Off the Beaten Track
 

A pheasant scutters through the undergrowth and Rufus gives chase. He plunges into the bracken, tail tip waving like a flag, then disappears. I shout, whistle, follow the trail of trampled foliage through the trees. Rufus howls and I find him on the edge of a clearing where a huge oak crouches.
 
Rufus stares at the tree and refuses to step into the tangle of roots. An almost imperceptible shift in something; the light, Earth’s axis, God’s attention, and I see every barb on the feathers of a thrush on the topmost bough. It lifts its head and sings allegiance to the darkling sky where Sirius and Rigel fight the march of streetlights, neon signs, motorway trails of red and white.
 
Another shift, into bright sun, where a Purple Emperor butterfly sips honeydew from an oak leaf. Its proboscis unrolls and sticky liquid rises through the central canal. A flash of beak, a tremor, the sound of diggers; nothing changes, everything changes. All possible futures fall through the spaces in a spider’s web.
 
The leaf drops to the ground where the roots of the great tree burrow past fallen branches covered with lichen, into heavy soil. They thread past a store of acorns, a stash of coins, the skull of a cow, an axe head which felled timber for the ships of the Queen’s Armada.
 
The ground creaks and tips under my feet. I cling onto Rufus and we slide down the hill. When I glance behind me the tree has gone. The moment scatters like pollen.
 
 
 
* Jan Harris was born in 1956 in Farnsfield, a small village in North Nottinghamshire. She combines her role as a carer with working from home as a freelance write/editor. Her work has appeared in Mslexia, Flashquake, Nth Position, Popshot, Ink Sweat & Tears and other online and print publications.