The Short Story of the Undeserved Nature Sprite

Prologue

The Earth's spirit gets dimmer and dimmer the more we out burn it; faster than the rate it comes back to life. We also tear it down quicker than its speed to rise back up... The fact is, we as humans do burn brighter than the world we inhabit, and I do mean burn, like an engine that swallows resources and, in turn, continues to feed the ecosystem it is at the heart of, but seldom the arms that hold us or the heart of the plane that has us turning... We are a ravenous dwarf star on the face of a thriving paradise...

Although, what if the soul of our planet was a silent sprite that loved us? What if the only way to save her life or love for us was to find her where she extends her hands in love and simply say, “we see you?" And not try to absorb her into our world?

It would be two Giants on a paper plane but, if a clumsy power such as man, could learn to dance well with the founding forces of nature; just live as gracefully as the infinite goddess of light that is nature, we might find the strongest bonds or most destructive reactions as one, last mistake's notice. Could it also be a conscious action to self-fulfill, inevitably needing to consume, use and/or waste... these hands do destroy. 

The Undeserved Nature Sprite

The rare connection

“I must keep you...”

Man is ever hungry... Shunned from his tribe with his mother, a Cofan man sits on the bank of a river bed on the outskirts of Manaus, while his daughter bleeds.

The man, called Alois, had lost his love in a debt he didn’t intend to pay with her life; but he couldn’t think of it then, so we won’t speak of it now. He cleaned his daughter's wounds by the river, covered them with cured herbs, and sat with her in the fading somber twilight. The warm of her small, battered body was being stolen by the chilling night. As the moon stretched across the water, the wind blew from behind him, and a misshapen light arose from the river in front of them. Exhausted and befuddled, Alois yelled at the light but reveled in its warmth.

The light exuded confident kindness, or a warmth that was so embracing and disarming that its prolonged exposure could surely lead anyone to a peaceful but inevitable death. It was paralyzing in comfort from even the urge to do anything but lie there... It lowered by his daughter's chest and pulsated. Settled with content in regards to his daughter's safety, he lifted the peaceful girl onto a bundle of bark and twine and pulled her to a raised stump in the Amazonian foliage. That morning, his daughter was well and his mother slept under a weaved canopy. Alois walked to the bank and splashed his face. Listening to the water fall back to the river, the sound of water continued, seemingly dripping on the backs of leaves and slightly louder than the coupled sound of a small pan flute.

He followed it through the forestry. When he came to the source of the music, he saw two little feet sticking out from a flower bud as rain poured from thin air apparently, in to the creases of the flower and down, along the roots of a nearby tree. “You’re the spirit that helped my daughter!” Expressed Alois. Startled, she zipped to a higher branch. “I won’t hurt you! I see you heal and can influence nature. Can you build for me better shelter and a place to cook roots? And protect me; I will protect you!” Alois exclaimed, desperate and needy. The sprite obliged and bent three trees together while raising the ground and dropping a straight circular hole, three feet deep and to the side of the raised bed.

“Thank you,” said Alois.

in that instance Alois had a vision of the Napo river and lightning cracked through the sky. It rained in that one spot that the “spirit” hovered, and Alois had an idea to take her home...

The mistake

“You will lose me...”

They hiked and rowed for days to Putumayo, now with the sprite in an old half jug with a balloon of river water dangling inward. “Keep me safe and I will protect you...” Alois would say. He would ask her to set fires at night and help him catch fish. He asked for medicine for his mother and clean water for his daughter. He gave her trash to sit in with no padding or shade, but she was confident he was moved to take her to her home near the Napo River. He was pure enough to see her vision...

As Alois said they are getting close, the sprite begans to see fewer trees and smells, stronger by the minute, hot, greased metal and a foulness burning. She thought to herself; in a manner beyond words, why was this man alone and hurt with his child and a woman too old to be her mother? Three men jumped from higher ground with guns, radios and Columbian accents, “Savage thief! We said we’d kill you both if you came back!”

Immediately the sprite of Earth's lungs; already insulted of the carnivorous stench devouring the clean life from her Amazon's breath, was extremely weary of her lent trust's fragility. The sky rumbled and dimmed...

Before we met Alois he was exploring far from his tribe to investigate sounds and smells he become curious of at other foraging and exploration times. He had stumbled onto an illegal oil rig by the beginning of the Napo tributary.

At first the group of men standing guard were threatened, and curious; being not native but, stricken by his expression and posture while he also, seemed curious. “Do you see my monster?” One man said. “She’s making me rich!” They tried to teach Alois in hopes to use him. They fed him and when Alois got back to his partner and child, he talked with them and the shaman about oil's worth. The shaman wasn’t interested, and his love wouldn’t speak in front of the shaman but, she insisted that they find some to sell and become citizens of Manaus. He went in to the camp at night to siphon a few jugs but, they caught him and tried to beat him to death.

Slipping away through their legs and over one mans back before realizing his love was in a nearby trench. “We will kill you both if you come back!” Gunfire blasted light up the trees behind him. He stopped, worrying for her and looks back briefly, affirming the guns were pointed at the sky. He went back to his village but, the men were there setting fires to huts and terrorizing natives. He tore his daughter from one man and found his mother and shaman but, the shaman cursed him and cast him out. With no time to plead, he grabbed his mother with his child on his back and fled.

Why was this man back here?

Alois grabbed the “spirit” and said to the men, “she can give you anything you need and will help you not need tools! Please give back my love; I didn’t steal!"

Heart broken and enraged, and figuring her kin had fled, the sprite's heart turned to clay... It started to rain a little but then, smoke rose from the ground as it cracked beneath their feet and all the trees that stood around them engulfed in flames.

She would sacrifice herself to be safer from the fossils that didn’t know her worth or how to respect it.

For the love of nature...