Honeycomb Moon

Bystander May 2, 2015

One spring afternoon, in the lavish silence of the deep forest, where nothing moved or breathed or wished for things to be anything but what they were without permission from The Lady, who was, it must be said, generous with her permissions and so no one suffered, a strange bystander stood at the edge of the very center, just at that spot where the trees thickened, the silence deepened, and the light gave way completely to the dark, and watched.

He had a mind to step in, to tell them all, from the minutest lichens and mosses clinging to their forest hosts — stones and trees older than anything around, save The Lady — to the tallest firs and massive oaks, to make up their own minds. To walk away from The Lady’s oppression.

But as he stood and watched, he began to wonder if benevolence could rightly be called oppression, and what exactly determined the essence of “free.”