Come away to the woods, my friend. The cedars are tall and gray. Their bark cracks off them like sun-split skin. Dig a well along the river and go to sleep among the reeds. If I sleep, I will dream. The gods will rattle the earth and drum on the clouds. The fires will creep from the city to the cedars and choke antelope with their smoke. The gods have told me what is to become
of my city when I face the beast.
            The beast is sleeping. How will you face him if you are weary? Sleep my friend. This clay is the clay I was molded from. This water is the water that flows in our veins. This moon is the sickle that reaps our crops. Sleep. If you don’t, I will.
            I have dreamed and I have dreamed of nothing, just black sky and silent fire and my people were not here and they did not speak. All I have built has crumbled. Calm yourself, great king. The hot glow against the tree line is not but the sun rising. I was born into this quiet. I taught myself to sing, like the birds and jackals do and I can sing for you if you like.
            The beast wears seven layers of steel. He inhales fresh air and exhales soot. His blood is sharp like vinegar and his face is made of worms. I am old. My bones are brittle and full of tiny cracks. The weight of my armor is too much for my sorry shoulders.
            The steel of the beast has gone rusty. He has shed his layers. Tomorrow, or the day after that, or the day after that, you will crack him open, like the brittle branch of an acacia and empty him of his pith. You will fashion him into a flute, play music out of his hollowness. And yes, old friend, the wind has ground the roads to dirt but it all the softer for you to run. Come to me my friend. Touch me.
            Once we came to this place to slay a beast, to build a temple with these trees. Tomorrow, or the day after that, we will face the beast and build a shelter from his bones. Tomorrow, we will settle in the cedar forest, where once we cut it down. I’ve had dreams too, my friend. I have dreamed that you will bury grapes in the soft earth and mark the spot with clay seal. This is the spot, you will say, we will come back here in a few days’ time and we will get drunk, and we will laugh as we did when we were young men.

Grace Stowe Evans is writer from central Pennsylvania who is currently seeking her BA in creative writing and religious studies at Susquehanna University. Her work has been featured in About Place, Sanctuary and elsewhere.