Free Tropic of Creation by Kay Kenyon Page A

from the forestfloor like smoke from a banked fire. She took off her hat and stood in place, steaming like the forest itself. Around her, in a bubble of life, small flying things, barely distinguishable from pollen, swooped in unison. She thought of the captain in his own bubble of life, that metal container. She had known it would kill him. She might have told him, but instead gave him that false, cheery good-bye.…
    Sascha hurried on, trying to leave these thoughts behind. Striding through the ravine, deepening here in this wood, she made her way toward the cleft where she and her father had collected skeletals.
    When she got to the ravine she found a swift stream, partially obscuring her boneyard. Rivulets cascaded down the flanks of the hills, carrying water opaque with silt. In the growing heat of the day, the water tempted her to leave her clothes in a pile and wade in, letting the waters renew her as they had the Sticks. She closed her eyes, letting the sun warm her eyelids. Through the slit of her eyes, she saw prisms, ripples of color chasing over the landscape like a slick of oil set alight.
    A disk of color blossomed up on the ridgeline. She opened her eyes to stare.
    A great yellow-green cloud undulated there, not fifty feet away. It flashed pink, then yellow-green, then pink again. In the midst was a dark center, and from it came a soprano wailing. Sascha stood up, shading her eyes from the sun which just now rose over the ridge, backlighting the miasma—and clearly silhouetting a human shape in the middle. She thought the screaming sounded like her mother.
    Sascha scrambled up the muddy hill, slipping on the glasslike clay. Closer now, Sascha could see that it
was
her mother—surrounded by flying insects with colorful wings, butterflies perhaps, with downward beating wings flashing green, and upward, pink. They covered Cristin with bright fur and surrounded her as she ran along the ridge, screaming. She was careening away from Sascha. Then,reversing in panic, she began running toward her. Her mother flapped her hands around her face, fending off the flying swarm. Sascha plunged straight into the cloud of insects. There in the blind buzz of wings, she reached out to her mother. Slapping hands pummeled Sascha before her mother registered the sight of her daughter.
    As Cristin shouted, a butterfly flew into her mouth as into a red cave. She spat it out again, coughing, as around them fluttered the green, and then pink papery wings. Finally Sascha pulled on her mother’s arms until they both fell to their hands and knees. Cristin buried her face in the mud while Sascha swept the winged cloud from her mother’s hair. She noted that the slower she moved, the less they flocked, until, abandoning her swipes, she wrapped her arms around her mother’s trembling back and found a pocket of insect-free air to breathe in the crevasse between their bodies.
    What frightened her more than the swarm was her mother, lying huddled in the mud, shaking. Sascha whispered in her ear: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.…” She would never hear the end of this.
    After a time she felt a firm hand on her shoulder. It was her father. The swarm had disappeared. She looked up into his face, mouth set, eyes hard. Mother sat up, catching her breath, and began pulling wings, legs, antennae from her person.
    Cristin looked up at her husband, then at Sascha. “Hat,” she said to her daughter and rose to her feet with calm dignity, as though she were not covered with mud and bug juice.
    Sascha’s father pulled her to her feet. It was then she saw the soldier with him, rifle drawn, facing outward, scanning down both sides of the ridge. She’d never thought her father one to bring a gun where soap and water would do.
    His rigid arm fixed Sascha in place. “Stay right here,” he said, moving then to his wife’s side, saying something toher in a whisper. Beneath the layer of filth, Cristin’s face flashed alarm. A noise from the other side of