Sunflower - Chapter 9 (Patreon)

Powerful.

The silence, it is powerful.

My friend walks, she treads along the side of the water, moving along the shoreline, as we have no way to cross over the great-water. Her feet, bare, slip through the soft sands beneath herself.

Behind us, towards the east, the wildfires of the drylands are still visible, the plume of smoke growing larger and larger by the day, as the hungering flame spreads, consuming what is left of the world we had left behind.

- It will be good.

In a time further away from now, the soil there will be rich and satiating. Many things will grow and thrive, thanks to the bounty offered by the things that have and will yet die in the blaze.

We are not among them.

We are here, where it is silent.

The water is still, it does not move.

The wind is still, it does not creep or blow or shift the hairs of her head.

There are no creatures, no birds, no animals, no movements in the world, apart from our own.

The only sound that I hear is the sound of soft sand, pressing between her toes and the rustle of my own leaves, as I adjust to always face the sun in the east, which is often obscured by a cloud of rising smoke.

It is rather troublesome.

[Sunflower]

You bask in the light of the sun

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But the silence of the world is powerful.

I never knew that it could ever be so quiet.

Wow.

Life is a treasure.

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An oddity.

We stand on the shore that we have stood on for a time now.

Before us is a house, one that is not burnt, but rather, broken.

It looks to be broken not by the force of clawing hands, but by the ravages of time.

Next to the house is a long, wooden thing.

It reminds me of a flower-petal.

“A boat…” mutters my friend, beneath her breath.

I have decided that I was wrong yet again.

She can not be a bird, because I have already learned that she could not be a butterfly.

My friend can not fly.

If she could, we would not be walking around the great-water.

We approach the ‘boat’ and she kneels down to inspect it.

“We can get across the water with this,” she explains, looking back up towards me.

She has been speaking very often lately.

I wonder why?

In a sense, it disturbs the silence of the world, which I find bothersome of her to be doing.

But at the same time, I enjoy being spoken to.

- A conundrum.

She presses her feet into the sand, rooting herself into it with good form.

I have taught her well.

Now, she presses the boat out into the water and it slides along the smooth sands and then, simply floats.

“It looks good,” she says, holding onto it for a time, before pulling it back onto the shore. My friend, who is not a sunflower, fish, mushroom, tree, worm, butterfly, fox or bird, looks up towards me. “What do you think we should do?” she asks.

How very unusual.

I have never been asked a question before.

She looks out over the water.

“If we take the boat, we could maybe cross over and save a lot of time,” she explains, turning her head back towards the shoreline. “Or we can take the long way and walk, but…”

Her eyes wander towards the smoke.

It is true.

The shoreline is long. The air is quiet.

There is nowhere to hide and nowhere to run. There are no bushes and no caves and no crevices and cracks and logs for us to hide inside of.

If the not-birds come, as they surely will, they will very likely find us.

That would be most unfortunate.

- While I am indifferent to dying, I have grown accustomed to not being alone with my thoughts.

However, water is not soil. Water is water.

I am a sunflower.

But what else am I to do?

I turn my head towards the west, towards the place where the sun goes to sleep, far across the great-water.

My friend looks the same way and we stare away from the sun towards what awaits us in an unusual moment, that is perhaps best not repeated.

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She has filled the boat with soil.

Not a lot, as it, the boat, like a petal, floating atop the surface of a pond, is a gentle, soft thing.

But it is enough for me to sit in. It is enough for me to be able to stretch my roots.

It hurt her, when she removed me from her body.

My roots tore free of her flesh with loud popping noises.

- It was most unpleasant for us both.

Pressing against the boat, she pushes us away from the shore and out into the water.

I do not care for the sensation of the swaying, as the boat tips from side to side, as she climbs in, shaking off her wet feet and legs.

But I suppose that I have become accustomed to it, after staying in her rucksack for so long.

Goodbye, east-world.

We now depart to cross the great-water.

I hope the west will be just as amazing.

Familiar snarls and growls come from the land behind us and I understand that we have chosen well.

The boat moves and my friend lurches as something sharp sticks through her from the front.

Oh.

- How unfortunate.

The boat drifts off, further away from the shore. The not-birds run towards the edge of the water and more sharp things fly our way.

Amazing.

The things that fly look like the stingers of giant bees.

I never knew that bees could get this big?

And I never knew that the bees and the not-birds worked in symbiosis.

My friend lies on the boat, a few stingers having pierced her.

- Most unfortunate.

She lies there, filling the boat and the soil with her blood, as her hands wrap around the many stingers, stuck through her heaving chest.

What can you do?

That’s life.

I lift my gaze, indifferently looking past her, indifferently looking past the not-birds, who stand angrily on the shoreline, unable to pursue us, indifferently looking past the smoke on the horizon as my vision lifts towards the sun.

I spread my petals and leaves out wide, enjoying the warmth.

What an experience.

Life is good.

________________________________________________________

I have changed my mind.

Life could be better.

The night has come, the sun having left us and my friend continues to make the strangest sounds.

I had thought she was dead.

However, it seems that I was mistaken.

My friend has wasted a lot of water and a lot of air. She has filled the boat with her blood and has filled the night with her howls for the moon.

- It is most inconsiderate of her to be doing.

Now that I think about it, with the way she howls, with the way her throat pangs for sky, her mouth filled with teeth, perhaps she is a wolf?

It would make sense to me.

My wolf-friend had torn the long stingers from her body. I assume it was very unpleasant.

She had then filled her wounds with soil. A good idea.

- All of her blood will nourish me well.

What a considerate friend she is, seeing to me at a time like this.

As an act of reciprocity, I have opted to share my sugars with her again. The sun is not out, but I do have a reserve of my own.

- Precious.

Though, I do hope that she will soon fall silent.

It is hard to anticipate the coming of the new sun with all of her noises.

My roots push through the soil on the boat, entering into her body through the dirt-filled punctures in her chest.

Rest, friend. Let us see the sun together again tomorrow.

It will be good.

My roots crawl up to the inside of her throat.

________________________________________________________

It is quiet.

The silence has returned.

My friend lays still, her chest moving with the sway of the boat as we idly drift out into the world.

The thing about bee-stingers is that they often tend to have venom.

It would be sub-optimal if she died here.

I would be stuck on the boat forever.

So I have little choice but to wait and to let my roots worm and press their way through her supple flesh, as I nourish her with my precious sugars. The mycelium in the dirt floats through her body.

This would be most unfortunate for her, usually.

But the mushrooms are my friends as well.

And they too have an interest in her well-being.

So we cooperate.

Life sure is amazing. Alone, there are so many things to see and do. But with others, there are so many more things to see and to do. Things that you could never see and do just by yourself.

So I will float for a time and nourish my friend, together with the mushrooms of my soil.

We do this, so that she might continue.

I turn my head towards the west.

I suppose that I have, unfortunately, become invested.

- I would quite like to see paradise.

I bet it is bright.