the morning was as tranquil as birdsong and beams of buttery yellow light streamed in through the open door and windows of the room in a treehouse. the woman that works in it sat almost reclined on her seat that looked to have been fashioned with nailed sections of mismatched wooden pieces. cleverly fitted together using notches and naturally occurring wooden pieces bound with bands of woody fiber. styled up and formed for function, draped with fabrics and cushions.
the woman was reading a curly sheaf of papers. sometimes picking up a rectangular object, of black matte material on one side of it. the hard light slate resembled a tablet, built like those used by kids and ubiquitous in our world. it had no visible means that indicated it needed to be powered up or charged. lacking that, it looked to be a slate for writing on and endlessly usable as long as there was chalk. so it actually was something to write on.
a chime sounded, and the woman’s eyes lifted from her work to focus on lines of twine that spoked from the center of the ceiling from 360° that were strung through lengths of bamboo and other hollow bits of dried flora branches and bark above her head cleverly positioned to alert her to various arrivals to the area. the chime was special for special visitors, and an artifact from another time.
◦ literally another time, and the story about its arrival had earned it it’s place of prominence in the security system over the woman’s head. it’s creation signaled a new era of design on her world. it also indicated to her community business.
she leaned forward and placed both feet on the floor and the chair folded upward behind her as if it knew intuitively to support her back, which it did.
◦ putting the papers in a tidy stack on a table and she placed the slate atop them. she took a finger length of yellowish chalk and put it into a groove on the slate, and readied herself for her visitor. footsteps could be heard stepping up to the privacy veil on the doorway and stopping.
◦ composing herself, the woman smoothed her forehead and swept back her irregularly cropped hair. turning to the door, she cleared her throat and called out for the unseen presence to “come.”
◦ an arm, brown like ground tree bark spice and adorned with bangles and rings parted the leafy screen to make way for the secretary of council notes to step into the room.
◦ strikingly clad in a complexly folded and swooping colorful decorated wrap beautifully marked to mimic a pattern found on beasts, it matched the tubular wrap over her stack of hair that was wrapped around her head.
◦ quotillda, she said, there’s much news coming in from the outer provinces of a distressing nature. you must see! quotillda noted the strident tone of frissa, the functionary who normally tended to flights of excess when speaking. she wasn’t doing it at that moment. frissa was truly scared. this matter was serious.
◦ quotillda leaned forward and picked up the sheaf of work notes and committee business from the chair opposite her to the ground. she stepped in front of it and gestured for the other to sit.
◦ she did, then set about releasing the strap of a weighty bag. frissa pulled from it a few objects that made no sense to quotillda. not at least as far as looking like they went to anything she recognized. she put the judgment aside as she knew she hadn’t seen everything there was to see yet.
◦ frissa gave an analysis as she extracted each piece, turning it and a commenting on the feel of the surface and the tones on them. frissa’s mini lecture wound down as she set the oddly shaped lumps aside with a look of distaste, as if the greenish gray brown things, with their holes of every shape speckling them, with their odd arms or tentacle like protrusions. face frozen with a look of passion, so unusual on her face, as if she just realized they were excrement or something, she shuddered.
◦ quotillda extended a hand and grasped the other woman’s and asked, frissa, what else? frissa’s eyes regained focus as they met quotillda’s. she said, there are more of them coming, these things, sa, and they’re dead or in pieces, half bodies or headless or missing limbs. burned or dripping wet. a few living ones have come through to now sa, and they’ve been in the healing wards. some are awake when they come and some not, but they couldn’t yet speak when i left. none had answered their restorers, but they cry out as they sleep and awake. they say things in the same words we use. they sort of look like us too.
◦ the healer/restorer I talked to said they have wrapping different from ours. he said they must have come from the rendways, but that none were found in the valley of uncertainty.
◦ this was disturbing news and with a sharp intake of breath quotillda realized the world just out of sight was in one of those periods of upset that sent this type of intrusion of off world types to hers every five years or so.
◦ her people were the keeps of the works. where the mysteries were chronicled and so she knew what had what she had to do.
◦ she stood then which frissa correctly interpreted to be the signal that her consultation had come to its end. she swiftly gathered her materials and exhibits back into her satchel. quotillda stood, peering out the window at her families living area trying to see if her brother quotienne he arrived home from his work in the crystal field, but could not.
◦ she absently thanked frissa as she heard her sandaled feet scuff toward the privacy screen over the door. her sighs could be heard diminishing in return as she retreated.
◦ turning from the view of the inhabited treehouse clusters where the council members for unusual science met. she gathered items into her own strap bag and slung it across her shoulder to head out on her own hike home. looking forward to collecting her thoughts so she’d be ready to present to quotienne for discussion.
◦ the air was warm as quotillda me her way home. the three suns made their daily procession to beyond the horizon. in threes or in pairs birds flew in their patterned formations. sets of threes or more they air stitched mysterious formulas whose sums remained unsolved until the aerial performances were complete. the permutations can then be revealed. as long as one can translate birdian, which she could not. but she could appreciate their swirling soaring dances in flight. their long necks, wings and tails. slender and curlicued with, dagger tips feathers all so fantastical, and improbable they seemed incapable of flight. black in silhouette, in air-a-besque and passive aggressive flight tangoes they soared.
