Zollocco: A Novel of Another Universe (2 page)

Zollocco is such a clever Haetrist! Zollocco feels the mosquito rising and falling with the crests of the human's breath. Since the human is still alive, the mosquito asks if it may make a meal on it. Zollocco ponders a bit before he decides. No, he says, the human needs every bit of its blood. The leech mice think that Zollocco is making a pretty lame excuse. The rest of Us concur. The leech mice squeak that Zollocco loves the human. The birches sway in agreement that Zollocco feels tenderhearted toward it. Who would have thought Zollocco with his great fangs and ape strength would have a soft spot for a little human being?

There is a great twitter from the stream area. Zollocco runs to the place to have a talk with the ghost. He assumes the sight of his great furry hide would frighten the ghost, so he politely hides

His voice calls to the ghost, "Where are you going?" The ghost transmits a picture of the house can to Zollocco. Zollocco decides to use the Remembered Tongue. The ghost surprisingly accepts and understands the speech of inner consciousness. This is very rare among humans. Zollocco asks the ghost why it walks instead of transmitting itself back to its body.
"So that I can find my way to the stream again tomorrow."
Such a stubborn human! If it comes to the stream tomorrow it will find out what's what. Zollocco asks it why it isn't afraid of him.
"Because this is just a dream and you are not really there."
Zollocco, and so Ourself, is miffed. Zollocco asks it how it can say he isn't there when it is talking to him.
"I'm not talking to anyone, I'm asleep."
Did any entity ever hear of such stupidity? Zollocco, curious about how far such stupidity will reach, continues the conversation.
"But if you walk this way to the stream tomorrow," he says, "you will know that you spoke to me tonight."
"No, I won't. I won't remember. My rational self will just
consider finding the stream mindless luck."
Our entire Self feels unease. Zollocco, Our quickwitted Haetrist, immediately figures out why, and asks the ghost the question which troubles Us, "How did you find the stream in the first place?"
"I needed it and then I was there."
We are stunned. Need-discovery can only be practiced by a Forest creature.
"And since you always know where your body is, you walk back to show yourself the way?"
"Yes, but I don't know I am doing this, or rather, I only think I'm doing this but actually I'm just dreaming."
Our whole night-Self watches the ghost return to its can.
A water elm speaks up, "The ghost is healthy, but the body isn't. The human must expect to get well."
Our day-Self awakens, eagerly chatting about the human. Our night-Self drifts off to sleep, too tired to take part in the gossip.

The next morning when I awoke, I grabbed a fire axe, the ammonia, and headed into the woods. This time when the branches stiffened, I chopped them away with the axe. I didn't know where I was going, but I was determined to find a stream. Above, birds with red, orange, and pink skins glided shrieking. The birds did not have feathers, and as I watched, some molted in mid-flight. The strange skins fell down around me. I heard a splash, and hurried as fast as I could through the inhospitable vegetation. One of the skins had fallen into a clear, beautiful stream. I fell to my knees on the soft moss beside the water. I was just about to plunge my hands into the water when it began to boil. I couldn't help feeling that the woods did not want me there. I looked up at the trees. Gazing upwards, I felt something drip on my face. The sun was shining. I looked carefully above me. Water was dripping from the branches of a tree that resembled an elm. I stood and pulled a branch down towards me. The branch and leaves were covered with dew. I licked the water off carefully, gratefully.

Parts of Us definitely feel sorry for this human. We still wish it would go away. We feel rather angry that it makes Us give in to it. First Zollocco refuses to allow the mosquito to make a meal of it; and then the moss says the human's step is gentle and the soles of its feet are pleasantly warm; and then a tree, of all beings the water elm, collects and drips dew for it to drink. The gnats who lost some of their number to the human's ammonia are justifiably furious. The vegetation, which knows itself to be a favorite food of humans, fears being canned. The more short-tempered beings among Us are affronted by the human's disregard for the Law, and want to bite the human. Many others of Our carnivorous variety would not mind sampling its meat and organs. Most of Us are quite aggravated that a tree has decided to take the human's part. Moss is usually complacent and will bend to the will of the majority. A Haetrist can be reasoned with. But when a tree disagrees, then We are in danger of being in opposition to the Law, the fuller consciousness of Our darling planet. We are first and foremost a Forest, A Forest among Forests, The World Forest Ipernia. When a tree disagrees with the temper of the community, every member of the community directly mingles its consciousness with the tree and the beings who agree with the tree. So, We do this now. In the commotion of this direct contact, We feel a presence--but then it is gone. Perhaps it was just the intenseness of Our concentration which made Us feel an extra element of being.

