Dee!

eyes on rafah.

the gnomes of the community gather around where i sit, all looking at me and exchanging glances with each other, none of them speaking the obvious. i can no longer stay here, now that i am not their size. but i was part of their community. i became one of them, indistinguishable from these people only from my past. how am i supposed to return to the world of the humans now? there is no life left for me there. that is not a life where i may fish for minnows in a babbling brook and feast off a bounty of raspberries. i am distraught. i cry.

my community comforts me. friends, all minuscule to me now, pat me wherever they can reach, nimbly dodging the tears that fall from my face. one of them offers me water. they don't have any containers that are big enough for me, they apologize, so just this acorn cap filled with morning dew will have to suffice.

i take the acorn cap and look at it in my hands. it is so small now. with a sniff, i put it atop my head.

happy pride! get absolutely silly with it.

+ a flag color-picked directly from this very worm.

im eating flies and live inside a log!

stacy cant you see she has placed a spell on me!

It looks like the vote isn't today, but you can sign up to volunteer to help them run the referendum/participate in activism related to this:

i debated giving my thoughts lest someone come and tell me rudely that i'm overreacting. beyond that, i don't hope to call anyone out or anything. i'm just disappointed to see this user adding fuel to the fire of the point of my blog.

there are so many other things one could notice or ask themselves upon seeing the image, aren't there?

the most obvious: what makes this holler in particular so dangerous? what about it lures in the unsuspecting? what is its siren's song?

that is to wonder: does the same thing that makes it lethal also serve as the reason people are seduced by it, and with such persistent frequency that it feels necessary to post a sign to ward them off?

is the danger something easy to explain, like steep cliff drops along its borders or unstable mountain passes? does loose rock or bad weather claim the curious?

or could it be something supernatural, something a superstitious someone posted up? maybe the wives tales and urban legends hold some truth, and you really shouldn't go investigating the strange and terrifying in appalachia at night.

"be carried out?" is that because mother nature had her say, or is it because the cryptids did? is this a threat or a frustrated warning?

or maybe there is no danger at all. perhaps the property's owner just wants to be left alone, keep their fertile expanse of land to themselves.

maybe it's something handed down through generations. maybe strangers have stomped all over its history in the name of sightseeing.

but instead... it's the incorrect spelling that gave this user pause.

the intrigue and mystery and magic of this ageless region just doesn't matter to most, not when so many people who come from it grow up in generationally impoverished communities, inhibited by poor public education--people who aren't likely to make it to the last rounds of a spelling bee, you see.