Memoirs of a coconut palm

After witnessing the death of its neighbour and destruction of its kin during a cyclone, a young coconut palm comes to realise that its state of being includes not only the present, but also a past...

King Edward’s Eulogy

Palm trees are found amongst the general population of suburban trees. They dance slowly in the sun, swaying back and forth, whispering, talking, chatting; spreading gossip down the streets and across the precincts, laughing in unison at the same jokes. Black cockatoos descend upon them, screeching noisily like a crowd at a football game, all shouting over the top of each other as they decimate specially selected areas. They are intelligent and highly eccentric creatures, well practiced in their trade of nut cracking.

  

The sunny tropics are places of bright blue skies and sunlight dancing on opaque green water, and steady south easterlies. Until December...

 

In December, the northerlies bring the tempests. The hot ocean turns to cloud, and the cloud begins to lean clockwise as the earth turns, and begins to spin and spin and spin, until it works itself into a white ball of fury, bearing down on a frightened coastline.

 

I watch him every day. King Edward is tall and proud, and does not spread gossip along our street. He stands in stoic dignity, occasionally leaning toward his neighbour to share a joke which he deems appropriate, or acknowledging me across the street with a nod. His fronds are long and well kept, and his bright red nuts hang proudly toward the road; sweet, stinking necklaces. 

 

He stands silently now, covered in an oppressive, slimy heat, occasionally lifting a frond, like the toss of a long haired girl’s head, the flick of a cat’s tail. All chatter between the trees has ceased. The black cockatoos have all gone away. Clouds cover the whole sky, great arcs all streaming toward the middle of this spiralling galaxy somewhere in the unknown distance, of which we sit beneath a single arm. It begins to get very dark.

 

The wind arrives like a freight train, howling down the streets and across the suburbs, as the edge of the spiralling storm finally crashes into the east coast of Australia. The rain comes down, sideways.

 

The malevolent banshees sweep in and immediately one chooses King Edward to give it body, possesses him. He rises up like a monster in an animated Rorschach test, failing upwards with many arms, bringing the superstorm forth upon the other trees, the houses, the city; conducting an orchestra of hot, wet winds. He twists and roars, and waves his many arms in fury, and the other palms follow suit. The storm’s many demons have found their bodies, a ringleader in King Edward, and through it, they wreck havoc upon all else. Immigrants from Polynesia, usually most welcome and well behaved are angrily throwing their cannon balls through windows and walls in this riot.

 

The superstorm spins slowly inland in its hot, angry ball, taking its plethora of banshees and demons in tow, to find other bodies to possess, other settlements to destroy. It leaves our city, and finally discards its zombies. Exhausted beyond life, and no longer animated upward by the unnatural spirit, King Edward bends over and dies, his trunk wrung like a wet towel.

In the grey, heavy light of dawn an uncertain city wakes, takes a breath and looks around. People have endured. Houses have endured. It is the palms that have been the casualties, taking with them the other trees, fences and powerlines. Their corpses linger long upon sidewalks, stubbornly blunting and breaking chainsaws in a last, defiant act of life, while the other trees acquiesce to the blade. We who have survived exhale, and our fronds flop downward in exhausted sighs, mourning the loss of our kin.         

The city is a wasteland of trees.

 

Amongst this unnatural death and destruction; (I can assure you, there is nothing natural about death when it claims so many young, fit beings so long before they are old), I come to contemplate... just contemplate... at first, nothing in particular. But then in the consciousness space of contemplation, a question arises:

 

How old is King Edward? I whisper to my neighbour, but my whispering is not yet heard. I have only five blades, that are not yet split into proper fronds. I still wear my coconut, embarrassingly visible above the pot.

 

How old is King Edward? (When he was alive).  

Well, how old am I?

