A Raintree Tale

Story and Illustration by Scott Wicken

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    Once upon a time, in the beautifool land of Kaydubaya, there existed a beautifool young Princess SillyAnn. She spent her days frolicking in the forests of Kaydubaya and was generally satisfied with all that was lovely and beautifool.
    One day, while pickanicking in the forest, she aspied a beautifool butterfly which was so colourfool as to give the flowers competition. Without thought, Princess SillyAnn picked up her pickanick basket and followed the butterfly. The butterfly dipped and dived through the air in a beautifool dance of colour. The colour and motion so entranced the young Princess, she did not notice that she wandered deeper and deeper into the forest. She did not notice that the deeper into the forest she walked, the darker it became. She did not notice that with each step the air became chillier and chillier. She was so intent on following the butterfly, so focused, that the time did pass quickly like money.
    Suddenly, SillyAnn saw a cloud in front of her face that startled her until she realized that it was her own breath. My it is genuinely chilly, she thought. And then she noticed the deep shadows hanging menacingly all about her and she was truly ascared. The only light she could see was the light that seemed to emanate from the butterfly which hung there in the air like a ufo.
    The poor ascared Princess took in a sharp breath when she realized that she was very deep in the forest and that it was very late, way past her bedtime, and she did not recognize a single tree nor blade of grass. “Oh, I am genuinely lost,” she cried.
    But suddenly, she heard a faint voice, a very soft soothing voice. She strained her ears to hear. “Where is that voice coming from”, she thought out loud.
    “SillyAnn, SillyAnn,” said the voice, “it is I, Flutterby the Butterfly. Quick, quick, quickly we are almost there, almost safe, almost at the Raintree.”

    And so Princess SillyAnn followed Flutterby deep deeper into the dark & gloomy and as she walked she started to hear voices, very low, very deep voices.
    "Who is speaking?" she whispered to Flutterby.
    "SSShhh!" said Flutterby. The voices grew louder and louder until it seemed that the ground did shake with the voices.
    "STOP" said a very deep, sonorous voice. SillyAnn stopped abrubtly. Wouldn’t you?
    "Finally, you have arrived," said the voice somewhat sternly.
    SillyAnn felt so weak, she collapsed to the ground exhausted. She had been walking for some time, and she had been carrying her pickanick basket all the way.
    "Oh, I see that you are weak, sit down," said the voice, softer now and more sympathetic.
    "I am sitting down," said SillyAnn, irritated. Only then did she look up to see a mighty tree before her. It was the strangest looking of trees - it seemed to have a face, a very ancient face set into the middle of the trunk. And then the mouth opened which did scare the living bejeezus out of poor SillyAnn so that she almost leapt up  and started running.
    "Don't be ascared little Princess. Under my mighty branches you will come to no harm."
    "You are no ordinary tree, said SillyAnn," with her head cocked sideways. There was something about the voice that was soothing.
    "Hurrumph," said the tree, "of course not. I am the Raintree, the oldest, wise-assed tree in the entire freakin' forest. Hurrumph, ordinary tree," he said mimicking SillyAnn's voice. "Now listen to me. I have brought you here for a very serious reason, a freakin' serious reason, if you understand me. I have a mission for you. A task. A job. Very freakin' important if I may add."
    "But I'm so tired and hungry," said SillyAnn, "freakin' tired and freakin' hungry if I may add," she added, mimicking the Raintree's voice. She reached for the pickanick basket.
    "I told you she was a live wire," whispered Flutterby who by this time had fluttered to one of the Raintree's massive wooden ears and was hanging there glowing like some exotic earring.
 From the basket, SillyAnn started to pull food, wonderfool food. It seemed that there was more food than could possibly fit in the pickanick basket.
    "No wonder you are so tired," said the Raintree, "hauling that freakin' pickanick basket through the forest. And what is that? Is that a thai summer roll? I am a bit hungry myself, freakin' hungry in fact. Do you mind? And with that, he stretched one of his branches into the basket, grabbed a thai summer roll and shoved the whole thing into his mouth."
    "Mmyou mmtoo," said SillyAnn with her mouth full of cajun chicken wrap, "mmhave mmmsome."
    "I thought you'd never ask," said Flutterby, "I'm freakin' hungry."

