Roses are red;
Their odor is heady.
LONNOL month’s here–
Are your Valentines ready?

It’s Love of Nature Nature of Love Month on Wilderness Interface Zone, and we’re looking to publish love abroad.  Do you have a message of friendship and love you’d like to send someone? WIZ is looking for original poetry, essays, blocks of fiction, art, music (mp3s), videos or other media that address the subject of love while making references to nature.  We’ll also take the flipside: We’ll publish work about nature intertwined with themes of love.  Besides original work you’re welcome to send favorite works by others that have entered public domain.  So if you have a sonnet you’ve written to someone dear to your heart–even and perhaps especially your pet hamster Roley Poley or faithful horse Old Paint–or perhaps a video Valentine or an essay avowing your love for a natural space near and dear–please consider sending it to WIZ.  Click here for submissions guidelines.

Besides rolling out a (hopefully) heart-embroidered carpet of love-art, we’ll also be running two WIZ, nature-laced, romantic DVD giveaways, Typhoon, starring Dorothy Lamour and pre-Music Man Robert Preston, and a Pre-Hays Code movie, King of the Jungle, starring scantily clad Buster Crabbe as Kaspa the Lion Man.

We hope you’ll join the celebration.  Let’s warm up February with fond feeling.

Lala sat down on the curb and motioned for Davey to sit next to her. As he slowly sat down and settled his feet into the orange leaves filling the gutter, Lala was opening up her laptop and getting it ready for a little presentation.

“All right, now first of all, look at this tree,” Lala said, indicating a photo of a windshorn lone pine in the top window of her screen. “I call it Jake. Good name for a tree, eh? Now Jake here is something of an oddity. Not only does he have his natural form (whatever that should have been), but the effect of a thousand winds has altered his form substantially.”

Lala looked to see if Davey was paying attention. He was looking intently at the tree and so, presumably, absorbing her ever word. Encouraged, she continued.

“Now let me make this tree a little smaller. Okay, great. Now watch: I’m pulling up . . . . Okay, good! Now, what do you see?”

Davey looked at her a little askew, then back to the cascade of numbers tumbling across the screen. “Black on white,” he said.

“Right! It’s the tree! See? This is one equation which captures the essence of the tree! I wrote the program that does this myself, and it’s so incredibly amazing what it’s teaching me! Now, as soon as I get this back inside, I’m going to contrast this bewinded tree with all the other trees of its kind I’ve collected. Now that will really say something! This is sort of like your nothing out of something, see? Do you see?”

“These numbers,” said Davey, “are like footprints. The footprints of a tree.”

“Yes!” said Lala excitedly. “Exactly!”

“Well, first of all, trees, not having feet, don’t have footprints. But even if they did, what would that mean? Footprints in the dust are temporary and fleeting. And even in the rare case where a footprint turns to stone and can be read millions of years later, it is still a footprint and not a foot. A footprint can never be a foot. Just as numbers black on white will never be a tree. Writing down numbers taken from the tree is as foolish as writing down every word as it falls from the mouth of an echo.”

Lala blinked at him.

Davey gestured at the small picture of the tree on her screen. “Look! You have captured a tree!” He reached out to touch it, and as his hand hit the display he seemed surprised. He tried to touch the tree twice more with the same result. He tapped it with his fingernails.

“Tell me,” he said, “is that a tree?”

Lala narrowed her eyes. “No, not really. It’s a picture of a tree.”

“Ah! A picture of a tree! But it looks so real! So lifelike!”

Lala smiled. “Yes, yes. Well, I’ve got a really high resolution, you know.”

“Oh really? And what is your High Resolution?”

Lala started to tell him some numbers but he interrupted her. “Ah-ah! Those are numbers! Are even your goals and desires shrunken down into simple numbers?”

Lala stared.

“Do you see numbers when you climb a mountain?”

“Not exactly, but the numbers are easy to find. Like the six sides of a snowflake. Or Fibonacci numbers.”

“Yes,” said Davey. “Snow is beautiful.”

