151. Observing flora, 1

(Rose)

I enter a forest, trying for a shortcut toward the only truly civilised place I know. No matter the situation and place, a good map is always helpful. A keen sense of orientation would also help. Mine is sharpening slowly but still is rather rough. I've heard of people able to tell where north is just by looking at trees. This sounds hard to believe to me. I can use the rising and setting sun however. And I was mostly smart enough never to lose or damage my map of the country I carry with me.

Thus, through the woods I go. I wonder if real wolfs are back in this time? I'll try to be careful. I follow actually some kind of flying lizards with, many legs, that seem to know their way.

They are translucent, ghostly things looking like animals or plants I can see around and everywhere now.

Most are illusions I see as real things being twisted into smaller vibrating things, including my own body if I look closely at it. Some are independent, but not more real to my other senses. They're only real to my tired eye.

Since I've seen fishes swimming in the sky, I get the feeling that nothing could surprise me anymore.

Well, nothing could surprise me more I guess.

That's what funny nowadays. The world seems to be creating new peculiar things everywhere with little care for the previous logic or laws I've known.

Laws of physics, of chemistry, of biology. Puff! Vanished! Nature doesn't care anymore.

Well, my flower told me once that they still exist, only slightly more flexible today, because the global water level of energy has risen.

It still sounds unclear to me.

So I call it magic. And I can see it everywhere. It's a romantic dream.

I wouldn't be surprised if I were to encounter witches or faeries in the woods now.

Also it is one of my childhood dreams to make such an encounter.

And nowadays, it has much higher chances to become real.

Goodness, even I as I walk today being still alive after all I've lost from my own body, and healing, is akin to sorcery by itself.

However when I daydream for too long, reality reminds me politely not to stray away for too long. As I'm not cautious enough over where I put my feet and lose my balance easily. I fall on the ground pitifully, if not ridiculously.

It hurts. I stand back up difficulty. Thank goodness the skin on my head holds. My face and hair are covered with dust and dry bits. I brush it off roughly and resume going further, after the cute flying sort of ghostly lizards.

~

All the insects and other things flying around are oddly heading in the same direction here.

It's unusual.

I like unusual things. I follow the movement, watching my steps deeper into the woods.

The forest becomes slowly something new, which rejoices me in an inquisitive way. I begin to find gigantic roots protruding from the ground here and there. It's like curved tree trunks or wooden giant claws trying to silently exit the ground. Or very odd trees that grew with no branches whatsoever, only a wide trunk, that dove back into the ground shortly after sprouting.

There is definitely something unusual around here. Maybe my instinct was right in following these things inside the woods.

I step on some heavy moss and enter a rugged path, going still deeper into the woods. It gets darker. Everything is alive around me. I don't feel scared, I'm a part of it.

I uncover in the end of the path a clearing insulated by a thick wall of wooden arches, tree trunks arches sprouting and plunging back into the ground around. They form a thick wall stopping all light, sound and wind from the outside.

In this clearing, opened like an indoor garden, the insects and ghosts are digging into the ground or diving into the pond in the middle.

There's a pond, round, with clear water, surrounded by oddly shaped rocks and bushes. They're dry, despite the pond being at their feet.

The colours I followed vanish into the ground and into the depth of the water.

The gigantic roots I followed through the woods seem to originate from that dry bush. It reminds me of a rosebush, but every bush reminds me of rose bushes. Its branches break easily. It'd dead. It has no sap anymore.

The pond actually has a source it seems, as water is slowly flowing from within, and flowing into a thing stream hidden between the weird rocks, full of holes like some cheese or bread could be.

Nothing but grass grows around the place oddly. I wonder why everything seems to dive in and look closer inside the pond. There's something inside at the bottom. It looks rather deep, almost like a crevice between rocky structures.

It's a deep well more than a mere pond. Deeper than I am tall, and I see the ricks building its uneven walls down there.

I actually stand above a strange mineral or geological structure, more than a clearing in the woods.

At the bottom lies some yellow dots I can't see clearly. Some bright random spots, spread across the bottom of that clear watered well.

Since the water is rather nice and you couldn't get more secluded than here, I'm not refusing this opportunity for a good bath either.

My clothes are sticky with sweat and dirt, and if you scratch them, there's an underlying layer you don't want to analyse if you know where I found them.

I undress slowly by the pool side. It's a natural pool more than a pond. I saw no fishes nor other animals. I put my feet inside. It's cool and pleasant.

I slip in carefully, until I can dive safely.

Holding my breath, I swim down to the bottom of the pool, my eye open in the water. It doesn't hurt much. I reach what the yellow spots are; flowers. Yellow flowers that look like lotus flowers. They grow underwater, and have roots spreading like tentacles around the rocks and buried into the ground behind.

