A while ago I had an idea for a short story but didn't know how to end it. Driving back from the grand canyon to vegas the ending came to me...


Two Tree Hill

The long, grassy field sloped gently upwards. A hundred years ago, two seeds sprouted some distance apart and began their long climb heavenwards. At first desperately fighting for sunlight with the tall grass, they eventually grew to dominate the hilltop landscape.

Each year the saplings grew taller, spread roots out below the fertile prairie soil, and stretched their leafy arms outwards, towards the foot of the hill, towards the setting sun, and, more importantly, towards each other. Patient, as only a tree can be, they waited. A decade passed, and then another as the distance between them slowly closed.

They reveled in the warm sun of summer, leaves bursting with green life. They bore the golden change of each autumn proudly, before casting their multi-faceted garments to the earth below. They slept soundly through the long winters. They silently rejoiced in each spring's renewal of growth.

Year after year they waited through drenching rains and howling winds. Through deadly, root-drying droughts and through sap-numbing ice storms that threatened to break them. They carefully housed birds, insects, and rodents in their crown, coat and feet.

Over the many seasons, they matured into majestically sprouting pillars that could be seen from miles away. And they waited. Waited for the day they could go beyond looking longingly at each other. For the day they could do more than just listen as the other sighed with the movement of the wind. For the day they could do more than just smell the scent of their own kind. They awaited their first touch as the dawn awaits the day. Knowing that, with patience, they would someday find their limbs entwined, forever embracing, forever supporting each other, forever together.

They grew tall quickly, but the outward expansion slowed to a pace that only a tree could endure. Many more decades passed. Their skin became thick and gnarled with age. Their once supple trunks grew less forgiving each season. From a distance or viewed from a certain angle, they looked as if they were already touching, but it was not so. Not yet. But soon.

One year after awakening from a particularly bad winter, the spring came with long bouts of rain, followed by long stretches of sunshine, and they realized that this was The Year. Their limbs ached with longing. Their leaves danced with anticipation. The wind sometimes moved them to within an inch of each others touch. A lifetime of longing was almost within their grasp.

Summer neared its peak with long days, hot and windless. And the trees were ready. One afternoon, the pressure of the air around them began to drop steadily. The wind began to stir, dark rainclouds formed and moved slowly towards them. The temperature fell sharply and the wind strengthened. A few raindrops leaked from the sky, and their parched leaves strained to gather the life-giving moisture. Soon it was raining heavily, deeply soaking the dry soil. Then the storm was upon them.

Lightening flashed, followed in a few seconds by great rolls of thunder. Fierce gusts pushed and pulled at their branches. But they had weathered many such storms before. In fact their branches had grown so close that a strong enough wind would end their years of yearning. The rain blew almost horizontal but from the wrong direction. The thunderclaps smashed almost back to back. They braced themselves, anxious, yet firm. This was it. But then the wind lessened. The rain slowed. 'No, no', they implored, 'blow from another direction, any other direction. Just give us more of the storm'.

And the earth responded.

A thick, white bolt suddenly reached simultaneously down from the sky and up from the earth, and in a deafening crash of light and sound, shot through her tall, proud body, shattering, piercing, and bursting her aged wood into a great, incandescent, yellow-white, ball of flame.

For hours, all he could do was watch in horror as she burned on and on and on. He prayed the wind would carry the flames to his outstretched arms and he could join her in death, but her closest limbs had been severed with the initial blast and had fallen to the earth between them, barely missing him as they crashed downwards.

She burned through the night.

The morning came with a sickly smell of charred wood and wisps of wet, steamy smoke still curling from the blackened and split trunk. He stood there numb as rain began to fall again. The wind grew stronger as did his anger. He had waited so long. He had been so close to touching her. It wasn't fair. It wasn't goddamn fair! How could he continue on this hill alone? His limbs quivered with rage even as another storm grew in the sky above him. He was a tree and trees were ever patient, but this, this was too much for even a tree to bear. 'Oh Gaia, why have you forsaken me?' he called to the great mother.

And the earth responded again.

As the lightening flashed through his body, and his limbs burst into flame, he thanked Her for his release, sparing him a life of staring out over his love's lifeless form.

When autumn came, there were no colorful leaves to sail in the wind around the hilltop and blanket the earth in gold and red. When winter came, there were no tall, silent sentinels to break the wind's rush over the grassy plain.