“Yes, but that’s not all it is! Like everything in nature, Beauty is just the surface; there is so much more to be seen! So much more underneath!”

“Why do we have eyes?”

“Why do we have eyes? To see, I guess. We couldn’t see without our eyes.”

“If our eyes were made for seeing, is not then Beauty its own excuse for being?”

“What? Say that again . . . .”

“Oh, tree!” exclaimed Davey, not looking at the tree exactly, but somehow through it. “I never thought to ask, I never knew to know, but in my Simple Ignorance supposed that the Nothing that caused me here, caused you there.”

“Hang on. I’m sure I—”

“I think that I shall never see a Something lovely as a tree.” Davey abruptly turned to Lala just as she was again opening her mouth. “Can you show me in numbers?”

“What? ‘You’?”

“Can you show me in numbers?”

“Well, my stuff’s all designed for trees—especially pines.”

“But can you show me in numbers?”

“Well, yeah. I guess so. But it’ll think you’re a tree.”

“And I am a tree more that numbers, am I not?” asked Davey, nodding at the laptop. “Have you ever done yourself in numbers?”

“What? Me? You want me in numbers?”

“Have you ever done yourself in numbers?”

“Um, no . . . .”

“Why not?”

“Ah, I don’t know. I guess I just haven’t.”

“Because?”

“I guess because right now I’m interested in trees.”

“How many trees do you have in numbers?”

“Oh, several thousand I suppose.”

“Indeed!”

“Oh, yes. I have a great deal of them. I think I have enough to establish normalcy. So now I’m collecting deviants for comparison”

“Such as me. I am reminded of the tale of the Grasshopper and the Chicken. They were sitting together relaxing when a Frog hopped by.

“‘Hey there, now, Frog!’ called out Grasshopper. ‘From where are you coming?’

“‘From the Lake,’ said Frog. ‘It is a stretch of water so far I cannot see the far shore, just the mountains beyond.’

“Grasshopper and Chicken looked at each other and rolled their eyes. Every time Frog hopped by he had a story as ridiculous as this.

“‘Oh really,’ said Grasshopper. ‘And what did you there?’

“‘There,’ said Frog, ‘I met a creature called Swift. It is larger than you, friend Grasshopper, but smaller than you, friend Chicken. Swift told me how each year he would fly a thousand miles and then back again.’

“After frog left, Grasshopper and Chicken took to discussing Frog’s story. They both agreed that flying a thousand miles was impossible.

“‘Why,’ said Grasshopper, ‘it is all you or I can do to fly up to the first branch of that stately elm there. To fly a thousand miles—! Impossible!’

“‘Indeed,’ agreed Chicken. ‘A thousand kernels of corn I can imagine, but a thousand miles? I don’t know that there are a thousand miles.’

“Knowledge such as yours of trees gives no true understanding of the boundaries between fact and falseness. You may know a Something, but something is no more Everything than nothing is Nothing. You accuse me of being a recluse from people by living among nature, but you are a recluse from nature by living among numbers. Your knowledge, such as it is, is as substantial as the footprint of a tree, and trees do not have feet. The task of understanding Everything is utterly beyond your powers.”

Davey Dow stood up and stretched his back. “Much as your Something is not more than it isn’t, so is this town and the all of all towns everywhere. Much as it has been pleasant being with you and your numerical trees, I must be going.”

So saying, Davey turned and headed deeper into town, the town he knew as the nothing that never was a Something, to buy seed and to never return
_______________________________________________________________

To read more of Theric’s writing on WIZ, go here, here, and here.

Davey Dow was walking down the street a bit earlier and a bit happier than was usual for a Friday afternoon (Friday, usually, being the least halcyon of his days), and anyone on the street who may have known him would have swiftly gotten out of his way with that long and peculiar sidelong glance reserved for the irredeemably weird.

But as it was, no one knew him—this was not his town, though in feel, appearance and size are they not all about the same? The thing about Davey Dow was that every town was the same to him—stiffbilly and overpopulated—even relatively smallish towns such as this.

