Two Stories Told Beneath a Tree The First Story (told in a half-moon voice.) There was a man, so I’ve heard, who lived a long time ago and over in another town; on the day marking his 50th year, he awoke, and suddenly, all of the years behind him started to whisper, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying. On such days, all of the years in your life will recite their names to you, but for this man, all of his years said something else in another language. “What are you saying?” he asked the years, but when they answered, they spoke like wind in clay pot with dust in the bottom. It was a distracting noise, but he knew that his years were speaking things, whispering meanings. “What are you saying?” he asked. “What does it mean?” he demanded. On and on his years yammered, in fifty different, excited voices. And so the man went to Crow’s house and asked Crow (who is good at languages) what his years were saying. Crow listened for a while, clicking his beak because he was concentrating very hard. He fluffed his feathers and shook his head. “I cannot understand your years; maybe Mayfly can answer your question.” And so the man went to Mayfly’s house and asked Mayfly what his years were saying. But Mayfly could not answer. “Maybe I could tell you tomorrow,” Mayfly said. “But in the meantime, go ask Goat.” And so the man went to Goat’s house and asked Goat what his years were saying. “Bleh” said Goat, which was useless. And so the man wandered around with his years speaking to him. He asked the Turtle to listen and interpret, if he could. He asked Woodlouse, but Woodlouse was busy and sent him to Grasshopper…Grasshopper was busy and so sent him to Housecat. He went to Housecat, and Housecat listened to the man’s years. For long, long moments, Housecat listened and at last declared, Myau. This is the sacred word of Housecat, but there are no human words to match it. Houscat gave the man his answer, but there was no way to translate it. And so tired and distressed, the man ran from Housecat’s house, and entered the forest. He ran through the trees and the shadows of the night, as if he could escape the voices. He tried to find night-people to answer his question, to decipher what all of those babbling years were saying, but Owl could not answer, nor could Cricket. Raccoon tried to answer, but there was nothing she could say either, and so she simply reached in her purse and gave him some nice, sweet radishes she’d found somewhere. He went to see Earthworm, and Earthworm tried to answer, but then went back into his burrow after a while, because earthworms are easily frustrated, as you know, and it’s best to leave them to tilling the soil in silence since they don’t like spoken words very much. By midnight, the man was driven to halfway-madness by the incessant speaking. His years had been blabbering all day. All afternoon. All night. He had eaten Racoon’s sweet radishes, but he couldn’t taste them because of his strong distraction. His years kept speaking. And speaking. And speaking. They were no quieter than they had been in the morning. Their mysterious words broke his concentration and forced him to run, and to run and to run. He ran through the forest and down into the path of the Gray Carp River. He asked the fish to listen to his years and to tell him what they were saying, but fish have no need for languages and so they simply blew bubbles and swam away. In the darkest hours, the man felt the beginnings of exhaustion, and found himself near the bog lands, where the rivers and the marshes are wet and still and where the wisest trees live. He wept for his years to be silent. He begged them. He cursed them. He cajoled them with bribes and entreaties, but to no avail. They continued on, and in madness, and in exhaustion, the man went to the edge of a small pond and simply sat down. He thought that the moon might tell him what his years were saying, but the moon was not out that night. She was busy. Near sunrise, the man’s years began to quiet. They’d been talking for so long and with such excitement, they were getting sleepy. They’d said the things they needed to say and one, by one, fifty times, they fell into silence, and the man fell into slumber, since he was tired, as well, from hearing all of those years, speaking endlessly. He slept soundly near the edge of a pond, and awoke the next morning, when the sun was high. His years were silent. They weren’t even whispering. He felt peaceful. He felt calm. And then… …he noticed that there was someone sitting next to him. A little boy. Nobody knows who this boy was. He had no family and no name. He was a little boy conjured by the things the man’s years had said all day, and so there was no real way to understand this boy. His eyes were as dark as the midnight and his hair was the color of smoke in a darkened room without windows. He was very young and he liked all kinds of things. This, the man knew, by simply looking at him. The little boy smiled and pointed at the water. There were tadpoles swimming in it. Mother Frog had laid her eggs there and there were hundreds of Frog’s children swimming there, gorging themselves on the larvae of mosquitoes. In looking where the boy told him to look, he felt a profound and happy comfort like the warmth of the sun, or a blanket on a night with fire in the hearth and tea in the belly. It was a silent comfort. It was the comfort of clouds drifting in the shapes of a dream. The little boy smiled and leaned forward to better look into the clear, shallow water. “Aren’t the tadpoles pretty?” he asked. THE END * The Second Story (told in the Poetic Voice) Cricket was chirping in the darkness, He taught his song to whoever might listen. The wisest, old trees stood in silence, But once or twice, they let the wind move their leaves. In the bottom of the river, A small pebble dreamed of being a mountain. The night was still, with only the crickets chirping, the trees standing, and a pebble dreaming of mountains, While the river ran forward to kiss the lake. * **Notes: Voices, as recognized in common Gwotian culture represent the emotional (and at times, the temporal) modes of a particular recitation. The most common voices correspond to the phases of the moon. The Crescent Moon Voice is the quietest of spoken modes and is reserved for poetry of a sexual or spiritual nature. The Gibbous Moon Voice is reserved for contemplative poetry concerning ideals or tragedies. The Half Moon Voice is used in the common expression of entertaining drama, generally in terms of what we’d recognize as genres, such as epic fantasy, mystery, and even science fiction. The Full Moon Voice is particularly suited to the expression of comedy or lurid hyperbole. The Poetic Voice: A mode of speech often reserved for the recitation of gitas, traditional tales set firmly within the Gwotian oral tradition, and the recitation of family histories. [*see also: seasonal voices] In Gwotian lore, time is conceptualized as a place. It is not a chain of events or the movement ofa wheel, as recognized in quite a large number of human societies. In Gwot, time is a world of its own and events travel from place to place. When humans experience a particular event, that event is said to visit the World House, and when the event is over and recedes into the past, it is said to have moved on to its new home. Humans in this space/time continuum may access those other homes though mental/introspective, and occasionally-observational means. In the story related above, the manner of introspection that takes place is what any Gwotian would recognize as “Running Meditation.” Unlike Sitting Meditation, or Meditation Through the Act of Doing, Running Meditation seeks a revelation of life secrets through prosaic and “conversational” acts. In the “First Story” the idea of Running Meditation is a common plot device that allows for a number of significant characters in Gwotian Folklore to make their appearance in a tale, as the author of such a story is particularly fond of the creatures named/depicted. As most stories of this type are not attributed to an author, the Running Meditation conceit often serves as a subjective “byline” of the author and in smaller towns and villages; one may recognize an author by the characters in a particular, “anonymous” tale. * As it is Corey's birthday today, I decided that it might be fitting to dedicate two stories to him. In the land of Gwot, stories are often given as gifts and so, I suppose, in Gwot, this would be the perfect present. And so, without further ado: HAPPY BIRTHDAY COREY