The Gardener (Part Three and the friggin end)

So, I'm lazy. I've got an apartment now, and in a few weeks I'll be actually living in it. Hopefully that'll introduce a modicum of stability to my life, and hopefully that will massage my writing habits, which will therefore hopefully mean that I update this blog often enough to, you know, justify its existence.

Hopefully.

But anyway, I'm getting sick of my Gardener story, so let's make this be the end of it! This is gonna be the quick and messy mostly-summary version of storytelling, so you'll have to use your imagination a lot to fill in the gaps because, again, I'm a lazy, lazy man. Maybe, though, I'll make a quick-and-dirty novella out of it for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)...


So, if you don't know what happened in the last two installments, go read them. They should be right below and appropriately labeled. However, in summary, a dude finds a seed, plants it and it's a tree and everybody's all OoooOOoo about it.

Good summary.

So they live in this nightmarish wasteland, but all of a sudden, their world is shaken with the introduction of simply the color green. We last left the story with all the townspeople standing in awe of it, swaying gently in the breeze.

So what should happen next?

These people aren't responsible. They aren't good. If you give them something, they'll find a way to harm one another with it, or they'll find a way to sell it. But this tree is something else to them. Not one man or woman who sees it can bear to doubt its importance, no one can look away or harm it.

This generation of people cherish it because to them it was such a rare and foreign thing. They move their city to be within view of the tree, and soon the city prospers under the shade of the tree. They appoint one man, our gardener, to watch over it, and see to its safety. He sleeps under the tree at night, and stands by it, tending it in daylight. When he wakes up one morning to find that it can spread and grow more green, it becomes his responsibility to prosper that growth for all society.

The Gardener starts a family under the tree's shade, and when he passes, he is buried under it. His children inherit his responsibility of protecting the growth of the greenness and the trees. Under the care of the Gardeners, the greenness spreads as grass, bushes, and trees of all kinds. It spreads across the landscape, encompassing the world as a whole.

And society spreads and grows with it, under its shade. Life, so hard, so dry, so pleasureless, becomes easy, becomes a joy. Generations pass and people spread across the landscape, eating fruit and grains. The Gardeners tell stories of past generations, of the first Gardener for there ever to be and of the ages that followed.

Generations pass and people grow.

Generations pass and people forget in unbelief the story of the Gardener. They doubt the wasteland that once was, the world of trials and turmoil, of burnt and burning trees, and the place in which it never rained. Even the Gardeners, with time, forget. They took their name, their inherited legacy, and used it to build cities to rule, to shape the skyline as they saw fit.

The world was theirs, and all in it.

But when one Gardener disagreed with another, there was war. They fought over the green earth, scorching, tearing, and shedding red. The red spreads faster than green ever could, as the landscape is drowned out in violence and turmoil of the forgetting peoples. There comes a generation of people, Gardeners and others, who know nothing but violence, strive, hatred and redness. In that generation, greenness is forgotten entirely. There are few of this last generation, and they do not last long.

[Is war too obvious here? I mean, it's the first thing I thought of, so other people probably thought of it to. And it's been done to death. But then again, this story is kinda supposed to go the way you expect; it's about situational irony in which we know the fallacies of the characters, but they themselves are unaware... oh well, back to the story!]

However, one pair of footsteps wanders through the apocalyptic remains. They scramble over rubble, trudge through blackened oil pits, and meander down broken streets, cluttered with war machines. The steps belong to the last man, a Traveler whose home he holds on his back.

The lonely Traveler carries a brown sack, torn, and it's filled with scraps of food. In the Traveler's hands, though, there's always a book. It's singed at the corners and worn and faded along its edges. But at the first glimpse of each day's light, he awakens to read with the hope that a new day brings with it. And as the days near their ends, he reads, to face the coming darkness with the hope that it is once more temporary.

On these pages is a simple image in green: a tree and a man.

The Traveler wanders, and reads, and wanders and reads and wanders and reads until he is old, tired, and at last his body is in its final moments. He crawls into his home for that night, a cave beneath a building, and, as he has done for his years of wandering, the Traveler opens the book and reads himself to sleep in what remains of the daylight, prepared to die, as the last man on earth.

And although this man will die, it will not be on that night. He awakens that morning, with a little shade above his head, green, and growing.

The End.

*************

So what'd ya think? I went for a weird kinda storytelling flavor with this one, and it was at least fun to write. So there's that. Oh well, share, follow, and become a minion of greenness!

The Gardener (part two)

A lot's happened in my life since my last post -- I got a job, I moved, I started that job... okay, three things have happened if I really push it. So that's why The Gardener is so far a massive cliffhanger. But hey, let's try writing a continuation!

So, in summary: a dead world, dry, hot in daylight and cold at night, with little or no life except the depraved people living in it. A man finds a seed, cherishes and buries it. It rains for the first time in his life, he freaks out and finds the seed to have grown. Good summary? Good. 

So what happens next?

The Gardener has never seen a tree wasn't burnt, wasn't hacked to rough chunks. He sits there, in the rain and the thunder, watching the tree sway, fearlessly. He can't believe it exists. He sits, and waits out the storm underneath the tree. Slowly, the thunder fades, the rain slows, and a dawn comes, softly. When the sun rises, the man sits in the tree's shade, still in disbelief. 

