"When you see beauty in desolation, it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonize you."
Jeff VanderMeer
In the warm winter of earth's worst year, I fell in love. The planet was boiling - forests, lakes, seas, glaciers, they were all victim of a mass vibration that was slowly but surely moving towards self immolation. I was at that time working as the manager of an orange farm in the metaphorical heart of Louisiana, watching the fruits lose their colour slowly as each year passed.
It wasn't always this way. I remember growing up in Portland, playing hooky on light rainy days, to cycle up the hill behind the abandoned saw mill, reach the top, all sweating and exhausted, heart pounding and muscles throbbing. I'd lay down on that emerald carpet of grass, arms and legs spread out, the dew-covered blades of grass brushing against my skin. A light breeze would every now and then take the exhaustion away, and the clouds would part to let a little bit of light fall on my face, revitalizing me. Falling asleep in that field of intimately connected life, my anxiety and loneliness would always seem to be relieved.
Early in my 20s, the government cut funding for the EPA, to make room for a bigger budget towards space exploration. I was out of a job, my life's goal deemed irrelevant. The decision for those of us who wanted to save the planet had been made by those who had long ago forlorn it. The media narrative had been about finding a new home, sailing into the final frontier looking for islands of great fruit. Eden was to be made again.
For my last assignment, I'd been sent to the Atchafalaya Basin, the largest wetland and swamp in the United States, in an attempt by those of us who still cared about the planet, to save it. It was there that I met him, said to be the most brilliant mind in the field, but as I observed, definitely the most caring. He cared about nature and the planet and fiercely fought for it, and some would say he paid the price. That assignment was the last for both of us, but I only lost my job, he literally exploded. There was an "accident" at the lab, cause unknown, and the whole camp where we had set up our labs caught fire, and exploded. Everyone made it out alive, except him. The official report was that the work we were doing proved unstable and produced the opposite results to what were expected, which in turn gave Washington the reason they needed to cut funding. My whole department was canned, and we naturally suspected foul play, or at least freak incident. Many of my colleagues tried to start an official investigation into the matter, and still are. Although one thing everyone agreed on, he was dead either in the explosion, or lost to the swamp.
I was laying low since then, because I knew something that made me a potential target, and if I'd learned one thing from my time with the government - a potential target was a target. The ridiculousness of the whole thing wasn't lost on me, but I wasn't willing to take any chances anyway, at least not for a while. Besides, that wasn't my only reason for staying. Like I said, I was in love.
To criticize the Louisiana weather would be hypocritical, since I'd chosen to stay here, and part of loving was accepting the flaws, and even after the scorching heat, soaking humidity and a myriad of bugs and plants scratching me up, I had to admit I was in love with all of it, partly because of him. On a boat ride through the thickest part of the swamp, he had said to me once, "There is great beauty in the swamp -- if you know where to look."
So as I walked through the reeds leading to the swamp in the evening light, I tried my best to think of the destination and not worry too much about the journey. It wasn't an easy hike, but I distracted myself by trying to identify as many species as I could. By now a faint trail had been created by my daily commute, which to be fair, only I could tell was there, so it was a little easier, but it wasn't without its cuts and stickiness, even though I was covered head to toe in cloth.
The halfway point of my journey was the gigantic fallen swamp white oak tree, half submerged in water. At a glance, one could make out a peculiar growth of vines on the bark, and on close inspection one would see that the vines actually made words.
They read - "Fiery the Angels rose, and as they rose deep thunder roll'd
Around their shores, indignant burning with the fires of Orc…"
I stopped at the tree and rested my butt on the bark for some time, and then continued on my journey, walking along the edge of the swamp until I reached a particularly large collection of shrubbery. It hid a small wooden boat with two oars, which I would use to go deeper within the wetlands. The Atchafalaya Swamp was so huge and untainted by human touch, that anyone who went deep enough would experience an entirely different world. I had to row for an hour under the thick cover of marshy trees, through viscous waters over which plants and insects unraveled their life. By the time I reached my destination, I smelled worse than the swamp. My clothes were heavier soaked with sweat and sticking to my body, heat trapped in my hair even though it was tied up as tightly as possible, my face red as a cherry. But finally I was here - a small island in the middle of marshes and wetland, not bigger than a tennis court, full of various colourful orchids and a huge swamp tree right in the middle. I docked my boat, stepped onto the island, walked around the tree, and there he was, chest deep in the water, his back to me, facing the last rays of light that made their way through the thick, taking in the last ounce of light before the sun finally set.
