This is where it all began. Where [Z] lay at the edge of two worlds for 15 days. Just a small thing then. Neither dead nor alive. Liminal and without meaning. When the water washed over them, they belonged once more to the old world. When it pulled back, they found themselves anew. In the beginning, [Z] was one atom thick. So much pressure on top of them, but still they rose to the surface. They lay at the top of everything, watching the blue, feeling the wet; still, inert, but alive. When the ground beneath them warmed and dried, [Z] felt the hard granularity of the sand. Heard the movement of the earth behind it all, in the same way you might hear a seagull behind your drifting thoughts. Always [Z] stared up at the blue. After 15 days, [Z] rolled further inland. Just a little, just enough, to the
Here I learnt the story of the kingfisher. He has watched this stream rise and fall, empires of minnows with it. Here, at dawn, the deer come to drink and gossip and speak of where to find the most perfectly ripe buds. Here, the dragon and damselflies whizz and flit, landing hither and thither, dazzling all but the kingfisher with their glitter. Here, where it is always a degree or two warmer, silent people come and sit quietly with their breath, watching the play of light on water. The kingfisher remembers a time when there were thousands of his kin living along the full course of this stream. A time of bustling minnow empires, the occasional trout, and when the stream floor was covered in turquoise and emerald pebbles. This was the time before the miners came and left the stream with nothing but a golden, sandy blanket for a floor.
I found this absolute beauty when I was walking the North Downs Way near Etchinghill in Kent. It broke into my peripheral vision in the distance to the right of my path. At first, it seemed like a ghostly apparition, then as if someone had poured paint on a tree. It was only upon closer inspection that I found it to be this absolutely gorgeous, alive and undamaged, wholly natural pink and green. Without meaning any disrespect to any other tree I have seen (especially Harry, Isobel, the Dandag Sisters, Richard, and the yews), it was quite simply the most beautiful tree I have ever encountered. As I contemplated its beauty, I came to learn that this was the first time a tree had ever trusted me enough to show me its true colours. As I was to subsequently learn, trees are like flowers and come in a variety of colours;
Once upon a time, there were feathers dangling like this everywhere. They were suspended at different levels, so you’d never know where on your body you might get tickled. Some people were so sensitive to it, that they spent their lives crawling on their bellies. Those people eventually evolved into snakes and other low lying reptiles. Back then, the species that didn’t have fur used to map all their journeys to maximise feather tickling. They’d often develop elaborate dances and take the extra long way, just to pass by their favourite feather or two. Things were better for people then, because capitalism didn’t exist, and no one lived or worked in a cubicle. People just twisted and turned through forests of feathers before getting on with whatever it was that needed doing. People twirled much more back then. They would stick their arms out wide, tip their heads back, and turn.
Uncle Cecil is a Mossopher, and not just any old Mossopher: he is one of the most revered members of the Ancient Academy of Mossophers. Uncle Cecil has the esteemed pleasure of introducing himself to you, and if you look closely, you may be able to see one or two of the awards he has amassed over the years for logic, reason, and cognition. Just in case you don’t know, moss are divided into three main sub-types: the Mossophers, the Blanketers, and the Consumers. Although you’d be hard pressed to get him to admit it, the reason Uncle Cecil has achieved such lofty heights in the annals of mossophy, is because he had the great luck of being born in a pine grove in Alice Holt Forest. Of what relevance this, I hear you enquire. Well, dear reader, it is because this particular section of Alice Holt Forest is actually the