After feeling the water elm's caring for the human, some of Us are very jealous of the human. After drinking the water the water elm provided, the human takes off its clothes and throws them into the boiling water. Curious, We continue to make the water boil. The human finds a dead stick and stirs its clothes in the water, and then flings them with the stick onto a sun-baked rock to dry. We just know this human will try to eat some one of Us next. We wonder which of Us it will try to sample. Some of Us want to put an end to this human.

At least I was able to wash my clothes, but how I wanted a bath and something to eat. As I sat on rocks by the stream, wiggling my toes, falling into a reverie while my steaming clothes dried, I was startled by a movement near my heels. I jerked back my feet, grabbed my axe, and jumped up, heart throbbing with wrath. My hypersensitive state brought about by hunger had saved me from the strike of a large, drooling snake. I lopped off the snake's head. My anger instantly gave way to sheer joy--now I had fresh meat for supper! The snake's body twitched and jerked on the moss. I had the sense of something amiss. Then I realized what it was; the entire forest was hushed. I felt as though everything was staring at me. I looked at the decapitated snake. The body still spasmodically thumped around on the moss. Several times I had to prevent it from falling into the stream by pushing it back with my stick. The sickening sound of the body jerking and the strange silence of the forest seemed to last an eternity. The head had dropped amid the roots of a nearby tree. The snake eyes stared at me sightlessly. I began to feel weak and dizzy. At last the snake body lay still. I picked up the long body and dragged it home. There was not asound as I walked. Once at the module, I cooked the snake and ate it. How good it tasted! After eating I fell contentedly to sleep, feeling better than I had in days.

Many of Us are still very amused by the spirit and resourcefulness the human showed when the viper tried to kill it. For a human to kill a Forest creature in a non-hosting Forest is very much against the Law, and it did shock Us, but We are aware the human was hungry, and the viper would have had nothing to gain by killing the human. Our Twin Sister Forest, Kiappia, hosts the nearby school and allows those people to make occasional forays through Herself. Kiappia is overpopulated with flora and fauna the humans like to eat, but still We don't know how She bears having whole groups of humans running through Her. Some of Our seeds have flown off on the winds to tell Kiappia and the other Forests the exciting things thatare happening with Us. We are quite impressed that the human has not gotten sick from the viper meat. In fact, the human gobbled the viper meat up as though it hadn't had a decent meal in a long time. We can't help feeling pleased with the human's happiness in the meal of Ourself. Why, We felt the human's pleasure in the meal without having to make any kind of effort in aligning with its consciousness. This is amazing! Maybe We will be able to adopt the human. Many of Our Fellow Forests host human settlements, but no-One has ever adopted one! Maybe We, Zollocco, will be the first! That would be a thrill!

We need to know more about this human. We will make contact with its physical self again to see if its health is really improving. Also, We shall ask Zollocco to search its dreams for information about where it came from. As exciting as these events have been, it is still stressful to Us to have an alien thing among Us. We may allow this human to visit Us, but live with Us? No. Adopting is out of the question.

Upon awakening the next morning, I promptly ventured into the woods. Along with my axe and ammonia, I carried some snake meat for a meal. I made my way again to the stream, this time in hope of following the stream to its source. I made my way slowly alongside the flowing water, and was delighted to find that the stream originated in a pond not far away. The pond had beautiful, gold lilies growing in it, but lilies and pond alike were being choked by what looked like kelp. There were green birds sailing through the water eating the kelp. From a tree overhanging the pond swung an octopus! Two of the octopus's limbs clung to the branches of the tree, the rest stuffed kelp and gold lilies between its bulbous lips. The movement of the long arms was dainty and rhythmical as the muscular, suction-cup-lined limbs darted, one by one, in and out of the water. Droplets of water from the kelp and lilies dribbled from the octopus' limbs, and the droplets caught the sunlight and glistened. The sight had a beauty to it that was marred by the disgusting slurping sounds the animal made as it fed. As I watched, half terrified, half laughing, I suddenly remembered a dream I had had the night before. I had dreamed of my hands scooping kelp out of the water. At this point, the octopus caught sight of me and fled. I was relieved; I didn't want to wade in the water with an octopus hanging overhead. I took off my boots, rolled up my pants, and waded. The water felt briskly cold around my ankles. The lilies floated away from me, leaving an expanse of water. Inviting as it looked, it was too cold for a swim. I did splash some of the frigid water on my face. I waded over to a patch of kelp, scooped up a few strands, and on impulse ate it. It was quite tasty.

So far, this human is easily governable when We consult with its bodily needs. It seems to have a great need for the iron and B vitamins in Our kelp, so We are sure it will eat more of Our kelp every new day. This is a relief, for otherwise the pond would soon fall into disease from kelp over-crowding and infect Us all. The human needs to relieve itself. Some ivy wants to place its leaves handy for the human to wipe itself with. Even the water elm thinks this would be a good joke. Humans always seem so embarrassed when they have to scratch their behinds. The human seems to know about the effects the ivy would have on it, because it is carefully avoiding the ivy.

