I sometimes forget what people tell me to do or not do because my mouth, salivating and unruly, thinks for me. So I did what I was not supposed to do. I ate the last bit of food. And when I finished the little morsels left on my hands and mouth burned into my skin to render me shamed forever.
When I turned around seeking an open pathway, I was surprised to find that the stream surrounded me on all sides. The serpent from across the way beckoned me with his tongue, unfurling it out over the water. The tongue almost touched my shoes "If you need to get across, walk over on this. But please walk gently, for if you don't you may slide and fall off, and no one will ever find you again."
"Let me go then," I said.
I had no choice but to leave. Out, away from home was the only place I could go. The wind rustled the walls of our wooden shack, but neither my father nor my mother stirred from their deep slumbers. I put only a small piece of bread and a snippet of dried meat in my satchel, fastened my shoes, and quietly walked out of my home, our small wooden home, into the wind and fog that enveloped me into the night.
I tore myself away from the life-threatening needles and pines.
The fairy placed a single seed in my palm which I immediately planted and tended to for months. For days, I watered the seed, showered it with words of encouragement as it grew into a young sprout, and gave it proper space and care as it blossomed fully into a magnificent red rose that granted any wish that I whispered lovingly into its soft petals.
The mists grew heavy. When I stretched my arm out I could not see past my hand, but it did not matter. When I closed my eyes my feet moved along with the rhythm of the mountain and its soils. Faster and faster I could almost feel myself fly.
A foreigner stopped me on my rise toward the mountaintop. He had one eye and loose skin that folded around his body like paper cloth. Laid before him was a set of colored tablets and sticks. "Stay for a game," he said to me. "After you win your game with me I'll let you go on your way."
I watched as the folds of his skin began to swallow him alive under the sadness of defeat.
When I returned home Mother was not there. Instead, there was a man leaning against our door, sipping guava juice through a straw. He told me the lady of the house had left to search for her son, and that he had taken residence. I looked down on him and winced. His feet stank of manure.
The bearded man approached me in heavy garb of silk and flower embroidery. He told me that my tongue would be tested for truth by way of needle. "If upon the needle's prick your tongue does not bleed you will be telling the truth. If, however, it does bleed, you are a liar, and hence will swallow poison through your broken tongue."
Without hesitance I lifted my pant legs began to dance in father's leather bottomed shoes. The soles breezed across the floor, cutting the mist with rhythmic motions. I then turned the ring on my finger and watched my father rise, soil shedding from his skin. His shaved face and clean hands stood against the paling crowd. This impressed the people who stood before me, as did the fact that my tongue did not bleed from the needle it held.
Mother licked her fingers and placed them to my face, wiping the thick layer of dirt away. Then I truly began to look like my father's son, in form, face, and color.
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