But while every town seemed the same to Davey, every square mile of wilderness was shingilly unique. Although he had his small farm tucked away into a hidden mountain valley, he took every possible opportunity to visit the vistas far and near. And it was his desires to know the surrounding wildernesses that made his occasional weekend town-trips so unpleasant. But as has been noted, this Friday he was both in town and happy. Someone in possession of all knowledge of Davey (knowledge in terms of court-worthy facts) might suppose he was happy because he was about to buy seed—quite possibly his final seed purchase as he was verging on self-sufficiency. A good reason, but not the reason. Indeed, no real reason existed. He was happy simply because he was. And it was in this frame of mind that he met Lala.

Lala was crawling out of her SUV after another dirty week in the mountains. She walked around to the back in order to dredge out her laptop, which had spent the week converting what it saw of the natural world into page-long mathematical equations. In the neverending search for knowledge and concreteness, Lala and her laptop were something of a heroic pair. In the laptop’s prognosis of nature, Lala saw an example for humanity. “Look at the patterns and their simplicity,” she would say to a classroom of graduate students, pointing at a projection covered in characters Roman, Greek and Arabic, representing a lone pine overlooking a glacial lake, calm as glass. “If only we lived that way.” And she would sigh a long, sad sigh.

“I don’t say anything new,” she would say after a lengthy schpill in that language called the math of science. “Everything I say comes out of antiquity. I look back to our Bacchusses and Waldens, and I know that what I say is not new. Humanity—civilization—should structure itself according to nature! Nature is the key!”
As Lala stretched behind her SUV, she squeezed her eyes shut and pushed against the small of her back. She had been gone all week. As she closed up the back of her SUV, the sudden noise made Davey jump, for he was walking past just that spot as the door slammed shut.

“Oh gosh! I’m sorry!”

Davey just shook his head in an attempt to gain his bearings. As he shook his head, Lala took the moment to notice his rough and undyed dress.

“Hey, aren’t you that mountain guy from up in the Green Hills or something?”

Davey, not yet ready to speak, simply nodded.

“What sort of philosophy for life makes you seclude yourself way up there? What’s to be said for being a recluse?”

Davey had been, as she asked her question, slowly, calmly, methodically—almost sherlockingly—observing her, trying to place her.

“Being a recluse?” he repeated, giving himself a chance to hear the question. “There is much I can say about what may be learned from the simplicity of nature.”

“Oh, I know!” she gushed. “There is such wonderful order in nature! Everything has its role and its time!”

“Mmm.”

“I study nature incessantly, you know. Made it my life’s work. Thank goodness too, haha; there is so much to know! Maybe someday I’ll narrow in on my grasp on everything, you know?”

“Everything?”

“Everything the natural world has to offer. I study everything.”

“Everything! Well! Now that’s impressive!”

“Well, nature is my subject, and that includes everything.”

“So do you plan on knowing Everything?”

“Knowing everything? Well, I suppose study everything at any rate. We can leave it at that.”

“If you study everything, then Everything has yet to be studied.”

“What? That’s illogical. The more you study, the more that’s chipped off that block of infinity we call Everything. The less there is still to study. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I study Nothing, therefore there is nothing left to know. Therefore the world is open and clear—mine for the understanding.”

Lala looked at him. “What?”

“I have been, of late, visiting the Beginning before the Beginning where Nothing’s the only Something, which Something had yet to produce the Nothing that is the Something that became the Beginning which followed the Beginning before the Beginning. While I was there, I saw the Elements which were not yet elements and I watched them be penetrated by Energies that were not yet energy. By seeing things that were not what they were, I did not understand what is understood; but I did understand what no one from the Beginning before the Beginning till now has ever understood.

“This is what I mean when I say that your studies of Everything leave everything to be studied. For I saw Everything when it was the Nothing that was not yet Something and I understood.”

“I see,” said Lala slowly after a rather long pause. Letting another pause go by before she spoke again, Lala said: “Well, be that as it may, I think I have had something of an experience like that. You see, I am a scientist and a mathematician. And to me, the beauty of nature is best understood in this way. Watch!”

