Day 4 Winner of Quarto’s 2020 Thunderdome Flash Fiction Contest. View the prompt here.

Dirt under my fingernails. I press the palms of my hands into the earth and throw my head back
towards the sun. The Birth of Venus. Dig, scrape, claw, moan, caress. The soil is the face of my
lover; I explore every inch, each intricate groove. Opening my eyes. Waking up.

Transfixed by the stones and the twigs, I will myself to go deeper. I crave intimacy with nature,
with the earth, with myself. I want the dirt on my face, in my hair, down my arms and across my
stomach. I sink into the soil and feel my heart beat with the rhythm of the earth. My chest rises
and falls. Tree branches wrap around my ankles; I rub rose petals across my cheeks. I am
fucking nature. I gasp as the wind pulls my hair back and the sun plants a kiss on my
collarbones.

I am fucking the earth.

The mushrooms come to me in a dream. They wrap their spindly stems around my shoulders in
a warm embrace. My body is a vessel of light—pure consciousness.

Mushroom paste stuck in my molars. I pick it out with my tongue and swallow. Did I take too
much?

Sitting on a rock in the middle of the creek, I smell my deodorant. Roses, mushrooms, and
clinical strength deodorant. Chipped toenail polish, faded purple hair, bushy eyebrows,
unshaved legs. Blonde roots grow out of the crown of my head—amethyst and clear quartz.

My thoughts manifest before my eyes; I am a beacon of light.