 

Always, we exist in only one state; trees. The state is now. But with this question, I come to realise that the state that is now passes, all the time, and is replaced buy new states of now. The superstorm is no longer here, but its effects are real, and therefore it happened... King Edward is alive in a previous now, but he is dead in this now... There is more than simply now! When this now is over, its memory will be something else.

 

I look down my trunk. I have but a single ring; a scar of release from the coconut.

King Edward’s body lies broken, blocking the road. He has many rings. He must be old. How old?

I must have age too.

And therefore, something came before this now...

 

 The Beginning

It begins with a thump; my life...

I land upon coarse, grainy sand, still cool with the memory of the rains. Bliss, it is, warm and dark. I feel the light begin slowly, and heat up, like a melody reaching its beautiful climax, and dim slowly, and disappear; but always it returns, in an endless cycle.

It is wonderful. I know nothing else.

Within me, a need grows.

The warmth begins to leave me cold. I want more, more, more.

I begin to stretch to my want, to grasp, to reach, to have, and then... I kiss the light!

 

It explodes within me, green and bright and beautiful.

My brothers and sisters are all here beside me, living and breathing light. We all lean the same way, and follow the passage of the light across the big blue, as it circles us, and eventually dims and fades, and the big blue turns a deep warm colour, and the light dips into the sea, and the little lights come out upon a dark canvass.

 

Sometimes they fall from it; they break free, and go flying away until they too dim, and we see them no more. But there are so many it never makes a difference, the dark is never empty. I wonder where they go.

They fall into the Sea, my brothers and sisters whisper, the Sea, the Sea.

Another light appears, sometimes a circle, sometimes only part of a whole. It is round and bright, but cold. I feel no life in it. It simply dims the small lights and paints all beneath it silver while the rest remains in shadow. It pulls the sea away. The Sea the Sea, whisper my brothers and sisters, as it disappears and leaves behind a bed of naked sand bathed in cold-light. And when it comes back, the Sea, the Sea, it comes to greet us, licks us with its salty tongue and I can taste all the life in it.

Then the big blue comes back, and after it, the smaller lights again.

And after some time, the big cold light returns, and something terrible happens...

 

 

 The Sea           

The small lights grow dim, and the big, cold light rises from the sea and the sea licks the land. The Sea, the Sea, whisper my brothers and sisters. Then the sand beneath us begins to move, and tiny, dark creatures emerge; hundreds upon hundreds of them. We move upon the sand, pushed around as they burrow upward, up to meet the cold light, and the sea conspires with their purpose and comes up to meet them, and takes them!

Their tiny, soft bodies flop down clumsily to greet it, their hands and feet in the shape of paddles.

 

The water is alive with other creatures that mean them no good; many are taken by the sleek, silent ones who move through the sea with neither sound nor disturbance, lonely in their independence. Many are taken by monsters of the dark above, gliding down upon quiet wings to their targets. 

The creatures’ ascension from the sand leaves great voids, into which some of my brothers and sisters roll, choking. But as the sea comes up to meet them, I fall forward and suddenly the sea lurches inward, filling the spaces they left and it takes me!

 

It is a mistake, the sea has taken me! The Land, the Land, I cry, but it hears me not.    

 

My brothers, my sisters - I can no longer see them! I can no longer hear them whisper, the Sea, the Sea. The sea itself is a powerful creature; roars softly and deep below, all its creatures roar with it. I listen carefully and I can hear it! The Land, the Land, it roars. And I am now part of the sea.

I feel many creatures below me; sometimes few, sometimes many. There are also many creatures above me. I lie between the creatures of sky and the creatures of sea, belonging to neither of these big blues myself.

A creature from the sky comes toward me, stops above me and falls with precision to stand upon me, folding its strong wings into a place where they can no longer be seen. Together we travel up and down with the sea. 

 

Tell me a story, it mieuws softly into the wind.

Where do you come from, mieuw. Where have you been, where are you going, what have you seen? Mieuw.

I come from the land. And now I am upon the sea. 

Tell me a story.