To read Part Two, go here.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Author’s Note: I owe a great debt to Arthur Waley’s translation of Chuang Tzu included in his book Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China. And, of course, to Chuang Tzu himself.

Theric Jepson likes both nature and laptops. Also: Chinese philosophers. He has appeared previously on Wilderness Interface Zone, viz. the essay “Communion with the Small,” the poem “Morning Walk, Spring 2009,” an excerpt from the short story “Blood-Red Fruit” (cowritten with Danny Nelson), and a reading from Nephi Anderson’s Dorian. He runs Peculiar Pages which will shortly be releasing the collections Fire in the Pasture (poetry) and Monsters and Mormons (pulp).

Editor’s Note: Photo above is of Theric himself.

She was feeling vaguely seditious so she bought the Diet Coke. Any other night she would have gone with a Sprite, but tonight, Jen bought the Diet Coke.

Rebellion, huh? This is a new phase, she thought.

She popped it open and started her car. Really the car belonged to her parents. But since she was sixteen (for a whole month now) and had a job she could take the old Toyota hatchback whenever she wanted. Some days she drove just for the sake of driving, never knowing where it would take her. Most days she ended somewhere up Logan Canyon, usually past Third Dam but before the abandoned convent.

As she pulled out of the gas station her cell phone jangled, jarring oddly against the Pop 40 coming out of the car stereo. She checked the text while pulling up to a red light. It was Nicki. “Ry’s here Y u L8? Where R U?” The light turned green and Jen tossed her cell phone into the back seat.

Jen pulled over at the Ice Shack and ordered a cherry snow cone. She sat on the hood of her car and watched the sun finish setting. The streaks of orange and pink reaching over the mountains looked restless. Jen pursed her lips.

Admirable or quaint: watching the sun set while sitting in a parking lot on the busiest street in town?

She took a bite of the snow cone and a swig of her Diet Coke. The sweetness mingled with the bitter. She shivered as she swallowed.

Only in Logan.

She knew it was dramatic, but the sunset seemed like an omen tonight, like the bright splashes of color were a message. Like the fingertips of a rock climber on an outcropping, the sun was holding on.

Me too.

This summer was just off. Different. Strange. Her childhood summers were always stream-of-consciousness sequences full of trampoline sleepovers, homegrown tomatoes, and night-games. This summer all that had stopped. Instead, the ward kids, when they weren’t working, just hung out. Sometimes they’d watch a movie or drag Main but usually they sat around outside and bugged each other. The guys were always trying to get a rise out of the girls and the girls were always trying to prove they were too good for the guys.

That explains Ryan. Dating him was the most interesting thing to do.

Tonight was the last Stake Youth Dance of the summer. In a couple weeks school would start and the days would be full of AP classes, seminary, and the other kids. The kids from the ward—Nicky, Kelly, Liz, Jen, Ryan, Ethan, and Jared—hung out every summer. On that first day of school, though, something changed. Maybe they’d say, “Hi” or give a small nod, but they never ate lunch together or sat by each other. No, school was for the others—the kids they didn’t have to see every Sunday, the kids whose mothers couldn’t tell embarrassing stories about them, the kids who didn’t know what ward they were in and didn’t care. Every fall the ward kids acted like they didn’t know each other, but every summer it was like they were never apart.

Maybe that was why when Ryan tried to kiss her she ducked.  The almost-kiss was certainly why they hadn’t spoken in two weeks—Ryan had even skipped the joint activity to avoid her. That was why she wasn’t at the dance tonight.

The last dance.

The dance was out at the old fire station. It would only take her five minutes to get there. Jen poured the dregs of her Diet Coke over her snow cone. The sun was almost gone.

Lost its grip, I guess.

Her cell phone sang out again.

