Hey there. Had a dream last night, one that I actually remembered, which is weird enough for starters. It was the kind of dream that doesn't go away and leaves a weird peaceful (hollow?) feeling in its wake. Kinda like the feeling you might get while walking down a sidewalk, looking off to the side and envisioning that you are walking on the bottom of the ocean. Watching ancient prehistoric trilobites and other massive fish swim by. That if you breath out, the bubbles have miles to travel before reaching sunlight. That weird feeling of juxtaposition, of new and old. I think that's what I'm trying to say. That's the feeling this dream left with me. Seriously. I hope you all get something out of this. I don't know where else to post it so I guess it goes in with um...fairy tales? Maybe? Let me know what you think. Let me know if you think I should classify this as something else. Oh, and if you notice any weirdness with grammar or whatever, let me know. I had to get this on paper fast, before the mood and feeling left me. Also, I'd recommend listening to dark classical music by Max Richter while reading this.
The Tree
We drifted for months on the sea, steadfast in our belief. We believed ourselves men and women of science. Specifically, of scientific progress. We believed our studious calculations and the bearing of our compass. We poured over ancient maps written in forgotten tongues, our scholarly speculation intent upon deciphering the location of our ancestor's hearthstones. Or if not that, then the rediscovery of their erudition. The stories of our ancestors-of their origins and of ours-were wrought with mysticism and the ancient tomes of them eaten with mold despite our best preservation methods.
What we found fulfilled our selfish ambitions in so much as they set us upon the trajectory of our own demise. Most ironically, it was the same trajectory as our forebears.
It rose from the sea, so as to be visible among the endless grey blue waves of salt and murky white grey of the sky. An emerald beacon towering in the distance. A floating atoll. I, one of the few women scholars who had chosen to embark upon this voyage, was called to deck by the commotion it caused. I had the misfortune of purveying the majestic sagely tower-the object of our near fanatical research and a most desired destination-in the company of The Earl.
It was he who provided the maps and the funding to provision our campaign across the endless waters. There was nothing more to be borne of that man than the substantial capital and assets he possessed. Certainly not his chauvinistic views on scholarly women. Verily, men like him were a pox upon all who endeavor to better themselves with the pursuit of knowledge. As a man of means, it was to those stationed beneath him to ensure to his needs, or so he understood the world. I am not-was not-inclined to agree with him. He was not the first ill mannered man of wealth I had encountered in my career of academia. I did not believe him to be the last. To my mind and in my eyes his boorish and backwards mannerisms were to be tolerated if not endured in their mindless crass eletism. For the sake of what I wished to learn, anything-nearly anything-was to be endured. Least of all a small minded man with big pockets and a bigger ego.
The brilliance of emerald beckoned to us. A boon for our voyage and the only life we'd seen since we began our dreary grey salt drenched expedition. Several sailors swore an oath at the sight of the massive foliage. Though it appeared to be of average stature, given our distance from its location, the tree lent itself to gigantism. Our mathematician was beside himself, solving equations and having his assistants run about the ship taking measurements.
Of course we'd all heard of the tales, grew up with the stories firmly latched onto our minds the same as a child latches to his mother's breast. Our sciences were fed from tomes of ancient knowledge. Our society born from what remained after the deluge. What secrets would it hold? Even then the soft green haunted me, for I had never seen anything of its like before.
It took a week to navigate to the elusive wooden temple. It stood so tall, its upper canopy all but obscured by the lower canopy of jade and beryl. As I craned my head upwards, so close as we were to the floating island, I could scarce make out more than a wide trunk and the wild roots four times the size of our vessel. The deep roots of the tree drown down into the salty depths, bleeding away into the blackness. While it took some time to moor the vessel-the roots acted as a collective supportive webbing that both repealed and welcomed our ship-the Earl had taken off in a long boat with a handful of sailors. It did not go amiss that of all the other substantial investors it was I alone who was left behind. My impatience and practicality was sorely tested in the following weeks. It wasn't until two days later that I made landfall.
The spoil beneath my boots gave a satisfy crisp crunch of dirt and sand. Everywhere I looked, my eyes greedily drank in the lush garden that had sprung upon up at the titan's feet. My first breath of deep earth made the salty wind at my back a paltry and parched experience. I drank the heady scent of unfettered growth with every breath the same as if I were a child feasting upon the milk of my mother's nurse maid tales once more. Before me the green titan loomed, silent and alone, yet home to millions of creatures. Fish, glittering like gold coins tossed in a fountain, nestled among the roots of the titan. Soft moss and a type of creeping, flowering vine coated the ground and larger shallow roots of the tree in a tapestry of life. Small insects scrittered and scurried while I was aware of eyes belonging to greater creatures upon me. A flick of jasper red drew my attention as a curious furred creature with a large bushy tail scaled the large roots of the titan. I could only imagine what other creature I might uncover on this floating, drifting island. Through the faint melodic call of sapphire, ruby and golden feathered flocks nested high in the branches above, the faint roar of a thousand thousand leaves undulating in the wind could be heard.
Heartwood's Lullabye it would be called.
"Heartwood" after the god of the natives we encountered upon the living, drifting island. They worshiped the green titan, it's all its leafy glory. The scientist in me was bemused. Naming a god so obviously as to be obtuse. With the help of the natives we set to work, exploring and civilizing our discovery. Ours. As if by seeing a thing we could in some way possess it-control it-and change it to better suit our needs. How foolish we were! One cannot possibly hope to perfect a god. One does not perfect god's creations. We should have remembered those idyllic words spoken in soft calming voices within the walls of our childhood playrooms.
