Mother Nature

• Cherry Zheng, Grade 8, Sydney Girls High School
• Short Story
• 2011

Finalist in the 'Honoured Writers of 2011' competition

High up among the stars, a woman stands in an ethereal bedchamber.
Her eyes resemble billowing flame; her irises dance with ever-changing colour. Her hair is woven with blossoms and leaves, and a single majestic peacock feather is tucked behind one ear. Her floor-length dress is the palest azure, cascading down around her in many layers of airy, sheer fabric. Her hands are pale, tinged blue and laced with mist that swirls up her arms and frames her heart-shaped face. Her fingers are enclosed gently around a hand mirror.
It is elliptical, carved from mossy rock; tendrils of slender vines hang down from the frame, which has been delicately cut into elaborate filigree around the reflective glass.
The woman lifts the mirror. Her serene expression cracks as she lets out a soft gasp; the fire in her eyes flickers vermillion red.
Snaky black lines slice across her flawless, faintly glowing face. The roads wind from both sides of her forehead and cross at the bridge of her pale nose, curling and twisting, merging at the nape of her neck.
The woman's darkening pupils never stray from the mirror. There is black smoke drifting from her hair. Her hand reaches up slowly to her head. Her fingers push back an aster flower and several strands of hair to reveal a small, grey patch tainting the front of her scalp.
The stain is smouldering, pouring out an acrid halo of smoke around her head.
A tear forms in the corner of the woman's eye. In the mirror, an army of bulldozers advance towards a forest. A loud crack severs the life of an ancient oak, and upon hearing the sound, the woman flinches.
The tear slides down her cheek and drips away when it reaches her chin.
The aster flower in the woman's hair slips from its place. It flutters to the floor.
More and more snaps follow, and with every fallen tree, shattering screams resonate in the woman's mind. With every fallen tree, a piercing pain stabs through the woman's heart. With every fallen tree, a petal falls from the woman's hair.
She sinks to the ground, weeping, reaching out to gather the fallen foliage. With every flower she inserts back in her hair, another falls out. The mirror drops from her fingers and clatters to the floor; the forest portrayed in its reflective shine has been reduced to a graveyard.
The woman weeps, and holds her hands to her face. All that is left of her garlanded hair is the peacock feather.
Gradually, the woman's hands fall to her sides.
Her face is no longer serene.
It is polluted with anger.
The smoke around her head has amassed into a storm cloud and has descended upon her forehead. Her eyes are fiery thunder. Her tears are raging rain. One by one, each of the flowers and leaves scattered on the floor catch ablaze.
On Earth, a fierce cyclone rips through the air, out of the blue.