    When they had eaten every last crumbly of the food from the pickanick basket, SillyAnn suddenly felt drowsy and her head dropped onto her chest and soon very un-girl-like snores started to issue from her petulant little mouth. The Raintree looked down and exclaimed, "my she is a noisy little piggy" but the other ancient trees did not reply and Flutterby did not reply for they were all sleeping quite soundly.
    "Harrumph," said the Raintree, " I guess I'd freakin' better get down to it." He screwed up his massive tree face and started to concentrate.
    If there were anyone awake there in the forest to see, someone would have seen a very faint pulse of light issue from the mighty head of the Raintree and that pulse of light become a column that flowed into the head of the little Princess SillyAnn who snored rather abrasively on the ground.
    This strange behaviour persisted for some moments, and then the strange light faded. The Raintree harrumphed a couple of times, then settled into a more comfortable position and closed his aged eyes.
    Little SillyAnn awoke with a start. She remembered a strange dream, a horrific dream that took place in a strange land. In this dream, the land was divided into squares and the squares were divided by huge grey paths upon which metal torpedoes hurtled towards her at tremendous speeds. She ran and she ran and there were lights and strange letters flashing all about her. And as she ran her lungs were filled with rank vapours; indescribably horrible odours. All about her angry people shuffled and bounced off of her. She was quite exhausted and getting pretty freakin' hungry as she was running and running and then the dream suddenly stopped. The words "to be continuood" flashed across her brain.
    And that is when the dream ended.
    SillyAnn stood up and started pacing. "What a strange dread," she said to herself, "but something is missing." She paced and she paced. There was something about the dream that she was missing. She paced until the thin light of dawn entered the forest and brought with it a strange mist. The first bird of the morning chirped.
    "That's it!" exclaimed SillyAnn, coming to a dead stop, "the bird!"
    Suddenly, a great whoosh filled the air.

    And SillyAnn felt the air rush from her body as great talons wrapped around her ribcage. She saw the ground swirl and rush away as if it were flushed down a toilet. She gasped and gulped to remain conscious as there were bright stars flashing across her vision. She blinked and realized that she was suddenly very cold and very high up in the air. The land of Kaydubaya that she had called home all of her life stretched out below her like a shag carpet. She could see the Great Forest and the squares of fields, the blue veins of the rivers and streams and even the spires and turrets of the castle that she called home.
    A very small tear glistened in her eye before the wind grabbed it and splashed it across her cheek. Suddenly, Princess SillyAnn felt very homeysick and alone.
    She looked up and she could see huge golden wings flapping above her, glinting in the morning sun surreally. Ahead of her she could see the great beak of the great bird that carried her, cutting through the sky like the prow of a golden ship.
    "Oh, how did I get into this?" she cried into the rushing wind.
    "Don't worry," said a voice. "I'm with you."
    "Who is that," demanded SillyAnn.
    "It is I, Flutterby, and I am holding onto your earring for dear life, I must say."
    SillyAnn suddenly felt very warm inside. And then suddenly she felt anger. "It is you that got me into this mess in the first place. Oh why did I ever follow you into the forest?" she cried.
    "Princess, it is not my doing. I only follow orders, and besides, you have been given a noble (and somewhat dangerous) mission. The Raintree must think very highly of you to bestow upon you the honour of such a great mission."
    "Darn it all to heckola," said the Princess. "I don't even know what my mission is."
    "All will be revealed," said Flutterby, "look."
    "Princess Sillyann looked down. Ahead, the mighty forest seemed to stop, and beyond it was a grey haziness. She squinted her eyes tightly to see some form through the fog. She could make out squares on the landscape, a pattern of squares which were quickly growing bigger. Then her heart did a cartwheel in her chest. "We're descending!" she exclaimed. And then her heart did a triple axel jump. "The dream!" she exclaimed.
    Very softly, so that the Princess couldn't hear, Flutterby murmered, "or the nightmare, my poor little one... the nightmare."

