Plants, Yannie
The train was covered in moss. The potted plants rattled and clinked together as the countryside rushed by. I paid them not much mind. My head was elsewhere. Some were suspended from the ceiling, swinging safely and serenely. Those reminded me of my charms. They gently swung in rhythm. Other plants filled the seats. There were no two duplicates. I was the only humanoid between them. The entire botanica stayed to their own, overlapping like a family giving welcoming hugs. They were all healthy, not a mottled or yellowed leaf in any of them. Flowers blossomed in the grassy carpet of the floor. The bright, late-summer sunlight shone through the open windows, bathing the plants in tender warmth. I wondered if the plants would ever disembark. Their smell was fresh and close, and welcomed by my lungs. No better blessing than air, new and given. The evergreen leaves matched the wooden walls of the carriage.
The journey passed quickly. I sat in a peaceful, breathable silence. The far, green countryside could be seen endlessly. The range of mountains loomed ahead. They cast a cloud, deep and grey, over the whole landscape. The train continued in plain trajectory. Rusted rivets stared straight ahead. None met my eyeline. I was alone.
I rested my tired head on the staff, and let the plants sigh their frustration. I listened briefly, a small blessing that Rytt had taught me. They seemed to be unhappy. Maybe there were enough commuters on this train. The last thing they would want is one unlike them. In their brick pots and white cups they maintained a face of patience with me. They all watched my own dozing face, the unfamiliarity of somebody so old. Maybe they saw me and worried that they’d look this tired in later life. The blessing passed. I paid them no more mind.
Hours past. Uncountable hours. A few small, small cabins serving as farm houses stood in the deep green fields. Crops untended, overgrown. Tall corn and wilting sunflowers. The sun soon hid behind the deep clouds of day. There were the clouds, and the mountains, matching their ominous aura. They were waiting. I dozed.
I let the train wake me up. Stillness has resumed. The plants had stopped swinging. I disembarked through the same thin door I entered. The wooden train had done well to bring me so far so quickly, though, in my slumber, I had no idea how long it had been. Looking at the carriage filled with plants, its only bipedal passenger, its sturdiness and dependability impressed me. The conductor, ever gaunt and secretive, leaned out through his cabin door. He was wordless. Though, as the wooden train began to chug along, he waved again. The plants watched while I stood on the train-stop, leaning on my staff. I made eye-contact with as many as I could. They left, and I no longer expected to see them again. I wondered if they would miss me. Likely not, I kissed my teeth.
The stop was untouched by human hands. Who had abandoned it, so long ago? Leaves, ivy and brambles had invited themselves over the structure. Mountainous and thick. I walked through a small gateway, making way through sheets of ivy, going through the passageway. The village, quaint and isolated, opened up before me. Small, stone based cottages, dotted together. The station stood as the only entrance. Small farms hosted cold crops. A path made of cobble branched the houses together. From where I stood, they looked to be a tree of houses, connected and intertwined, understanding each other in isolated ways. Few stood alone, and those that did, seemed to do so in self-determination. I was in a place that seemed unseen, untouched and unknown by those who never made it past the greenery of the decrypt train station. When had the train came here last? A small well stood as the town’s heart, like a knot in a tree.
A man rested his back against the stone well. He dressed in mountain warms. I approached. My legs ached from sitting down for so long. I made my stiff way across, down a small dip, to the well. The mountainous greenery was in the air, the full fresh isolation of the daunting mountains gave my heart a patient ambition.
‘You, injured or hurt?’ I asked. Determined, I was as sharp as ever. Strangers still hold unknown knives. He was a young lad, maybe of adulthood, or late adolescence. He looked up at me, as though I was invisible to him, as though he hadn’t heard my creaking bones approach him as I came. His skin was white, and, as his eyes met mine, he shuttered them away. His clothes were well equipped for the mountains, though his rosy cheeks suggested a repressed childishness.
‘You don’t speak to elders?’ I asked, trying to pry some of the edge out of my voice. That said, calling myself an elder brought me another day closer to death.
He looked at me briefly. His eyes were dusked with the rise of disgust. He began to rise. Taking his slumped back from the well, his height fell just under mine. I was unphased, at first. His eyes were speaking something, while his lips did not move. I knew something would come of him. A dark aura, like an overcast day, stood around the boy. His eyes locked on mine. I continued to look down.
A voice called. ‘Gjjel! Gjjel!’
My eyes moved beyond the boy. No need to fight came within me, nor it was washed away. Behind the boy, a fair distance away, a tall woman, short hair dark and shaved. Her skin was brown and the warmth of familiarity had been unfamiliar for far too long. An axe in her hand, a barrow of wood behind her.
‘Get back, get back, boy!’ She shouted. The boy, alert, retreated, a dog caught by the crack of thunder. His eyes went wide, turning, and fled. He ran up the town, stumbling and left up towards the mountain. He passed through an archway, leading into the mountains.
Immediately, she saw me. Her age was old, her gaze warm, though stern and studying. On staff, I made my way over. The lady looked at me approach feebly. My charms clanked on my neck as I wobbled towards her.
‘Who be a boy like that? Gjjel, you said?’
‘Aye, aye’ Her voice was confident, compared to a latent shakiness within my own. The quake had continued, but this was a quell of the tongue. A quarrel between trust and knowing. The grip on her axe loosened. ‘He and his brother are a terror, afraid to be known as a boy, nor a man. He goes to the mountains with his family,’ She spoke quickly. Her eyes set on me.
‘A wizard?’ She asked.
‘No, no - just a visitor’
‘So, a modest wizard. Never heard of such a thing,’
‘No such a thing will grace the ground,’
I smiled at her. She smiled back, a quiet knowing on her lips.
Comments
Post a Comment