I.I
I closed my eyes. Willingly, I let the sight
before me fade. With a reddish tone, only the light moved through my shut
eyelids. So I convinced myself that since red is a warm color, the light
surrounding me must likewise be warm. I focused on that red light, allowing all
my senses to grow from it. My mind expanded and fed to me a new image. The blur
that I saw of black nothing, glowing in redness, shifted to a blue desert sky
embracing a land of rough, unkempt hills. This was the land where I had lived
before; this was where I wanted still to be. But now I was far away. This land
that I held in my head was the land I had deserted, all for intangible plans
that I would never succeed in fulfilling, plans that had made themselves look
so simple. This was the land before failure.
In this place, this innocent place, growing on
my eyelids, the world was alive. Grasses blew in a dry breeze; saguaros reached
upward from the ground; prickly pears kept fruits and flowers among their
needles. Shades of color melted from pale white and yellow to green, brown,
bright orange, and deep red. The sky was no limit to the edges of the earth
because beyond the horizon of each hill there grew yet another tableau of
warmth. On and on went the color and the plants and the life, beauty held
within eternity. Only the desolate could not see the life here. Everywhere,
there was growth and endurance. The very spines on a cactus were declarations
of survival, perfect points to catch the water whenever it came. Where others
ran away, those who remained persisted, and the land became rich.
I had delighted in living here before, and I
delighted in the entire vision of it now. I felt powerful here, held up by this
land that was in my very bones. The heat ran upward and I watched it make its
way across the ground; its blaze of color lit up the whole setting. It was a
lovely place. I breathed inward, wanting to taste the air. It would be tinted
with the baked aroma of the sweet desert’s vegetation caught up in the burning
sunlight. That draught, so full of wonder, was the life force once offered to
me, and the idea of drinking from it once again was irresistible.
But I had made a mistake. I had torn
apart the image, once so clear and real, now so distant. That desert was no
longer my reality: even if my mind didn’t accept this truth, my physical senses
did. Deliberately breathing in and anticipating a scent that was not there had
ripped my attention from the fantasy behind my eyelids. The image dissolved.
The lids lifted. Pain shot from my shocked head down through my arms. My
physical sight returned in the dream’s absence, but my heart retreated: it did
not want to see reality. My heart had gone away to follow my desert, or to
mourn it in solitude. It seemed that the two were bound together and so I
believed that I could not keep one without the other. If I could not go back to
the desert, then neither could I have my heart again, and my plans did not
include going anywhere. I felt lost, pinched and desolate, in my heart’s
absence. There was nothing here for me to look at, nothing for me to feel, and
nothing by which to feel. Experience dissipated, and life hollowed.
My weak fantasy, however, had taught
me something during the time that it had overtaken my sight. It had shown me
that the act of believing creates an image infused with more reality than that
produced by the eyes. The eyes do not pay attention to what the mind does not want
to see. Consequently, the absence of one’s heart, which holds the capacity for
faith, shades the eyes and bereaves them of their true sight. My vision, broken
as it had become, remained muddled, and I was not sure what I saw in this
unfamiliar land I had come to live in; it was so far from home and from all
that I had learned to esteem. Why could not all the earth look and act the
same? Why did life have to mean so many things, and why did my decisions have
to bring me here, here to the place I did not love?
I closed my eyes and watched my
heart run away until I could no longer see it. Eternity faded from my sight and
all beauty vanished. I didn’t know where I was, or when I was, or why I was. If
eternity went on forever, then this moment that I was in went nowhere. I
panicked within the silence.
I.II
The air was heavy as Abigail opened
her eyes to the night. All light from the sun was long gone, but its heat was
not. It lingered about in the form of thick air that moved differently through
the lungs; it was not like breathing in a solid substance and it did not drown
like water, but this warm air did hold more tightly to her throat and beg her
lungs to move more quickly. Such a feeling ought, perhaps, to have been
uncomfortable, but Abigail was used to summer heat; it came every year, whether
she welcomed it or tried to fight it, and complaining only made it worse. Even
on the days when the heat was suffocating, she accepted it. Tonight was one of
those days of extra warmth; the air pressed hard against everything it touched.