Jen tossed the Coke in the trash and started driving. Maybe it was the slight buzz from the caffeine–What would it be like to be high?–but suddenly she wished she owned a tank top. Not one of those sloppy ones people wore with oversize jeans, but one of the pretty ones in the Old Navy window. The kind that came in bright pink and looked good with short shorts. She’d tried one on the other day and she’d liked it. It made her shoulders look strong and her boobs didn’t pop out like her mother said they would.

They looked just how they were supposed to, maybe even a little better.

She’d also slipped on a pair of shorts—just to see. They hit well above the knee but just below the bulge of her upper thigh and she’d liked the shape it gave to her legs. She’d tried them on just to see and any other night she wouldn’t have even considered it, but tonight it seemed to be the best way—the only way—to be.

The summer night pressed through the windshield as she left the store.  The moon was a bright, white mirror up in the sky making it seem bigger than it was.  Jen rolled down the car windows, wanting to feel the rush of air around her as she drove. For a moment she closed her eyes so she could really feel it but opened them quickly.

It’s all fun and games . . .

The parking lot was dark when she reached the fire station and she could hear the thump, thump, thump of the Village People’s “YMCA”. Jen changed in the car, expertly shimmying out her jeans and t-shirt. She slipped her flip-flops back on, fluffed her hair and did one last check for tags before she climbed out.

Ryan.

She squared her shoulders as he walked toward her.

It was awkward, the way he stared at her legs.

“They’ll never let you in like that.”

“Yeah. Probably not.”

He took a step closer. This time his eyes lingered on her shoulders.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.

“Nicky called.”

“She’s still inside. Trying to get Jared to dance with her, but he won’t. You know how Jared is. Goes to every dance but refuses to actually dance.” Ryan seemed relieved to have something to talk about. Jen wasn’t.

Strains of Celine Dion drifted across the parking lot.

“What are you doing out here?” Jen tried to look him in the eyes, but Ryan had leaned against the car and was looking up at the sky, the moonlight washing across his face.

“Looking for someone.”

Jen ran her foot up and down the back of her bare calf and concentrated on letting her shoulders feel the night air. Coolness pricked her skin. She opened her mouth, just a bit, tasting the air, closing her eyes.

Ryan reached out his hand and touched her upper arm. His touch was soft, more of a brush than a touch. He slid his fingers down the back of her arm. He intertwined his fingers in hers, pulled her close, his body hot against her skin, closing out the night air. She liked the warmth. For a moment, she leaned closer.

Is this what I want?

All she could see was his shoulder. And the moon reaching across the sky.

Jen let go.

“Ryan, who were you looking for?”

He took both of her hands, fidgeting with them. “I don’t know. Someone. Anyone.” He finally met her eyes, “You, I guess.”

Me too.

She shook her head and, blinking, got in her car.

“Where are you going?”

Was that desperation in his voice?

“Somewhere. Anywhere.”

This was absurd. She wished she had another Diet Coke. Just so she could see him see her holding it.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jen started her car, agitated now. “I don’t know.”

“Are you coming to Church tomorrow?”

Of course.

“It’s just a tank top, Ryan.”

Except it’s not.

Jen inhaled the summer night and aimed her car at the canyon. “I think. . .”

Really?

Yeah.

“I’m gonna go howl at the moon.”

__________________________________________________________________________

Laura Hilton Craner is a mommy and sometimes-writer. She lives and writes in Colorado with her husband and four children.  She blogs at www.butnotunhappy.blogspot.com and is a contributor at the Mormon Arts and Culture website, A Motley Vision (www.motleyvision.org).  When she isn’t reading, writing, or cleaning up after someone, Laura spends her time hiking, canning, scrapbooking, and dabbling in the expressive arts. It is only on rare occasions that she howls at the moon.

A man could almost fall in love
With this sun-dyed black-gold place
Could go for arid mile on mile
And never see God’s face
And thus avoid disgrace.

A man could drift and wander
Change his shape like blood-red dunes
Pour his freedom out like water
And his faith like feckless spume.
After all, there’s ample room.

_____________________________________________________________

For Jonathon’s bio and links to other poems he’s published on WIZ, go here.

