Beneath

She paused at the top of the ladder and looked out across the gaps between the buildings. The sun was beginning to paint the sky. It made the old and drab buildings look mysterious and beautiful. She considered for a moment that she might be like these buildings. Perhaps she could also be beautiful if the sun would grace her. Shaking her head, she pulled her self up over the edge and scurried along the broken and haphazard planks of plastic that some one had long ago placed there to serve as a road way. The weight of her body caused the planks to groan. A time would come when they would give way and she would drop down into the darkness between. This didn’t frighten her. She didn’t know what was down there. She figured that no one did. Why would someone go below? There was nothing there any more.
She jumped lightly and caught the bottom of the next ladder. She strained her shoulders, but was able to pull herself up. Once to the top, she dragged her self onto the roof. Resting, she wondered if her precious cargo had survived her journey here in the state of calm it had been in upon starting. Without checking, she wobbled to her feet and began to walk carefully over the broken tiles. Her whiskers twitching as she moved.
Pausing, she again looked out to the sun. The red and orange hues had passed. Now the sky was becoming blue with highlights of gold on the curtains of clouds. The dark outlines of the buildings blended into the outlines of the hill line and trees. They seemed a continuous thing. Perhaps they had once been separated, but now there was no way to mark where the forest ended and the city began. She had known nothing else. This place had always been decaying. And her work was to help this place crumble into the dust of the forest floor.
She had reached the spot she had imagined placing this tree. The sun would be readily available and the rains came frequently here. Many trips by herself and others had brought in rich dirt to cover over these flaking tiles. The place was prepared. She shrugged out of her back pack and carefully pulled out the small tree. It was a kind she had never seen before. No one knew its name. The bark was white with dark lines trailing vertically to out line the lumps and twists with in the grain of the wood. It felt smooth beneath her touch. The leaves were clusters of needles that fan out in arches. She hoped that it was as strong as it was beautiful.
The reasons were long faded into the past. Why was this place abandoned? Who had worked so hard to raise up these towers of fake stone and metal. The names had survived: concrete, bricks and metal beams. But the making of them was no more. The trees were placed atop and the strong roots dug down and slowly tore apart the structures beneath. Everything in beneath was forsaken. For generations, none knew what lay in those decayed shadows.
The tree was now secure in its new home. She gently ran her finger tips over the green fan. “Why do you hate this place?” she thought. The needles thrummed, but the tree was too young to know its voice. She had never dared ask the question of an older tree who might know the answer. How would this young one know? Perhaps, it too would be caught in the rhythms set out by their parents and all those that came before.
The edge of the building drew a hard line that was now gleaming in the rising sun. Putting her toes on the golden line, she looked to the beneath. Only shadows. The sun’s fingers could not stretch down to those places. Had it always been so dark? She felt something reaching out to her from beneath. It called to her. A darkness settled over her and she wept. Tipping herself forward, she let herself fall. The darkness swallowed her and the sun receded out of sight. Snapping out her wings, she began to spiral in a lazy circle. Downward. Toward the Beneath. Would she ever see the light again?
Forever passed. The darkness turned into a hazy grey. Light filtered through the swirling particles that her passing raised. She imagined this was what diving into the ocean would be like. Not knowing how to swim, that dive would be an acceptance of her death. This dive may be no different. Finally catching glimpse of the ground, she tilted herself in prep for a landing. Striking dirt, she skimmed her feet to test the solidity and than planted herself firmly. Wings twitching and her whiskers in motion, this place was unlike anything she had ever know, yet it felt like home.
This place was the root of her world.
A line stretched out in front of her. The ground was thin and spongy. Mushrooms gleamed white and the grey moss clung to every available surface. This was the foundation of the forest. So different then the upper reaches, but every much as alive. Deep breaths drew in the old and musty scent of this place. No flowers offered perfumes and no wind stirred up the dust. Just the movement of her feet. This seemed a trespass to walk here; to raise up the dust of this beneath.
Despite that, someone was calling her to continue forward. It was a voice that smelled like cedar and felt like oak. Strange in her mind like a forgien thing. Yet, it felt like something she had always known. Was being here a sin? It didn’t feel that way. This place seemed to yearn for the living.
