Entries for the Construct Cup Version 2.0!!! |
Prompt for: June 23, 2014 Subject or Theme: Desert, Jungle, Mountains, Plains, etc, (describe or tell a story about some natural terrain) Word(s) to Include: Lurk, rot Forbidden Word(s): (none) Additional Parameters: Minimum 28 lines. Jukai Forest Deeply within the forest of Jukai, the sun struggles to penetrate the canopy overhead, a rare ray arrows down to brighten rich, damp ground where ancient lava tubes spear up beneath the rotting detritus of leaf and bough and bone. Apollo butterflies dance, but there is no music: for in Aokigahara, no birds sing. Contorted trunks form convoluted thrones for the dead: empty chairs in the waiting room of redemption. Tree roots sword the surface. Parry blows, foil gnarled tree fingers which embrace, entwine, entangle: then twist around the discarded: tattered ribbons, empty soul-shells, unfulfilled lives. Thumbed trunks point to labyrinthine truth, but far too often, the ears are beyond the hearing, the weary feet have lost their way and the eyes cannot see the trees for the forest. No Zenchishiki will enter here, they who are hired to midwife the dying, lest penultimate thought summons not seed but rotten fruit. Here, as elsewhere, regardless of fancy words, indoctrinated belief or sermonized pomp, the dead die absolutely alone. The Yurei wisp, waiting inside dreams. Lurking behind the nightmares. Decaying hemp swings in breezes that erupt from lava esophagi. Jukai belches the profanity of the dead. Jukai Forest or Aokigahara is the 2nd highest place in the world for suicide; Golden Gate Bridge being number 1 Yurei are spirits said to inhabit the forest. |