The Earth Looks After Her Own
The men of this town say the crater was caused by the fall of some great astral body in the night, but I know the truth. Most of the women do.
The earth looks after her own. After all, she is a mother too.
I sink my fingers into the soft dirt at the center of the crater and dig. The soil gives beneath my fingers, until it doesn’t. I touch something hard and sticky, like newly birthed stone. It stirs, and from the ground they rise. I do not know what they are, and am wise enough not to ask. Their form is that of man, but nowhere near as horrid. They are rock and root and the roughness of this harsh new land.
They are revenge.
I hesitate, but only for a moment. This town on the edge of the forest is all I have ever known, but it is more cage than home. I heard things were different in the cities, that there were others like me. Women who took husbands out of propriety, but could call on the company of their own sex for pleasure.
It would have been different, in the city.
But this is not the city, and though I hid, my son did not. They found him, the men of this town. They found him and they took him from me. And now I know the truth. I never belonged to this town. I always belonged to the earth.
We all do.
“Go,” I whisper, and the children of the earth swarm out of the crater. Like a wave, they pour through the forest towards the town. They will spare the children, of course, and most of the women. Some of the men.
But the rest will water the soil with their blood.
The earth looks after her own. After all, she is a mother too.
I sink my fingers into the soft dirt at the center of the crater and dig. The soil gives beneath my fingers, until it doesn’t. I touch something hard and sticky, like newly birthed stone. It stirs, and from the ground they rise. I do not know what they are, and am wise enough not to ask. Their form is that of man, but nowhere near as horrid. They are rock and root and the roughness of this harsh new land.
They are revenge.
I hesitate, but only for a moment. This town on the edge of the forest is all I have ever known, but it is more cage than home. I heard things were different in the cities, that there were others like me. Women who took husbands out of propriety, but could call on the company of their own sex for pleasure.
It would have been different, in the city.
But this is not the city, and though I hid, my son did not. They found him, the men of this town. They found him and they took him from me. And now I know the truth. I never belonged to this town. I always belonged to the earth.
We all do.
“Go,” I whisper, and the children of the earth swarm out of the crater. Like a wave, they pour through the forest towards the town. They will spare the children, of course, and most of the women. Some of the men.
But the rest will water the soil with their blood.
Originally Published in Impact: Queer Sci Fi's Fifth Annual Flash Fiction Contest