    And descend they did, quicker and quicker, the ground rushing suddenly towards them, little Flutterby hung onto Princess SillyAnn's earring for dear life. And then suddenly, the great golden bird braked with his mighty wings and SillyAnn's feet came to rest on the ground. Its talons released SillyAnn and the bird turned and wheeled skyward with a tremendous "SCRAW".
    "I feel winded and my heart is fluttering like a dogs paw when you scratch him in his special spot," said SillyAnn.
     "And I have had the fairy dust blown from my wings," said Flutterby.
    After they had both checked to see if all of their limbs were still attached to their bodies, they looked around. And what a sight it was. It was very much like Princess SillyAnn's dream (or nightmare). In every direction were buildings and flashing lights and... "aaah" SillyAnn screamed suddenly and leapt backwards. An outrageously fast moving metal object whizzed and roared past. It made a horrendous racket, a mechanical thump thump thump that almost sounded musical, but not quite. As it hurtled away, a bizarre yellow cat could be seen bobbing sideways, waving where it was stuck against the glass.
    "I don't like this place at all," said SillyAnn. "It stinks here and it's loud. This is nothing like the forest in Kaydubaya."
    "There must be some reason we are here," said Flutterby. "The Raintree would not have sent us here unless there was," he said matter of factly.
    SillyAnn looked one way and then the other. "I don't know about your almighty Raintree. Ever since I met that wierd old tree I've been carried by a terrifying bird and dropped down in the ugliest place I have ever seen. Well, we can't stand around here forever. Let's go this way. I'm hungry. Maybe we can find some food."
    So they began to walk, or rather, SillyAnn walked. Flutterby flew around SillyAnn's head and when he grew tired of that, settled on the top of her head. He started to sing eventually, a little song.
    "What is that song?" asked SillyAnn, intrigued by its pretty melody.
    "I have no idea," said Flutterby, "I've never sung it before in my life."
    "Well sing it a little louder so I can here the words."
    Flutterby cleared his throat and started to sing:

            A true song from the singer who sings from his heart
            The more a painter paints his life becomes his art
            The maiden has been chosen to feed and fend off the dark
            now the space must be prepared in which to do the work.

    "What a strange little song," said Princess SillyAnn.
    "Yes," said Flutterby feeling not at all like himself.

    They walked and they walked.
    Princess SillyAnn's young limbs were not used to this abuse. True she walked for hours in the forests of Kaydubaya but the forest floor there was so spongy she could hardly feel the strain. The ground here was hard and gray. "Flutterby, I can hardly go any further - I must rest."
    "Flutterby," she said a little louder (and slightly annoyed), "I said I have to rest."
    "Flutterby?" she said quieter, in a worried tone. She felt atop her head.
    "Ah," screamed Flutterby. "What are you doing to me?" He tried to recover his balance.
    "You didn't answer me and I was worried that maybe you had fallen off my head."
    "I guess I fell asleep," said Flutterby.
    "We, or should I say I, have been walking for a long time now and have not found anything to eat. There is not a tree bearing fruit nor a bush bearing berries anywhere around here."
    "Maybe we should ask somebody."
    "Who?"
    "Any of these people walking along... that man in the hat for example."
    "I'll try." she said. "Excuse me, sir, excuse me," SillyAnn said waving her hands at the man walking past. The man kept walking.
    "Excuse me," SillyAnn said to a woman walking the other way (wearing a very stern face if I may add). That woman too ignored SillyAnn completely which started to frustrate SillyAnn so much she felt like she was going to explode.
    A young boy walked past. "Hey," she said as she reached to grab his shoulder. Surprisingly she found her hand went right through his shoulder as if his shoulder wasn't even there. She yanked her hand back quickly.
    "Ahhh," screamed SillyAnn. Did you see that? she screamed.
    "Yes," said Flutterby very seriously, "I did," and then suddenly flew from SillyAnn's head and went straight towards one of the extremely fast metal torpedoes that was hurtling along.
    "STOP!" screamed SillyAnn but she knew she was too late to save her friend. She raised her hands to cover her eyes.
    "It's okay," said Flutterby, "it went right through me, or I went right through it."
    "That's very strange," said Sillyann taking a deep, relieved breath.
    Flutterby said, "yes, it's like we are living in a dream or this is all an illusion."
    "Of course it is all an illusion," a voice said behind them.
    SillyAnn and Flutterby whirled around quickly to see an old man standing there. In his hands he carried a battered violin case.
    "Hi," he said reaching out his hand, "I'm Peter. Pleased to make your acquantance."
    SillyAnn took his hand and was surprised to find that it was firm and real. She shook it.
    "Hello," she said. "Do you know where we can find something to eat?"
 