Where do you come from, what have you seen?  

I belong to the air above, mieuw. I come from the land, from the sea, mieuw.

And the all the seas flow into each other, forever, mieuw. And the stars fall into the sea, miew.

 And the sea touches all of the land, miew.

But we are so far, and I am so tired. May I rest for a while upon you?  

 Of course, my friend.

And the creature from the sky closes its dark eyes and nestles its head against its warm body, and sleeps for a while.

Then it wakes up.

So it is all connected, through the sea?

Yes, mieuw. Certainly your brothers and sisters are afloat upon the same ocean, beneath the same stars, beneath the same sun, mieuw.

Sun! What a beautiful name, for the light! The Sun, the Sun, I whisper, and the very whisper warms me from within.

But my brothers and sisters are not afloat upon this sea, or any other sea. My brothers and sisters are still upon the sand, where the creatures are born under the bright, cold light, I whisper. 

But they follow the path of the same sun, mieuw. They whisper beneath the same stars, mieuw.

And what of the little creatures? 

And the little creatures will survive to become big, mieuw. And one day they will return to the same shore, mieuw. And they will lay their many children to sleep in the sand, until under the cold light, they too are born, mieuw. 

I am ready my friend.

The creature from the sky unfolds its wings, which are longer than its little body is high, and gives itself to the air. And then it is gone.

The Sun, the Sun, I whisper, until the sun is taken by the sea, and its name is the most beautiful sound in the world. I remember my brothers and sisters, perhaps afloat upon other seas, perhaps upon the sands of other shoes. But all the seas touch, beneath the sun and we are still together, the Sun, the Sun. 

When the sun returns, it brings the most curious of creatures to the shadow beneath me. Its voice betrays its presence immediately.

I’m in charge, I’m the boss. Follow me. I’m the boss, I’m the boss.

The voice comes from a tiny, golden creature beneath the surface �" no bigger than the opening through which I first saw the light. It swims determinedly beneath me, constantly changing its direction. Whichever way the sea turns me, it moves before me.

The boss of what? I ask.

 

The boss, the boss. It replies, I’m the boss. Follow me, follow me. I’m in charge. This way! I’m the boss, the boss.

But what are you the boss of?

The boss, the boss, it replies again, busily. Your driver. Come!  

But the sea chooses where we go. The sea chooses everything. How can you be the boss?

Because I’m the boss. Follow me! This way! I’m the boss. Follow me. This way!

But where are we going? I whisper.  

Oh. The creature stops for a moment. I don’t know. I’ve never been asked.

But you are following me, I’m the boss! It continues.

Infuriating creature!

I notice the sea is no longer roaring the Land, the Land. The sea has become quiet. It no longer moves up and down. The sun comes and goes many times.

I begin to feel sick. The sun I love so much is suddenly too much, too warm, too bright. Even the cold light is too warm, and the small lights are disappearing all together. Perhaps they have all fallen into the sea, but I cannot feel them. The sea has stopped tasting like life, and has begun to taste of the opposite; it tastes of the place before I began, the dark place, to which I now draw closer. I can no longer whisper the Sea, the Sea, my voice has been muffled as if in ash.

Everything begins to fade. I begin to hear the sea’s voice again. The Land, the Land, it roars, but it seems very far away. 

 

      

 

 The Land

Water falls from the sky, where the winged creatures come from, and it tastes clean, like life. And suddenly I realise I am upon something old and familiar, and hard... sand! The sea has released me!

 

The clean water continues to fall from the sky and I draw away from the dark place, the same from which I came. The sun is no longer too warm, too bright. The Sun, the Sun, I whisper, the Sea, the Sky, and I stretch further into the world, to embrace it all.

 

I find I have new brothers and sisters here, all whispering together, and many creatures visit our home. They come from the sky, in great groups and stay for many suns, and from the sea, moving upon the sand like an army, constructing cities of sand rolled into balls, until each time the sea returns and reclaims its creatures with their one large claw and their defiant, hopeful empires.