But when spring came, after the snows had melted, there in the clearing where the trees had stood, two tiny seedlings pushed there way up out of the earth, their tiny leaves already touching.

posted by bluematrix at 10/31/04 16:42 | link | comments (4)

there once was a man who said: "damn!"
it grieves me to think that i am
predestined to move
in a circumscribed groove:
in fact not a bus, but a tram

some fear we are not in control of our own destinies. that everything we do is pre-ordained. hogwash. try going a few days without deliberating over your actions - if our lives our predetermined, it shouldn't matter.

but it does, and we do have the freedom to make our own choices. and sometimes i find that freedom debilitating when it comes to making decisions. "should i turn here? or maybe i can get thru down here. but wait, what if it doesn't go thru, will i have to turn around?" weighing every little decision, all the time, gets tiring. and big decisions like should i get back to writing my book, or change to a more rewarding career...ay yi yi.

so every now and then, i spin the bottle of chance and see where it leads. oddly enough, you would think this would add to the chaos in my life, but it more often than not, for some reason seems to help balance things. give it try sometime.

posted by bluematrix at 10/26/04 23:11 | link | comments (4)

this is funny as hell.

click here

(thanks to frejaluna's most excellent site sonotcool for the link)

posted by bluematrix at 10/19/04 15:39 | link | comments (1)

grand canyon indeed. 12 miles across. 277 miles long. a mile deep. this damn thing is so huge it defies description. i kept trying to take pictures and even with a wide angle all i could do was pan with the video camera and shoot multiple views with the digital still to collage together in photoshop when i got home.

we left hoover dam outside of vegas in the heat of the afternoon. we decided that a mindless car game was in order, so we designed a spin the bottle type of thing on a cardboard box and spun it every hour on the hour. 'take a picture' 'chinese firedrill' 'batty' 'bump' 'shooter' were a few of the possible outcomes for each spin. by the time we reached the south rim of the grand canyon at sunset we had shot a roll of film, depleted half a bottle of vodka, and partook of a variety of other miscellaneous mischief.

i had visited other canyons before, but nothing prepared me for this giant gash in the earth. english speakers were the minority here along the trail near the main entrance. i could only gawk in silent amazement at the vastness of it all. the mighty colorado river looked like a trickle thousands of feet below the orange and red layered cliffs. i like heights, have been skydiving and mountain climbing, but i still got vertigo bad when i ventured close to the rim. the sheer drop was mesmerizing.

vegas was fun. the narrow slot canyon of the upper antelope was nice. the trip thru zion canyon was beautiful. the grand canyon kicked my ass. more later.

posted by bluematrix at 10/17/04 22:03 | link | comments (1)

'the world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page.'

I love to travel. I wish that I had the opportunity to do more of it. i explore the city i live (and the surrounding area) and have been pleasantly suprised with how much there is to discover close to home when one approaches it with a sense of adventure. but there is still something about journeying far from home and seeing just how different parts of this earth can be.

several years ago i discovered a place which was so radically different it was like being on another planet - the canyons of southern utah and northern nevada. huge gashes, miles across, painted with vivid reds and oranges. Bryce canyon, north and a little west of the Grand canyon, has been my favorite so far. it's filled with these crazy pink towering rock pinnacles that beckon you to spend a day hiking down to the bottom where you find a tiny creek snaking thru gnarled desert pines.

i am quite pleased that my trip this year that looked like it was not going to happen, is back on. $400 flys you half way across the country, gets you a rental car and 4 nites in Vegas. this absurd price is predicated on you going during their slow time (the fall and during the week) and the fact that most people who go there will gamble their money away. not i. i usually explore the neon city a bit the first and last nites to get acclimated - and then hit the road out into the nearby canyons.

this saturday i am shall be arming myself with video and still cameras and pen and notebook and hopping a plane for a much needed break into this beautiful and harsh environment. ahhh.

posted by bluematrix at 10/05/04 16:04 | link | comments (3)

Brain chemistry affects emotions and emotions affect brain chemistry.

Time magazine ran a cover story a few years ago about the chemistry of love. early in a relationship, most humans experience similar physiological changes in the presence of the opposite sex. heart rate increases. sweaty palms and butterflies in the stomach. mild euphoria. then they pointed out how cocaine users experience these same symptoms and explained how the brain emits chemicals (actually the brain tells things like the adrenal glands to emit the chemicals) that are quite similar to the active ingredients of the coca plant.

Here's where it gets interesting. much like heavy cocaine use is unsustainable (one of the first known uses of it was the mayans who used it to literally work slaves to death with it) so is the powerful effects of early love. eventually, in just about every relationship, one of two things happen. either a) one of you craves that intensity that you are no longer getting, and you look for it another person or b) your brain begins emitting a different chemical.

this one though has very different effects - rather than a mild euphoric stimulant, it is a mild euphoric depressant. now you don't get butterflies in the stomach when you see your loved one, you get a sense of calm. your heart doesn't palpitate, it relaxes. the writer compared it to a marijuana high. if you can get to this stage, your chances of staying together increase big time.

and when does this chemical transition occur? in many people, about seven years into the relationship - thus the 7-year itch.

the more i learn, the more i become amazed at how much of our behavior has a biological base.
.

posted by bluematrix at 10/03/04 22:30 | link | comments (4)