Completely unnecessary, then, as far as
temperature went, was the blanket Abigail clutched above her while she tried to
sleep. Sweat formed a pattern across her skin despite the thinness of the
blanket, yet nothing would induce her to remove the veil of cotton. She needed
it; she needed anything that might help soothe her right now. Even her arms
Abigail kept hidden away: the touch of the fabric released a comforting
influence on her mind that she needed tonight more than she wanted physical
comfort. Freeing her arms would only make her feel exposed and unsafe. Yet even
while clutching her blanket, shreds of worry still made their way into
Abigail’s head: she knew that the quiet stillness of the night, however
peaceful, could only be temporary. Chaos was everywhere, and danger could be
very near. That was horrifying. Abigail’s thoughts, pounding through her like
the desert atmosphere, refused silence. Sleep would not come.
Gazing above herself in an attempt to find a
distraction, Abigail found the wide sky, shining in black and white. Both
colors appeared in complete clarity; two opposites stood in perfect
juxtaposition. The stars smiled in the sun’s absence as their giant, glimmering
swirls mingled brightness with the dark atmosphere; the white glitter frosted
the black background in an effortless gesture of beauty. Everything had such
texture and depth that Abigail felt as if she could put her hand up into the
misty setting and blend the host of celestial lanterns into the dark mist.
Neither side, neither dark nor light, would protest the mixture: they seemed
entirely happy together already. Yet the force of her hand could never be
enough to move either the stars or the dark sky from their places. They were
both too adamant, they who lived so high up above in the clear sky. If only the
sky were closer to the earth.
Abigail sighed and turned from her back onto her
left shoulder, knowing that the earth could never be so peaceful as the
heavens. Now those faraway skies seemed too happy. She didn’t want to watch
such peace anymore, not when it was so different from the chaos on earth.
Seeing the contrast was too painful: if the sky could not let its quiet fall
down to the land, then why did it taunt those down below? As Abigail moved to face
the earth again, her gaze fell to a pair of hedgehogs growing together a few
feet away. The two cactus plants, on earth though they were, grew in harmony
with each other. They didn’t try to stay apart or take the focus for only one
instead of both. Given the similarity in their sizes, they had probably grown
together since their first day; maybe that was the only reason that neither one
stood out more than the other. Gazing on them for a lingering moment, Abigail
brightened as a second thought came to her mind.
“They’re made of stars.”
She could see it so clearly now.
Leaning forward, Abigail put two fingers around
one of the needles of another hedgehog that was more within her reach. This
cactus was dying, melting away from the top of its small tube body. Its
weakness made Abigail’s attempt to pull off one of the stars easier. With just
the slightest tug, the needle she had put her fingers around came apart from
the plant, bringing with it a whole collection of spikes attached to a tiny,
central, brown circle. All the spears pointing outward from this central point
came together to create a star, so clearly. And everywhere the skin of the
hedgehog was made up of the outstretched needles, the arms of dozens or maybe
even hundreds of stars pressed right against one another. How had she never
noticed this before? Abigail saw the earthen stars so clearly now that she
couldn’t imagine looking at the cactus without seeing their shapes.
Pulling at another needle, Abigail found that it
came away, complete with the rest of its star, just as easily as the first one
had. She tugged at the hedgehog’s spikes again and again, just to make sure it
was true. Everywhere she pulled, Abigail further revealed a bare tunnel where
the cactus was beginning to decompose into powder. Already the plant looked
like a seamless part of the land, less distinguishable than it had been while
alive: though it still kept its narrow barrel shape, its color and texture were
different. It looked more like dirt and wood than the rich, succulent plant it
had once been. When the spiky stars were finished fading, the cactus would
become one with the land; first it would turn into a flattened carcass of black
and white color and then into a barely discernible lump on the ground, visible
only to the keen eye.
Just as only a keen eye would reveal the dead
cactus, also only a keen eye could find the stars on the living plants. But
now, everywhere, they seemed so obvious to Abigail. She shifted her gaze to a
prickly pear. There, on the smooth green pads that were so different from the
short barrels of the hedgehogs, were the same stars. These stars stood alone,
evenly spaced out on the green surface instead of directly against one another
as they did on the hedgehog. Yet still both plants held the delicate and fierce
stars that echoed the stars up in the sky. What beauty there was here on these
strong plants, so much like the reflected light from above.
