Page 6 of Mushy Stuff
She stops to look at me while I’m standing at the wall. “Can I take a picture of you?”
This makes me anxious, and she notices how uneasy I am.
“It’s perfectly safe.” She does something on her phone, then she stands in front of me. She’s very close to me, probably within arm’s reach. She holds the phoneup in front of her and it makes a small clicking noise. I’m too busy looking at her to pay much attention to the phone.
“Perfect!” she says as she steps away from me.
She’s still looking at something on her phone when she gasps and says, “Oh! You have a tail! I just noticed it in the picture!” She walks around me to get a better look at it. She studies my tail for a minute, and the attention makes me uncomfortable, so my tail loudly thwacks against the floor. I practically groan with embarrassment.
She giggles. “Is that good or bad?”
Before I can respond, she continues, “Can I touch it?”
I just stare at her dumbfounded. She wants to touch me?
She blushes. “Your tail…can I touch your tail?”
I’m still so shocked that I can’t reply, so I just nod.
She squats down and pets the tuft of hair on the end of my tail. She’s being very soft and gentle, but her touch still makes my tail twitch. Maybe it’sbecauseher touch is so soft and gentle that it twitches.
She stands back up and goes back to looking at mushrooms, and I watch her as she does.
She surveys the room and says, “It’s so beautiful! I can’t believe I’m seeing this.”
I think for a moment. “Do you want to see more?”
She turns to me and her eyes light up. “There’s more?!”
“Yes, come with me.” I walk toward the exit of this chamber, and she follows me.
We enter another chamber of the cave, and she gasps as soon as she walks in.
This room has an opening in the ceiling where sunlight comes through. There’s a small waterfall that pours through the opening and into the cave. It creates a small pool towards the back of this chamber.
As we walk in, I say, “This is where I keep the mushrooms that like more light.”
There are many, many kinds of mushrooms here. The room is full of color from all of them. They range frombeautiful with perfect little rounded caps to grotesque looking. There are some that look like almost exactly like eyeballs. There are other clusters that ooze horrible fluids from their deformed caps and smell foul.
Lydia stands in the middle of the cave surveying everything in silent awe. She finally looks at me with huge, rounded eyes. “Wold, this is amazing. You did all of this? You take care of them?”
I rub the back of my neck and reply, “Yes. It is what I do.”
“How do you care for them? It doesn’t seem like they need watering.”
“No, my magic cares for them. It helps them grow strong,” I explain.
She’s still looking around the room as she says, “This really is beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t even know what to say.”
I watch as a tear rolls down her cheek. This startles me. Did I do something to make her upset? I thought this would make her happy.
I say, “Why do you weep?”
She smiles and wipes the tear away. “Sorry, I’m just being emotional. It’s so beautiful that it makes me cry.”
This concerns me. Humans cry because something is beautiful? There are so many beautiful things in the world.If all of those make them cry, then how do they continue existing? She must see the concerned look on my face.
She laughs. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just crying because this place is so perfect for me. I never could have imagined seeing something like this in person.” She pauses for a moment. “Can I take some pictures in here too?”