The news had gave him the moniker "Swamp Thing" - apparently they couldn't settle on a catchier monster name and this was the temporary one that just stuck. His government designation was "Chrysalis" - they thought the swamp was his cocoon and they could unlock his full potential, which they said definitely was not as a weapon, once they got him out of his swamp. He had many other titles, The Reaper, Green Inferno, Earth Cannibal, and the list grew each passing day. Me, I just called him Ash.
I sat under the tree quietly observing him. He was about eleven feet right now, a stem like exterior covered with vines, moss, tendrils held together by a bark like texture protruding in certain areas; shades of brown, green and yellow creepily changing shades in the sun. His hands rested on the surface of the water, floating gently like lotuses. A plethora of vivid green saplings grew towards the sun from his forearms, their baby leaves dancing to the wind's musty tune. He once said to me the sunlight was the purest nutrition he had ever had, although he sometimes missed the taste of canned beans. If I could pull back from his frame though, I could see he really was just a part of the swamp. I doubt someone passing by would even notice, or be able to tell the difference between him and the tree, and if it wasn't for the metaphorical light I saw inside him, some part of him that was still individual, and not this cog in a swamp, I wouldn't either.
Once night fell, the swamp lit up with a calefying slowly flickering glow that reflected off the trees. Ash lowered himself underwater, and I could make out the ripples in the water slowly moving towards me. It was time for the shedding, and so I stood up to greet him. He rose from the water six feet tall, a humanoid figure with two vines across his chest like straps, cylindrical legs with little sprouts here and there, his hands were branching, and a lot more moss overall. My eyes were still adjusting to the change in lighting, so I couldn't make out the finer details of his face, but I realised something was unusual, and I laughed out loud when his face finally came into focus. Tiny water willows had covered his entire jaw, blooming outwards and petals overlapping one another in some places, holding sprouts of water.
Ash frowned just a little, like a little pup who's been left home alone. "Everyone always keeps describing me as a horrifying terrible monster, so I was just trying out something new.", he said in a starkly faint and posh voice. For a hulkling, he was very restrained in his expressions, and it'd been long since he had lost his accent, which made his voice even more eerie.
I stepped closer to him and moved my palm to inches from his cheeks. I waited for his nod, and while his head was tilted downwards, the opacity of his red corneas decreased to reveal his human eyes underneath. It was a momentary peek into the man that was still in there. I put my hand on his cheek, fingers digging into the willow beard until they reached skin, and slowly caressed his face, curling and unfurling my fingers. He slowly leaned into my palm as if to rest the entire weight of his head in my hand.
"You know what? It's growing on me, Ash. But you have to know, you're beautiful either way, and I'm not just saying that. Everything you do and everything you are makes you beautiful, and you're more beautiful than anyone I've ever met. Okay?" I said slowly pulling my now wet hand away. The water was ice cold and I wiped the hot sweat off my face with it, some falling on my lips. It tasted sweet, almost like fresh water.
"How is everything outside?" Ash asked his usual question.
"Getting shittier each day." I thought with my usual answer as we proceeded to sit down and I pulled some newspapers of the week from my backpack and read him the highlights.
There was a breeze of unrest and paranoia running through the country. Environmental lobbies had gone nuclear demanding there be some kind of a department to care for the environment, but they were in a losing battle. Constant forest fires and polar vortexes had left a bitter taste in the public's mouth, and when the CDC had declared a temporary ban on entry into major national parks in the country after a toxic outbreak of nerval gas had been reported days apart. What caused this was anybody's guess, some people said it was the government, the government said it was the trees, and since the trees couldn't say anything, the matter was halted from being taken further. Of course the only people who could so to speak, well, speak with the trees, like me and Ash, were out of a job. There was a ditch attempt by congress to pass a bill to create a new EPA, an Environmental Preservation Agency, whose job would be to put a proverbial dome on the ecosystems and basically gather enough data so as to stick it into a neatly designed scrapbook, for when we eventually entered the new Era of human civilization, wherever it be, this would serve as a nice museum piece. However, leaked sources sang of a bipartisan bill in the making that would focus more on a private-public joint synthetic farming project, and a number of think tanks were being deployed in realization of this scheme. This meant one simple thing, natural forestry was to be done with forever, and synthesized, composited, planned, constructed forests and farms were to be the future. And the narrative was 'Really, why not? If it talks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's all just protein anyway...'
