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HOLLOWS CRACKED
by Heatherlie Allison
 
Written for the initiatory issue of STRIXA dedicated to Our Lady Lilith, “Hollows Cracked” is an unrelenting tale of rupture, a window into the fragile lives of an expectant couple as they seek flight from the “dying out of humankind.” Finding refuge in a wildling orchard, a willow of exalted grandeur at center, the couple soon learns that their new sanctuary is alive, possessed of a heart, a pulse—an intention. As the ordeals begin, the couple’s bond fractures. Each grows apart, unravelling separately until they realize their own sacrificial destiny. Redemption, for one, comes in the form of an egg and a smattering of red dust, an original state of being that is as beautiful as it is monstrous.
 
EXCERPT I: “From outside the canopy, at the base of the hillock and beyond, the willow appeared to be dancing to Ehta’s song. Its voluptuous hips undulated, twisted with sensual exuberance as if in copulation with the invisible. Its branches lifted, spread, and fluttered, readying for flight. Its shifting faces rolled with expressions of pleasure and pain, twisted in horror, furrowed in ecstasy. As the wind plunged, the tree’s foliage rattled. It husked and creaked; it cackled and moaned. Its volume rose then climaxed in a prolonged screech, tensed at its peak, and released with a shiver. The trunk of the tree then split, revealing an uncharacteristic hollow shaped like a plump-lipped mouth, vulval-like. From the fissure came an exhale, a weeping discharge, red and viscous. From the inner height of the tree’s canopy, down feathers fell in a soft sway.”
 
EXCERPT II: “Remember… Remember…” she sang. She frothed the grave dirt with her fingers and wept upon it. The wind responded in kind as it filigreed through the willow’s branches: Remember us… it seemed to say. Ehta closed her eyes and saw an egg. It cracked from base to crown, its fine fissure slithering serpentine in an upward spiral. From its crown burst forth an ambrosial spray of a dark-scarlet loveliness. Heart-shaped apples and cherries, split-open pomegranates. Star-tendrilled spider lilies, the silken petals of poppy and rose. All enmeshed. A tapestry, red-threaded—alive. All glinted together like a multifaceted ruby. The image bloomed brighter, hotter. Then all turned to dust."
 
EXCERPT III:  "A triumvirate of form, it appeared part human, part barred owl, part viper. The scaled sections of its exposed flesh possessed a silvery luminescence in the black light of the canopy. Ehta gasped in-shudder, for the creature was supremely beautiful in a way that the mirror failed to convey. The creature circled her, smelled her, clasped her face and kissed her with an open mouth. Ehta fell into the kiss, captivated by the caress of the creature’s forked tongue, the creature’s scent and flavor, both bitter, floral and resinous, opiatic in effect. In that instant, sight came from behind her eyes, and she saw herself in a vision of grandeur—a glittering red queen spread far across the sky."