I don't have a lot of characters who talk like that. This brought back memories of my old, forgotten pair of ill-matched dryads, Laurel and Palm. I'd started a story back in the 1990s featuring the two of them. It was put aside, unfinished, and forgotten.
The sentence brought Palm back in all of her brash, loudmouthed glory, along with ability to drive Laurel crazy...:)
“Gawd, I hate this weather!” Palm bared her yellow teeth in the direction of the wind whipping through the trees. Real trees with leaves and foilages, not the monstrous shrubs Palm preferred.
I breathed in their scent, delighted to hear the murmur of my lost sisters in the wind. Even if they were just ghosts, echoes of a long, forgotten past.
“It’s gods, not gawd, Palm,” I said, disliking the prim note of disapproval which entered my voice. It was a habitual occurrance whenever I spoke to this unconventional nymph. “We are dryads, remember? Tree nymphs. Lesser deities of nature.”
“Yeah, like I can wrap my head around that fossilized myth crap.” Palm scratched the top of her spiky head. “Live for the now and keep up with the times, I say.”
“We are part of that ‘fossilized myth crap’, you idiot!” I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself at Palm’s brazen challenge to our existence.
Lack of faith was nothing for a goddess or a demigoddess to laugh about. It brings us as close as we can ever come to death.
I softened my tone, trying to make it something more reasonable. “If we don’t believe in ourselves, how can we expect others to believe in us?”
“Oh, Laurel, you’re such a scaredy cat! Or maybe I should say scaredly scrub?” Palm dropped a spindly around my shoulders. “Maybe too much weight is, like weighing you down? I’d say you’re way too fat, only we’re not supposed to say fat any more.”
“I happen to have the ideal classical figure, thank you very much!” I slipped around from under her arm. “It’s you who’s too skinny.”
“Ooo, you’re not supposed to say that! Am I, though?” Palm cast a critical look down at her tank top which exposed a flat stomach and cut off jeans. “Has the ideal body type changed? Again?” She chewed on her bright red lower lip. “It’s about time I updated my look. Got to keep up with the times.”
Palm pulled a device out of her pocket, one mortals everywhere were carrying. “Got to keep up with the latest fashions, too.”
“It’s not like dryads even need to wear clothing.” I eyed the small, metallic rectangle. It lit up, flashing tiny icons in her hand. “What’s that? It looks like a cross between a tiny computer and a cell phone.”
“Laurel, Laurel, how many times do I have to tell you to get with the times?” Palm brandished the flashing object in my face. “This happens to be a smart phone! It does the work of a computer and a phone alike, because, like, it’s smart!”
“A smart phone?” I eyed the small device with a sinking sense of unease. Once more, mortals had come up with something which could challenge the gods. Gods took exception to that sort of thing. They always did.
Only I hadn’t heard from the gods in a long time. Too long.
Once Artemis had roamed the woods beneath our trees with her band of nymphs. Her brother often lurked behind her, hoping to catch the unwary straggler in an embrace. I used to see muses and graces resting beneath our leaves, inspiring mortal artists who wandered into nature, seeking that creative touch.
Goddess and god, nymph and grace, muse and their chosen, they’d stopped coming. At first it had been a blessing, to be left in peace. Too much time had passed. I was starting to worry.
“Don’t worry about it!” Palm grinned in brash ignorance of serious matters to concern herself with, other than what was trendy. “As long as I have this, we’ll never be alone.” She stroked her smart phone. “This connects us to people and faith, all we need to survive.”
“What makes you think that?” Tiny images of women in loose clothing once favored by goddesses danced across the tiny screen. “Wait, how did all of that get there?”
“Awesome, isn’t it? I can see what models are wearing in Paris and Milan with this!” Palm squinted at the screen. “Best keep an eye on Shanghai, too. I get the feeling a lot of fashion will be up and coming from there.”
“Palm, what are you talking about?” I gazed at the proud, self declared modern dryad, bent over her ‘smart phone’.
“The future, of course! A future without gods.” Palm shook her head, short fonds of hair flying across her face. “Better be ready for it, Laurel. Trends are the new gods.” She leaned closer to the girls on the tiny screen. “They dominate the world, chasing out all that opposes them. Mortals may cry about them, yet they’re at the mercy of them.” She winked at me. “Just as we were once at the mercy of the gods.”
“I don’t believe you.” I shut my eyes, pressed my hands against the sides of my head. “Something so frivolous wouldn’t replace the gods. They couldn’t.” My fingers might splinter if I wasn’t careful. “The gods were too powerful!”
“Well, where, like, did you think they got their power from? Mortals! Faith and worship, girlfriend.” Palm waved her smart phone at me. “Don’t see too many humans offering sacrifices to the gods these days, do you?” She ran her thin fingers across the tiny screen, making the women vanish. “This is the sort of thing they worship now.”
She held up an image of a scowling, orange-haired man.
“No.” I backed away. “Mortals aren’t that foolish. I refuse to believe they are!”
I turned my back and fled from Palm and her ‘smart phone’ with its substitute gods.
“It doesn’t matter what you or I believe in, Laurel!” Palm called after me. “What matters is what humans believe in. They shape our world, like it or not. You’d better find a way to exist in it if you want to survive.”
I retreated into my tree, losing my human shape, not wanting to listen to any more.
The world was changing whether I liked it or not. Palm tree nymphs. Smart phones. Trends and orange haired men where the gods had once been.
Palm was right. I had to find a way to exist in their world if I wanted to survive.
May the lost gods curse her for forcing me to acknowledge this.
What a character! Isn't it astonishing how much has changed since the 1990's. Because I don't like reading stories that involve text messages, I set my series in the latter part of that decade. ~grin~ Happy Writing!
ReplyDeleteThank you! Yes, it did astonish me...Palm has changed a lot from the Southern California, Valley Girl dryad she was once was, although in essence, she's the same, trying to stay ahead of fashion. (wry grin)
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