The following excerpt was inspired by my time spent in a wet-season thunder storm at the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.
"Although I had been seeing the dark clouds moving closer and closer, it was the excitement of the birds that told me the arrival of the rain was imminent. I love the anticipative activity of animals the moment before, and the moments following a rain storm. Out in nature, when a storm is coming, it is as if everything becomes electric, and the animals sense every wave of energy. In this way too, storms energize me, -when the wind picks up, and the air seems to change density, my senses are heightened and I am in tune with the environment. I feel alive and creative. How exactly this makes me creative— I don’t know. I don’t know the function, I just know it happens."
Since the overall goal of Inner Child Creates, is to test the theory that freeing your inner child also frees your creativity, the purpose of this blog then, is to share some of the creativity that is released as a result of my freeing my own inner child.
To me, the purpose is to spark the act of creativity—to begin something. It’s not to make a product that can be wrapped up in a little bow and presented on YouTube or social media.
What I want to share with you is the impetus of creation.
The following excerpt was inspired by my time spent in a wet-season storm at the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. So without further ado, here is “The Birth of Bromeliada Contemptuous,” or, more accurately, a snippet of it. Maybe as it develops it will become a graphic novel, a short story, a full length novel, or something else. WARNING: Dark topic. (attempted murder, death.)
EXCERPT:
“The Birth of Bromeliada Contemptuous”
He drug her broken body deeper into the thick forest. Having been confident no one would observe the crime, he certainly knew no one would ever find her corpse even further removed from any road or path. The animal clean-up crews would be there soon enough. He had used exactly 9 reflective stickers to mark his path, and would take exactly that many home with him. The full moon was basically worthless beneath the thick canopy, and he wasn’t concerned his dim headlamp would be noticed either. He dropped her beneath the giant cypress and as he knelt over her, a feeble hand attempted keep him away. He brushed it aside. He guessed that was the last of her strength. It was probable she would be dead within minutes, but he wasn’t careless, so he stood and ripped the thick vine climbing the tree away from it’s moorings and again knelt by her, this time pressing the vine hard on her neck. At first there was a slight wheezing, but not much after that. This one had been easy. He stood, but before he walked away, he bent and pick up a handful of dirt, or moss, or leaves—whatever it was… he owed her a burial, after all. He tossed it onto her lifeless body and walked away, more nervous he wouldn’t make it back out than that anyone would ever find her, or tie him to it.
But this moment, was the last moment of the dry season, and as his red tail lights faded, the first drop fell.
For two hours the drops fell, then fell for two more. It was cold and her body like ice became stiff, but the rain kept falling. Finally, it washed enough blood from one eye to reveal a slit; just enough for her to track the movement of the moon as it sank and left her in total darkness. It tracked the rising of the sun, and the shafts of light as they moved slowly around her, then the movement of the shadows of the next night as it breathed all around her.
The rain stopped; a strange reprieve, and in a gentle breeze things began to dry just a little. Something came sniffing, whiskers lightly brushing her skin as nostrils filled and assessed. This company did not stay, and she was again, alone. But far, far above her, a rare, delicate beauty was weeping, for she had observed everything. From the petal of the ghost orchid slipped a tear that tumbled 50 feet until caught by the reach of the bromeliad. From there, it streamed down into the cup of the bromeliad, where rain is stored, but this plant knew this was not it’s rain to keep. When the vine had been so violently ripped, it disturbed the grip of the bromeliad, and it too was now dying. But deep in the ancient cypress forest, things die slowly.
When the dry season came, she had been encrusted by what had become her muddy trap. The burial he had given her had been joined by other leaves and debris, and lichens met on her chest. It was at this time when the forest was under the stress of drought that something changed. Tension was thick, like a static in the air. Everything was thirsty. Dry season can be cruel, and there was death all around while new life was put on hold. In this state, the bromeliad withered. There is that moment between life and death of any living organism, that instant in which the last of life is extinguished. In that very instant the bromeliad remembered the tear it held, and releasing it, it died. The drop fell; a slow motion fall, losing micro-atoms in the dry air as it descended, but the core of it splashed on her face. With a terrible gasp she jolted upwards gripping at her throat as the agony of existence ravaged her. Anchored to the earth she stared around, her eyes darting wildly. Involuntarily, she howled long and loud, making alligators tremble. There she would have to wait, pinned to the soil and cypress knees… but the wet season was coming, and soon drops would fall. ...
Some still-photos from my adventure video at the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary:
Link to the video: https://youtu.be/PR3Lhrphu5M
Not the illusive ghost orchid, but an orchid I photographed while at the sanctuary.
The Strangler Fig
The storm is brewing.
Deep in the swamp in the storm.
Gallery: my experience at Corkscrew.
Gutsy Egret and his reptilian observers. AKA: "Ambush predators."
Devising a mythical predator.
Torrential Downpour.
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