Addison Hager

They told her that nature heals all ailments, so she’d been walking along the road every day. But there was no enjoyment to be felt through the grey blades scratching at her ankles.

She tugged her trench coat, pulling it tighter around her arms. It wasn’t supposed to rain today, she thought, loathing nature itself.

She kept her head down, watching for cracks in the road. Her mind lingered on each one far after she passed it to prevent her from forgetting about how much she hated these walks.

A bird chirped overhead.

She lifted her gaze. But alas, nature was against her, and the first drop of rain landed directly in her pupil.

“Gah!” She shouted, rubbing at her eyes as if acid had burned her.

I hate nature.

As she was rubbing her eyes, she failed to notice a particularly large sinkhole in the pavement. The heel of her boot caught and she stumbled. Typically, she would have caught herself, cursed the ground, and moved on with her dreadful day. But she was too feckless to care, and so she planted into the mud.

She wanted to stay there, in the warm wet loam, and bath in self-pity until some alarm was sounded and someone was sent after her. However, the mud was slicker than she thought and began sliding from under her.

She slid and slid, tumbling and rolling through the forest. Mud invaded her ears, coated her skin, and choked down her throat.

She saw the rock coming (barely, for her eyelashes had been slopped together) but she was helpless against it.

Stone hit her temple and all went dark.

* * * * *

When she awoke, birds were chirping in the branches overhead. She was tempted to lay there until she expired. For it would be so much work, she thought, to push herself up, walk all the way home, and clean herself off. It seemed that death itself would be preferable to the tedious work needed to set things right.

Then a creature, black—almost dark blue—with two white stripes decorating its coat, waddled out of the bushes. The skunk cocked its head at her, creeping closer to investigate.

Blasted, she thought. There might not be much that brought her joy in the world, but a multitude of things brought her distress, and being sprayed by a skunk sounded blaring like the latter.

She clambered up from the mud and began to swipe the slime off her coat.

The skunk sat, watching her curiously.

“What are you looking at?” she asked.

The skunk chirped.

“Ugh!” She scuffed her boot deep into the mud, spraying the skunk with goop, and then she took off, stomping through the trees as branches whipped and scratched at her face. She cursed at the sky incessantly as if her careless fall had been its fault.

The trees whipped and scratched at her face, tore the seams of her trench coat, and tangled her hair.

When she spilled out of the trees, she expected the storm to be raging on, so it was to her immense surprise that she was greeted by a sunny field. Pools of light played among the fluttering grasses, squirrels jumped, and birds fluttered all about

So much color, she thought. I didn’t know the world could be saturated in so much color.

It was disgusting. She hated how it taunted her from its place of pure happiness and saturation. She felt like a lonely gray storm cloud, wandering in a bright blue sky, shaded by her blindness and illuminated by the seeing sun.

“I hate nature.”

She stomped through the field as Northwind grasses danced and swayed, joined by vibrant varieties of blossoming wildflowers.

The sight wounded her eyes as she squinted. So much so, that—if she let herself—she might bleed fresh tears down her dirty cheeks.

A soft trickle swept through the air.

A stream, she thought, finally somewhere to wash this muck from my lashes. She wanted to find the quickest dry path back up the hill so that she might reach home before darkness settled over the town.

The bubbling water peeked through the grasses and she sulkily dragged herself over to it.

She was too distracted by the glare of the water that she failed to notice the flooded marsh. Her foot sank into the soggy muck. She flailed her arms but it was no use.

The splash could be heard for miles.

“Blasted!” She spit and sputtered as she fought the current in a vicious battle to gain footing. Eventually, she steadied herself and, cupping a bit of the sweet water, washed the mud from her eyelashes. She emerged from her unintentional bath and perched on the riverbank, staring in forceful distaste at the wondrous field around her.

A little brown cottontail hopped out of a fern and anxiously stooped to drink from the river.

She watched.

What a cute little… No! Gross. It probably has some sort of disease. She averted her gaze but the subject it alighted on seemed to arouse even more enjoyment: a monarch butterfly, displacing the most delicate flutter of air with each bat of its colorful wings. She stared, ensorcelled by the bug.

How, wonderful, she thought. Oh, to be a butterfly—so happy, so free with its phantasmagorical charm…

She averted her gaze, too mentally stubborn to change her mood.

But alas, nature was against her.

A golden head of a daffodil spun in an eddying current of crisp crystal water. The flower snaked and swerved toward her as if seeking her out.

She couldn’t hold herself back any longer. She leaped into the water, careless as to how it would splash around her. Sugary sweetness washed her eyes so that she might see. She swept the daffodil into her arms and strangled the flower close to her bosom, breathing in its feminine scent.

She struggled to think of a single negative thing. How could anyone do so in such a situation and location as she? As water dripped down her scalp and washed the mud from her jacket and her eyes, she craned her neck up to the sky and thanked “nature” for she realized He had been looking out for her all this time.