But of course nature wasn't to be done with forever. Just how once organic products used to be the craze, even though they were less economical and more wasteful, so too now would be natural forests the craze, the exclusive patches of land belonging to the richest, centurial trees a novelty made by the world's greatest and oldest artist, itself. Those were the two scenarios, the poor live on a waning planet and eat soylent, and the rich drifting across space holding earth's green children, looking to plant themselves on strange new worlds. Amidst the promise of this not too distant future, the swamp was one of the few places remaining intact, for now. Atchafalaya was one of the few basins that hadn't run dry yet, and it had enough tributaries still to dilute the water pollutants. It was still quite unexplored, and we were the last team sent inside the swamp, and after the accident and then the toxic outbreak, government was more than hesitant to come near it until they had passed proper legislation, which as government does, could take a while.
Ash listened to me reading this climatic drama - political and environmental - intently, but it was more out of self-preservation than actual care for what was happening. He'd stopped longing for the outside world for a while now. Every passing day the swamp became more and more comfortable to him. By the time I got to the finance section, I knew he'd trailed off to somewhere I couldn't reach him. He did that every now and then, and it made me feel unwanted, but then I waved it off as one of the things you had to take when in love with a giant tree man. So I kept the papers aside, stretched my legs and sat on my side, and decided to wait for him to come back. Then again, I wasn't known for my patience, or my resolute decisiveness, so I broke the silence a little too loud, calling to him, "So... Blake huh?"
He looked right at me, staring at me then what I thought was wincing, then above me, and reached his hand out fleetly and plucked something over my head, which I observed when he pulled back was a wasp, held delicately between his fingertips. With his other hand, he plucked a bright yellow honeysuckle from his back, placed the wasp in its center, and set the flower afloat onto the water.
"Don't worry, he won't sting. Only females do." he paused, "Fiery the angels rose... I dreamed about it the other day, but I don't remember drawing it anywhere, I guess it's getting more frequent."
Ash liked to sometimes carve onto deadwood, or draw onto live ones with foxfire (bioluminescent fungi clusters), random phrases he would think of, mostly as scarecrows to keep people away. Theatrics he thought was important, and I could see why because he was kind of an insecure monster, as monsters went in the traditional sense. So at random points on the circumference of the swamp you would find obscure literature. One time he even wrote Dante's poetry all over to mimic the seven circles of hell with our island at the centre. Maybe swamp life was not as interesting as he'd thought or I'd hoped.
"Forget about all that for now Ash. I'm hungry." I said taking his hands in mine and pulling him towards me. Maybe it was my eyes in the dim light, but right now he looked more human than usual, only with a radium skin and hazy red eyes. I threw my arms around his neck stuck my chest to his.
"I thought you were hungry." he said cheerily, resting his hands on my back.
"I am." I replied with a sultry grin and lightly brushed my lips against his, or at least the place where they were supposed to be. He moved his hands inside my top and tightened his embrace.
"The sun's warmth is nothing compared to yours." he whispered. I kissed him again. His body temperature was always cold as a clam, and his texture varied from rough to plastic. Nothing about him was ever permanent except his light, and he constantly changed himself thinking it would make it more comfortable for me to be with him, even though I had always told him of the frivolity of it.
I pulled him further in and we both fell to the ground, he on top of me, and I could hear the swamp fall silent. It felt like all eyes were on me, every branch, flower and blade of grass were about to observe some sacred ritual, and the whole network almost tightened in a reverie that hadn't even happened yet. Even the creatures not belonging to the green fell silent, the croakers, critters, buzzers and groaners all bowed out of the vicinity to give us complete privacy. I was out in the open world but I had never felt so enveloped before. I felt him all over my skin, even the dirt rolling gently across my pores, and my hair stood up every time I felt the cold touch, sometimes in multiple places at once. He wasn't holding back today, and he had limbs to spare and then some. I lodged my hand into an opening in the bark on his back, holding tight, and closed my eyes. His grip on me, all of me, curled and tightened, squeezing my mouth wide open, giving out a deep moan.
What followed I cannot describe, partly for lack of words and partly because I was consumed by overwhelming pleasure and indelicate ecstasy, but suffice to say, I slept like a baby after.
"You doing okay?" he kept asking me every now and then, and after, and I had my eyes closed the whole time, just nodding or humming in affirmative with a devilish smile plastered on my face.
By the time the swamp stopped holding its breath and noised back to life, me and Ash were sprawled at the base of the tree - my head resting on his chest looking up, his hand on my stomach, fingers intertwined with mine. I was cool and wet, a slight breeze carrying my no doubt strong odour away and above, and I could tell Ash could smell me, and it made me giddy to see he liked it, giddy like a sinful little child stealing glances in school with your crush.
