309. Colours of earth, 6

(Rose)

I cranked open a can of preserved food we found.

But it contains coffee powder. We drink a cup of it then, sitting on the crate that held the can, and many others.

The crate is halfway through the open rear of a truck.

From there, we're looking at the scenery outside.

The truck is stuck inside a very large and high tree, like goats can get stuck sometimes. The tree is at the top of a hill, itself above a plateau that falls further away into other valleys, where the sight wanders.

We can see maybe over a hundred miles ahead down there, as we are sipping on the bitter beverage, legs hanging in the air.

We spot a few other trucks and vehicles here and there, that seem to have fallen from a plane at random, or accurately into other trees.

Some of them are indeed entangled inside trees like ours. The tree was crushed on impact, but regrew into something much bigger, wider and sturdier. Elevating thus the wreck into the air. And other trees followed that example along this field of scarce wrecks.

B - The tree has the natural strength to lift a truck. It just needs a few years to do so.

R - I like the landscape. The dry lands from before seem like they were on a different continent now. They are just a few mountainous paths away.

Here we see jungles. Lush forests at least, maybe not jungles. It's green. There is wildlife. Even more than in the north western side of Europe.

It's not nearly as high as the alps here, but it's much warmer.

We discover different flora. Old and new.

We see squirrels, running in little hops between the trees. And we see spiders, bigger than dogs, eating the squirrels they caught in their webs there.

Then Ana eating one of the spiders a little mercilessly as well. That's what they taught me was called a food chain right there in action.

I wish I knew more about botany, plants and trees, because I can see they're different here, but I have no clue of what they are. I feel a little as if I simply didn't know the names of cat, dog, wolf, cow, horse and goat, when I look at these trees.

Some of them are huge, with threads like soft branches softly moving in the wind, covered with thin leaves.

Others look like cauliflowers, but the size of trees. It's a completely different flora to what I'm used to, albeit still familiar, normal, looking. But I feel bad not being able to name any of it.

All these new things to see flatter my curiosity and senses. Although it can be a little frustrating that no teacher will answer me now, but it's okay.

An infinite number of greens are spread around us, without a care in the world. Some plants have branches sprouting in low number around the main body. Others divide themselves symmetrically, over and over, in two and two again and again, or by three or four, repeating their patterns.

Some just grow up in a shaft, and explode in straight branches radiating from a single node. Palm trees I think, maybe?

All sizes and shapes, and all the imaginable colours. Millions of individuals, spread over the land, mountains and landscape, as far as one can see.

A lush forest, covering the scarce ruins of the strongs that are lying around, still visible everywhere.

Roads, vehicles, buildings. You can tell there used to be a lot of activity around here.

Cities down in the valleys are as green as their surroundings. We see them clearly from up there and distance; but when we reach them, we struggle to find the buildings, buried below mostly and hidden by foliage.

Another civilisation is leaving ruins behind to be buried by time, slowly vanishing from the world.

There's a high contrast between these cities here, overrun by prolific nature, and most of the others that appear mostly left untouched, and often covered with an invisible but repulsive aura.

Here there is no aura. No ghosts. Nothing but wild nature and land.

It's an odd impression, to see this land that has been inhabited forever since humanity began building cities, now abandoned and returning to the wild.

It gives the feeling that something happened around here. But it was brief, and now it's over. It's been over for a while even, and there's nothing left to see or say.

As if we turned back time maybe twenty thousand years.

Will new nomadic tribes someday settle around here someday?

Will new civilisations collide around these lands where dragons could lie, I wonder...

How will it restart, after humanity manages to regroup and recover.

How long it will take.

Where will we be...

We keep travelling west, slowly. My mind wanders between old fears and possible futures to wish for, uncertain.

I'm also trying my best to see the invisible things again, as I have been able to a few times in the past. My attempts were fruitless so far. I can't see the flying things and ribbons anymore. Without Blume, maybe I just can't. Or without a severe wound maybe. I don't know how it really works. Either way, there's only one option left.

Bleue unwraps it. The rest of the wish stone.

R - A forbidden fruit of power.

B - Knowledge is power, right?

I used to say that indeed. And against beings-like-her, the more you know the better.

Being able to see their side of reality over ours, that will be a gift of sight that is greatly valuable.

The wish stone is just the size of a plum now. To think about what it was used for still makes me uneasy at best..

B - Should we?

R - Let's try it.

We touch and cover the fruit with our hands, pressing onto it.

We close our eyes, making the wish to be able to see the other world at will.

For our eyes to be able to detect and perceive this radiating energy as if it were light, from a different spectrum.

To be able to see more waves, and from this different kind as well.

And for our brain to be able to comprehend that perception, translating it into shapes and colours like the normal gift of sight. For it to convert these perceptions might be the easy part. What we need is the organs, the cells, able to detect and react to that specific kind of radiation.

We want that new sensitivity to appear into our eyes, to this other kind of light.

We wish for it as clearly as we can, whilst the wish stone melts and disappear between our hands.

We feel it flowing through our veins, ready to transform anything and everything along its path, if we so wish, willingly or not.

We feel its warmth reaching our heart, and spreading inside our entire body. It flows along our blood gently, reaching our head, and focuses there, slowly concentrating its presence in our brain. It vibrates and echoes with our thoughts, it becomes part of us, part of our biology, and gradually becomes a will, our will.

We feel a turmoil, an acceleration of its activity as we keep repeating the same thought, the same desire.

It flows toward our eyes, now part of a unique metabolic process to change them. It melts and diffuses there, in a warmth that settles all around our brain, head, eyes and face.

The sensation vanishes rapidly. The warmth of activity, cellular and otherwise, cools down. Our temperature and sensations return to normal.

We shyly reopen our eyes to each other.

The first thing we notice is a different glow and colour in each other's eyes.

R - It's like a gold brush stroke over your irises.

B - And a milky bluish one in yours. Makes you a little mean looking.

We grin and look around each other's head.

The forest has become a rainbow.

An infinity of small colourful things are flying and flowing around.

It is a jungle.

~