◦ under the lowering evening cloud cover, pastel to light butternut they flew beneath the foliage of her village tree and nestled within.
◦ as the light shortened, her dwelling came into view, she watched the birds sink into the trees that dotted the hills where their cave like dens were. from inside the sheltered, intricate nesting complexes came the sounds of their squawks and clunking percussive communications. soon they diminished to nothing inside the mouth of the entryway to their own dwellings.
◦ as she neared her own tree, a mountain like scrunch of roots rose up from the earth and formed a series of knuckle like arching upthrustings at the base of the gigantic tree. one whose irregular semicircular trunk spread so vastly in its broadness it was the track for quarterly ring rounds competitions.
◦ ring the rounds being exactly what it sounds like. teams and individuals came together at certain seasonal periods to race one another to see who could get around the tree the fastest.
◦ the most skillled runner hunters took three days to round the tree and most able bodied people took on average 5 to 8 days to simply traverse the course.
◦ let’s not forget about the hunt for food and shelter along the way. this all to be completed by wit and ingenuity, using only their very hands and whatever tools could be fashioned from what was to be found along the way. carrying supplies is not discouraged, but from a start point of accumulating credits, those will be immediately subtracted. anything accomplished from empty hands are plus points better than the other, and using either one would be subject to constant unexpected dangers. example, getting injured due to disrespecting the unaccustomed landscape and suffering a mortal injury.
◦ the kind of mishaps that might occur to the reckless or immature in daily life, are less dangerous than in the competition but on the course far from help, they must survive . show their work, if you will.
◦ as to the trees height, the last time anyone had recorded it, it was from vehicles, which were no longer in existence. no one had thought to send a seeker flyer as the tree seemed in perfect health, and no conflicts had presented themselves in a few decatoles, hundreds of years. maybe, quotillda thought, To herself as she walked past the luminescent globes that lit the recessed entrance passages in both dark time as well as daylight and they illuminated the entrances of dwelling units.
◦ the patter of raindrops from a shower slowed to almost nothing as she splashed her way to the entrance of her personal dwelling where light spilled out warmly from the open door. sighing quotillda stepped happily inside closing the door behind her.
◦ in the momentary dimness, limned by the entry globe’s emittance. She shed her cloak and stepped into the living space proper.
◦ people moved about the living space within, quotillda hung her cloak and satchel, careful not to spill any droplets from it onto the chair next to her. she sat down and switched her boots for some indoor slides standing finally, she pushed the door to enter the common room, inside.
◦ warm, and aglow with fire light, with orange and yellow candle flame as well, she breathed a sigh of relief, knowing her presence around any more people would be short-lived. she knew she had to sit and eat with quotienne. knew she had to uneasily digest dinner while refreshing each other together, of their memories as to how best deal with all of the bleed through from the very troubled sibling dimension.
◦ on top of her own present, and his past, there was a trance with each other still to be done. as she stepped into the room people bustled up to her, one thrust a steaming cup into one hand, while the other called out a greeting on their way through the serving line.
◦ people bustled amicably, filing with bowls and dishes of food. It was the day when the community all supped together. the people gathered having collected harvested or caught the comestibles that tempted her. she exchanged pleasantries with her neighbors, and extended family in the space allocated as a private room in order to accommodate gatherings such as this. soon only silence prevailed except for the sounds of food being served up and consumed. quotillda,knowing her work for the waking period still had more yet to go, quickly swallowed the last drops of the warming beverage in the cup. she stood and collected her dish and utensils, washing them and stacking them with the rest of the drying dishes. stepping away from the cooking niche she stopped to grab her bag and then made her way to entry of her family‘s private rooms. she caught her brothers eye and turned off through the doorway. quotienne saw this and broke off his conversation and followed, seconds behind his sister. entering the common area shared by those of her cluster of family group he joined his sister, seated already. she was studying a tome that seemed to emit a steady stream of what the uninitiated might call dust particles. however, these particles were not inert. they were intelligent. quotienne went over to also immerse himself within the spray of particles.
◦ merging his awareness with her as they clouded around him. he sat next to his sister huddling closely in order to see the pages of the living document. to let it see what level of severity had been reached in the interim since the last onslaught from the siblings’ dimension. to see what does the consultation require in the first place. to revisit the subject for this new generation.
◦ the twins’ knowledge wasn’t firsthand, but handed down for just such occasions for the duration of 10 cycles. the profiles of the two sat merged, heads nearly touching at the temples. parallel to the pages, unmoving they sat seemingly frozen until the color of the sky outside changed and began seeping into the covered light openings. this notified the autonomous systems of the siblings’ bodies it was time to sleep and process all absorb the pages.
◦ time passes differently from the way it appears from outside of the trance state. they moved quietly in pace toward doors at opposite ends of the room. they moved slowly, as if in a dazed state. each mumbling a farewell with an over the shoulder wave as they headed to their sleeping chambers. as they shambled away gradually their bodies cleared of the trance state from the ancient volumes.