Still Abigail did not feel much encouraged. This
beauty was just another aspect of nature, existing in the plants instead of the
sky. Was there really such a difference between the two? The plants were on the
earth, yes, but plans were not people. In mankind was where she could never
find such kindness and harmony.
Never?
The question came silently to her mind as an echoing reminder. Abigail
could not say that there was no compassion at all in the human world, even if
it too often seemed that conflict was the only thing left on the earth. The
life she remained living today was proof on the contrary. Some people could
live every action with their hearts, and without receiving such compassion and
protection Abigail would not have survived. That much she could not deny,
however much the chaos lasted and the harmony dissolved into rarity. Some
people could make everything seem better just with the simplest and most
momentary actions.
I.III
I remembered them standing up
against the barrier, clinging to the metal to get a closer look despite the
long drop that fell in front of them. These children of mine were curious and
eager. I watched them closely, and as I watched them, I also let myself look
around. Beyond the two small heads I could see the ruins of Sinagua homes built
into the earth many generations ago. This place was called Montezuma Well, not
to be confused with the nearby Montezuma Castle, though visitors often went to
both on the same day. Although it had a mini museum, which the Well did not,
the Castle covered a smaller area of space; the greater length of paths at the
Well had always made it my preferred destination of the two. I liked the
opportunity to spend more time leisurely walking about. After all, the ruins
here were still remarkable to look upon and every bit as worthy of being called
a castle.
Rather than viewing the structures from below,
we looked down toward them. While we stood level with the main ground, below us
was a large bowl of water placed within the earth; the sides of the bowl were
tall and steep cliff sides. This was the well, and its depth was great. Perhaps
it did maneuver some of the attention away from the castle-like ruins simply
because of its size and its unexpected presence. The water within the well
flowed naturally from an underground spring, and the fact that it sat within
such a deep bowl made it more intriguing than any lake. It immediately
dismissed any notions that there was no water in this land where prickly pears
and mesquite trees grew instead of green grass; water was just not always where
you expected it to be. The water here liked to keep the surface of the earth in
awe of where it hid, just beyond sight until you were right above it. Either
its hidden state was a display of power or a way of helping us to appreciate
its presence.
Looking across the water’s surface to the ruins
of a miniature city, I had always tried to imagine the lives, so many lives,
that had passed by here. How different had everything looked then? What were
their days like, and how accurate was the information we had about them? I
wondered by what method, for instance, the original people had gone in and out
of their homes day after day. Standing in boxy layers, the rooms and walls of
the dwelling were dug into the cliff side opposite to where we stood, across
the empty space above the well. Even if I had a wooden ladder, tied in place from
the ground down to the dwellings, I could not picture what it would be like to
climb in. Would the ladder go down to the dirt floor, or would it end sooner,
hanging above the ground? Would I have to climb against the cliff, using it for
stability, or would the ladder run across the empty air in the alcove? All of
this was without even considering the long fall down to the water that would
result from a single misplaced foot.
It was not that I was pondering over fear at the
idea of living in the place; rather, I was in awe of the people who had made
this their home. Such strength and such care they must have had, regular people
though they had been. Delicacy and concentration, along with planning, had
helped them survive, and acceptance and appreciation had made their days full.
There must have been so much beauty in their lives from living directly against
the earth and so much that, from a modern standpoint, I could only try and
imagine. Yet I had sometimes felt like them, when I had walked up the steps to
my apartment or even the short doorstep to my first home and whenever I
wandered in outdoor places, like here.
My children had been more interested
in the well than in the ruins; I suppose they had been too young to care about
building homes when there was so much world to explore. They peered at the
water through the metal bars and pointed out ducks that swam on the green
surface. Patches of brown grew on the edges of the well, with some of it coming
into the middle; it made the place look even more lush, like something you
would find in a garden. Something complex and treasured was what this place
became in the viewer’s vision. Contrasting with the green plants that grew on
the bowl’s walls were the occasional, lighter-colored prickly pear and the dry,
white rocks, worn down to a slippery texture by many footsteps, on which we
stood. At least, the rocks were mostly white; in some sections, especially on
vertical surfaces, the stone was stained black. It was the look of age and many
years passing in this single place. So many feet and so many eyes had been here
before us.
