Saturday, June 20, 2015

Strange Fruit of Paradise (Part One)

Ovolon lived under a tree just at the edge of the greenless meadow. His tree was wrinkled and unblossomed and no nests had been built on it. In fact, birds were by years now, gone.

The girl with the magical hair lived under a tree just at the other edge of the greenless meadow. Her tree was also in no good shape. This one though, had a little hummingbird nest. And the little blue inhabitant rarely flew away.

Winters passed and the meadow was covered in snow up where the eye can see. In the nights with no rains or snowfalls, with no clouds and the big moon blazing the field alight, all the stars could be seen. These nights, both Ovolon and the girl would look up the sky.

She would see goddesses with white horses running across the glittering meadow and strange animals with long tusks and worm bodies emerging from the deeps battling with them. Devouring them.

He would see himself as a warrior armed with a wooden club walking across the meadow. Inside the misty night, alone, looking for somewhere to hide from the cold.

The little hummingbird would close it's eyes and curl up inside it's mudtwiged house on the top of the tree. It would sleep for sometime.


In the springs the meadow never blossomed. Sometimes they would both close their eyes and let the mellow breeze cuddle their faces. They would vision the blue sea coming far from the meadow, merging with the golden sunbeams, turning all green and dressed up in odoriferous flowers. But then, they would open their eyes again and witness the cracks and scorches of the soil caused by the terrible winter. They would continue to look around with sleepy faces, not really seeing anything, just daydreaming of the summer.

The little bird waited for the times until the spring rains, when a tiny red worm would come up from the roots of the girl's tree. It would fly down and pick it with it's beak, bring it up its nest and eat for some days. That harsh behavior of the bird always made the girl with the magical hair sad for some days.

Then one spring, something unexpected happened.

The bird had just finished eating the last of his meal, and with confidence and potential on it's wings, flew off the girl's tree towards the greenless meadow.

The girl saw the reaction of the bird, and although she wasn't surprised, inside her woke a desire to follow it. A wave of curiousness rolled from the top of her head, through her long curly hair, down to her naked toes. So, she decided to put on her orange gumboots and take her magical hair away from her comfortable tree and on the prying bird's tail.
 

The bird flew over and across the meadow in an erratic route, its wings flapping like a fly's and buzzing as it drew circles in the air. The girl followed running in a breezy tempo hopscotching from time to time to pass around the bigger stones.

The sky was painted a kind of light purple as it has been the last few days around this time. She knew this always happened, especially on Plum Mondays of Second Chances, and it was a pretty rare phenomenon which formed deadlines and pushed future until one was to take initiative. Interesting times at the least, she considered.

They passed around places she knew and had visited in the past, places where she enjoyed herself and learned things, and other places which scared her and scarred her. Those places taught her even more things.

After a while they reached an upward slope which ended in a small clearing. On top of it stood an old tree that was leaning in a way, she thought, resembling and old hunching man with one hand on the floor and the other on his waist, why the roots bent highly above the ground in twisted formations. There was also a small wooden table and a chair. A vivid flame was burning nearby and a hanged pot of lamented unbison stew, by the smell of it, bubbled and filled the air with hungriness.

She noticed the bird sitting on top of the tree and at the same time someone emerging from the shadowy hollows at the base of it.

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