25 Hour Watch

‘I am concerned for Janet, Rudy. And for Jim.’

Rudy stood in his customary place behind the front desk, puzzled and surprised.

‘I believed that they were doing quite well, sir. I was not aware that there was cause for concern.’

‘Do you know what is happening this very moment?’

‘I believe I do, sir. Janet has just disappeared by becoming one with the trees, and Jim has just begun his march with the battle clan.’

‘You know as well as I do that what happens in the ‘Word Club’, as we have chosen to call it, is real. The people are real, the creatures of the wild are real, and the forces at work throughout the inner- and outer- world of the Word Club are real.

‘Yes, sir, I do’.

‘You know, then, that the danger is also real. The risks, the possibilities- both wonderful and terrible- are real. While it is possible for one to create conceivably anything, it is a given that creatures, people, and inherent forces, once created, will think and act for themselves. Do you understand, Rudy?’

‘I do, sir.’

‘Both Janet and Jim are, I believe, under the impression that while they can be hurt here, they are not in any real danger- that they are virtually invulnerable in the Word Club. I know you have given them a warning or two, phrased pleasantly for their benefit, but they still seem to view the Word Club as  their own little playground; an all-new jungle gym, built just yesterday for their personal amusement. How long has our little club been around, Rudy?’

‘For over two hundred thirty years, sir, under various names and guises.’

‘Precisely. Over two centuries of new ideas, all growing and expanding on top of one another, with nothing to hinder the growth. That is the amount of wildness we are dealing with. That is the amount Janet and Jim have unwittingly begun to open themselves to- Janet in particular.’

‘What can I do to help, sir?’

The Perpetuator nodded, once. ‘We need you to take up the role we once had you set aside. We need you to go in again, as one of them.  We still count you as our foremost field agent. You will need every bit of your experience, every ounce of your savvy to guide them through the rest of this, their second experience in the Word Club. We need you to leave now, this very moment, if you would.’

‘As you wish, sir’.

His eyes shining, Rudy left his place behind the front desk and approached the opposing wall. A most curious circular picture hung there. Within the smooth golden frame, molten silver flowed, running in an endless whirlpool of glowing color. Never did a single drop of the liquid metal fall out of the golden frame. Rudy stood still, gazing steadily, unblinkingly. After a moment of this the whirlpool stilled, and Rudy beheld a group of broad-shouldered, hard-faced men marching down a hillside. Another moment, and they were out of sight, the sound of their marching feet gradually fading away.

Still he gazed, allowing himself to take in the now-quiet scene. All seemed still at the top of the hill, among the trees. Rudy allowed his eyes to lose their focus, everything becoming blurred. For a moment longer everything was still, and then he caught it- movement just at the edge of his vision. He could not have said whether it was inside or outside the frame, for he did not turn to look; instead, he stayed as he was, in the same relaxed state. Steadily, the entire hidden scene began to unfold before him, and he saw where Janet now was.

She was not alone.

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

Janet felt unsettled. This morning as she redressed Jim’s wounds, she had heard a whisper behind her. She had turned to look, but nothing was there. Just now as she was walking back to the fire she had felt a branch brush her arm. Normally she would have pushed the branch aside or walked around it, but she was in a clearing. There were no branches in her way, no trees to block her path. When she looked back, she seemed to hear a whisper, an echo in the clearing.

Jim noticed her discomfort as she came in to the fire.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t know, Jim. I feel as if the trees are coming to get me. It is the strangest feeling. Perhaps I should just laugh it off, but somehow, I can’t.’

Jim stopped tending the fire, looked at Janet concernedly, and then said, ‘Tell me about it.’

Janet said nothing for a long moment, silently debating. Then she nodded ‘All right’, and began.

The next morning, as Janet was about to stir the coals back to life, Jim gently caught her hand.

‘Let’s leave it for a while.’

She looked at Jim questioningly.

‘It’s been a long while since we ran, just for the fun of it. What do you say we leave this for a while, and run?’

Janet smiled. ‘That sounds wonderful, Jim.’

That was the first of many wonderful mornings. Each new day they would leave the fire coals and run together through the fields. Janet came to treasure these mornings, as did Jim. Although trees she could not see seemed to brush up against Janet more and more as time went on, she slowly began to lose her fear of them. Though she heard whispers with increasing frequency, she came to think of them as a normal part of her experience in the world. When the trees seemed to thick or the whispers too numerous, Jim would be there to hold her hand, to banish the suffocating trees with a caring word, and to drown out the whispers with his own.

