stick in the mud writing names of the people who had been invented for this trip. Otherwise Pillar and Horsestead Thermedgenise. friends who never existed.
she leans down to the dirt to whisper a secret. how heavy is her heart here on etherbridge rock. lighter now maybe. lighter now.
the blade is around four inches deep into the thick mud that she herself sits above, dangling feet down, on the granite boulder’s shallow gradient. feet themselves bare from boots and wraps drying in the new sun.
a blanket there on the large rock. and her pack all uncovered with its silvery packs of dried foods and the radio.
etherbridge rock sits on a slight hill emerging from a field, that overlooks a valley on its far side, which had carved out a gap between this south side of the west broad hills and the north. now taken as a rough divider. and they say that beneath the rock it is the kingdom of the fairies. or said. this. when it got its name.
the food is compressed and compacted in the stomach unit, turned into energy. she opens the flap and lies back and the wind bats it back and forth. crumbs of dried ice cream and curry carried off into that tree lined field. that valley. down where there is a most fertile soil with scrubby trees and once a mill before the water receded into the ground.
the rain was so beautiful to see that she had slept out in it, watching and now had for several hours been drying out the parts of her that hadn’t waterproofed so well.
were they worried. what with their sister now gone out into the world with these made up folk. the net profiles she’d made up and the car she’d ordered and the driver she’d given a tip to to say that he was… Otherwise. yes yes enjoy. what stay with what people yes? the confused and rabid old ancient grid girls of the server farm sisters.
would they worry?
it felt nice, the breeze on her flap and when it was struck closed with a burst of energy fire the shock was enough to catch her off guard. her body rolled off the rock and into the muck where she scrabbled for the blade. drying mud made it tougher to pull out. but once free she made her target in less than a second.
the essence harpie threaded back and forth a second in the air before plunging down to the scrub. crashing and rolling a few feet, machete handle stopping a careen. killer killer.
in the basement of the warehouse farm she’d been knifing wire rats for years. the things which grew up and out of ‘the sentience’ and rolled around all tangles of sparking wire independent. there was that question of were they conscious.
the essence harpie was. had been. in a way. like a dog. dog with a knife in its back. unhappy life. must be. but still. she weeps to know she has to kill and that somehow they keep watch.
she unhooks a panel and replaces her blasted stomach door with reflective blue. metal of the harpie. it will take longer to fuse and reshape than usual, so she cakes mud around it from an indented puddle. wraps it in fiber bandage. puts on the jumper, over her torso and repacks. she can eat in a few days and by then. it will be okay.
foregoing still wet boots, on the back of her pack, she moves on. from the etherbridge rock, and down into the valley. to follow it to the mouth of the blood garden.
GlitchOut 