The woods near our home in Charlotte, NC
Hurling nails 'tween the trunks of tall pines, male impales me. Yes, the next direct hit confirms it—lodged in my left shoulder: heavy six-inch steel nail. I know I could never escape, so I pursue with intent to soothe, to transmute male’s aggression.
Slipping 'tween the trunks of tall pines, female bears down on me, a colossal power I could hope to evade but never survive. My only weapons: flimsy six-inch steel nails. I throw, impale; hardly stall her. Female pursues, intent on destroying me. I flee.
Brief eye-contact: foreign male made familiar. I deflect a nail with the back of my hand, the next nail with my other. Anticipating him now, I pinch a nail midair, drop it; catch another. If he could only feel me . . . Scrambling from female, dumfounded, I fall; she closes, so I swing my fists: better weapons.
Male strikes female in ribcage then abdomen. Female threads fingers through male’s hair; he stops swinging. Longing has replaced female’s fear, yet she cannot forgive male’s violence. He reaches for her; she turns away. Lying on the forest floor, too weak to watch her leave, male closes his eyes and tries to recall female’s embrace. Failing in her effort to not look back, female sees male once more 'tween the trunks of tall pines and laments his eyeless face.[1]
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I dreamt this scene, complete with the hurling nails and the perspective-shifts between the male and female, on 12 September 2026 and wrote the first draft of this story the next morning. ⤴
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Glacier Bay