Episode 2.5: Let There Be Green

Well, hey there, family.

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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.

In the ruins of a mountain schoolhouse, a little girl sleeps.

And I wish I could tell you that after the past few days that she was sleeping deep and dreamless, but that would be a lie, family.

And I do my best to always speak true.

Sarah Avery tossed and turned in the corner of the schoolhouse where she had settled for the night.

her body twitching and spasming, her head tossing from side to side as nightmares danced across her heart and mind like turkey buzzards circling a corpse.

She saw her mama in the tree, heard the growls and the snarls of the things that came in the house and chased her through the woods, smelled the stench of her uncle and daddy burning and dying a second time,

saw the pain in her uncle's face as he gave up his very soul to give her a chance to get away, the sounds of the bear as it ripped her uncle's shell to shreds.

And then her own words echoed back to her.

Take it back.

You can have it all back.

Who was she even talking to?

In that moment, everything was lost.

Was it God?

Was it Jesus?

Neither one of those felt right.

The way the sunlight filtered through the green overhead, the trees, the leaves, all of it.

That That seemed to be what could keep her safe.

And when all else had failed, she turned to the mountains that were more of a mother to her than her own could ever be.

She turned to the green.

And as the horrors of the past few days sank into the murky depths of her subconscious, another voice rose.

A voice that echoed from far away and not far away.

A voice ageless, both old and young at the same time.

A voice that rose from the mountain itself and spoke what almost sounded like a prayer.

But Sarah knew it was so much more.

And before Sarah could bring herself to wakefulness, she sat bolt upright, her eyes still closed, her body moving automatically as she walked toward one of the few desks left standing in the schoolhouse, her face still slack, her eyelids still closed over her rapidly darting eyes.

On the surface of the desk lay a composition book.

Daniel Calloway's name was written on the cover, though Sarah Avery could not see that through her dreaming eyes.

She opened to a blank page

and started to record what the voice was saying.

Let there be green.

Let there be thickened trees and unshorn grass,

choking weeds and hand-tearing brambles.

Let there be honey venom flowers and sap-sticky vines that will not break.

Let there be kudzu with suffocating canopy, light-swallowing gorges, the dark places where sunlight goes to the cinders.

Let them rupture and extrude.

Let them come roaring forth, bursting timber and cornerstone, proving that we have built nothing of permanence here.

Winter chain them to old locust trees.

Let them be food for the dark, wet tongue of the shifting mountain.

Let them scream as fishers grind their black scabs together to become blood brothers with the god of fire and soot that they have worshipped with pay stubs like altars, families as burnt offerings.

Let them split their throats crying, Elahi, Elahi, Lama, Shavaktani,

and receive only silence in return.

Let us finally admit we were digging graves this whole time.

That what we were burning was the daylight promise to those we called precious,

baby, little man.

Let us confess that tomorrow's never mattered to us, that promises were enough, that it was good enough for you will be good enough for them,

even when there is no good left.

Enough.

Let us throw sizzling sticks and dynamite down howling black shafts.

Let the place where knees truly learn to bend blacken and ripple like the sea floor.

Let the monstrous stone throats finally choke.

Let these temples fall because their god is dead, had been dying for decades.

Let us mourn him properly now.

They do not need our darkness to burn anymore.

So let us end this.

Let there be green,

great looming swaths of endless breathing mouths.

Let them sing of our absence.

Let the cities go dark for the lack of our smolder.

And let the stars find these mountains as they were made.

Whole,

green,

and blessedly

empty.

And with the last words scritched into the damp paper, Sarah Avery calmly replaced it in the leaves of the composition book, closed it, smoothed the cover with her hands, her eyes never opening, her face never changing.

The air in the schoolhouse was still and calm.

The rain had long since stopped, and a cool wind blew now.

Sarah stood,

walked calmly back to the corner where she had been slumbering before,

laid back down,

and promptly faded into a deep and dreamless sleep

that she so richly deserved.

I hope you've enjoyed your first interlude episode, family.

We're going to say goodbye to Sarah Avery for a little while,

but you'll find out quick in our Appalachia

goodbyes don't last that long.

Old Gods of Appalachia is a production of deep nerd media.

Today's interlude was written by Steve Schell.

Our outro music is by those poor bastards.

The voice of the witch queen was Veronica Lineberry.

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We're going to be returning to Barlow next episode.

We're going to be jumping back in time.

We still haven't figured out how those 51 miners got back up.

Now, have we?

See you next time, family.

House is a cancer, and in this abyss, I've lost all control.

Is this path to glory?

It's so hard to tell.

Through God's dark heaven,

go I

go I

through God's dark heaven.

Go I

through God's dark heaven go I

through God's dark heaven

go

high

through

God's dark heaven

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day, Scratchers, from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question: play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly, must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.