Flavor in Space: Ch 46

The first thing one notices is the purple falls hanging about the delicate green that caresses the tree tops. The fuji plant dangles and twists. It cloaks the cedars and the oaks and a hundred other brothers and sisters who I can't recall by name.

The path becomes a canyon. The sky of deepening blues becomes a luminescent mirror path above. The fuji walls tumble down the tree top trellises. The purple falls tumble silently and motionlessly down the canyon walls.

These falls, the fuji blossoms, could also be compared to ephemeral grapes. They have the form and grace of grapes, but they will evaporate entirely in a few days, leaving only lonely grapestems.

It is somewhat widely known here that the fuji will soon wither if cut and placed in water. Its vines need roots in soil.

Beneath the green blanketed canyon walls wind a tangle of vines. Tender vessels lead to spindly half hardened links which connect to yet more solid woody tubes, and these become the thick vines that dance through the space between the canyon walls. The vines weave tightly by trunks of countless other beings, tying the fibers into a supporting net, and finally, these vines coalesce in the great trunk of the fuji: a mass of curling wood rising from the forest floor.

I came to the Place of the Spring Day in twilight. The dirt road is lined with a thousand ancient stone lanterns, unlit mossy sentinels making the way.

The Place of the Spring Day is the home world of the fuji. The paths and ways become the canyons of purple falls. I came to the red walls of the palace and peered through the blue green window slats. In the courtyard, light filtered down from the dusky sky, illuminating the curves of vine snaking along the trellises, lighting the delicate branches of ephemeral purple fruits.

The sky fell dark and the canyons of space became less defined. I could no longer tell what was space or canyon or soil, or stone, or person: they all became shapes of shadow between flickers of light. I traced the sinuous curves of wood-flesh, I followed the dances of vine lines, and I found the trunk and the root and the soil.