Angling down toward the water was a staircase
made of this pale stone; here I needed to be extra careful. Although the way
was rocky and without railing, the children scattered down quickly to the small
lookout space at the bottom, level with the water. The steps were uneven and
turned so often that I used to worry that someday the children would trip and
tumble into the pool, returning to the earth by way of the spring. If it could
shoot out life, perhaps it could also take it back. Out of caution, I always
tended to see less of the views from here than from above because I was so busy
making sure that no one did fall. My eyes were busy with the two heads of brown
hair, the small limbs climbing down the rocky steps, and the young voices in a
pitch so singular to me that it was sight as much as sound. Nothing could
happen to them; I would make sure of that, however closely I had to watch them.
Steep and crooked steps and deep water aside, my children were safe with me. My
task of watching was simpler on our way back up, when their small legs were too
tired to ascend the tall steps at any more than the pace of a whisper. I was
glad for their tiredness only because it kept them closer to me.
There was also a second path that
sprung from the main one after the well fell behind, but I had almost never,
when I was with my two children, taken this other path. It was shady and cool,
flowing right beside the river, an especially welcoming place on warm days.
Yet, like the walk down to the well, the river path was at the bottom of rocky
steps. Though these were less in number than the steps to the well, they were
possibly even steeper, and that was too much for small and tired children. I
had only come here with them as very young children, usually on my days off
when my husband was busy with work. Now, so many years later, I took both side
paths: now I was alone and I did not get tired. At least, I did not tire
physically.
The land above this low path was
bright and open and almost like the peak of a hill because of how the land
beside it sloped down toward either the well or the river. After standing on
such yellow and white openness, always it seemed strange to descend into the
darkened, moist river area. You would not find a cactus growing here, as you
would up above; skinny plants with voluminous, bright green foliage took their
place. Trees shaded both the path and the river, making the space secluded and
quiet. A sign just past the steps warned passersby of poison ivy, but I always
considered this to be a sneaky way of keeping people on the path. Indeed, a
simple sign marking the trail’s end several paces away had, apparently, not
been enough to keep walkers from clambering over the long white tree that grew,
half horizontally, where the paved stones ended. A gate was eventually
constructed there that, I thought, would probably be much more successful than
the ignorable sign. People never liked to obey orders, but most were
conditioned to obey barriers: it took more trouble to get past fences, and
tangible barriers implied tangible danger.
Of the same stone as the pavement was a raised
structure that served as both wall and bench. When you reached the end of the
path, a cliff of earth was on the left, the pale tree straight in front, and
the short wall to the right. This wall overlooked the river, and it was here
that the edge of the path fell closest to the water. That was probably why
there was a protecting wall here and nowhere else. This was simply another
barrier, disguised as a bench for contemplation, yet this space remained a
tempting place to linger.
I would sit by myself here at the end to rest
and stare into the black water. The trees reflected into its surface and I felt
like I could melt right into their dark branches. Looking carefully, sometimes
you could discern small fish already there in the shadows. Your eye would lock
onto one, then lose it again, but then you would see, without trying to focus
on anything, a whole swarm of them within the wavering reflections of white
branches turned into black echoes of themselves. The water turned to air and
the shadows into plants and the whole world reversed into an unknown image of
what it wanted to be, of what it thought that it was, of what it could never
become.
I watched, and I clung to the stone bench, and I
connected my eyes to the river until my head swayed. The longer I stayed, the
more difficult it became to look up from the shadows of fish swimming through
trees; that sight became all that mattered, for the moment, at least. Always my
depressed mind fell into the water, so easily. It could slip and fall and fade
into the branches of the river and see nothing else, nor worry about anything
else but the coolness of the water, flowing back and forth through the shadows.
Heartache drifted away into a drowsy numbness that remembered nothing and also,
because it could hold onto nothing that was good, felt nothing worth feeling.
My mind could not sleep here for long before the waking of reality came upon
me. The problem was, I was not sure that I wanted to wake up.
Could
I wake up? Could I wake up to the reality of the trees in the sky and the fish
in the water, or would I forever melt them together into a reverse image of
reality? Would I sleep forever in this silent aloneness?
Copyright 2016 by Deanna Skaggs.
You can buy Black Tree now at this link.
