In honor of Violet Lichen's upcoming collection, ECO24: The Year's Best Speculative Ecofiction, out on November 18th, we hosted a microfiction contest inviting you to draw inspiration from our natural world. We got some amazing submissions, and after much trial and tribulation, narrowed it down to a top three. In first place was "Angels in the Forest" by Jessica Sirkin. You can read the piece and learn more about Jessica below! Congratulations to Jessica!
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"Angels in the Forest"
By Jessica Sirkin
There are angels growing in the forest. Marianne passes them every day on the way home from school. They grow on the trees with wings like white petals and shining green halos like the portraits of saints that hang beside her bed. Their legs are long and curved and white and they sing to her in voices like windchimes and breaking branches.
She tries to show them to her mother who takes her to the library to look up pictures of flowers. She finds the white orchids and points to them. "They're not angels, kiddo. They're ghost orchids." Then she says, "That's funny. Ghost orchids don't grow in New England." Marianne shakes her head. They don't look anything like ghosts. They look like angels.
At church, Father Mckenzie gives a sermon on angels. He talks about the war in heaven and she imagines her angels fighting, thronging the air above her on white petal-wings. Father Mckenzie tells the story of the angel that came to the Virgin Mary and announced that she would birth the savior. She pictures her flower petal angels hovering above her bed whispering in their broken branch voices. Their green halos shine bright behind them as they spread their wings.
The angels in the forest sing to her of their war among the stars, their long journey down to Earth to meet her. They tell her that she will save them. Their child will grow inside her belly; its long stem will burst out from inside her as it spreads its beautiful wings.
Behind the angels long green stems grow in a tangled knot. All she has to do is eat one. Marianne thinks of the peaceful face of the Virgin Mary by her bed, her beautiful golden halo. She opens her mouth for communion.
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Jessica Sirkin is a Boston-based roleplaying game and cybersecurity writer. She has been writing speculative fiction since she read Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt" in seventh grade. Her short fiction has appeared in various publications, including Apex Magazine. She is currently working on a novel.