◦ quotillda traveled through a corridor in order to access the den and she shared and made her way to the door.
◦ she walked down another hall in the light shed by luminescent globes placed at intermittent intervals. supported by hangings constructed of branches and leaves that were part of the ceiling over her head.
◦ the rain storm that now clattered outside onto the natural roof that’d grown thick over hundreds of seasons. made over all of that time of all leaves and fallen timber, the rain storm never penetrated the thatch that protected not just quotillda’s home from the wet, but also the dens of the furry little beasts and bird’s nests that were in between the sky and the ceiling they’d built.
◦ so skittish were the creatures that lived there, it was hard to catch sight of them. it was a beneficial relationship all the same. for both the people below and the beasts between were well protected by the construction. it provided warmth and water and occasional scraps of food. trickle down like. in return the nests acted as insulation for the people housed below them.
arboreal installment 2
quotillda's ancestral group had dwelt there for 100s of years. the trees whose tops could no longer be seen from the ground from anywhere on her world were wider at the base than the trunk with their profusion of leave vines and braches. spreading horizontally, older branches had grown wide enough for people to walk along them 4 abreast. others varied from pliant saplings to trailing vines that dangled down.
though no one alive could recall it, the roots were still too small to act as rooms and partitions as the giants did now. they lived inside of the tree.
histories told both orally and on the page spoke of a time when people lived in housing built of fabricated materials they had compiled from the world around. felling trees, pulling up the earth and stones to heat it and force away it's being, torturing those into different beingness. no thought to the pain this caused to the origin place. creating an all new kind of dirt that was poisoned and passed on the pollution to the surrounding soil and groundwater.
they all almost died. there were lots of hard times and starvation and at one point, there was nearly no pure and clean water to cook food or bathe in or to make more products.
at the door of death, to live or not became the ultimatum. at the root of all of their problems was everything they were doing. more accurately, it was the way they lived and when they realized it, that it was progress that changed their world they were shocked. it was progress that helped them learn to think ways out of their problems, to ease their chores.
the intent was to make time for me time, not understanding that to have those tedious tasks magically removed from a long to do list, while seemingly a marvel was actually not the way to choose.
to find a day's work achieved in record time was almost frightening. not only was the change scary and unfamiliar it was brought about by the new devices. they had suddenly sprung up all over, in homes.
all of the new leisure time was unlike what people were used to. all of the work that had needed done was done by everyone including the older children who chose to. aside from kid's play, even rest and recreation was scheduled.
at first the free time was enjoyed and appreciated, but after a while the novelty wore off. no one guessed the effect that would have.
unused to being idle a new form of emotion began to began to make them act in a way no one had seen before. boredom. for a people who'd worked together from dawn to dark making all of the things a society required to operate smoothly they were debilitated by the inactivity. there had been a position for anyone who showed up, even if it wasn't in an area where they were skilled in. there was always someone present to guide and teach, usually several someones. the workplace was a fun place where everyone wanted to be. they ate together, meals prepared with each other and there was singing while they worked.
throughout the day the hours passed untallied because there was no reason to rush.
after the tools got mechanized travel times shrunk to a fraction of their former duration. it bred a competitiveness they hadn't possessed previously, it was something completely unknown. the trouble was a long time in the making because it wasn't immediately understood by all of the people to be a symptom.
envy found fertile ground and began to sprout giving an innocent but deceptive appearance; another side effect of all of the convenience. suffered mainly by those who had not found their way to productive activities to spend the wealth of unstructured time on.
they gradually shifted to inner duality, schism.
at one time they were a certain identity, the idle, and then subtly, they found all they thought they knew, who they thought they were and the place where they'd always had a space gone.
while on the other hand, the rest were able to adapt swiftly rapidly and fluidly. creating their own new ideal.
the problem with that was the easily self adjusted type tended to become deeply submerged in their new pursuits and in the moments when the community paused activity to eat and socialize, they dominated the conversation talking endlessly on about their thing. resulting in raised voices and din not so conducive to good digestion.
paticularly if anyone didn’t share the enthusiam and hadn't much in kind to say being in the minority.
kind of oblivious to the fact that the news they were so effusively sharing wasn’t being universally received with matching enthusiasm. there was an abundance of bloviation. as in the attention and interest was, in a few cases, not there. as in not offering up their own accomplishments also with gusto.
another symptom of a society moved away from contentment and complacency was not then just the maladjusted's. it was also the rest's.
some became very puffed up by their own ability to still be creative and productive as an independent entity, and they had to make sure people were aware. they were unaware however, of the pain felt by their contemporaries. who labored yet to find a way to feel like there was meaning to live for.
it was to them, wrong to be unable to get themselves that kind of refuge, but in the glare of others' achievements they hid what they felt and did so while their counterparts were preoccupied with their own cleverness. those didn't notice the hidden malady and that like any unseen contagion, will migrate and eventually infect everyone. hiding and mutating, only gaining the attention of all when they were forced to see how not paying attention had affected the whole group. sickened themselves by a whole other ailment. self absorption.
it was at this place in their people's story that in the great book that quotillda and quotienne brought together their keys. with which to unlock the knowledge needed to meet the coming events.