Forest Born
By Deborah Walker
First published in Necrotic Tissue 2010
Michael’s footsteps falter when he sees the woman shedding her rough coat of bark and stepping naked into the fleckered forest. Stripped of her garment, she is pale ivory wood. A newborn nymph, devoid of hair, yet fully formed. She stretches her moist limbs of skin stripped wood.
Michael gasps, a small sound that might have been lost within the rush of the forest’s growth, but the nymph turns her curled bud eyes towards him. She opens her wide, sap filled mouth. Uncoiling, unwinding her vines, she grows towards Michael, embracing him in the newly peeled twigs of her arms.
Find Deborah in the British Museum trawling the past for future inspiration or on her blog: Deborah Walker’s Bibliography
