The Growth of the Trees

I laid there in the grass, I was painted green from the blades, letting insects of all kinds crawl over me like explorers on a mountain while watching the trees grow to excitedly strange structures. The branches twisted and turned into knots and spurted out to the stars, reaching for the heavens. The trees grew volantly and relentlessly, without restraint. I was impuissant to budge. The blades of the green grass held me against my will forcing me to watch the growth of the trees.

My mind wandered while my body was riveted. While enslaved I became a muse, a cognate of the green. Thoughts of worldly proportions filled my mind. How did we become such slaves to Terra? We float on a rock falling through space and yet we don’t doubt the possibility of fluttering from it. The possibilities that the rock refuses to keep us tethered to itself and we soar away into the stars.

Strange thoughts indeed filled my mind yet terror came and came then and there. The insects crawled and nested upon my body and claimed it as their throne and hive. I wondered what they thought. Did they wonder what a strange temple this was to have fallen upon their land and who great and beyond blessed them with such a wonder? I wonder and pontificate such thoughts and hope to categorize them. I was a gift from the gods to these insects, and like all gifts from gods I was sure to be a curse to others. For when I rise, I will destroy.

I don’t want to belabor why I’m tied between the blades of the grass and why my eyes are forced to watch such a horrifying twisted vision but I must strain myself to do so. The sound it was that turned my ears fire. The sound of the branches contorting and turning through each other, brushing against each branch as they pass by finding their way in and out like shoelaces. 

Earlier I was running through the wood. I remember I was escaping a horror, a large otherworldly figure of preposterous proportions that I could not believe were from this world. I was innocent before and didn’t understand what was chasing me. Sprinting through the woods away from the otherworldly figure I tripped over a rock and crawled out of the woods maintaining my gap between it and I. That’s when the grass came to me and latched me down despite all my might. The grass grew and twisted itself around my limbs to keep me down to earth. The dirt became a water mattress beneath me to contort itself around me encompassing me further inside. I could not move.

The grass grew further around my head, turning it towards the trees. The horror of the trees! I could not stand it and could not dare to stare towards them. The grass wouldn’t allow such foley. It slid across my face covering it, reaching my eyelids holding them up, keeping my eyes focused on those horrid and grotesque trees. The trees with it’s unnatural branches that bend in an impossible fashion, unbreakable in every sense.

My nose was filled with ash and soldering metal. Odors natural and healthy trees couldn’t give off but these did and filled my nose with such vile scents man was not supposed to smell. It bled my nose and blood dripped upon the green grass making it crimson. A rancid odor of an old subway, far beneath the streets, full of trash and scum came upon my sense of smell that nauseated me sick to my core.

Beyond the terror of my sense my sight was still stolen by the growth of the trees yet my mind was thinking of the otherworldly figure chasing me and led me to these horrifying trees of growth. I felt it’s presence nearby and felt it gazing upon me with a smile. It was satisfied I thought that it led me to it’s cage but why I wonder did it lead me to such a goal? The otherworldly figure lead me to a cage of grass to gaze upon this growth of trees and to what end? My eyes dilated and I could feel them begin to bleed. I’ve seen things man ought not see and I am paying for it, paying for man’s sin of sight.

The green grass maintained it’s hold upon me and my gaze forward to the growth of the trees and I begin to finally understand what the otherworldly figure wants me to see. I see the twists and turns of the branches, and now I’m seeing the leafs. The brown leaves begin to die and float down to mother earth. I watch the aberrant, yet graceful, glide of the leaves down to the Earth and it disgusts me. The leaves did not obey the gravity of the Earth. Wind wasn’t present yet the leaves glided down, and back up around the contorts of the tree branches, still growing and twisting around each other in most impossible euclidian ways.

Pressuring my eyes I see the ground the tree grew from. The dirt was abnormal, like lava, yet filthy from dirt and deviantly cold. The abnormal filth of the dirt, the structure of the earth it was placed on it made me question everything. I saw red. My eyes bled and the green grass wiped it from my sight. It was mercy upon my sight but in a vile intent to focus me on the growth of the trees.

The ground swelled as the otherworldly figure approached. The Earth shook and the green grass relaxed around me. The growth of the tree continued and reached new heights. The otherworldly figure was standing behind me. It’s breath was diabolical, it’s sound was hissing but made the sound of crunching of tree leaves. It tore my ears apart and if I could my hands would be covering both ends with all my strength. I was a slave to the sounds of crunching leaves behind me and smell of solder coming from the mouth of this otherworldly figure. I craved movement, to shake endlessly. I could not.

The growth of the tree ceased and the world stopped. The leaves were still in the air, yet still dying. I saw the change of the color in them from green to darkish brown to black. They died floating there. The branches of the growing tree that collided when the tree and growth stopped that made a wrenching sound as they did collide continued to make that sound in everlasting repeat. It was more than my human sense could bear. The sound echoed in my ear drums beating against them like a maniac with a bat. A maniac with a tree branch hitting upon my drums till they bled and collapsed in.

Behind me the otherworldly figure bent down and covered my eyes. “The loss of innocence is upon you, my child. You have no need to fear, ever again.” And with that my body shut down and I was gone. I know not where I went. The room is black, the sky is not right. The stars were not in perfect spread out order but seemed to have been moved like one hits billiard balls on a pool table. The moon wasn’t round, it was more of a four dimensional cube. Looking at it made my eyes hurt further. I couldn’t take it. Beneath my feet was that filthy lava looking dirt that the growing tree stood on. I’ve never stood on such hollow ground before, it maintained my weight but felt like I’d break through like a bowling ball on tissue paper. Looking forward I saw the otherworldly figure, beckoning me towards him with a wave. It wasn’t an arm though, but a fin, a fin with fingers at the end, like five opposable thumbs twiddling their way at me.

I began walking towards him. The ground paved its way for me, creating an ease of access in that direction and I felt it wouldn’t allow me to venture into another direction. It was not a straight walk. It was a drunkard’s walk! I was three sheets to the wind, stumbling and carefully placing each foot forward as I trudged forward. The ground looked straight and narrow, but it was not.  As I approached this otherworldly figure, I couldn’t see a face. Just a wall, like the face of a mountain side. It was dark, full of dread and terror one would feel falling from the side of a cliff to their everlasting doom beneath them. I was afraid.

The otherworldly figure held out to me, inviting me into another room. I latched onto it and went along full of fear and fraught. I knew not what would happen to me if I did not, and neither did I know what awaited me. I walked in without alternative.

A bright light shone into my face awakening my eyes, blinding me abruptly, my hands covered my face without thought and I felt some cloth of sorts covering my head. Frightfully I grasped my face and my body to make sense of what was happening. I knew not what brought me here and knew not what the growth of the trees meant to me but I knew it could not be virtuous what those tree branches meant to me and the oddly stopped falling leaves. Oh those cursed dying leaves! 

I laid my head back down and closed my eyes for a while. I’ve been out on my own for awhile now, and forever, I am thankful to be covered in these bandages when I am least vulnerable. Fright and terror shake me when I remove them and see the otherworldly figure staring back at me when I gaze upon a mirror, shining reflection off a polished metal, or a still pond. I know not what I am and forever will I be afraid of the growth of the trees.