For the second year, we’re making February “Love of Nature, Nature of Love” month on Wilderness Interface Zone.  To celebrate Valentine’s Day, all month long we’ll publish poetry, essays, blocks of fiction, art, music (mp3s), video or other media that address the subject of love while making references to nature.  Or it could go the other way around: We’ll publish work about nature that also happens to give a nod to love.  That presents a wide field of possibilities.  We’re seeking submissions of original work or you can also send favorite works by others that have entered public domain.  So if you have a sonnet you’ve written to someone dear to your heart–even and perhaps especially your dog–please consider sending it to WIZ.  See the submissions page in the navigation bar above.

Also, February 24th is WIZ’s birthday.  We’ll be two years old—a toddler now.  To celebrate, a couple of posts will offer presents to our readers.  Because without you, dear readers, where would we be?

There’s more than a slight hint of thaw in earth and air.  The light is growing longer.  The first waves  of the Canadian geese migration are rolling through the southern Utah county where I live.  Hen-and-chicks and stork’s bill are beginning to preen.  The coyotes are pairing off.  February is a good month to warm things up.  Got love?  Celebrate it here on WIZ.

Boy: I can’t see anything!

The mayor: We must do something!

All: But what?

Town folks: Ask the king!

Mayor: Not the king!

Boy: That is a good idea.

Mayor: The king does not rule the skies.

Narrator: So, everybody thought…

Boy: We could ask the wind to blow the dark cloud away.

Town folks: Good idea!

Boy: Wind!

Wind: What.

Boy: Could you blow the cloud away?

Wind: If the king lets me blow down whatever I want.

Mayor: I’ll go ask the king.

Narrator: The mayor reluctantly goes to the king’s palace. He tells the king what the wind wants. The king agrees to the plan. So the wind blew the cloud away. But from that day on the wind blew things down.

End.

____________________________________________________________________________

Virginia is 10 yrs old and she wrote this for school. She likes reading. Her favorite thing to read is a series of books called Warriors, by Erin Hunter. She likes catching fireflies, too.

The first three days on the way to Tarshish were beautiful. The sun played in a sky ornamented with the most delicate of cirrus clouds, and the water was a fortune in blues, purples, and greens, shot with gold where the light tumbled into it. Zabah lounged on the starboard deck, in a chair which he had specially constructed to recline and fold back up, sipped olive wine, and composed chiastic poetry to his favorite harlot back in Midian. The Amalekite who had come in third sat in his cabin sulking because he had lost to a crazy Israelite. Jonah paced the deck, distracted, usually in the way of the ship’s crew. Fortunately Zabah, with the very best of intentions, had inquired about a bit as to whether the Israelite camel champion might not be a bit insane, and so word was had around the ship that he was crazy.

When Jonah had said to get off, it appeared that the voice had taken him at his word, and stayed behind in Joppa. “I’m sorry,” he growled into the silence. “Look, as soon as I get to Tarshish, I swear, I won’t even race, I’ll turn right back around, I’ll swim to Nineveh if I have to.” His head stayed quiet.

“I don’t know,” Zabah told the sailors. “I’ve heard some strange things about the interior of Judaea. But still, he’s a phenomenal camel racer.”

“I know, I didn’t even win that race, you won that race, I’m sorry!”

“You’re no better than Abiezer,” a voice in his head told him, but it was only his own mind. He didn’t know how he knew the difference. His own thoughts were oranger, somehow. The other thoughts came in darker, and blue.          

“There may be something in the water there,” Zabah had said. “But he’s a good-looking kid.”

“Damn nutty Israelites,” the Amalekite said.

“I’ll go to Nineveh right now, just give me a way!” Jonah shouted to the ceiling of his cabin on the night of the third day, and promptly fell asleep.

The storm came up from nowhere. Zabah was nearly thrown off his chair by the wind and the Amalekite spilled ink on the angry epistle he was writing to the camel-racing commission. The ship rose high on a sudden swell of water. The rain came slamming down on deck like wheat dumped from a sack. Sailors swarmed and bounded from all corners to tie down the sails and bail water off the side. Zabah, in a hurried retreat below deck, chair in hand, heard them crying every man to his god, and went to find Jonah.

