The Kingdom

The clearing is utterly symmetrical, a perfect circle. One proud, mighty oak stands sentinel in the center. It is old by our standards, young by its own. Looking at it, you would never know.

Its bark is rough, carved with runnels, and flakes away in some places. Its wide, sweeping branches form a dome around it; the closest one is four feet from the ground. The leaves are smooth as satin closer towards the squat trunk; the rest are dry and brown, brittle in the lonely wind that blows through sometimes.

Thirsty.

The sun shines cheerfully overhead; its rays grow harsh and unforgiving; they suck the moisture from the land, the air. The meadow waits, silent, holding its breath. The meadow waits waits waits. The meadow waits.

Dry grasses rattle with the wind. They whisper and shush at each other. They are brown as the earth, dry as the earth. They sweep across the waiting meadow; they ripple and plunge and dance a graceful dance. They murmur, softly, achingly sweet. They sigh −

Thirsty.

Scraggly, wilting flowers dot the waiting meadow. Their colors are subdued. Where they would be violent and offensive, they are quiet, ponderous. It somehow makes everything all the worse. And all the better. Worse because their desperation has faded with their hope. Better because there is still a wilted beauty to their lives.

Swish. Shish. Swish. The leaves are trembling. The blades are crying. The flowers sit quietly in their solitude: they are alone.

Thirsty.

The offending sun sits high in the sky; it beats down relentlessly upon the scorched and barren earth. The tree loses leaves to the sun and the heat. The grass loses a few more blades. Suddenly, abruptly, the flowers give up their life and fall forward with an exhausted flop.

There is one less flower. Two. Three.

FOUR!

FIVE!

SIX!

Six have lost their lives; they are forlorn and weary. They are so −

Thirsty.

The meadow grows quiet and still. On the far horizon, a streak of color eases through the sky, sure of itself and its right to be there. It is dark and angry, violence contained in motion. It ripples ominously as it draws nearer.

The meadow waits, silently, hoping, holding its breath. The meadow waits waits waits. The meadow is waiting.

Thirsty.

Without warning, wind howls through the clearing, tearing leaves from the tree, uprooting innocent flowers and hopeful grasses.

So pretty Mama look a bird ha ha ha ha ha cotton candy beautiful −

I love you.

Love.

The ground is warm, still saturated with the last lingering touches of bright sunshine. Dust and dirt and detritus dance joyously through the air.

Dark, black, roiling clouds cover the sun. They reach and stretch and stretch and stretch and stretch, until the sky is one big blanket of black, and cooling shadows caress the ground.

Happy.

Thirsty.

BANG! CRASH! BOOM! Thunder roars over the waiting meadow; lightning laughs and splits the sky wide, parting the clouds into the puckered lips of a gruesome wound. The heat of the storm is stifling, oppressive. There is a heaviness to the air that simple pressure cannot bring.

The first drop falls, slowly, deliberately. It touches the brittle leaves, a sweet temptation as it rolls mockingly down the branch, following trails carved by other drops, by the tree’s skin itself.

Another wind howls through the still meadow.

Pony bunny kitty doggie look Daddy cows fishies bug −

Happy.

Thirsty.

That single drop slithers down a bough, purposely cruelly. It beads and rolls and slides down the trunk, taunting taunting taunting.

Finally, fi-na-lly, it reaches the dry ground, the dead ground, the waiting meadow. That single bead of moisture sits upon the withered earth, content to simply wait. But gravity wants the diamond drop; the earth wants that diamond drop.

The ground sucks at the bead of rain. It pulls it under and under and down and down. There is no end.

Thirsty.

The raindrop slips through the cracks of the earth. It thins and stretches and writhes its way down, farther and farther into the waiting meadow. It loses no substance on its way past thick clots of dirt, packed tightly together. It wraps around the rotting-bones-turned-dust of animals long dead; it envelopes cool leaf matter and slides past the guards on its way towards lower ground.

