Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: caz@owlnet.rice.edu (James Ulysses Cazamias) Subject: [Green] Back To Basics Message-ID: Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1993 20:08:27 GMT The city bustles with life. It is not a small city, either in size or population, and by ten in the morning it buzzes like a hive of bees. Generica is a trading city, and businesses open early. The Green is, in a sense, a kind of business unto itself. It is in the business of staying alive in a strange, sometimes hostile world. It is in the business of adaptation, of metamorphosis, of urban camoflage. Business is booming. - * - The owl died. Owls do that, sometimes. Old age, probably. Most of the dead birds you find on the streets or in your yards died, not because of illness or injury, but because they simply lived too long. Most birds got it easy. Anyway, this owl was past its prime, and just gave up the ghost. Now it lies on the moss, looking shrunken and dried, like a piece of straw. The moss twitches. Hairlike tendrils reach up gently, almost tenderly, and embrace the sad body. They tickle the owl for several minutes. At one point, a pulsing motion of the fibers rolls the owl over, and the tickling continues. Elsewhere in the forest, a ball of nerve-like strands buzzes and comes to a decision. Over the owl, a squat, jug-like bush hunkers down and points a strangely-shaped limb at the corpse. A jet of steaming liquid squirts out, soaking the dead bird. Within moments, the owl is disintegrating. Its flesh and feathers melt away and soak into the everpresent moss. Even its bones are absorbed, and soon there is nothing left. The tendrils tickle all. Information is gathered. Decisions, as usual, are made. - * - The crows have discovered that they like Greenberries. Actually, that's kind of a misrepresentation. The Green tried a kind of market survey, using different recipies of berry-production, and found that the birds enjoyed most the fruits with certain kinds of simple sugars. Now production has switched over completely to those kinds of berries. The crows cannot tell the difference, and they certainly don't mind. Now the crows mob the upper reaches of The Green's foliage. Fierce aerial combats sometimes ensue as the large black scavengers compete for food. Not a few crows have grumpily turned away, bloodied, from their favorite food supply, in search of easier pickings. One crow in particular, a great mottled devil with a milky left eye, has had great success in staking his claim. For the first three hours of daylight he has played an intricate game of chase-and-guard around a better-than-average crop of berries, and now he has driven the competition back to a position of sulkily envious watching. Keeping his good eye peeled, Polyphemus guardedly lands amidst the berries and picks at them with his curved beak. The great crow eats his fill, hopping along the branch to take in as many berries as possible. His surprise is complete when an eye pops open a foot away. "AWK!" he exclaims, losing a number of berries in the process. "AWK!" returns the cry from the branches, but it sounds tinny and distorted. Nevertheless, it is enough to spook the crow. Polyphemus arcs skyward, having had enough of this weird place where the trees themselves speak. "AWK....AWK....AWK...." echoes the cry from the branches, buzzing from the walnut-sized bulge midway along an innocuous limb. Each repetition becomes clearer and more crow-like. Inches away, at the end of a twig, the eye blinks mechanically. It looks rather like that of an owl. - * - The Old Man stands in a strange position on the top of the mossy boulder. Beneath him, water sparkles in the pond. To his eye, it looks as if it should contain fish, but it does not. However, in his mind's eye he sees it full of fish. It reminds him of a lesson he learned a long time ago: First there is a mountain Then there is no mountain Then there is. There are no fish, but someday there will be fish. Hence there *are* fish, only at another time. His arms extend slowly yet gracefully, as if he is rowing a boat. It is, he decides, much like this forest. There was no forest, yet now there is a forest. The forest was always there, only not available to the eye, as it had not arrived yet. Things do not start up and leave off; all is continuous. Crouching, he reaches one way, and then the other. He is old, but he shows no signs of tiring or losing his balance. The Old Man acknowledges, to himself, that the world is full of such misperceptions. One is trained, erroneously, to see things a certain way; to pigeonhole reality without observing the whole. For instance, most would see this forest, and think "forest", and leave it there. But the Old Man knows it is not just a forest. Slowly rising, he pushes and pulls at the air, swaying like a reed in the wind. Feeling the totality, The Old Man reaches out and finds the myriad thoughts whizzing around him. Here, a command to rotate leaves by a certain angle; here, information about water supplies; here, a communique from an external observer. This is a forest, yet it is more, and less. Stretch, and then perhaps breakfast. There is a date tree that the Old Man visits regularly. There is no particular need to eat, but he enjoys it, and it preserves links to the past. He picks three dates and finds a shady spot. Settling down, he eats the dates one by one. There is a rustling in the undergrowth. The Old Man watches curiously while peeling the last date. Leaves shudder without wind. Ants creep by. The last date was not as good as the first, but such is life. The shrubbery parts, revealing a slim, beech-like tree. It is crowned with a mane of ivy-like leaves. It has two branches that look like arms, and two roots that could be legs. It has two eyes, and a twiggy nose, and a gaping parody of a mouth. It pushes the air to and fro in a suspiciously familiar swaying motion, looking like a tree trying to copy a reed in the wind. "AWK!" it exclaims. "'Awk'?" asks the Old Man gently. He shakes his head as he stands up. "'Awk' is not an appropriate greeting." "AWK?" "Again, no. Do not call your teacher 'Awk'. This is not done." "Dunnnn......" The Old Man sighs inwardly, and settles himself down into a lotus position. This student has much to learn, and will not learn easily. With infinite patience and certitude, he begins to teach.... "That which is surrounds you......." - * - ADMIN: The Green begins to learn! We'll have it talking in no time. Huge thanks to be heaped on Brian Shea who is also writing this portion of the thread, and to Mike Sanders, who is coming at it from a different direction. Stay tuned! -- HWRNMNBSOL Now Posting In 80MM Trooth-O-Vision [tm] !