardly much more than barked dust. and when a little squirrel gently steps upon it, it will crack and fall. often it will fall unnoticed at all, but should it splash into water beneath the tree, like from a stream passing by, it will be known to all the creatures there, for it sounds like a fish or a frog or a snake and anyone of the forest is well to fear at least one of them.

a stick isn’t meant to float, but it does, and it will float for quite a long time if the conditions are right, and they almost always are in the forest. and should the raven catch glimpse of an ant and swoop down clumsily after it, its labor would not be for food or sport but to catch the poor ant in its beak and rub it across its feathers to ward against harm—all true. but the snarky ant is faster than the raven and it darts around and soon hides within its countless nearby holes. and so the raven, being sharp, looks about its world and spots the driftwood twig passing by. the raven would grab it, i have no doubt, and he would immediately put it to use stabbing at the ant hole. but he would tire and begin to play. and he’d soon be joined by another one, his wife, who is smarter than he is but fond of him. and there are others too, who can appreciate the beauty of a good twig. and what forms is called a conspiracy; a flock of ravens. they can also be called an unkindness, which i feel is rude, but it is nothing to murder, which is what they call a group of crows.

by this time the man is long gone from the forest for his home is not the woods. and he has forgotten the raven and never noticed the ants and doesn’t care for the twig or much else about the forest and his thoughts are within himself and elsewhere in places that don’t exist.

[glitchlynx]

I love this    it's so descriptive, I can really picture the forest!

[yokseekan]

lively prose with captivating quickness and full expression!

The starting question strums in a little ambiguity, which is then dancingly pounced on by an unexpected rupture of words: "perched" and "shadows" and "dried leaves", along with the final hitting punch—"caw caw caw." Then immediately, without warning, the lack of first-letter-of-the-sentence capitalization brings us immediately to the next, almost like a rhythmic poem. Boom—"but it didn't matter..." Introduction of grasshopper, "the beetles", and "the nearby frog on the mossy rock". An explosion of characters to counterbalance the hegemony of the raven-crow thing's almost irreverent "caw caw caw."  The human standing beneath the raven, gently expressed, repeating the "but" from the previous introductory sentence, now brings along its first instance of subjectivity: "mattered greatly, for it was an omen..." And thought is injected into the scene:  "so he mused..." And immediately a contradiction, further adding complexity to the paragraph: "though he would ignore for a time." In the first paragraph alone is an assault of divisions, ideas, and considerations. In summary, we start first with ambiguity, then with a sensory burst, then with an irreverent onomatopoeia that threatens to undercut the sensory, but is protected by the preceding ambiguity, which results in an undergirded bricolage. Then, we move to the lower-case "but" and its solution of "rageful" introduction, the three creatures emerging in the mist and latching onto the reader's gaze, counteracting the onomatopoeia and bringing in their own guns to the mix, as is authorially dictated by "they had larger problems" and "it didn't matter." Then they are wrapped in the word "omen" according to the human, dividing between author and human, narration (and its ambiguous first spark) and character subjectivity, and the ominous "he would ignore it for a time," lashing it all in the height of complexity as well as the finisher of the paragraph: that it was something to be troubled about, despite what may have initially seemed otherwise separately ambiguous, intrusive, jumbled, irreverent, and conclusively anthropological, but not yet as a gestalt of suspense, until it was thoroughly realized on the whole.