Man, I am in a strange mood tonight. Third Knots drabble; hoping Plei stops by for this one.
Dryad
The man stands, staring.
It's only a tree. The bole is gnarled with age, dark patches of bark peeling like sunburned skin. The root system, a massive twisting as hard as iron, curls above ground, taking in as much water as the tree needs.
The man stares at the bark. Inimical, ironic, a woman's face stares back at him.
It's only a knot, he tells himself, only a knot in the wood.
The knot, if knot it is, leers suddenly, her expression changing. He steps back, swallowing a whimper. Only a knot.
He's afraid to turn his back on it.
I like the dryad drabble. I also like saying "dryad drabble".
Also? Backflung take two.
Still internal erroring at me. Going to try downloading the second version and see if it takes.
GAH.
That is making me crazy. Do you have an older version of Word? I could try saving it in a different format maybe?
Kristin, this time I tried reading it with IE instead of Netscape. After a few convolutions it let me in. Thing is, I'm showing highlighted sections, but no commentary, to tell me why they were highlighted.
GARGH. Hm.
Okay, let me try this. Maybe I can save it HTML and get the comments as well. Just a second...
What on earth are you doing awake? This can absolutely wait until morning, you know.
Um...Insomnia and a hideous backache. Actually, the backache is causing the insomnia, I think. I have chronic upper back problems.
I'm not working tomorrow, so it's not as bad as it could be. I did just run hot water for a bath; hopefully that will help.
Backflung take 3.
Did it work that time? If so, I'm off to bath and hopefully some sleep shortly therafter.
