Scarlett Watters
I live in Boulder, CO. This is my writing website. Unfortunately, I'm not as willing to post my writing to this site as I used to be. This means that there isn't going to be as much posted here, but I feel that I should keep this site up.. I have flash fiction published on Word Riot and Denver Syntax, and I have a poem published in Matter. Recently I've been writing horror and ghost stories. I'm a member of The Lepidopterists' Society, and a student of philosophy and creative writing. Here is a not so recent story:
And Then There Was the Tree of Life
The soil at her feet is hard and gray. The place where the girl stands was once alive with trees of silver and gold leaves, flowers in all shades of blue, orange, purple, and red. These trees were once so tall their tops were obscured in the orange and purple mist that hung over their branches. But now there is no vegetation. There are no swirling clouds or colorful birds flying against them. The earth is flat and barren.
She places a seed on her tongue, and because it is the only food she has found in many days, she swallows it without chewing. If she had bitten through the shell she would have tasted the warm, bitter insides that can only mean poison. But the seed is unharmed by the girl's small teeth, and it slides over her tongue and down her throat. The girl's stomach is warm and moist. It softens the tough shell of the dry seed which burrows itself into the soft tissue of the girl's belly. The seed splits and bleeds its poison juices from its skin to be carried throughout her body through the river-like arteries and ebbing capillaries. The poison paralyzes the girl's muscles and so the girl stays in one place as soft hills of the once-hard soil pillow around her ankles. Her legs stiffen, and when the seed sprouts towards her throat it grows roots that braid around the delicate bones in her legs and feet.
Finger-like roots turn red from the blood absorbed within the girl, and they twist around and through her toes until the young plant tastes the cool soil, pressing its roots into the loosened dirt. A sprout climbs the ridged walls of the girl's esophagus, and in her throat its own walls thicken into the frail trunk of a tree with shaking tendrils that extend upwards. But the young tree grows stronger from the girl's pain, and it stretches the green tendrils up through her clenched throat. When it reaches the back of the girl's mouth it spreads its now newly budding branches towards the light through her mouth, nose, and ears. The young plant caresses the creases of the girl's wilting brain, slipping its extending fingers over the soft occipital and parietal lobes.
The branches stretch towards the gray sky through the girl's skull. Its limbs and trunk thicken and grow through her as if she were a fence or a rock that the tree only needs to absorb to overcome. She is no longer visible except for the vague imprint in the firm, copper bark. Buds sprout and bloom into giant red flowers with gaping mouths. Tiny green buds curl and unroll into towering gold and silver colored leaves. The flowers wilt and their giant tongue-like petals collapse towards the centers, folding inward into tight spheres. These spheres quickly ripen into luscious, dripping human hearts. These fall to the ground in a carmine splash. Some of the fruits split, spilling their seeds onto the softened soil.
These seeds grow into ravenous rosary peas, carnivorous cobra lilies, and malefic monkshood; bleeding hearts, desirous delphiniums, and waking wisteria. All are vengeful and waiting.