 

Upon one bright sun, some different, peculiar creatures appear. They arrive from upon the sea, and they move upon the land, never staying still. I hear their language, but they do not hear mine. They have only the remains of the ability to hear, it seems, and much of their language is incomprehensible, but for one. She still speaks the old language. I can hear her, because she is listening. 

 

They move around in groups and pairs, but she moves alone, around what I now see is a small mountain of sand upon the sea, beneath an endless sky. They are people, she tells me. People waiting for something, waiting, just waiting, in stillness. They wait for the slim, slight figure in a red hat who, like the golden fish, seems to be the boss, although the sea is the real boss and he understands this. This sand mountain is suspended between land and sky, which blend together seamlessly, giving the impression of a sand-island in space, she says, a place of waiting. People waiting to go to the next destination, like their world of the dead, or simply Next.     

The alone one with long, long hair holds love in her heart, but a great void exists inside her; a hollow space cast in the image of another, and her being encroaches heavily upon it. She stands over me. She picks me up. She takes me with her, and loves me instead. 

 

She takes me away, and I am again upon the sea, the Sea, but not for long. She takes me to a place close to the sea, a place where the palms speak differently. They are not my brothers and sisters. In this place, the people ask questions, and spend countless suns finding the answers in ways that take equally long to challenge. They answer long questions about seemingly obvious things, by interacting with machines; things that are not like them, but are of them. And one day they find their answers, but still they are not satisfied.

 

I crave light and warmth again. The Sun, the Sun I cry, hoping the sea will hear me, because the sea decides everything. 

The dark void inside the long haired one slowly changes form into something less specific in shape, and imageless, and thus it becomes easier for her to want different things; new things, their exact shape as yet unspecified, and so she goes away. The sea takes her away.

When it does, I feel a dark, empty space within my own being, in the shape of her. She no longer loves me, as she loved me in the other now, when her heart is still in pain, yet open. Her heart is closed in this now, a more distant reaction to the pain, like the clotting and congealing of blood, she has become harder. I have become older, and I too want new things. I too have shape-shifted, and my blades are ready to split into many fronds. Most of all, I want the sun. The Sun, the Sun I cry to the sea, and finally I am released from the question place.      

 

This is how I come to belong to the palm community of suburbia. Another person, one who loves her and has her own image inside him, takes me away and places me within the earth, dark and cool and wonderful, near him. 

 

I do not like these palms. They too are gifted with whispering voices, but

they use them not to whisper the beauty of the earth, sea and sky. They use them to gossip, spreading pointless rumours down the streets and across the suburbs, laughing pettily in unison. The ones they laugh at are soon forgotten for others, but if the gossip cuts them too deeply, they shed fronds and finally die. There are many palms ready to die. Slowly I come to understand their language, but I do not use it.

 

Neither does King Edward. The Sea, the Sea, he whispers, and in this way, I know that he was wild in another now. He too awoke to life amongst brothers and sisters, upon a foreign shore, and travelled upon a sea. Because he is different, they cannot explain him, and they allocate him a sort of respected distain piqued with secret curiosity. We come from another place, we have known another now, and another. We know that somewhere, all the seas join, and all the land is united beneath the same sun, and the same cold light, sometimes, beneath which the small creatures are born. The Sea, the Sea, the Land, the Sky, we whisper. But in this now, he whispers no more.

 

In this now, there is only me. I realise, this now will pass and be replaced with another now. So there are nows that have been, but there is also something else. There are the nows yet to come. There is more, more, more... to come.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

You are a amazing storyteller. My favorite author is Nevil Shute. Your style is similar to his. He made places come alive with his description. "A Town like Alice" made a people and situation come alive. I like this story. Gave history and made a area of your country come alive. I bet you could write a amazing book about the beauty of you country. Thank you for the outstanding story.
Coyote