 

    "As a matter of fact I do know where there is something to eat. Just follow me," Peter said looking up at the sun and turning quickly. It was all SillyAnn and Flutterby dashed to follow him..
    "If all is illusion," SillyAnn puffed out as she scampered to keep up with him, "how do you find your way? What if you knock into something that is not illusion that is hiding behind all this illusion?" SillyAnn was feeling genuinely philosophical, which was rare as she spent her time thinking about things like comfort and good food most of the time. And my she was getting hungry every moment and her stomach was grumbling very grouchily and this was quite a pace that Peter was keeping.
    "If we find ourselves in reality, we will know it," he said, "we will feel it, like feeling music."
    "What do you mean like feeling music?" asked SillyAnn.
    "Reality is like music." He realized that they were not getting it. "I'll show you."
    Without breaking stride, he opened his violin case and took out his violin. He strung the case over his shoulder with a loop of string and put his violin under his chin. "Fiddle," he said and then put it under his chin.
    "Bow," he said, tightening it up. Then he reached into his pocket and fished out a chunk of yellow. "Rosin," he said holding it up to the light before wiping it quickly up and down the bow, "helps the horsehair grab the string."
    "Process," he said turning over his shoulder and winking at SillyAnn. "All is process, if you know what I mean."
    I have no idea what you're talking about she thought but kept the thought to herself.
    "I have no idea what you are talking about," huffed Flutterby who was struggling to keep up.
    "Must you go so fast?" asked SillyAnn as Peter plucked and tuned his strings. He cocked his ear and screwed up his face.
    "All will be revealed and yes, we're a bit late for dinner," said Peter as he touched the bow to his strings. He played a couple quick notes, fluttery notes that seemed to spin around like leaves in the wind. Then another couple notes, lazier now; longer notes. He grimaced slightly, repeated a note and tuned it up.
    "Sharp," he said.
    "Okay, listen." He stopped abrubtly and SillyAnn almost plowed into him. Flutterby however wasn't paying attention and landed in Peter's hat.
    Peter took a breath and intoned, "now the space must be prepared in which to do the work" (which sounded very familiar to SillyAnn) then he played a long slow quivering note which suddenly changed everything.

    The note quivered but only for a moment, as if it were standing up after a long time sitting. The quivering note was the beginning of a song trying to stand on its feet. And then the note did stand and it was a stronger note. Then the note turned around to view the space in which the song existed - like a snake would wind up out of its coil and look about the room before coiling to look upon itself coiling. The note then expanded as it started to move in circles and mutated and became other notes. The notes as they moved were a beautifool geometry and Princess SillyAnn could feel these shapes. Each note seemed to find a different part of her anatomy, seemed to tug and pull here, and push there, a gentle prodding massage. And then the music did a strange thing. It moved from her extremeties, her skin and hair and started to move into her. She could feel the music move into the muscle tissue of her arms and legs, taking advantage of the spaces between the muscles and the pores of her skin in the same way the water takes advantage of the weave of fabric. It eased the tension she felt in these muscles, ironed out the creases that had formed on her forehead and the tension in her shoulders. And then the music started to move her limbs. She started to sway to the music and she could see the music against her eyelids as colours, a pulsing yellow here and then giving way to a thin red. The colours looked like lava one moment, hot reds swirling and twining and then became the forest canopy, greens softly rustling in the wind broken by patches of blue, and then hard crystalline blues became white blinding light and then became browns, the dusty browns of late afternoons and old buildings. and the colours moved through all the colours of the rainbow again but seemed to move faster now and she could feel the momentum of the notes building. She was moving faster now, not swaying as much as chopping the air with her limbs. She realized that she was trying to fight the motion of the music, trying to resist, and that she was in the way of the power of the music so she decided to surrender to the music. The music swirled faster now in ever tightening circles. Though she was dancing now with all her body, she suddenly felt that she did not dance separately from the music but that the music and the dance had become one and she did not grow tired but in fact felt stronger and stronger. It was then that her heart opened like a flower and time became nothing and all was rushing intensity brought to an absolute halt. She was in a space where she saw all things for a moment or an eternity and then came the joyous sadness that swept her away like a leaf dropped into the sea. The music was in her heart now, where it belonged and she knew that it would never leave.
    After some time she awoke.

