These stories were written live on stream based on prompts provided by the viewers. They have been edited, with this second more in-depth edit occurring much later, but not meaningfully rewritten or expanded so as to preserve the spirit of the exercise. Sadly, the prompts themselves were not recorded until many stories in.  Sometimes the prompts were silly challenges, or quirky thoughts, or dark ideas, or utter nonsense.  I did my best each time.

If you enjoy this, please check out the other activities from the stream. If you would like something longer and much more thoroughly planned, simply investigate my more traditional work at the top of the page.

The Willow and the Cross

prompt provided by Silentwillow and Chaytoncross

There are only so many places in the modern world where a spirit can live. Add to that the constant arguments between the five high spirits, and you often get hostile neighbors, whose arguments are interpreted by humans as chills in the wind or the raucous cawing of ravens.

One such argument occurred in the backyard of the Fander family in the summer of 1981. The children were off enjoying the pool of the wealthier neighbors and the parents were busy repairing their aged car and shouting at each other when the nuts and bolts didn’t fit quite right.

It should have been peaceful in the back, nothing but grass drooping in the oppressive sun, but two spirits were having an argument of their own. The first to arrive in the Fanders’ backyard had been the spirit of the willow, some three hundred years prior. At that point it had been nobody’s backyard, and the spirit’s fear had been intense while the house was under construction. Any day could’ve been the day where a chainsaw roared to make way for potted plants or plastic sandboxes. He though nothing would ever be as terrifying as those days, but that was before the cross showed up.

The Fanders had bought their children a pet chinchilla. If the spirit of the willow remembered correctly, its name had been Nachos. Nachos was adventurous, and the children too rambunctious to rein him in. One day they were chasing the poor creature around the now fenced-in backyard and it was snatched up by a passing hawk.

The children hugged the willow, making the spirit very uncomfortable, as they cried into its bark. They couldn’t bare to watch as their father hammered the wooden cross into ground. There was no body to bury under it, but Nachos deserved recognition. They wrote the rodent’s name across the bar of the cross in permanent black marker, taking turns with each letter.

Perhaps that hideous scrawl was why a more powerful spirit never claimed the cross as its home. The invisible being that did eventually settle in was of roughly the same tier as the spirit of the willow. Neither of them could even pronounce the true name of their respective high spirits. The spirit of the willow called the progenitor of his race the First Tree. From him sprung every spirit of nature, from those who inhabited the mightiest redwoods down to individual algae.

The spirit of the cross, as he would introduce himself, came from the First Blood, the spirit that spawned many human religions and conflicts. The spirit of the willow bemoaned his ill fortune. A spirit of any other family would have been more tolerable: someone of the First Thought could’ve provided very deep conversation, someone of the First Light could’ve always brightened the day, and someone of the First Kiss could have at least thrown a little flirtation the willow’s way.

But no, it was the spirit of the cross. Such objects did attract them after all. They liked mourning, specifically mourning following violent or surprising losses, far too morbid a philosophy for the spirit of the willow. He was all about life, about shedding just to bloom once again. The spirit of the cross liked finality… and he just never shut up about it!

“Did you know, once, Nachos thought of himself as god?” the spirit of the cross asked the spirit of the willow. “He did, but only once.” The willow tried to ignore the question by drowning it out with the waving of his leafy tendrils in the wind, but the cross was not deterred. “That thought resurfaced when Nachos died in the grip of those brutalist black talons. It resurfaced, but did not finish. He thought ‘if I am god how can I d-’ and then he died. Isn’t that interesting?”

“No!” the willow shouted back, loud enough to disturb the bluebird in its branches, which flew off in search of a quieter tree. “Great. There it goes. You know a nature spirit lives and fades by its animal tenants don’t you?”

“Oh I know that,” the spirit of the cross said. “You’re the one who shouted.”

“What is it with you First Blood folk? Why do you have to dwell on death so much? Your rot spreads.”

“The ending is always the most important part of the story,” the cross insisted. “Everybody needs to think about it more.”

“Well I am about life,” the willow snapped, one of its twigs snapping off and hitting the ground. “You’ll see. The caterpillars are coming this week; they will sleep in my branches as they are transformed into imago. Then they will start their new lives with me, not you.”

“If you say so,” the cross replied before proceeding to explain to the willow the exact sound each drop of blood made as it fell from Nachos’s flying corpse. “First it was like plit, and then it was like plat…”

Later that week the caterpillars did arrive, marching up the height of the willow in lines of hundreds with stomachs full. Their fat green bodies wriggled with delight and the willow couldn’t help but join them with the swaying of his leaves. The caterpillars were his Christmas and his Hallow’s eve. No day was more important in the yearly cycle, as it reaffirmed his nature. He was of the First Tree, and he could share that with all the animals.

To his shock, this year, it couldn’t be shared with all the caterpillars. One green body among many separated from the march and made its way across the grass to the cross. It scaled its front, passed over the O in Nachos and rested.

“What are you doing with that?” the spirit of the willow gasped.

“It’s just enjoying my company,” the spirit of the cross said, just as flabbergasted. The other caterpillars, entrenched in the willow’s branches, began to form their chrysalises.

“You need to get back over here!” the willow warned the stray caterpillar. “All your friends are here!” The larvae ignored the pleading and began its hardening shell, suspended from the right arm of the cross.

“It’s fine that you’re here,” the cross told it. “I’m all about Nachos, but there’s room for you. You have something like blood I imagine, yes?” Rather than answer the caterpillar took to its transformative sleep along with the others.

“I can’t believe this!” the willow raged, feeling its trunk twist under the bark. How could it go over to the cross? What was wrong? Was the spirit’s presence fading? Was this the tree’s last season? “I hate you!” he shouted at the cross.

“Don’t be jealous. I need a little life too. Blood can’t be shed without it.” Back and forth they bickered, and weeks passed. The children went back to school. The Fanders finally got a new car. Fall rains came, washing away the willow’s anger and replacing it with sorrow. It was all he could do to protect his charges with his remaining leaves, with the assumption death was coming for him, perhaps as a higher-ranked spirit of the First Blood. He considered lodging a complaint with it against his neighbor, but all he really wanted now was to hold out long enough for the butterflies to emerge.

“It’s happening!” the cross declared one morning, rousing the spirit of the willow from his sorrow-flooded dreams. The first butterfly, a delicate creature of red and black, fluttered out of the beleaguered tree and over the fence.

“I made it,” the willow said somberly, happy to see the butterflies this one last time. More and more of them poured out: a cascade of flapping and flashing color. The air filled with the brilliant dust of their efforts.

“Ooh! Mine’s here! Mine’s ready!” the cross declared, giddier than he’d ever been. The willow watched, beholden by curiosity. The lone chrysalis popped open and the butterfly emerged so its shriveled wings could slowly unfurl in the stark sun of early Autumn. “It’s going to fly away! One day it will return and-”

The butterfly dropped to the ground, its legs moving slowly but not finding purchase. The flicking of its antennae slowed… and then stopped altogether.

“Oh…” the cross whimpered.

“It’s… it’s natural,” the willow consoled. “It… it knew it was sick. Even before it went into sleep. It sought your comfort for its final time. It sought your understanding.” Even as he said it, the willow realized it was true. He could not help the creatures in death, could not bleed with them, nor be an object of mourning, because he would always bloom again.

“I’m… I’m glad you’re my neighbor,” the willow said.

“Th-thank you,” the cross answered. “I’ve bled every day, waiting to hear that. Now I can bleed happily.” And so the minor spirits of life and death, of growth and wound, of birth and sleep, tolerated each other for generations to come.

The End