Day 52 Writing Short Stories

Ritual

Let’s paint a picture—a picture of the tree of life, the one whose roots pierce the ground through and through. There is no place in the world that isn’t affected by its roots and the mushrooms that grow around the shoots, drawing its water, its minerals from all and nothing, from the living and the dead.

The tree reaches for the sky, surpassing every other tree that the Earth carries. It’s the mother of all trees. It’s where all the stories began. At first, whispers told around the campfires, then, under the rituals, arriving at the written word, eternal and the shaper of worlds. The tree remains there, behind every word uttered, every dance danced, and every pilgrimage taken.

The shaman stands in the middle of the circle. He is a shaman of modern ways, yet nothing changes. He has the horns of a beast and the tongue of a trickster. He lets the rhythm of his feet elevate the words in his mouth. People shake their bodies with his words, seeing the tree, seeing the shaman, hearing the spoken stories: stories about themselves and their hearts and minds. They seek connection, meaning.

There’s a halo around the shaman, glowing in the dusk of the forest. Somewhere beyond the circle of the ritual, the fire, the cars roar as they hike the motorway in a constant stream of metal and electricity, governed by the same particles as the tree, as the shaman, as the listeners. They tell another story, a story of the inanimate, the shift, the shape, the change of life. They speak volumes of efficiency, measurements, and hurry… They speak of altered consciousness, the one that the listeners try to shake free through the shaman. They try to get back to the tree of life, consuming its bitter fruit.

The shaman ends the dance, and the tree fades. People blink, unsure whether the dream was a dream or whether the tree is there. The shaman stands in his faded T-shirt with a band logo. His sneakers are muddy, and the voice that had been deep and strong now comes out in a falsetto as he charges a participation fee with his phone.

People leave. The fire is stifled. He stands there in the shadows and steps aside, aside from everything, merging with the tree.

—

I’m slowly listening to Alan Moore’s Masterclass, devouring all his words; thus, I went and ordered Jerusalem and The Long London Quintet books. As I wrote yesterday, his words make me want to push further with my writing, to discover new aspects of it and be more present as I write. I think I can afford that for myself, as there is no hurry. Writing will remain.

What I got today was experimental, magical realism, tragedy done from a third-person perspective. The question remains whether there was a tragedy or a discovery. I’m not sure if there was either, but the story wanted to come out this way, and I respect it.

Thank you for reading! Have a day of magic ❤