“Hey Jonah,” he said. “Sleepy boy. Jonah!”

Jonah woke with a start. “What? I won’t go to Tarshish!”

Zabah took his shoulder and shook him a little. “Is it your god you’re always talking to?”

“What?”

“You talk all the time, to no one. Are you talking to your god?”

Jonah shook his head. “God doesn’t talk back,” he said sadly. “I didn’t go to Nineveh.”

Zabah took a step back. “Your god is angry with you?”

“My God has left me,” Jonah said. “Or I left him.”

“Well, I think he’s back,” Zabah said.

Jonah took in the violent tossing of the room for the first time. “There’s a storm?”

“You might say that.”

A sailor burst into the room. “You!” He launched an accusing finger at Jonah. “Who are you?”

“Jonah son of Amittai,” Jonah said. “I am a camel racer.” He shook his head. “No, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Hebrew God, who made the earth and the sea.”

“You’re fleeing the god that made the earth and sea,” Zabah pointed out.

“You’re fleeing your God? You’re bringing us to destruction!” the sailor shouted. “We cast lots, and it fell on you! Come on deck, both of you.” He wrapped a burly hand around Jonah’s wrist, lest he try to resist.

“How could the lot fall on me if I wasn’t there to draw one?”

The sailor shrugged. “That Amalekite camel racer stood in for you.”

“Convenient,” Jonah muttered.

“My will may be done even through an unreliable man of Amalek,” the voice said.

________________________________________________________________
Arwen Taylor’s “The Faith of the Ocean” appears in its entirely as part of Plain and Precious Parts of the Fob Bible (http://b10mediaworx.com/peculiarpages/fobbible/pppfobbible.htm#faith) or as part of  the complete Fob Bible (http://b10mediaworx.com/b10mwx/peculiar-pages/the-fob-bible/).

It was Satan who spoke first, after his grimaces and rubbing had finished. “You are very beautiful,” he said.

The snake stirred, blinking. “How can you know what beauty is?” she asked. Her voice was low, and modulated. “Only the gods know that.”

Satan shrugged. “I don’t know how I know, snake. I only know that I know—and you are very beautiful.”

“Are you a god, then?” Her voice was cool and musical, like a brook, and she regarded Satan with cool eyes.

He laughed, leaning back into his wings and grabbing his knees. “Do I look like a god to you?”

“You look like half a bat,” said the snake as she eased down from the tree. “The other half might be monkey, might be man. You have more hair than the other two-legs in this part of the tree-place.”

“Not a god though. That’s a relief,” said Satan. He leaned forward slightly and studied her as she moved from under the shadows of the trees. “You are beautiful—look at you in the sunlight. You’re like a living bruise.”

“What part of creation is a bruise?” asked the snake.

“A very beautiful part.” Satan’s mouth twitched into a smile.

“Only the gods know beauty,” repeated the snake. “When this tree-place was created, the gods called it Beauty, but no creature may know what that means. Beauty is a mystery of the gods.”

“It’s a mystery, I will grant you that,” said Satan. “To be honest, I’m trying to figure it out myself. It’s one of the reasons I dropped down here—I thought it might give me some ideas.”

The snake regarded Satan with deep interest. “Do you know beauty? Can you see it?”

Satan’s smile was long and white. “Everywhere, no-legs. This is a beautiful garden.”

“I see you are playing a game with words, then, because this tree-place is Beauty—and therefore beautiful.” The snake twisted herself back upon her mighty loops to rise to Satan’s seated height. “And I am part of Beauty, and therefore beautiful—this is what you mean?”

Satan laughed. “I did not expect you to coil me in my own words. But here, I’ve given you a compliment and I expect it repaid—do you think I’m beautiful?”

The snake shook her head. “I don’t know beauty. It is a mystery of the gods. I do know you are made well—as the gods made you—and therefore you must be beautiful.”

