Black Thorned Ice

The world was green and dark, but the ocean remained green and bright. That man of the church seemed to be the epitome of green, with his smiling black eye folds that obscured his soul windows, and his wide smile that forced his mouth to stretch at the ends of his cheeks and nose. And yet, he continued to wave; all the onlookers cheering silently at them and their boat as if sound didn't exist, waving and smiling slowly with wide smiles from the harbor and shrinking from the distance the tourists were steadily trekking among the glowing green.

Cornell hated their name because and preferred to shorten it because the original was too queer, antique and lackluster. It was an embarrassing name. Yet despite their reluctance, it seemed this trip wouldn't require them to pronounce their introductions with anyone: as it seemed the majority of the people they were after didn't seem to recognize them, nor cared to elicit a conversation.

The sounds of continuous rumbling came from the end of the bayou boat, which offered a muffled but loud buzz. Everyone was seated on rows, which were plastic seats with melded together with identical seating on the other side. The boat wasn't cramped, or even full, but there was enough scattered tourists to make Cornell feel wary. Thankfully for them, Cornell was at the back corner of the boat, so they only had to worry about the people next to and behind them. Then again, they wondered how often those behind them would turn and swivel their heads to Cornell's line of sight. And the only person next to them was a Hispanic man that they were on this trip primarily for.

It was already dark, but it was getting darker. The orange sun was in the sky, blasting waves of citrus against their surroundings, giving everything he touched a shell of gold. Unfortunately, Midas the Sun King's reach was limited by the leafage of foreign trees, which filtered out stars and clusters of yellow onto green waters and white boat paint. It also had a navy blue roof over the entirety of the boat, which supplied an excess of shade and silhouettes. As they glided through the opaque waters, and despite many smaller openings around them that they could take as a detour, which were crafted from the gaps between tree trunks, it was essentially a straight, slow descent into a natural cave; walking like a human down a hallway, thin and thick wooden trees alike rose and stood erect, looming upwards with a sea of black leaves that stretched eternally, resembling the entrails of solid cavern walls, gaping like a mouth: and it was black a few feet beyond those established cave corners.



Rhet