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Spirit of the Woods, Mouth of the Trees

Eight kaleidoscopic images. Shot on 35mm film, scanned from negatives, duplicated and flipped.

In another body. Skin wrapped around tighter. Urgency pulsed underneath. Blood flushed to colour with an enthusiastic heartbeat, excitement even. There was a remembrance attached, something granular not ebbed by multiple years of cellular level replacement. Another body that still felt like my own.

The external was different too. More records than books stacked on the floor. A bed with a bad mattress. Famous faces on the wall as an alternative to abstract images. I lived here when I was about 21. In another country. More than thirty years ago.

Morning light was bright behind the head and it shadowed the face, but I was in a crappy elongated mirror near the door. The reflection reminded me of how untired I used to look. It isn’t just the gravity that makes you appear like a melted candle, a fat frog or a leathery bird.

I wondered if all of this was true. Had I become a manifestation of a thought beholden to those living with a landfill of bad choices, tethered to daily reminders of the body not working like it used to?

 I listened to Dawn Chorus on repeat. When it hurt the most. “If you could do it all again, big deal so what?”

Adulthood is about surviving your paradoxes. In the time before they solidified their being, the face in the mirror smiled at me. We both knew how this would go.

Christian Martius (2025)

Tender is an ongoing book project and a collection of tender memories provided by anonymous contributors. Only the tender experience is shared. These remembrances can appear as a story, a poem or even a few sentences. Most contributions are short, no more than 200 words.

All pieces are collected and edited by the writer Christian Martius. Originally, I intended to write a fictional story on the subject of tenderness but found other people’s real experiences far more interesting.

Tender is both a verb and an adjective, meaning to offer and present something and to show gentleness, kindness and affection. If you would like to share your tender experience contact: tendercmartius@gmail.com

Short Story (Audio)

All 9 episodes of the Mercifully Short Stories Podcast can be found on YouTube @mercifullyshortstories