The monument here is erected to the deceased amateur mycologist we revere. Some of us remember nights out with her, performances of dramas by costumed players with voices like splendor or patronizing alcoholic beverage vendors and getting rowdy with sex.
She was a goodly woman, full in the bosom, with a laugh like surging profits. She owned a dozen pairs of cargo shorts, and the finest compass any of us had ever seen, inlaid with turquoise and silver. It was needed, she claimed, to navigate this land and remain oriented. But we were aware of the flicker of cold vanity in her eye, and spoke much of her hypocrisy when her attention was diverted. In this, we were loathsome.
We come back, though we can hardly abide sleeping in this place. At least seventy animals occupy the forest here. And the moon's shadows are sickly wraiths with bloodless dreams.