They all are slightly turned no longer to the sky but toward me?

I swim to the surface to breath. I see the patch of sky above and breathe heavily. Swimming is truly pleasant sometimes. Even if with only one arm.

I dive again a minute of rest later, and check the flowers again.

They do follow me, though they have no eyes. I don't touch them because now I don't want upsetting whatever they are, and getting trapped underwater. I smile and return to the surface world.

That place they live in is probably their home.

My flower was stronger than it looked and so might they be. But I don't want to disturb them excessively. Some instinct in the back of my head is telling me these are not just flowers and I should be careful with what I do here.

Though I will dirty their water with my filth and wash my clothes in there. Sorry.

I crawl back onto the ground with difficulties. My left stump can't hold onto anything. I need to strap a hook there... I never thought I would want that so dearly of all things someday.

This makes me smile. This is the kind of monster I am. Sad in times of peace, but happy to reveal strength and will in harder times. I'm a rose...

Although I think real rose bushes aren't as resilient as I claim them to be.

My full name was Rosemary but I was only called Rose, or sometimes Mary, if only by the younger you...

I never learnt if rosemary was a stronger plant than roses. I wonder.

Meanwhile my daydreaming about my name, totem flower and symbolism I like, I lie naked there on the grass. There's no wind, it feels nice. With the tall trees and arches looking like trees there is a very mild and sweet temperature. This place is a little haven you would like to take a nap in.

Before I succumb, I go wash my clothes as I can and put them on the grass to dry. I lose grip on my burnt jacket which falls into the pool.

Never mind, I'll dive back later. At least the flowers down there don't seem to mind.

The translucent creatures vanishing down there neither. They just disappear.

I don't care, this place is too sweet. I lie there and rest. I doze off and fall asleep rapidly.

~

I rarely take naps, but this one was probably the best one in my life. I feel refreshed as I wake up and open my eyes.

It's evening already. I don't notice right away because the difference is slight. My eyes. My eyes?

The left side of my field of vision is still missing, dark, but there's a slight glow in the dark that I now see.

I close my eyes and touch slightly my eyesocket to find a sticky eyelid, and something round and frail behind.

An eye has grown. It's only not functional yet.

I rush above the water to look at my reflection over its surface.

My eye is back. It looks translucent but it's there again, and so is my eyelid.

I'm just agape there at first, unable to think coherent words for a while.

Then I have a clue, and a hunch.

I grab my knife and slightly cut my skin on my left leg. Then I plunge my leg into the water.

When I pull it out a moment later, the thin cut is already healing.

Goodness...

What have I found...

My hair is still white though I notice, everywhere. Not that I mind, but it looks like my natural colour won't return. I'm not even thirty yet.

I don't know what I will do with my discovery; I wasn't even looking for it anyway. Though... This surely could be helpful. I wonder if it can finish healing my eye or regrow my arm?

Since it's definitely is worth trying, I plan to stay here a little while longer. I set up my camp by the rock and go back into the woods to gather materials and perhaps food.

I forgot my jacket with that, but I'll get it back the next morning.

I'm hopeful and merry now. I've found something extraordinary.

~

The flows of movements and colours are very helpful here, to find my way back. They all gather there for some reason, I don't know why, and nor what they become there, next to the yellow aquatic flowers.

I found some fruits in trees on the outskirt of the woods, but not much more. I'll need to resort to eating grass again. It's depressing.

I'm glad my flower made me able to survive from that still. Given the world I live in, this was a great gift.

I start the fire an burn the dead bush within. It burns well though it makes the flames turn purple and blue for a minute. I wonder what kind of metals it contained to go like that.

I'm sitting there, holding my knees close to fire and water, day dreaming before falling asleep. I'm thinking of you, of her, of this place, of father's tales...

My chest hurt. I notice the yellow flowers are slightly glowing again. The other things are always diving toward them and disappearing around in a slow and silent maelstrom.

I guess the flowers eat them. They feed on those glowing ghostly insects they attract.

I've come to understand this is a part of the energy that my flower kept referring to. These transparent things are energy, they're made from a form of energy I don't know the scientific name for. Magic.

These new life forms have taken this new source of energy into account. They eat it in a form and can exude it in another one.

Monsters could make an invisible poison. These flowers here seem to make their water... Something.

Something that incidentally helped me heal. It probably wasn't meant for that at all in the first place.

Well, unless God did, nature probably did not. Not that I mind.

I'm falling asleep, thinking a lot about all that.

I miss you.

I miss her...

~