Bittersweet entanglement

The ground felt soft beneath his bare feet. Softness tickles. Beds of decaying leaves. Just like moist carpet. Layered. "Softened by rain" he whispered to himself. He felt amused. He closed his eyes. Relying solely on tactile sensations from the ground, he played a game of "I spy" with himself. Prominent midrib. Longish tapering blade. "Eucalyptus!" Spindly soft. "Pine needles."

He was cheating a little bit. The minty almost petroleum-like smell of eucalyptus was very much distinct from the alpine icy cool smell of pine needles. Soothing.

Cold, gooey, spongy blob. "Mushroom? God Stamets!" He always loved puns. Mayakovsky be damned. Let me make love to dirt cried his proletariat sole.

He had to open his eyes and slow down when the track went steeply downward. He remembered how different muscles engage downhill compared uphill. The ground became rocky. Some rocks were quite sharp. He realised how he tended to put his weight more on his left. His left foot was having more ouch! moments than the right.

Suddenly an image popped in his head. It was Sarah walking slowly down a mountain track. "I have to be careful with my knees. They can easily get injured on the way down" she said. Instinctively he swiped her image away to his left side.

Adeptly he slowed down his breath. Instead of his chest rising upwards on the in-breath, he shifted down. His ribs expanded laterally on each inhale. As he exhaled from his diaphragm he let a continuous sound from his larynx ride each out-breath. His lips formed a shape, not unlike Edvard Munch's 'The Scream'. The sound escaping from his mouth was a soothing Ohhh Ohhh… Cycling from a low pitch rising to a high, back down then up again. Like a siren from an ambulance navigating the city streets late at night. Not too much in a hurry. As he pitched the right notes the song began to play.

I've hardly been outside my room in days

Cause I don't feel that I deserve the sunshine's rays

The darkness helped until the whiskey wore away

And it was then I realized the conscience never fades

He remembered. It was a January. Back in the 2020s. Sydney. Australia. He was learning this song for weeks. At the same time, he was learning how to breathe. Not just any kind of breath but breathe to sing. Over what they called Zoom back then. He let out a faint smile. My diaphragm was quite weak he mused. He saw a memory of himself like an eccentric maniac making the same sounds he just did while blowing bubbles through a large straw into a reused Chatime cup half-filled with water. The straw was purple. The cup had purple lettering. "The sweetest is at the bottom." Plastic. Yuck. Ah yes, the big straw was to hoover tapioca pearls from the bottom. Pearl milk tea! That was it. Too much sugar everywhere in those days.

When you're young you have this image of your life

Ah, the 20s back in Terra. Pivotal moments. Kairos. SARS Cov2, a rock thrown into the placid lake of time. Long overdue, it broke down the stagnating equilibrium. A fractal perturbation, ripples of which are still playing out. He let out a deep long sigh.

And you make boundaries you'd never dream to cross

And if you happen to you wake completely lost

Missy Higgins. The Special Two. That was it. He remembered how the song came out in the early Noughties. This was way before he heard of Brené Brown's BIG. What Boundaries do I need to have so I can be in my Integrity so I can be Generous to you? Before he met Betty Martin to learn the Wheel of Consent and the three-minute game. The song spoke to him truths before he had any vocabulary to grapple with them.

As he reached the bottom of the valley it began to rain. Again. This time the drops were much smaller. Micro drops. So much moisture. Slowly drenched by the rain as he meandered through the valley, he felt a bit ecstatic. Such exquisite detail. Summer rain. Not what he expected. As he relaxed and let go, the pain sneaked in, caught him unaware. So familiar. To the left. Just above his sternum. He felt a sour bitter taste in his mouth. Just like he was about to vomit. He kept swallowing.

Before he could stop it tears welled down his eyes. "I forgave you a long time ago. You were my first. I was yours. We were both so young." That's what she said the last time we caught up in LA before the Purge. The chronic background pain on his chest suddenly became acute. Searing.

With all the strength he could muster he kept walking. He diverted his attention. So many spiders. Weaving their webs. Webs everywhere. All manners of shapes and sizes. Round ones encompassing the delta of tree branches. Long thin one linking thin trunks of shrubby trees. Small ones in the crevices denting rock faces with their delicate orange and green hues. Moss and lichens. Some webs were so intricate he couldn't fathom what algorithms, how much computing power can create such seemingly effortless complexity. Warp and woof. Micro drops of rain caught in the interstices looked like little jewels floating in the air. Little stars. Glowing. Shining. Indra's net.

He kept walking forward not daring to look back.

It was not really a valley. The path, in the end, led to a lookout. A sudden drop hundreds of meters down. He walked right at the very edge. He looked down. He surveyed the landscape below. Deeper valleys. Thicker forests. He could hear water falling. Bird calls echoed, bounced around the cliff faces. Nietzche comes to him in times like this.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

The desire to jump was always too strong. Back in Terra, the consequences were much more directly biological. Here it's not so clear. Perhaps psychological. It was not a fear of true death. It was not fear of an ultimate end. That would be a welcome respite. A grace. A blessing.

What he feared then and now was that he would keep coming back nursing the same wound. Only with more stochastic layers of gunk piled on top. After staring down the abyss for what felt like an eternity he traced his steps back into the forest. He walked aimlessly in the forest always keeping to himself.

The muted yellows of a late afternoon sun seamlessly transitioned to the reddish-orange hues of dusk. He mindlessly pined to see a Black Cockatoo. After a moment he heard their unmissable cry. Like anguished cries of pterodactyls. Two of them. One had bright orange sections on its tail. The other had bluish hues with white spots on its head & feathered crown. Standing very still he watched them silently, intently. They looked back at him intermittently. They were otherwise busy flying from branch to branch. Tree to tree. Using their adept claws to pick what looked like nuts. Crack them open with their sharp beaks uttering their haunting cries every now and then.

As it got dark he suddenly felt tired. He found a secluded spot in the forest away from ley lines. He sat and sealed his energy. Sound after the sound. He followed the light inside.

He got lost in time. Darkest of night. That was until he heard the familiar hooting. Faint at first. Slowly getting louder. Nearer. Coming back into his seated body he clicked his fingers and opened his eyes.

There she is. Her unmissable shimmering whiteness smoothly gliding in the dark above from behind. He got up and slowly started to walk. As Midnight Owl took the lead, he muttered: "Guide me home, love."

After he landed back in his body floating in the warm liquid interface, he slowly opened his eyes. Silently he said to himself inside: "True to her name the clouds of Venus are achingly beautiful this time of day." Before complete detachment from his sarcophagus, he thought-commanded to his journal: "The people we love are never just as we desire them."