Hana got up early again, and Alix isn’t sure where they are. They left their laptop open on the kitchen table but are nowhere in sight. Alix tries not to look at the screen, but ultimately caves. In its current state, Hana’s magnum opus is hardly more than a blinking cursor.
Alix wriggles into some flip-flops and steps out into the heavy morning fog. They say hello to the neighbor’s horses, check Dolly’s garden, and start counting the lizards that scurry in and out of the holes all over the ranch.
Once Alix counts twenty or thirty lizards, they typically join Dolly for coffee. Today, however, Alix decides to retrace their steps back to the woods, keeping a safe distance from the sheep pen. Alix’s memory of the sheep chase is cloudy, leading them to question whether they made up details like the swamp, if not the entire scene.
Trekking through the woods, Alix checks the weather on their phone. It’s 59 degrees and foggy, illustrated by a grey, gloomy backdrop not too dissimilar from the actual environment. They swipe left in the app to review their other saved cities: 62 degrees and sunny in New York, 59 degrees and mostly cloudy in Tokyo. They watch the grey clouds animate across the screen, wondering if they’ll ever get to see them in person. Shortly after Alix and Hana became friends, they swore to visit Japan together once they had found their respective successes. The milestone always felt a little less concrete to Alix. Alix swipes up to close the app, comes down from the clouds of Japan and lands back in the fog of Santa Teresa.
It turns out Alix hadn’t made up the swamp. They approach the edge of the slimy, green surface, a hint of water peeking through the layer of algae and duckweed. Driven by god knows what reason, they crouch down, digging their heels deep into the mud on the bank and gather up a handful of wet earth. They begin shaping the mud into figures meant to resemble the carvings from Dolly’s art collection. The mud sculpture keeps running through Alix’s fingers, but as it dries, its shape begins to hold.
As they reach for another helping of mud, a small dash of fuschia darts across the swamp’s surface, causing Alix to jump. They follow its movement as it grazes over some lily pads,and disappears behind a fallen tree.
Alix stands up, ready to run, but find that they’re ankles-deep in the mud. They yank themselves out foot by foot, and take a few soggy steps back from the swamp. They hope that Hana packed an extra pair of shoes.
They instinctively look behind them to find the fog slowly creeping into the woods. An unusually chilly breeze hits the back of their neck. Turning around again to face the source of the breeze, they find that the swamp is now sparkling in sunlight. The bright light washes everything out, and Alix feels that the spooky fuschia thing has moved on. The temperature in Santa Teresa goes up 5 degrees.
Alix considers investigating further, and crazy possibilities run through their head. Maybe the fuschia thing was trying to lead them to the missing sheep. Maybe it was leading them to more trouble. They take in the energy and vibe of their surroundings. Sensing neither a threat nor an invitation, Alix makes a safe, intuitive judgement to head back.
As they emerge from the woods, they notice a white bird at the edge of the property that seems to be frozen in mid-air, flapping its wings but stuck in one precise spot. They watch the bird for a moment, waiting for it to break from its stationary position, but it continues to flap its wings without moving up, down or forward. It seems strangely caught on something, like a kite on a string, but it doesn’t appear to be struggling.
Alix rubs their eyes, finally ready for coffee. They realize that they left their mud sculpture in the woods.