No. We do not exist to perfect upon that which was already faultless. We exist merely to compliment it. Much in the way pearls or diamond compliment a woman's neck at a proper celebratory affair. Or perhaps all that glitters uon a woman's body is not meant for the offending throng of persons gathered for such a reception as The Earl held merely three years later. That secret shone, carved and polished by your hand, a public secret, upon which I received more than one compliment. As a botanist they expected me to wear something of Heartwood. Was I not a scholarly woman? Was I not already a flighty and unusual creature, even then?
Even then, amidst their disingenuous gossip, I loved you. That beautiful creation that was strung around my neck was not intended for those ill natured fools. It was my personal enigma intended for the cipher of the mystery found betwixt the hearts of two individuals.
Zephyr. My love. My heart. The sun rose at his feet and the moonlight danced upon his skin at night. My lover, born of the bark and leaves of Heartwood. Native, the Earl had declared with a lip curl suggestive boar. That same Earl who eyed your native sistren with the eyes of a wolf. He demanded those same women serve as handmaidens in his elaborate, ostentatious home after he'd more than destroyed theirs with his mining camp.
In fact, the Early was quick to civilize then capitalize the atol. Almost as quick as we were to unravel the secrets of our wealded titanic guardian. We paved roads of cobbled stone among heartwood's shallow roots. Underground, Zephyr's kin labored with additional hands to carve away stone from the stubborn embrace of heartwood radicals. Old ways helped to fabricate the Earl's vision of everything Heartwood could be. Despite protest from many-natives, the lower class that had arrived over the years by the boatload seeking employment, and us scholars-Heartwood was hollowed. To allow, the Earl proclaimed, for progress.
The roots at the trunk's base now teamed with sailors, minors, traders, cooks, clothiers, blacksmiths, and powder mages. Each with their own home carved from the great roots of Heartwood. This would not do for the affluent. No a home among heartwood's branches-away from the noise of workers and the smog of their cooking and the stink of the offal they poured into the water around Heartwood's root-was by far, more preferable.
I did little to stop them, content with my work as I was, though my Zephyr urged me to. What was there to say? Who would believe the words of a woman? Let alone one in a scandalous affair with a lowborn native? My Zephyr with eyes of sapphire. You looked at me then, love, and do you remember what you said? I do.
For you did not say it with words. Rather said it with your heart, as you are apt to do. With your mournful eyes that looked out and down upon the heavy smog that all but obscured heartwood's roots and the bustling miserable people who lived in them from our loft home. So dark and thick the stench of burnt green wood was upon the air, even on a clear day you could scarce see the homes that issued the offensive odor and soot.
You said it with your tears at the gradual disappearance of the colorful rainbow fish whose scales glittered like coins in the sunlight. The heavy silence-no longer laden with the melodious voices ruby, golden and sapphire birds-encroached slowly day by day, until all that could be heard were the machinations and machines the Earl commissioned built to better refine materials from Heartwood and his mine.
You said it with heavy sighs as you cradled a cracked and fissured leaf in the palm of your hand. Dead far too early in its life span, its shine as dull as a tarnish copper pot. Yet more, your silence spoke so loudly to my heart, emerald buds failed to replace the old dying ones. Half of Heartwood, its canopy now host to the Earl and his affluent friends, suffered similarly. Its leaves withering and falling in weak wind to scatter the ocean about us in a wake of dull scales.
By the time my work and my conscience both agreed, and my heart was girded for what was to come, your beautiful eyes looked out upon the horizon. There obsidian clouds loomed, gathering a nebula of portending fury. Heartwood's fury.
We had weathered hurricanes before, nested deep into heartwood's roots. This storm was to be in no exact terms, the extent of heartwood's wrath. Of a God's anger at the indignities suffered-indeed inflicted-by our hands. The tempest blackened the sky, raining down a deluge, interrupted only by battering winds and scintillating bolts. We-like so many in the canopy-rushed to the conveyances the Earl had built in heartwood's center. I am not certain if our fortunes were increased by my station as a scholar or if a capricious turn of fate allowed us entry onto the last conveyance. We did not have to suffer the stinging rain toher withstood on the outer decks. The conveyance had been built, as most things were, for the comfort of the affluent. There were no coverings on the outer decks. Though my thoughts are scattered, even as I write this, I recollect vividly heartwoods fury as it was unleashed upon us during our descent.
The wind-a gale force wind-shook Heartwood, making the titan bow in the wind. The air, strewn with all we had purchased from our green guardian was cast aside with so little care or concern for the occupants on the outside of the conveyance. Pots and rope, bark and pieces of vessels, of homes...I remember thinking, how could a root that size be plucked from the ground?
It happened so quickly. The woman before me-on the outer deck-she there then vanished. Nothing left in her wake save for remnants of hubris and that which had taken her. All of the outer deck passengers perished in this manner.
Then our conveyance failed us.
My hand trembles as I write this now, nestled in the center of heartwood, just above the green god's tap root. My beloved Zyphr, he lays with his head on my lap, but he is lost to me. As was every other passenger upon our conveyance. Returned to his god and taken from my arms too soon. The water is rising and I fear I have little time left before I join my beloved.
We have squandered the gifts-and have laid a great god low-with our foolishness. I can only hope that someday-a better day-you who reads this will not be so foolish. I can only hope that-