    It was early evening in the Land of Kaydubaya. The swallows wrote their names against a sky turning ruby red at the edge. The tired sun moved his head toward the pillow of the horizon. The sun bounced purples sideways across the leaves of the forest.
    Below the sprawling canopy of branches it was darker still, quite gloomy in fact. Deep in the deepest part, the oldest part of the forest, the part of the forest from which the rest of the forest had sprung so many centuries before, it was night, but here it was almost always night, a magical night that glowed an ethereal green, a luminescent verdance.
    Deep in that deepest part, where the oldest council of trees stood in a circle, their mighty roots twined over each others roots, was a small clearing upon which one ray of light was allowed to glow, and in this glow, now touched with the last purples of dusk lay Princess SillyAnn. Her eyes had just opened and she wondered where she was.
    "Where am I?" she asked.
    "You are here, here in the forest," said a voice.
    "Who is there?" demanded Sillyann.
    "It is I, the Raintree. You have been asleep for some time."
    "I have?" she asked, "I feel like I haven’t slept a wink." Indeed, every limb in her body felt tired. "I was dancing," she said.
    "Harrumph… dancing," said the Raintree, "you were sleeping."
    "No no," said SillyAnn, "I woke up from a dream and I was carried away by a bird and then I landed in a terrible place and then I met Peter…"
    "Peter, you say… harrumh… pretty freaking unlikely… you were sleeping," said the Raintree. "I watched you sleeping myself."
    "I had this dream and the dream came true."
    "You had a dream for sure," said the Raintree, "you were making a freaking racket, tossing and turning, yelling and screaming. Harrumph!"
    "There was a song, a joyous song and I felt it inside of me and I became the song."
    "A dream. Quit your nonsense," said the Raintree. Stop your chatter."
    "I remember it now. It went like this (and she opened her mouth to sing):
        A true song from the singer who sings from his heart.
        The more a painter paints his life becomes his art.
        The maiden has been chosen to feed and fend off the dark.
        Now the space must be prepared in which to do the work."
     The Raintree didn’t say anything.
     SillyAnn looked up and into his face. He looked very strangly at her.
     "What is it?" she demanded. "Stop staring at me you freaky old tree. What is it?"
     "You are the One," said the Raintree. "You know the ancient songs."
     "I told you so," said Flutterby (who had been silent up to this point).
     Then everything began to change, change in the most remarkable way.

It was like a kaleidoscope. Her sight shifted around in a circle and one picture became another ­ seamlessly. The circle of trees, the ancient ones rotated and became not the faces of trees but other faces. The canopy of leaves became not leaves, became walls with framed pictures. Aurally, the same effect occurred. The sounds of birds and breeze rustling through the leaves twisted and suddenly became laughter and the clink of glasses.
 "Hello," said a voice.
 She suddenly focussed. There was a young man standing before her, bending over her table. (Table?)
 "Pardon?" she said.
 "Hi, would you like to hear the specials?"
 "The specials?"
 "Yes, we have lunch specials today as well as our menu."
 "Oh, I see. Oh, I must have been daydreaming," she said, reaching out her hand and taking a menu.
 "That’s okay the young man said. Daydreaming is allowed here."
 "Um, I think I’ll just look at a menu today… uh, could I have a coffee?"
 "Yes, absolutely."
 The waiter walked away.
 She shook her head. Ann didn’t know what had happened to her. She felt disjointed. It was like her head was filled with something else (Cotton?) or perhaps someone else (Princess?).
 There was a commotion downstairs by the front door. The young waiter was down there with a rolled up newspaper in his hand, standing on a chair.
 "He just flew in through the door when I came in," said a grayhaired man standing off to the side.
 "He’s beautifool," said a young woman sitting by herself in the corner, "look at him."
 "I think I’ve got him," said the waiter.
 Ann twisted in her chair to see what it was.
 The waiter turned on the chair carefully and stepped to the floor. Perched on the rolled up newspaper was a butterfly. The waiter walked to the door and outside. A few metres into the parking lot, he flicked the newspaper and the butterfly took flight.
 "Flutterby," Ann said to herself as she saw a man crossing the parking lot with a violin case. His head turned and looked at her, just a glance, a smile and then he was gone, out of sight.
 "It’s all an illusion," she said aloud.
 "What’s that?" said the waiter.
 Ann shook her head. "Oh nothing."
 "Here’s your coffee."
 "Thanks, I need it." Ann looked down at the menu and read The Raintree Café.