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A dense and wild forest stretched between the placid green harbor and the crest of the rocky ridge. A tiny cottage stood halfway up the slope, lost within the thick tangle of brush and vines. Nobody in the harbor knew it existed, for few had bothered to venture into the thick and overgrown woods at all.

Though the sun was high in the sky, the forest shaded the cottage, so Rachael read by dim candlelight. Soot and the greasy thumbs of thirty generations darkened the page. But from beneath the grime an obscure picture emerged: an etching of that very shore and the ridge above. The gentle slope in the picture, however, revealed an altogether different scene. A battalion of soldiers marched from the west as tall ships sailed into the harbor. An Indian chief on horseback watched from the ridge, just above the position where the cottage now stood.

Rachael bent her heavy head into her lap and squeezed the book against her breast. Then she farted. A brown, olidous cloud collected in the folds of her skirt, then wafted toward the rafters and seeped out the cracks in the cottage roof. It drifted down toward the harbor, caught up in a chinook, and settled among the little thatched huts of the town, here pressing against a dirty window, there mingling with the stray dogs as they trotted past the fishmonger.

Rachael turned the page to find a smudged portrait of the noble savage, mounted on his steed, witness to the whiteface invasion below.

A brown cloud hovered before him. Some things never change.

Date Written: January 20, 2005
Author: Ewan Snow
Average Vote: 4.375