Anna was an Acorn

This story was published by Eyeshot.

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Anna was an acorn, and she told people this every chance she got: her parents, friends, coworkers, random people on the street; whoever whenever, they had to know the truth. She wasn't a woman, a child, with skin and hair the color of blood-spackled honey. No, no not at all. She was a red-rose nugget inside a shell dangling from the end of a swaying branch. That was Anna. That was all she ever wanted to be and all she would ever yearn for.

And when she would tell people this they would look at her in suspicion and brilliant fright.

"What was so bad about being human, Anna? I'm a human, Anna. Am I so bad?"

"Blah," she would say, "blah," and wave her fists in a furious kind of dismissal, disgusting by a question too stupid to even be asked.

It was simple, see: Anna was an acorn. There were no questions to be asked, no arguments to be made. She simply was and she was as she was meant to be, don't you see?

All her life she wanted to be an acorn, all her life and nothing could stop her savage aching ways, nothing could stop her daydream montage. She saw herself so frequently, she saw herself bloom in delight, an acorn that grew and stretched up year by year until she pierced the sky, her limbs reaching up so high they ensnared the moon and the two of them lived their life together in an embrace--just her and the moon that loved in her grasp, lived in her arms, like husband and wife and husband again. She could be happy as a tree, without emotion, without skin and nerves or a brain, or pain or any kind of soft silver sighs or cares at all, just strength and height and age and growth. So mighty, so solipsistic, there could be nothing outside herself, nothing at all except her and her growth and the moon that had fallen into her clutches one ecstatic steaming night.

And then there was Jacob. Poor, dear Jacob who traded in affection and held-hands and sly smiles. Dim little Jacob who tried his hardest to show her the joys of being human: the feeling of fingers running down dawn bellies and over sequined hips; the pain and tenderness of life, but she had little interest. Or none at all. Oh yes, she enjoyed these things--so wondrously and multiplyingly spinal--she enjoyed them and consumed them simply as any good young woman does, its just that they were not convincing, they weren't good enough, they simply were not that important and neither was he. She was hesitant to break his heart, of course, to rip it apart like a tortured wineglass, like a fractured bone, but he had chosen his path freely. It was his own damn fault and he should stop pouring down tears. He knew she was an acorn, he knew it all along and he just chose to ignore the facts before him and press on, always on, trying to convince her of her folly. Poor Jacob.

It was pointless. She never longed for him, she liked him fine, but she never longed with that burning mind-erasing, leg-slackening tension that seems to connect the head and the heart with chains and wires of bronze that passed electrical waves. She had never ever longed like that in her life. Except for one thing: what she longed for was to drop from the branch, feel herself roll in freefall like a child down the trunk of her tree and land steaming and charging, reeping and rolling, avoiding the sharp beaks of the birds and the stoneground steps of men to bury herself deep under blankets of earth. She would cover herself with it, oh yes she would cover herself so happily, running it through her hair and fingers and wiggling down low, tucked in and warm to wait in the womb of the world as she gradually grew, safe from harm until she could finally extend her arms and legs, feel them pulling in new directions and carving their way up, up toward the sun, the sky, that loving moon, and the arched columns that hung suspended in the wind like green and gold money.

Anna was an aching acorn, and every day she ached a little more.