“A true compliment. Yet I can’t imagine that anything—least of all myself could be more beautiful than you are,” said Satan.

The snake blinked. “This is a new thing you have said.” She thought for a moment. “How can something be more beautiful than something else? Both things are made by the gods.”

Satan shrugged. “Personal preference, I suppose. I’m sure the gods think everything is as beautiful as everything else. I just find you more beautiful than—say, that rock over there.” Satan pointed to a rock jutting from the muddy earth, crumbling and charred-looking as a burned stick. “It looks as if it tumbled from Heaven, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t feel more beautiful than the rock,” said the snake.

“That is because you are a woman,” said Satan, “and—innocent or not—some things breed true.”

The snake blinked at him.

“Don’t worry,” said Satan. “It’s just a joke. And not a very good one, either.”

_______________________________________________________________
“Blood-Red Fruit” can be read in its entirely as part of Plain and Precious Parts of the Fob Bible (http://b10mediaworx.com/peculiarpages/fobbible/pppfobbible.htm#blood) or through the complete Fob Bible (http://b10mediaworx.com/b10mwx/peculiar-pages/the-fob-bible/). The story was written by Danny Nelson and Eric W Jepson.

A FEW DAYS LATER, an old man—a carpenter—came and chopped down the fig tree. It took the better part of an afternoon. The bark and outer layer of wood easily flaked away, but the core of the trunk was almost rock hard. The rotten, withered branches rained powdery shreds of wood, as his axe chiseled its way through.

      By the time he finished, the axe had dulled, and the sun embraced the horizon. His son-in-law came to call for dinner, and they dragged the tree home. 

      The next morning, the old man cut off the remaining, scraggly branches and rasped away layers of trunk until only the heavy core remained. When he finished, the piece of wood measured two arm lengths and three hands in diameter. The wood was darker than fig wood usually is; its grain tight and mottled.

      The old man let the wood sit for weeks in a corner of his workshop.  But then, after his daughter’s latest disappointment, a thought entered his mind, a thought he couldn’t let go of even though it filled him with horror and awe.

      He planked the wood and joined the boards to make a rectangular box. He cut two green branches from an olive tree and began the slow process of curving them. When they were fully cured, he trimmed and sanded their edges. He fitted the bottom of the box with four short posts and added the runners. He sanded it and rubbed it with oil and resin until the oddly dark fig wood took on an almost silvery glow.

      When it was done, he set it down. The cradle rocked ever so slightly, slyly mocking his talents. His daughter was old, almost past childbearing years. He moaned, brushed at his eyes and held his palms to his temples in disbelief. This thing he created was a beautiful abomination, a piece of devilish craftsmanship borne of unrighteous yearnings and a cursed tree.

      He could not bear the thought of giving it to her. The look on her face. The look that would be filled with pain and that fierce hope that he might know something, that some small prophecy had been burned into his mind and heart.

      He buried it beneath a pile of scrap wood in a corner of his shop. Two months later he died.

      Six months after that, his granddaughter came into the world, crying, her skin dark and rosy, eyes deep and thirsty, hair thick and black. Her mother rocked her in her arms—her movements slow and tender; her rhythm even and precise.

___________________________________________________________

The elusive William Morris is the benevolent dictator-genius behind the Mormon arts and culture blog A Motley Vision and, truth to tell, WIZ as well.  He lives in suburban Minneapolis with his wife and daughter. Refugees from the insanely-priced, but lovely San Francisco Bay Area, the Morrises love their new life in the frozen north. And don’t pity them, William still takes public transportation to his work* (a position in higher education marketing/pr at a college in Minneapolis). William’s professional career has caught up with him and he now serves in a public affairs calling for the LDS Church. Which is great, but he misses teaching.

*This is very important because it a) keeps his blood pressure low, b) means that the Morrises can remain a one car family, and c) gives him time to read and write.

“Speculations: Trees” won honorable mention in 2006 Irreantum Fiction contest and was published in Irreantum (Winter 2007/Spring 2008–double volume), 93-96.