yes! speak to me with green trees and the eyes you plucked from them. she smiled because she said the planet had told her we were to be wed. and that, to her, translated into everything being golden. from the mountains down to the water’s edge where we waited out the night. to the ferryman. to the gold pieces we paid him to take us across. away from here. sailing on a giant coconut with the inside hollowed out. a small bench for us to sit on while he poled silently across. within one days time the waterways would be filled with soldiers looking for us. she smiled because the birds had told her we’d escape. and the fish had been swimming in a way to suggest all kinds of other elaborate possibilities in her eyes. of course, i could decipher none of these signs. to me it was all voodoo and nonsense. turning about, i saw the far shore. a signal fire was lit some ways off in the distance. smoke curled up it in the shape of an apple tree. fruit eyes of ash spuzzed off it dancing softly aloft before settling some ways off. this was the clearest omen i’d seen all week.