she gave her heart to a falling star
but to her horror, it is not a star
it is a rock. A clump of metal and elements
and not nearly the size of a star
and without the star's fire and beauty
but now she is attached to this flaming
falling rock as it tears through the atmosphere
and she has barely a moment to realize
that a falling star is not a star
before she hits the ground hard
she lies there burning and bruised
in the dirt, filth, she can feel the worms
and lichen and the net of the the fungi
around her. She disrupted some trees on her way
down and the top of one is burning
smell of pine, but it is going out.
She is glad that she has not started a huge fire.
She lies there for hours, aching,
but hears people. She is not ready for people.
Voices, searching for her, for a meteor.
Meteor, not a star. Falling rock, that's what they
should call it. She feels so foolish
but also not ready for people. She struggles
to sitting from the burnt mud. She has cooled down
from red hot to burnt, coals. She waits until the
trees stop swirling around her, then slowly gets
to her feet. Everything hurts and burns. She shakes
her head, with the forest and stars spinning again,
and extends her senses. There. A hollow root ball, close.
She moves to the ball and slips underneath. It's only a
few minutes until the people arrive. They find her
landing site, talking, talking. And they smell. And their words,
fully half are lies. She hates them for a moment,
for calling it a falling star, then realizes that half
the lies are lies they tell themselves. And sometimes
they don't believe each other's lies. A web of lies.
They are disappointed not to find her, think someone else picked
her up or that she was nearly completely burnt before
she landed. She shudders at that. They are saying that
falling stars may have brought life to earth. She thinks,
well, that would be correct. I am here now.
She withdraws her senses into the fungal web. It is
huge and tells no lies. The trees welcome her as well
and she apologizes for the branches and burning.
The trees do not mind and explain that some burning helps,
though more on the ground, to free the young from cones.
She is starting to relax and heal. The tree roots and rhizomes
offer gifts and the fungal web does too, even though she
disrupted and killed a section. The fungal web is already
picking up elements from the burning and passing them along
and the rhizomes and roots are close behind. Never mind about
the falling star. She has a whole planet to explore.
Love is lost but something else is always
found.
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Iron 2023: 3