Moving forward brought up little clouds around her feet. The glow of the mushrooms and the blue vines that wrapped themselves over everything offered a dim light that was adequate to see by. Placing her hand on a tree, she asked if her presence here was a violation. Under the moss and vines, the wood was smooth and cold. There was no texture to it. No branches stretched out from the central trunk. At the top it ended in a strange node. It gave no sense of knowing. It was as silent as death. This tree was no more. Her hand trembled. There had never been a dead tree in the forest above.
Clutching her hands into the fur on her chest and gasping through the sob that wracked her, she tried to cast away the ideas of what could suck the life from this trunk. If a great tree could not survive here, how could she? This strange place was now to be her tomb. That was not what distressed her. It was that there were rows of these trees on either side of the strange line cut through this place. They all seemed as dead as the first. Only their central trunks remained and they marked out the edges of something she could not understand.
The line called to her and compelled her to continue her journey forward. All these structures and trees indicated that this was where she was intended to travel. Was this once traveled by many? The fuzzy light showed that another line was cut across her path. The vines twisted up through the dark rusted surfaces, covering the structure beneath. She could only guess what lay beyond. Perhaps the long dead corpses of bushes. There was a gap in this line and she went through it.
Life exploded around her. The buildings rose up around this place, closing it off from the rest of the Beneath. The sun pour down from above and blessed this place. Bushes choked out the grass and they bloomed with brilliant color. The blossoms were large and vibrant shades of red and yellow. The bushes bared long thorns that grabbed at her while she passed them by. These bushes seemed to know nothing. When she touched them, they thrummed to her in the same wordless way that the young tree had. Was language lost to them here?
There was broken and crumbling bricks beneath her feet where the line lead her. It seemed as though this brick was what forced the line upon these bushes and tall grasses. Moving through this place was a cacophony of inarticulate wailing. She was foreign to them. No one had ever been Beneath since far past the memory of the eldest. They did not fear her nor wish her gone, but their excitement was pressing in on her in suffocating waves. They were as confused and curious as she was.
Finally, the line broke out into an open space. It gave her a reprieve. A circle made of brick marked out a border that the bushes had not yet crossed. The grasses had begun to encroach upon the place. At the center was an enormous tree. It was older then the eldest in the the forest above. She pressed her hands upon the trunk and wept. It poured imagines out to her and she could not comprehend them. There had once been others who lived here. They were apart from the forest. Those people had lost their voices. The trees could no longer hear them when they passed by.
The roots dug deep and pressed out, crushing the line of brick that had once contained it. The huge trunk stretched upwards and the branches brushed up against the sides of the buildings above. This tree had been planted by those in the before time. It was brought here in the same manner that she had carried the other trees above. This tree was like none of the ones above. More foreign then the one she carried today. Older then the beginning of counting time and older then her people.
It ached. Remembering what this place had been. Rage seeped out with the sap and poisoned the unfolding leaves. This was the beginning of the retaking of this place. The fall of those before meant the return of the forest, but this great tree could not let go the hate. The emotion was like giving her a new color in the sky, never seen before upon the clouds. It burned up her arms and clutched at her heart. She could not pull away, the tree held her now. Crying out, the black tide washed over her. This was the beginning. This was what had demanded that this place be torn down. It would crush everything from the time before.
This tree had lost the simple joy of the sun. While the beams still graced its leaves and branches, it could no longer feel the gentle, loving heat. It had given up the pleasures of the wind caressing through its leaves and kissing past its trunk. Hate had consumed it and allowed for nothing else to stir within.
Pressing her hands hard against the trunk, she stepped forward. She knew this broke every rule of her people. Only the oldest and wisest were blessed with merging. The young had nothing to offer the great trees. The trees above had already taken many with in them, leaving few trees that had not been joined. Only the young trees who were not yet large enough to take one within them. Those that were left were saved for the greatest of her people.
This tree was old beyond counting and deserved more then she could offer it. Yet it cried out for her, begged her to give it everything the hate had eaten away. It summoned her and how could she deny it anything?
The bark enveloped her and she came to know the reason that no one ever returned from below. How could anyone come here and resist the need and suffering of these ancient trees? She lost herself within the flowing sap. Giving all her memories of sun light dancing across the above and the feeling of the wind fluttering through her fur.
She gave this tree her joy.

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