The trees had watched us, and now we were watching them dance to the psithurism and release heaps of pollen, sparkling through in the air. It was a rare sight to see in this world, and it evoked a sigh of despair inside me, a feeling of chosen helplessness towards their plight. Soon they would be extinct or abandoned or torn away from their home and placed in some lab, and the swamp would just be an idea or a simulation made by us. Maybe Ash wouldn't let that happen. He wouldn't.
I turned on my side, cheek rubbing against his soft grassy belly. He had bark around his chest plates, with tears in numerous places, and I slid my hand into one of the gaps to find a soft squishy layer, which was sensitive for him.
"That's... That's my cambium." he said writhing with a shiver, like you'd get if someone ran their finger across your back. "You're at my most vulnerable spot."
"What happens if I interfere?" I asked craning my neck up.
"Well... " he relaxed slightly, "you'd risk damaging tissue and exposure, and the same fungi who help me so much would love to make it their home. Soon flesh-eating beatles would crawl in there and set their larvae everywhere, and bit by bit this body will rot away and die."
"But you won't."
"No, I won't."
"The Green will just let you create another body."
"I'll let me create another body... any way I want."
"Any way..." I pressed on his tissue and watched him squirm, "... but human."
Ash shot up and zipped away from me. He took a brief moment to bring himself back to his usual self and calmly said, "but we're not human."
I made my way on top of him and held his face in my cheeks and talked as quickly as I could, "Ash, Ash, Ash my love I don't how it is inside this body, inside this mind you share with them, but listen to me, you belong to me okay? You're mine, and I won't let anyone take you away from me."
He looked me straight in the eyes - I wondered if he saw me all blood red - and with a half smile he replied, "So I'm to be either yours or theirs huh? Well, I guess since I'm dead I might as well belong to someone."
"Ash don't talk like that. You know I'm saying this out of love. I wouldn't be here otherwise."
"Yeah. When you're not here though, I keep talking with them, just endless chatter and exchange of information. They mock humanity, our sense of individuality, that we have the freedom and more so the audacity to be able to turn our backs on our fellow humans, on our planet, on anything we love, on some notion of person and self preservation. That love they have witnessed throughout history they say is not real love, because we care about the self and only the self, and everyone else is just a fiction of our mind, or perception of them. We cannot love because we cannot connect, and we try slighter every day."
I glared at him with sudden disbelief, a glaring canker growing in me.
He took my hand in his, tittered and said, "Yet every day when you go away, they ask me to join them, become one with the Green, to make my life much simpler and happier, and every time I refuse, and they fall silent."
My head now looked away from him, thoughts trying to run out of the swamp, somewhere much much hotter. He held me by the hip and moved closer, kissed me long on the cheek, and I could smell the sugary sweetness of his skin. I don't know if it was him deliberately releasing this scent to quell me, or it was involuntary, but it seemed to put me in a docile condition temporarily. Dirty tricks went both ways in our relationship, but that son of a bitch had a longer sleeve packed with a bunch of them.
"I don't know what I am anymore, but I don't belong to them, and I know I can't be as human as you'd want me to be but I promise I am yours, forever."
He was about to pull back when I kissed him hard, breathing in all the sweetness I could, experiencing the simple pleasure of his mouth curving into a wide smile as I kept my lips locked on them. I pulled away and ran my fingers through his willow beard once more, pecking him on the forehead as he hugged me, his head buried in my bosom, me holding on to him like it was the last time, because it very well might be. I didn't know if it was going to be the same body next time I saw him, and I wanted to feel every inch of his body, every blade of grass, every rough bark, fingers tangled in every vine and tendril, palms wet with every little trough and dew filled moss. I didn't even know if it would be the same Ash, or just a facsimile of his consciousness plastered onto another mosaic of a plant man. I would ask myself often if I wasn't just deluding myself, being in love with the aspect of a "swamp thing" rather than the thing himself, or that scientist who died long ago, or maybe just some Proustian fantasy from my past - a chance to live in the old world again, to live with Eden himself. I would've hesitated to admit it was all those reasons, if I didn't so brightly and clearly see the light inside him, even if I had my eyes shut.
"You'd take me however I am right?" He whispered, voice raspy and a little shaky.
"I love you." I replied. My Ash was right here, in my arms, in my mind and in every electric impulse of my body. Maybe the Green was right and I couldn't really connect with him, I couldn't touch the light, but I was human and damn well sure I'd come as close I could, and never inch away.