The diamond drop finds its way through the earth. It zigs and zags, twists and turns, meanders and races, past small rocks, more leaf matter, farther, farther, past thick unyielding roots, all the way down to searching tendrils that quiver and cry in their silent way for food, for water.

It fights with itself; it fights the earth, its mother and father, its creator. It fights with the larger part of itself, but it is small and weak and no longer wishes to fight, but merely to survive, to live. It wishes to be free and proud and mighty. It does not wish to die, to go, to leave.

The raindrop finds its way to the very tip of a whip-like tendril of root. It struggles weakly, vainly, to stay away, but the tiny root spasms in the deep earth and swallows the drop of water with a mouth no bigger than a pinhead.

Happy.

Thirsty.

At the surface, more drops fall, none of them as cruel or cowardly as the first sparkling diamond. The rain falls faster and rushes down into the earth.

Something stirs in the deeps. More child-like roots awaken and cry for water. Their wails are pitiful and full of sorrow.

A shudder runs through the tree. Leaves shake and fall to the ground. They sweep away with the wind.

Pain!

The tiny baby roots shudder and writhe. Pain like fire brushes through them. Their shrieks are silent and go unheard.

A ripple spreads through the meadow and suddenly the whole ground is aquiver with pain. The wind lends voice to the agony of fire and acid and death. The sky is lost, taken over by a cruel master, one whom laughs at the pain he has caused below. His laugh is thunderous and booming. His eyes are like pale white fire in the dark folds of his face. He crackles and spits with internal rage.

Pain!

Help me kill her aaarrghhh!

Screams.

Nightmares.

Horrors contained within raindrops and wind. It is acid; it is fire; it is pain.

It is death.

It is death contained within the slash of wind, the burn of acid, the aridness of desert heat. It is everything and nothing. It is the all and only.

Such pain! Such unimaginable pain that eats away at the vulnerable skin! It courses down down down, then up up up, out out out! Everywhere it touches, every unseen vein, every stout, rigid muscle, it burns and it laughs at the unutterable agony that has no means of escape. It is worse than fire coursing through the meadow, worse even than death. If only there were words, mouths, hands, bodies, anything, an-y-thing, to release the torture. But there is none.

Slowly, so very, very slowly, the pain begins to ease and a numbness spreads through the meadow. Gentle rains fall upon the slipshod earth; caressing winds soothe the pain.

Numb.

Peace.

A shudder runs through the tree; a spasm runs through the grasses and the flowers. A soft sigh eases out, and the meadow is no longer waiting.

It sits quietly, at peace for a time, as the drizzling drops waft into mists and fogs. It hangs heavily over the meadow as a comforting blanket, as a shroud, a shield to protect from the malignancy, the savage cruelty of the withered face above.

Serene breezes float through the fog, rustling the tree’s leaves, brushing the grasses against each other, causing the clean, sharp flower heads to raise their faces towards the sky.

Peace.

No words touch the tree now. No feelings or sensations brush through the meadow. There is stillness in the meadow, peace and serenity.

As the sky beats back the vicious tyrant, stars spill onto the canvas stretched so tightly above the world. A white crescent hugs the air around itself and sheds a gentle light down upon the meadow and its life.

The fog rolls away, leaving the meadow free and clear and clean.

Peace.

Peace, at last.

/Author's Notes/

This short story was my last assignment in Creative Writing. ('Fish' was my first.)

I had a lot of trouble coming up with an idea at first. All I knew was that I wanted something to do with a tree.

After thinking on it for a few days, I took a recurring theme of mine and expanded it and molded it into something different and new. This story resulted from that. It's basically a metaphor for the inner struggles we go through every day, and on another level, it is demonstrating how feudalism and systems like it are supposed to function. (If I have to point out how this relates to the story, you should probably be leaving.)

Anyway, that's about it. If you have any questions/comments/suggestions feel free to message or e-mail me.

kkthxbai.
- TC