scarecrows

[asakiyume]

I saw a scarecrow today--I thought it was a person, standing very still. It was a very realistic scarecrow.

Today was also a rainy day, so there were no shadows, no direct light, confusion of air and water as rain misted down, confusion of earth and air too, as hills and trees melted away into clouds. A good day for summoning ghosts . . .

You can do that, when the rain brings ghosts up near the surface of the earth. Sorcerer farmers trap them in old clothes like helium in balloons, and make them wander the fields, scaring away anything that trespasses, until the bright light of an unclouded day frees them.

Yeah, ghost scarecrows only work when the summer is wet. In parched farmlands shriveling under an unrelenting sun, I'm guessing sorcerer farmers rely on phantasmal illusions of sparks and flames to terrify intruders away.

Comments

[zyzyly]

This made me smile :)

[asakiyume]

I'm very glad!

[sartorias]

Oh, what interesting images . . . and the thought of rain, sigh. It's been what, six, seven months since I saw any? And a long, hot three to four months to go. Maybe five.

[asakiyume]

Thanks! I wish you guys could get some relief sooner than another three or four months....

[marycatelli]

wonderful!

[asakiyume]

Thank you!

[sovay]

You can do that, when the rain brings ghosts up near the surface of the earth.

I like all of this very much.

[asakiyume]

These ghosts are [among] your people

[umadoshi]

This is marvelous. *^^*

[asakiyume]

:D very pleased you like it!

[minoanmiss]

This is gorgeous.

[asakiyume]

((hugs))

So glad you like it.

[khiemtran]

I remember that day when our city cousins came to visit us in the country and laughed at the "useless" ghost scarecrows with birds sitting on their arms. We just kept quiet and didn't mention the ghost birds...

[amaebi]

Oooooh, nice!

[asakiyume]

Ghost birds and ghost scarecrows have a very special relationship ;-)

[amaebi]

As I thought about this yesterday, I came to realize that I must have imbibed that C.S. Lewis squeamishness about things that look like humans, but aren't.

[asakiyume]

Interesting--can you say more?

For my part, I think I see all kinds of things that look for a moment like they might be human, but then they're not, but I think I kind of like that confusion. If I were confronted with an actual looking-like-human-but-not-human thing, I'm not sure how I would react. It would probably depend on how exactly it looked and what it was doing.

[amaebi]

I can't say a lot more.

But I noticed that as I played with your idea, all my extensions were on the sinister side. And that's despite my appreciating soil and the living things that make it up, appreciating bones aesthetically and functionally. So it occurred to me that I must find something kind of horrific about them re-forming to look humanoid....

[asakiyume]

That makes good sense. I think I was imagining something more vaporous than bones. But something vaporous could be sinister too....

[wayfaringwordhack]

This makes me wonder what it is like to be the summoned scarecrow ghost...

[asakiyume]

I imagine very nostalgic and bewildering at the same time... "Are these the fields I knew before? The shape of the hills seems similar and yet things have changed..."