The Cheyenne Girl
Future of Nature Earth Day Story Project
Hello, all! How’s the springing world? I’m part of this neat Earth Day writing project, officially described as so:
“The Future of Nature” is an Earth Day community writing project for fiction writers to explore the human-nature relationship in a short story or poem. It was organized by and , and supported with brilliant advice from scientists and . The story you’re about to read is from this project. You can find all the stories as a special Disruption edition, with thanks to publisher .
The Cheyenne Girl
Did you know her? they said. No, the others answered.
She wasn’t named for the people, the tribe, she was named for the town.
Why did she kill the policewoman? they asked. The policewoman was a mistake, said the others. She meant only to kill the man and his grown son.
What did the man and his grown son do? they asked. The others shuddered. What did they do? they asked once again. The others only shuddered and looked up at the burnt sky.
She was only thirteen, the girl named for the town, and she was their saint. She’d murdered the two, the other just a mistake.
What, Marnie asked, are you going to do with it? She unscrewed the cap of her Nalgene and took a long swallow of cola and rum.
The boy shrugged. He was muddy to his waist, and wet, and the frog kicked as he held it gently in one hand. Play with it, he said. Then let it go.
Marnie shrugged in return—she was 16 and still wore freckles on her shoulders. Don’t tell your mom. Better yet, let it go before she comes home.
No shit, said the boy. His mom hated the frogs, snakes, turtles, dragonflies, salamanders, spiders, caterpillars, minnows he brought home. She’d killed a few just to let him know, let them die that is, when he was younger than he was now.
Marnie liked the boy. He was tousled and sweet. Eight dollars an hour was hardly enough—who the fuck paid eight dollars an hour for anything these days—but she enjoyed his company. I think your mom’s crazy, she told him.
The boy nodded. Definitely, he said. There’s, like, pills in her drawer. Twin beads of water appeared at the inner corner of each eye. He didn’t bother to hide them or wipe them away.
Marnie wanted to hug the boy. If she’d had more cola and rum she might have. She was a little in love with the boy, truth be told. But not like weird. It was love almost like a mother.
How many creatures have you caught in your life? she asked him.
Probably like, 300.
What’s your favorite?
Snakes. Though the little ones most.
Why do you like them? Not just the snakes.
They’re beautiful, he said, not trying to wipe it away or hide it. What’s in the bottle? he said.
Marnie clutched the Nalgene to her chest. Rum. I’m probably a teenage alcoholic.
I can help you, he said.
Marnie nodded. She didn’t know if this were true or a lie. She wanted to run away with the boy. He could fill the house with spiders and stray cats.
Alfred was a doctor. He worked in the free clinic while his classmates got rich. Or very comfortable at least. He lived in an apartment on the south side of the city.
Open your mouth, he said to the girl. Her mother had come in saying that the girl said that something was in there. The mother said the girl was very afraid.
The girl opened her mouth. Inside was a little black cloud, the size of a peanut. It floated above the back of her tongue, below her soft palate.
How long’s it been in there? he asked the young girl.
About one year, the little girl said. The girl was too young to understand time.
What does it do?
The girl became frightened, more than she’d been. Says stuff.
What does it say?
We’re all going to boil.
Boil?
The little girl nodded. We’re all going to boil.
Open your mouth, Alfred said once more. With a pair of sterile tweezers he extracted the cloud. He set it on a sterile white paper towel. The cloud pulsed with a rhythm, like a peanut-shaped heart.
Is it talking to you now?
The girl shook her head. She was now much less afraid, though she gazed at the cloud with concern in her eyes.
Will it die? she asked.
Alfred didn’t know. Was it alive? Why had it chosen this poor little girl, popsicle stain on her chin, her top riding up on her belly, too small for the girl, frayed along the hem and the collar?
I don’t know, he told her. Can you ask it?
The little girl had her mother help her slide off the exam table. She approached the peanut-shaped cloud, pulsing on the white sterile towel.
Are you ok? the girl said to the cloud.
The girl nodded as the cloud spoke silently to her. Yes, said the girl, and No, and I don’t know.
When the cloud finished speaking, the girl looked toward the doctor. We’re still gonna boil, she said, but my mom and me, we’ll be ok. The girl’s mother was greatly relieved.
And me? asked the doctor.
Sorry, she said.
After it happened there was nothing left, just the trees and fields, butterflies and crows. The buildings were gone, the roads and the electrical wires.
Charlene was left with her dad, and some boys in the new woods, who lived in a large crack in the stones. Charlene and her dad lived in a wattle of sticks. When it rained they got wet and had to lie in the sun to get dry. In the winter they would be cold. Her father was worried, though Charlene knew they’d be fine.
Charlene was 22 years old—today. She strolled through the field. The small birds fed on the thistle. The worms left their castings down on the dirt. Whadaya say? she said to the locust that landed on her arm.
Cheerio, said the locust, spitting tobacco. It swiveled its head and then bounced away.
At the edge of the new woods she came upon one of the boys. He was scraping for grubs in the leaf litter, putting them into his mouth.
What’s your name? said the boy, offering a blue-whitish grub in his palm.
She took the grub and looked into its lips. Hey, said the grub before she put it into her mouth. Charlene, she said to the boy.
You look good, said the boy. His eyes traveled her body, the crook of her elbow, the hollow of her throat, the left lobe with its gold earring.
Charlene blushed. This boy was too young.
Where are your parents? she said. Are those others your brothers?
The boy laughed at the rhyme. No, was all that he said.
She left the boy, his eyes on the backs of her shoulders, dark from the sun.
A squirrel in the woods called down from its tree. A woodpecker laughed when she attempted to pronounce its last name. What up? said a robin.
When Charlene was tired she sat on a stone. She picked at the lichen and put its small leaves onto her tongue. It tasted like granite. How much could she eat until her belly was full?
When she was tired of being tired she got up from the stone. Two of the boys were half hidden behind a large tree. One of them stepped out when he saw that she’d seen him, and he offered her a small egg, the color of toast.
No thank you, she said. I’ve had my fill of this lichen.
The two boys turned to each other and laughed. Fill of this lichen! one of them said. They turned on their heels and ran off through the woods.
For three years Charlene walked through the field, over the small stream and its chatty young fish, through the new woods, to the ravine where the fox dug her den.
She thought of her dad. He stayed back at the camp. He never left camp, only worried up at the broad and clean sky.
Your writing is captivating. This almost reads like poetry to me. The vignettes feel like they take place in the same world at different times, but I was trying to understand the relationship, if any, between the characters.
Wonderful different flash fiction (?) stories that ran with our writing prompt so imaginatively and arrived at a unique space of assumed normalcy of interactions that are in fact not in most people’s ordinary experience!