Fiction: All Her Limbs (Patreon)

We came upon the statue in the middle of the forest, there at the base of the mountains. I say statue, but don't misunderstand- the size of it was stunning, horrific, gobsmacking, confusing when we finally realized what it was. Even those of us who had no gods, those of us who wanted none, felt something like the presence of a god, there at the curve of her left knee. We didn't know it was a knee, but something unconscious in us shivered in primordial comprehension, even as we struggled through the thick undergrowth in the rocky ravine. Somewhere in the depth of the soil, the rich loam of the eroded mountain, must have been a foot, but what we found was the round stone of her knee, shrouded in moss, fern, and enormous coral flowers.

She had no head. Her sculptors had instead given her a wild, blossoming tree, wrought from metals twisted like ropes and rusted the same color as the trees that surrounded her, and whatever the leaves and branches once were, they were now part of the leafy overstorey, viney and alive with birds, snakes, and insects. Only when we came upon her right knee, did we see the humanness of her- enormous stony fingernails forever digging angrily into the stony flesh of her thigh. A dark bird with its eyes ringed in gold scolded us as we dug around her fingers to affirm what we suspected. But finally, we disrupted a nest of bees and had to leave the area, finding ourselves awestruck and stung horribly.

The stings were painful, but not long lasting. The next day though, the lot of us found our senses muddled, none of us processing the colors yellow or orange, and a few unable to process lower frequencies they'd earlier had no problems with. Glenda could not hear her own voice for a full week. We noticed no swelling, and while very troubling, we all recovered fully within two weeks. 

We had a difficult time returning to the statue, as we lost the trail on our quick retreat from the bees, and in time that had passed, the spring snowmelt changed the landscape catastrophically. Streams and rivers now crashed through the underbrush, and the pink flowers that were present upon our first foray into the jungle were gone without trace. When we found the statue, one of the snowmelt rivers gushed between her legs, and the cultural advisor we'd brought with us laughed, blushing. 

"I don't think she's in pain." Carmella told us. "Ecstasy."

The biologist insisted we not disturb the flora and fauna of the place, but stayed behind with a scout escort to sketch and take notes. There were no bee attacks this time. We were all silent for the hours following, considering the implications of the statue. This planet was supposed to be unvisited, without intelligent life. But we had found evidence to the contrary- not only that, but evidence of human life, albeit now lost. Almost all of us had wild dreams that night, giant tree headed woman crashing through the forest, frost covered cities crawling with birds, a tattoo that moved and writhed from one person's body to another, the bees, a century ship coming through the atmosphere...  more nightmares than we cared to discuss, but in the morning we were almost giddy to return to her.