Mushroom Cottage Anti-Story

    Last year on a day of heavy rain, a witch spotted a chimp outside looking cold and wet, so she left the front door ajar. Sure enough, the chimp wandered into the cottage. The witch, looking like a pale wood statue, watched the chimp from askew. Only after the witch reached for a pot on the table did the chimp finally notice her. From this pot, she poured a chunky soup into a large stone bowl on the floor. The chimp scrutinized her and the steaming soup for a while, then eventually moved toward the bowl. Instead of lapping up the soup right away, though, the chimp lingered over the bowl, eyes fixed on the reflective liquid while inclining its head at different angles. Finally, it began splashing its tongue in the soup when something it saw caused it to abruptly pull back.

    The witch had shifted in appearance. It was as though the witch had been holding in her nose, teeth, and bony contours but then let them all jut out again to the point where the chimp took notice. With a confused look, the chimp backed away from the bowl and away from her. Just as quickly, though, the witch pulled herself back together. The chimp sat still for a while, perhaps thinking it was merely imagining things, and then eventually felt at ease enough to return to the bowl.

 

    The cycle repeated. Each time, the witch changed form into something more grotesque than the last. So, each time, the chimp backed away. But each time, the witch changed form more slowly than the last as if to reveal the plain movements behind what otherwise may have seemed like sorcery. And, despite ending in something nominally grotesque, the witch’s movements were effected elegantly. So each time, the chimp observed the witch with greater interest and returned to the bowl more at ease.

    By the end of this ebb and flow of shapeshifting and lapping up soup, the chimp had gone from cold, wet, and hungry to warm, satisfied, and hypnotized by what it saw. With the meal finally done, the chimp started for the door but struggled with its balance. Once outside, it tread unassuredly along the trail that winds between the giant log and the giant tree:

    When the chimp passed the mushroom at the end of the giant log, it tilted its head and then lowered its gaze from the base of the mushroom to the dark rock solidly planted on the forest floor below. Next, it thrust its cupped hands underneath the mushroom then jerked them back to below its down-turned face as though it had captured a gush of fluid pouring from the mushroom. The chimp then tilted its head again, beheld the reflection in its cupped hands, and bounced around excitedly until catching a glimpse of something that spooked it. After regrouping, it continued along the trail into the backwoods, sparse woods with distinctly twisted trees that also spooked the chimp.

    Deep in the woods now, the chimp came upon a puddle from the day’s rain. The puddle reflected well under the thick green mist and, in this puddle, the chimp caught a different reflection of its face, an earthy and gnarled reflection. This reflection caused the chimp to spin in the opposite direction only to end up locking eyes with the witch, who was standing right there.

 

    The witch was now jutting out her jaw and drooping her shoulders to the point that it appeared to lengthen her arms until she herself resembled a chimp. Then she danced around like a chimp but in such a snaky manner that it brought a look of bewilderment to the chimp’s crooked face.

    The chimp turned back to the puddle, which reflected a face that now looked much like the witch’s, pale and wrinkled. The chimp stared into the reflected face, opening its pupils to the unfamiliar light patterns: a long lumpy witch nose, big chimp ears, crooked witch teeth, and a furry chimp chin, all jumbled together.

 

    The witch was resolutely focused on the chimp, which appeared skewered by the light patterns, as if the piercing light penetrated its retinas straight back into its brain. The chimp, mouth agape, face crookedly stretched, was then abruptly wrested from its upright position onto the forest floor without external provocation.

 

    From the forest floor, the chimp looked up at the witch, who at this point had taken on the face of a human skull. When the chimp’s pupils appeared on the verge of tearing at the seams, the witch’s shadow moved over the chimp, and her hands blocked any remaining light that would reach those pupils.

    The witch pressed her hands down onto the chimp’s face and slid her thumbs up the bridge of its nose and out across its eyebrows, kneading and rubbing its face until the chimp went limp. After a while, she lifted her hands to reveal smaller pupils no longer crawling toward the boundaries of the iris, a mouth no longer agape, and a face no longer contorted.