I have discovered something absolutely terrifying. The vegetation moves; it walks. I don't know if I dare go into the woods again, yet if I don't I will starve to death. It sounds ludicrous, but I was chased by a bush. I was stalking a water bird when I saw what looked like a perfectly ordinary forsythia bush move toward me. Astonished, I froze. To my horror, the yellow flowered plant continued towards me gaining speed. Frightened out of my wits I dashed (I didn't know in what direction I headed) as my fright willed. I ended up in the dell where the module was, and I dove into the structure, sealing the doors behind me. After I calmed a bit, I turned on the viewer to see if the forsythia waited for me outside of the module. It wasn't there.

Forsythias never did get along with humans, especially not since humans learned to make wine out of forsythia. We expect the human will come out again when it gets hungry. We find it interesting that the human has retained its instinct to cower in a cave, albeit a can instead of a cave. If We are going to try and domesticate this human, We'd best get it integrated with Ourselves immediately. There is still a smell of illness to it that makes Us sick. We wonder if We could get the thing to a true Forest state of health, instead of that awful can pallor. We have a few things We would like to try to get it to do. The mirnie feels overburdened with its berries, a horned rabbit has completed what it wants to do with this life, and of course the lily pond needs relief. We must get the human to eat these things or it won't survive. Now that the human is interesting Us, We don't want it to die. While We wait for the human to come out of hiding, Zollocco will listen to its dreams and tell Us how it got here.

"Well, so far I don't get very much, but what I do get is very, let's see, exotic, yeah, that's the word, exotic. The human used to sleep in a second story room made out of wood! Isn't that amazing? It didn't sleep in a metal can. I wonder which world has evolved so far. Oh, and on the green wall of the room there were printed rows and rows and rows of pictures of a bird of prey. In one claw the bird-it is always the same picture of the same bird repeated over and over--the bird has taken away some dumb human's arrows."

"Good for that bird!" Our winged selves break in. "And in the other claw, the bird clutches a sheaf of vegetation. Every night the human looks around at those walls and says to itself, ‘I will not be part of a world that destroys itself.'
“How exciting! I wonder if We will be able to see the planet when it blows up."
"Zollocco?" ask Our soil worms, "Why do you think the planet will blow up?"
"I don't know. That's just the sense I get from the human's dream."
"It is good the human made its room green, the color of healthy, growing vegetation," puts in a fern.
"And reminds itself of Forest life with the pictures of the bird," adds the water elm.
Our great and ponderous oak speaks too. "I see the glimmering of a noteworthy pattern here. The human ghost told Zollocco it found the stream by needing it."
"That's true," affirms Zollocco, "I asked it how it found the stream and it said, `I needed it; then I was here' or something like that."
"Now the human's dream depicts it stating another need," continues Our oak, "the need to flee a destructive environment."
All of Ourself had felt this, but only the massive oak was rooted strongly enough to state it. Every entity that owns water ducts feels sad and oozes water. This biological display of sorrow that humans use We have adopted because We find it beautiful and cleansing. Our Great Self, Ipernia, who is All the beloved Forests Together, once sensed a whole world of humans oozing water. When Our Great Self Ipernia asked those long ago humans what they were doing, the humans said they wept in grief because their planet was about to die. Our Great Self Ipernia, moved by pity, invited the humans here. Only some of the humans were able to escape the dying planet in time. We, Zollocco, remember how We, Ipernia, felt at that long ago time. Our weeping has reminded Us. If the human continues to respond to Us, We will adopt it.
"Why do the planets of humans destroy themselves?" a bewildered marigold asks.
"Maybe they don't deserve to live!" return the gnats and the forsythia.
And Our trees, all of Our respected trees, recite the divine law: "When any entity still wishes for its life, that life must be aided in continuing, even if extraordinary efforts from other entities are needed to nurture that life; any entity that wishes to pass through death must be allowed to pass through death."
We all know that the human species still wishes to continue, so no more do Our different factions argue.
"To continue my point," resumes the oak, "it seems that the human is able to act like We do; it acts according to its need."
"But humans never know what they need. That's why they are such a confused and out-of-balance lot," trills a snake. "If this human is aware of its needs, which its stubbornness in finding water suggests, then it comes close to being a healthy creature, and We should take care to listen to its needs," says the water elm.
"The way you talk, water elm, can't you talk regular?" complains a scaly badger.
This hurts the water elm's feelings and Our elm weeps. We all groan. We are all feeling the stress that comes with too much excitement.