{"sf1_id":1371568,"sf2_id":"pnGZEVMm","title":"Behind Those Mountains","author":"Kranich im Exil","words":304,"posted_at":"2018-09-27T21:50:00.000Z","tags":["Angst","Bizarre","Cabin","Contemporary","Dark","Death","Depressing","Depression","Desert","Dream","Dystopia","Fantasy","Farm","Feathers","Forest","House","Macabre","Modern","Morbid","Mountain","Mystery","Mystic","No-Yiff","Outdoors","Poem","Psychological","River","Short","Short Story","Sleeping","Sorrow","Third Person","Thought Provoking","Tragedy","Tree","Verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1371568-behind-those-mountains","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/pnGZEVMm","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/68/c3/68c32923-978a-42c9-bba1-e217cf939a41","description":"#6 of Other\n\nWe are the ones who leave.\nHumans aren't made to think in facts and truths. Instead, they think in symbols -- and even more obscurely, they think in stories about symbols.","content":"  \n\n## BEHIND THOSE MOUNTAINS\n  \n  \nWhere were they when the sun settled behind those mountains dressed in smoke and dust?  \n  \nThat small stream of shimmering water, finding its way past cultrate rocks and blackened tree trunks.  \n  \nDid they ever wonder where the river went once it had disappeared in the shadows of the trees, its shimmer veiled by undergrowth?  \n  \nDid it ever meet the sea? Or did it lose itself in the colorless sands of barren lands?  \n  \nIts vivid gurgle turned into silent, sluggish mud?  \n  \n  \n  \nThey said a black bird carried the twig of an ash tree.  \n  \nA little sign of things to come, a haunting tale to put the children back to sleep.  \n  \nBut they didn't care.  \n  \nThey took the twig and watched it wither.  \n  \nThey took the feathers and plugged them on their doors.  \n  \nThey took the bones and weaved them into little toys.  \n  \nThe children giggled.  \n  \nA tiny theater of ribcage dolls, smiling pale faces in moldy varnish.  \n  \n  \n  \nWhere were they when the shadows fell on those little bodies?  \n  \nWhen the air tasted like burned skin and when I felt hairs on my tongue that didn't belong to me?  \n  \n\n\u0026nbsp; Did they ever wonder if those tales escaped their tiny beds?  \n  \nOr did they remain as vacant thoughts and dead dreams, hovering over those cradles, like dry flies in a dusty spider net?  \n  \n  \n  \nI still see those houses at the edge of the forest, where the river still flows, swallowed by undergrowth.  \n  \nI still feel the time that's buried there with them.  \n  \nA withered twig on a porch, twitching in the wind.  \n  \nIs this what was meant to be?  \n  \nDid they live and long and loathe, only to find those sands they've inherited?  \n  \n  \n  \nI watch them still, and they watch me.  \n  \nWe both know.  \n  \n  \n  \n---  \n  \n\n© 2018, Kranich im Exil  \n  \n::[www.furaffinity.net/user/kranich-im-exil](http://www.furaffinity.net/user/kranich-im-exil) ::\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Other","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1245109-the-fig-tree-revolution.json"}}