Hodgram
Gulls
… and in her terror, Grandmother Gull hid the little ones away and flew on ahead, her heart hammering in her narrow chest. When she got to the water’s edge she smeared the inside of her little boat with the most rotten fish-scraps she could find. They perfumed the boat with a stink so foul and dark that no creature in its right mind would dare step in, lest fur and bone be tainted by it for weeks on end.
Soon the demon crashed out of the trees and onto the bank, panting and snarling. It could think of nothing but the hunger, the ache ripping at its insides, propelling the endless machine of its body onward. At the edge of the water it called out to her: Oh, Grandmother Gull, won’t you help me? I I have to catch the little ones; they have been promised to me, but they have surely crossed the water, and I know I will die without them. Oh, I need them so.
Grandmother said, I do not know promise, being a thing of air, but every creature knows hunger. My vessel is open to you.
She drew the boat onto the water, where it was quiet, but for the splash of the oars. The stench curled slowly around the demon in the low breeze.
Soon the thing moaned and writhed, empty and sick. The smell, it whispered. Why must it burn so?
Oh, pity, ancient one, she said. I know the water, and I know the scent of its dead, but you dwell in the wood and it is of no comfort to you.
She gestured with one tattered wing. Lean your weary head over the side, spirit. The air is clear along the surface.
And the demon — for once, in its misery — let itself be led. It leaned over the edge of Grandmother’s little boat, and bent low; it smelled the tang of mud and algae. It heard frogs and twittering insects; it looked past its own terrible reflection to a swarm of little shadows, flitting between the reeds.
It drew the first real breath it had ever taken outside the wood. After the burn of the fish-rot, the sweetness of this air surprised the demon so much that it forgot the pain and the gnawing void in its belly, just for a moment. The sweeter air filled its chest. And Grandmother rose up behind it, her wings spread large, and then the demon was no more.
So now, traveler, tell me: as you step off the dock, who do you believe yourself more to be — the demon or the gull?
Whose face do you see beneath the waves?
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, Jenn Wilson and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