So, he has to share it, this vision, with someone to prove that it's real, this fantastic new thing, this GREEN. So we have to introduce a new character. But who? Is this guy married? No, this is a place without happiness, hope, or lifelong relationships (insert marriage joke here). What about a friend? Nope, same reason.

So who does this guy have to talk to? What's sad? What's depressing?

He reaches up, plucks one spot of GREEN, one leaf, and he takes it to the marketplace. He wasn't planning on selling it, don't worry! He had no idea how he would describe something so soft, so strong, so aggressive and loving as the color GREEN. So he had to bring it with.

As with the seed and the tree itself, the man protects and cherishes his leaf. He holds it gingerly in his hands until he finally arrives, muddy, dirty, and soggy at the marketplace. Everybody's selling brown, burnt and broken junk. That's all they've got because, remember, this place sucks. Seriously, the Gardener walks right up to his regular salesman -- as close as he gets to a friend -- and the guy tries to sell him a bucket with a hole in it. The hole is on the side -- it kinda works.

The Gardener shakes him off, and while the guy goes on to try and bark down people to buy the bucket from him, the Gardener tries telling him about the stone -- the seed -- and the storm and the tree! The salesman nods and pretends to listen, all while hawking broken plates like they're the best thing known to mankind.

The Gardener, frustrated, holds up the leaf of GREEN in his hand. The world stops. The salesman reaches out, briefly touches the leaf. "Everything," he says. "I'll give you everything I have for that." People swarm, and bid, but the gardener leads them away. He brings them to the tree, swaying gently in the sunlight and taller than it was before. Much taller, it towers over the crowd.

In that moment, each person stands and sees that the world does not have to be like it is for them, brown, burnt and broken.

So how do they respond?

That'll be next time.

For tonight, follow me -- don't bother clicking ads; I wanna build an army and take over the world!

Writing Metaphors (as in, metaphors of writing [or rather, one metaphor for writing])

The most intimidating thing in the world is a blank page. Seriously, just open up a word document and take a gander. You'll see absolutely nothing (except the empty white). This on its own certainly isn't all that frightening a sight, but when you have to fill it... ahhhh, yes, therein lies the terror. It is the darkness (an ironic darkness because the page is so bright) that looks back at you. Or doesn't; this darkness fills with whatever you want it to contain, but it also can remain completely void (void isn't right, though; it suggests an absence while this scenario the page is utterly blank: neither having substance nor lacking substance).


A blank page is like looking into a mirror and not seeing anything. Or worse, it's like looking into a mirror, moving and shouting, but your reflection merely stands still, looking back at you. God, that's a creepy image! Was the reflection smirking at you, too? And looking right behind you? Oh, man! And then, the reflection just walks the F away! Leaving you standing there, in the bathroom, alone! Which then leaves you to wonder if there was anything in the mirror in the first place, and if so, what was it? That, ladies and gentlemen, is a blank page.


So now that we know what that is, what would that make writing? Easy: solitary confinement with that messed-up mirror.


You're trapped in a room with absolutely nothing in it except for you and the mirror. The only thing you can do is look at that mirror, and try to control whatever it is inside of it. You have to keep it from walking away, but you can't let it petrify either. So, you dance. You dance with your own damn reflection. It's okay; you're alone, so it's not that weird.


But while you're dancing with your image, there, alone in solitary confinement, you also keep track of your steps. You record them, you make them better (more engaging for the mirror's image), and you make them easier for you to take, as well. So you dance for your time in solitary, you lose track of how long you've been in there, but one day, the dance is complete. Complete from beginning to end, and you love taking every step of it, and to you it is this absolutely beautiful and wonderful thing. The only thing that it needs, at this point, is for another real human being to experience it. See, you can dance on your own all you want, but it's boring, and it doesn't make much sense, and when you create or even just find something that's truly wonderful, you have to share it to experience it in its fullness.


So one day, when the guard shovels your food into the slot, you ask him if he would like to see your dance. He says “Sure” but then immediately walks away. Next day, same guard, same question, and you ask why he didn't watch yesterday. He says he thought it was more of a general question, like, “Do you enjoy cake.” I mean, who would say no to that? But really, “sure” means “no.” So next day, different guard, you ask her to see your dance, and he says sure, and this time he peeks in through the slot. So you dance! Perfectly according to your steps, you dance, and she is fascinated by it! When you're tired, sweaty, and spent at the end, you ask him what he thinks. “It was good,” is all he says. So you ask him about specific parts of the dance, parts you loved and parts that were extra difficult, and parts that still felt awkward. “It was all good,” is all he says. And then he leaves. You've spent six months in solitary confinement with a mirror and your own footsteps and the absolute pinnacle of your accolades and success was “It was good.”


So you copy your steps, remember them, and get the mirror out again to start a new dance that will maybe make others see and feel the magic of dance (by which I mean writing)!


In general, I don't like writing about writing. It seems too convoluted and shortsighted a process. But, I do LOVE riding metaphors to the grave! Click on the ads like a simile nosing baited cheese!