Lost in the Forest

If you missed this morning’s prompts post, I am responding to the prompts from Deep in the Forest.

Today was a the first frost of the season. I took a nice walk hunting for small leaves and fronds to use as filters on clear plastic to create forests in the mirrorworld.

OctPoWriMo 2023:Facing Our Fears

What We Didn’t See Through the Trees

From above, the green swath does not look dry
Zooming in, the forest becomes trees
Beneath the firs, a woman cries
on a log by broken glass
A bottle dropped shattered
A slant of light cuts
through crisp needles
She walks on
unseen
spark

Writober 2023

Today’s prompt for 13 Days of Samhain is “Dead Man’s Shoes” which sparked an idea to go with the visual prompt.

Discarded Shoes

Logan woke up to the sound of someone on the landing outside of his apartment door. He thought he heard a scuffle, a grunt or stifled scream, so he threw on a robe and rushed out with his cellphone prepped with 9-1. No one was there. There was, however, a pair of brown loafers neatly lined up at the base of the stairs. Who would do that? Just leave their shoes like that? What he heard must have been a dream.

He forgot about it at work and when he returned home the shoes were gone. As he watched the news, eating a microwaved dinner of mystery meat, mashed potatoes, and cubed vegetables, the shouting and stomping over the blaring, thumping music from the apartment above him became unbearable. He put on his noise-cancelling headphones, turned off his laptop, and went to bed early.

In the morning as he left for work he noticed a pair of women’s bright red stilettos at the base of the stairs and some new high tops on the first and second step as if they were climbing the stairs.  Logan shook his head and hurried down the stairs.

When he got home his neighbor and his girlfriend were headed out. He couldn’t help but notice her red stilettos and his new high tops. They smiled and waved as they locked up and headed past him. So they were just messing with him. Why would they do that? Well two can play at that game.

While he pulled all of his shoes from his closet, he noticed it was completely quiet. No stomping, or horrible music from upstairs. They must have finally split up, he thought, smiling and noticing his muscles relax. Maybe they moved out. That thought made him really happy.

That night he set his alarm for one am, after putting all but one of his pairs of shoes in his laundry basket. When the alarm went off, he jumped out of bed fully clothed, slipped on his loafers, and took his laundry basket into the hall. He lined up four pairs of old sneakers at the base of the stairs. It was weird, but not disturbing, so he started moving the shoes up the stairs. 

He heard something like the whisper of the wind, and thought someone was coming down the stairs. All light was blocked from above and a giant head, a huge face filled the entire space. It wore a strange toothy grin and silently stared with huge blank eyes. A shoe still in hand, Logan ran and banged on his neighbor’s door, yelling for help.

He answered rubbing his eyes and seeing the shoe said, ” Oh, so it is you leaving those shoes. That is so weird. But, hey, thanks for the shoes, man,” and closed and locked the door.

Logan kept his back to the wall and slid toward his apartment. Not seeing the face anymore, he darted toward the stairs to retrieve his shoes. But the monster was only hiding in the shadow. The huge smiling mouth opened; its tongue wrapped around him, lifting him out of his brown loafers. It swallowed him whole.