One morning Janet awoke feeling the trees surrounding her, brushing up against her. She heard the whispers in her ears, more insistent than ever before. She began to reach for Jim, but then stopped. Something was different about the whispers and the trees. She listened to and felt them for a moment longer, and then she realized.

I am no longer afraid.

She stood, feeling energized by the realization.

Though the trees still brushed up against her, they were not frightening. Though she still could hear the whisper of the voices, they no longer held any fear for her.

Jim smiled when he awoke and saw her face.

‘You are well, Janet?’

She smiled back. ‘I am well.’

As they ran that morning, both noticed a change in the feeling in the air.

‘It is not a feeling of fear, any longer. It is one of joy,’ Janet enthused.

‘Yes. I feel as though I have been freed- as though we have been freed. Some great overhanging cloud has departed.’

‘I did not realize you felt it so much, too, Jim.’

‘We are very close, Janet. What happens to one of us happens to the other on some level as well. We are becoming closer every day. The trees are getting closer to you too, so they are getting closer to me, though I do not feel them as strongly as you do.’

‘I feel as though I have been freed, too.’

Janet listened and felt the trees. Now that she was not afraid, she did not hold back from the touch of the wild.

It is a different feeling now. She paused. The voices are not gone, but they are friendly. The trees want to be my friends. And I want to be their friend.

And so began the first of many happier days for Janet and for Jim. Each new day as they awoke, Janet would breathe and smell the scent of trees. She learned to open herself to them. They would fill her with the heady scent of life, and she and Jim would run, soaking up the wonderful life which surrounded them, the life of the trees and plants. Over time, the place in her heart which had once been filled with fear was filled instead with joy. She learned to love the invisible trees, and to love being open to them. She found again the happiness of smelling the flowers, of walking barefoot in the grass, and of feeling the rays of the sun on her face and in her hair.

As her enjoyment of the wild grew, her understanding did as well.

‘I feel something different about the trees now,’ she said to Jim one day.

‘Different in what way?’ he asked.

‘I feel people through them.’

Jim’s eyes widened.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I can feel their thoughts, the thoughts and feelings of the trees. And as I feel their thoughts, their feelings, they become people in my mind. Real people. People with friends and families of their own.’

‘What do they look like, in your mind? Do they look like people, like us?’

Janet shook her head. ‘They have the same basic shape as we do, but they are so different from us. Some of them have green skin, some brown, some tan. Their hair is like the treetops, or it looks like the treetops, waving in the wind when the wind blows. But it is their eyes, Jim, their eyes that are the most beautiful. They are all solid color, no whites. And they each have a different color; black, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, violet, and every color in between and more colors, colors I have never seen before.’

‘They do sound very different.’

‘That is only the beginning. They don’t think as we do; for them it is completely unthinkable to fight. They don’t ever fight among themselves because what happens to one of them happens to all of them. If one tree gets hurt, every tree in the forest feels it as though it happened to them.’

Jim was startled to see tears in Janet’s eyes. ‘Janet! What’s wrong?’

‘Oh, Jim, they have been hurt so much by our kind. I can feel it!’

She broke down completely, burying her face in Jim’s shoulder. Jim held her close, at a loss for words. What do I do? The question repeated itself over and over in his mind. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

The next morning dawned cold and cloudy. They decided to stay in their shelter and wait out the coming storm. As they waited, they spoke with one another.

‘What has been happening in you? I am worried.’

‘We are changing, Jim. I am changing. I feel more a part of this world, every day that we are here. It seems the more I feel a part of it, the more I feel it. I feel what the trees, the plants, and animals feel. It is as though their life force, their energy becomes mine. I am becoming one of them. It feels good inside, but at the same time, getting closer to the wild scares me. It scares me because’-  she stopped, looking uncertainly into Jim’s eyes.

Jim gently took her hand. ‘Because,’ he continued softly, ‘you feel that we will be pulled apart from each other the closer you get to the wild.’

Janet nodded.

‘There is no need to fear, love. If it happens, and we must be apart for a time, I know that we will find our way back to each other again.’

‘Thank you, Jim.’