 

    She pulled the chimp off the ground, straightened it out, and locked eyes with it once again, her face alternatingly witch-like and skull-like in appearance. With this morphing face, she guided the chimp back to the puddle, which reflected the chimp’s face, still earthy and gnarled, along with various witch features blended into it again, one after another in quick succession.

 

    This time, though, the chimp beheld each manifestation more calmly, even tapping its finger in the puddle to make subtle waves in which it studied the transitioning forms. Drawing back its head with its black fur framing a calmer face, the chimp then turned to the witch, gave her a studied look, and drew closer.

    The witch appeared to diffuse like vapor before solidifying again, but it happened too quickly to tell if she was just being illusory. After all, with the moonlight reflecting florescent off the forest in the thick green mist, she had a natural smokescreen to obscure her movements.

 

    The whole spectacle caused the chimp to sidestep slowly around the witch in careful observation. And once again, the witch changed form, this time just as slowly as the chimp sidestepped. She elongated her limbs, curled and corkscrewed them, each one uniquely until she resembled an old knotty twisted tree. And the neighboring younger tree with randomly arranged branches had none of the resplendent foliage this witch tree just sprouted, foliage closely mimicking that of the surrounding shrubs:

    The chimp extended its arm to touch one of the tree limb arms and slide its calloused hand along the calloused skin bark. The hand and its fingers wrapped around the limb and tugged it. At this, the witch tree gave a little before swaying back into place.

 

    Again, the black hairy arm and hand extended to the limb where the fingertips gently patted the smaller branches. The bark regained pliability and the rigid contours of the branches and limbs softened and curled into and around the chimp fingers.

 

    This careful interaction proceeded for some time until the witch abruptly took on the face of a human skull again. Just as quickly, though, she brought her usual face back into position under her robe. Slowing her movements, she swapped a human skull back into the place her face had been and then swapped it back out again. And she did it with such minimal sleight of hand that it could have resembled sorcery again. Slowed down, though, her movements were smooth and crafty. 

    The witch was letting the chimp in on one ghastly spectacle after another to no ill effect beyond the terror that sprung from the incongruity of it all in the eyes of the chimp. Amid this terror, the chimp’s lips tensed and pursed and its jowls flexed. Then, it crouched low to the ground and crab-walked in circles around the witch while puffing out its chest and displaying great power through pseudo-kung fu arm movements Power turned to determination, and the chimp unleashed for the witch a tribal dance, revealing the depths of its strength and self-control.

    The witch nodded in the affirmative, again diffusing and solidifying, this time reappearing atop the far side of the giant log as a spindly tree twisting its branches as the witch had just been twisting her arms:

   It all happened while that thick green mist was obscuring everything, so it may be that the witch was merely casting an image with light in a way the chimp didn’t understand. No sooner, the witch appeared again on the forest floor, twisting her arms in a smooth dance. Her illusions confounded the chimp in a way that reigned in its remaining wild energy, keeping it concentrated and deferential. After many hours of ritualized interaction, the witch and the chimp gradually settled into a still harmony. Together, in this easy coexistence, the chimp passed out.

    The chimp woke up the next morning in the cottage and then quietly exited through the front door. It returned from the backwoods with the skull in hand and gently placed the skull at the witch’s feet. The witch then carried the skull outside and pulled open the broken veil, curtain to the backwards window of her mushroom cottage. There, on the window sill, she placed the skull which, in time, attracted a vine that even flowered the next spring. The chimp watched awhile before ambling off along that trail to the backwoods. It took in the flowers on the main grassy hill, the throne atop the giant log, and the bird sailing into the moonlit green sky as one would take in a painting:

    Then, making its way between the giant log and giant tree in their unpainted character, the chimp disappeared into the forest. As for the witch, she reposed in the throne for several weeks, transmuting it into tree, herself into plant, and the forest into a realm where tortured faces once held in puddle reflections were said to be seen writhing in the foliage.

    Then she changed form again, this time into a pile of decomposed leaves and vines. And the forest was left to the dominion of the mushrooms, the plants, and all the creatures she reshaped in her image.

The End