In the Northern Wood

  • March 22nd, 2025

    I walked along the river today for almost an hour, listening to the song of the water falling over rocks and through the last remaining ice of the frosty days.I walked far enough out today to find where the railroad tracks cross the water on a tall and spindly bridge. It was here I finally…

    Anya Zub

  • March 20th, 2025

    I’ve been a little unsettled since the day I drank the river water, but I’ve also felt very at peace.My dreams have remained strange and involved, drawing me deeper into the imagery I experienced on that first night. The pale figures from the river, climbing trees, reaching for the perfect sphere that is the moon…

    Anya Zub

  • March 18th, 2025

    I have had the strangest dreams these past few nights.I dream of the river almost every night now… but, not as it is… instead it is wild and forceful. Tumbling up the banks in white capped eddies, swirling and racing over rocks, carrying leaves and little sticks along.It is an untamed force that cannot be…

    Anya Zub

  • March 16th, 2025

    I ate the last slice of pie for breakfast today and contemplated the river and what Bess had told me about taking a cup of water every moon cycle.I know the full moon was a few days ago, but maybe it’s not too late.Would I really do this?Drink river water because of local lore that…

    Anya Zub

  • March 14th, 2025

    I took Barbie’s advice and headed to town today. It wasn’t so much that I needed any supplies, but I felt it wouldn’t be a bad idea to see something a little normal – something that fit with the world I had come from. I know in my heart that there is nothing more natural…

    Anya Zub

  • March 12th, 2025

    I decided instead of stalking a virtual stranger it was probably a better idea to try and connect with Barbie. I know her property borders mine. And since I always see her at the fence line in heavy winter work-wear that is obviously good quality and well-worn she very likely spends a lot of time…

    Anya Zub

  • March 10th, 2025

    I didn’t really get back to sleep the other night… or the next if I’m being totally honest. I’ve just been trying to stay busy – I’ve been reading, keeping the radio cranked and generally trying to dispel some of the quiet and cloying loneliness.I thought I saw Barbie out by the fence today, but…

    Anya Zub

  • March 8th, 2025

    Today I awoke at 3am apropos of nothing.My eyes snapped open and I stared at the dark ceiling, taking inventory of who I was and where I was and what had woken me.I could hear the tap dripping in the bathroom and the electric hum of the furnace in the background.I got out of bed,…

    Anya Zub

  • March 6th, 2025

    It’s still snowing.I didn’t know it was possible to have fresh snow falling all through March – I knew that there were places where snow was still around in March obviously. And, I’ve seen those little crystal-like ice flakes falling in March, but this is those big, wet flakes that just pour out of the…

    Anya Zub

  • March 4th, 2025

    I was washing dishes today when I caught sight of a figure making their way down the wooded path through the trees.I know I was in town a few days ago, and I met Barbie a few days before that, but all this snow feels muffling somehow – like, the world exists like normal, but…

    Anya Zub