Scott Nicholson - Forever never ends

Because he had made up his mind that this was his land. He walked toward the woods.

James walked beside Aunt Mayzie, prepared to catch her if she stumbled. He wondered why she couldn't watch from the porch like any normal person would. She could have seen plenty from there, the city workers decorating the stage and some of the vendors setting up their displays. But no, she just had to stick her nose into things, get right in the middle of those white people and bump their shiny shoes with the rubber tips of her crutches, smiling and saying ‘scuse me.

All around them, people shouted and chatted happily, excited about tomorrow's Blossomfest. Decorations hung from the light poles, giant yellow tulips that could be turned upside down and spray-painted silver for use as the town’s Christmas bells. Traffic had been detoured from Main Street and the asphalt was covered with hay-packed replica wagons and folded plywood booths. A banner proclaimed "Welcome to Blossomfest" in red letters on white vinyl, with Mayor Speerhorn's blown-up signature at the bottom. The banner fluttered stiffly beneath a power line, catching the spring wind.

James felt like a period typed onto a blank page, the way the white folks clustered around them. But with Aunt Mayzie, that made two periods, or maybe a colon. And he was so busy helping Mayzie weave through the crowd that he couldn't keep an eye out for the mushroom creature in the Red Man cap.

Oh, but I thought you decided that was a dream, bro'. Just a drunken nighttime sideshow. A wrong turn by that gray ball of meat you keep under your flattop.

But James hadn't convinced himself it was only his imagination. Because he wasn't really the imaginative sort. In grade school, when the English teacher had told the class to get out a sheet of paper and play "What if?" James had stared at the tip of his pencil until his eyes crossed. He was always more concerned with "What had been." And at the end of class, he'd turned in a page with one sentence scrawled across the top: What if I can’t think of anything?

But if the subject was history or science, something with a past, James filled the front and back of a page in fifteen minutes. He was too analytical and left brained to create phantasms, fictions, or things that go bump. Not to mention thinking up a fruit salad scarecrow with green eyes and an alfalfa wig. So that would be that.

Still, he found himself looking into the white eyes, searching for green light.

Aunt Mayzie was having a grand time, talking to people she knew or asking vendors about the merchandise. They wandered past the soap makers and the tobacconists and barbecue cooks. One old man wearing fireman’s suspenders and a dark “NYPD” ball cap was weaving a basket from brown reeds. A blotchy-faced woman at the next booth, who was almost as wide as an elevator, stapled canary yellow bunting to the edge of a table.

"What are you going to be showing, ma'am?" Aunt Mayzie asked, leaning forward on her crutches, her shortened leg angled behind her.

"We're delivery florists, but we also do flower arrangements. Weddings, funerals, that kind of thing. You want our business card?" the blotchy woman said without looking up.

James looked around. The words "floral arrangements" had flooded his mind with too many unwanted images. He looked into the tops of the trees that lined the main street, expecting some sort of overgrown spider to drop down.

"I'm not in any danger of either a wedding or a funeral," Aunt Mayzie said to the woman. "Where's your store?"

"Down in Shady Valley. We get a lot of business from the university. You know, academic functions and such. And boys saying thanks to the girls, if you know what I mean."

The blotchy woman opened a gym satchel and handed Aunt Mayzie a card.

“Petal Pushers,” Aunt Mayzie said. "Ain't that a cute name, James?"

James nodded, anxious to move on. The sun was starting to flatten out above the western ridges, growing fat and orange the way it did before it dropped over the side of the earth. And then the darkness would come. And even the sodium street lamps and the heavy police patrols wouldn't make James feel safe. He cleared his throat.

"We'd better go on and see the rest of the sights before dark, Aunt Mayzie. Plus, we have all day tomorrow, and I'm sure this lady wants to get back to her work."

"All right, James. You young folks are always in such a rush. Good luck to you tomorrow, ma'am,” Aunt Mayzie said.

The woman nodded absently, already turning her attention back to her bunting, the heady aroma of flowers rising on the evening breeze.

They walked to the Haynes House, a nineteenth-century home that had been restored as a community center. The music stage had been built on its grassy lawn beneath a big, dying oak that had been throwing down leaves since before the Cherokee hunted the hills. A couple of husky guys in flannel shirts were setting up the sound system, black Marshall stacks that had cones as big as manhole covers. Teenage kids hung from the porch rails of the Haynes House or clustered around the stage, sipping Pepsis and dreaming rock-star fantasies.

Aunt Mayzie pegged up to the Haynes House porch. Hay bales had been scattered around to make seats for a storytelling area, and one end of the porch had been blocked off with hay to muffle the music that would be blaring from the stage the next day. James helped Mayzie up the stairs and she leaned against the Colonial columns that supported the roof.

"Why don't you have a seat, Aunt Mayzie?" James said. She was breathing a little too hard to suit him.

"I'm okay, honey," she said. "Just let me look around a little more and catch my breath, then I'll go on home. I know you want to watch the basketball tonight."

James had forgotten that Georgetown was playing in the tournament. He took it as one more sign that his brain was out of alignment. He had it together now, though. But as long as the hay bales didn't rise up and start walking, he'd be okay.

They went home just as one shimmering edge of the sun hit the far mountains. The clouds tapered out in pink and red swatches, the ridges as bright as hell’s foundry. The evening air was fresh with new life, the blossoms arriving just in time for their namesake festival. He looked past the hills that crowded the town, off toward the distance where the granite face of Bear Claw loomed like a great majestic beast. James thought perhaps moments like this were why Mayzie endured the harsh winters, the isolation, the white world.

The white eyes.

And now, the green eyes.

Eyezzzz.

The alien assimilated the symbol, gathered it into its collection. Shu-shaaa tah-mah-raaa eyezzzz.

The symbols were nonsense, free of any pattern. This planet had no intelligent life. The creature could feed without fear of destroying higher life forms. It was growing faster now, healed from the impact with the soil, its roots and spores spreading. The heart-brain throbbed in unison with its tendrils.

A symbol triggered itself again, repeating, like the pulse of a quasar.

Tah-mah-raaa tah-mah-raaa tah-mah-raaa.

The creature opened itself, let the vibrations of its new home settle into its center. The symbol’s source of origin had grown more intense, nearly meaningful. The creature took that as a sign of healing.

Soon it would have enough strength to contact the others, those also making their journeys across distant space. The closest could join it here and help convert this planet. It was rich in microorganisms, wealthy with cellular activity. The creature was fulfilling its biological imperative.

Growing.

Thriving.

Harvesting.

It shivered in the verdant pleasure of survival and propagation.

Tamara slowed the Toyota and gazed toward the top of Bear Claw. She should be getting back home, she knew. But something about the mountain compelled her to search its slopes. It was an itch, a tingling of some deep-seated knowledge.