The Black Moss

I was walking through the forest once when I found a strange twig. It had a patch of bulging black moss growing from it in odd places. I looked up, but I could not find the source of it. I continued on, but found more of these branches and more of this moss. There was a tree with this mischievous moss only on one low branch, so I severed the branch to save the tree. I came back the next day and found the stump covered in the moss too.

On and along I would stroll on the loops and find myself back where I started. I looked up and around and saw the bilious black blight on the bark of the trees up above me. Then the blight too, it barked right at me, and so I bound my way back behind me. In all the places I walked, there too it grew, how odd that it should be all around me? I dreaded the source, and wherever it was, I couldn’t let it slip below me. I trotted about, searching to and fro, until I gave up, to go home. Ahead of me, however, the blight blocked my sight, and behind me the same could be said. Finally, it surrounded me, and with a start the thought entered my head: the blight was following me. Here it was, I realized, looking down at my held up hands, and here too, as I laid them upon my head. Then the very same moss poured out of my mouth; it must’ve been time for bed.