Acid Rain by R.D Rhodes (ebook reader txt) 📕

my path. He had smelled me. He turned those weapons of destruction ninety degrees. I stared back into his big, brown eyes, waiting. I tried to relax my body, release my nervousness. He held the stare. Then he dropped his head and chewed the grass.

“Fuck.” I breathed out deep, and backtracked, stepping slowly away until I couldn’t see him anymore. My heart thumped in my chest.

But it seemed safe now. I kept an eye behind me as I walked up the hill. But do they even attack humans? I wondered. I hadn’t heard of any deer assaults, and if they did, they’d surely all have been killed. But it’s okay now, he’s gone. I smiled my relief, if he’d went for me, I’d have been fucked.  We have no skills at all against real predators. He’s not a predator but we’re not faster, stronger, our senses are weaker, but we have brains and that’s what matters.

My own brain was in another fervor of excitement as just then, up ahead, there was a loud SNAP! and two more deer- females this time- bounced left down the hill to get away from me, their white bums flying through the air. They disappeared amongst the yews, and I laughed out loud.

Aisha.

I looked round.

Aisha.

Yes, here. I’m talking to you.

I was looking at an oak tree. One of its growths had the withered appearance of an old face, and that was what I had turned around to see.

Yes. I’m talking to you.

It seemed like it was laughing.

What? Talking to a tree, I thought.

Yes. You’re listening, it said slowly. You talk to us, we hear you. We talk to you, do you hear us?

I tried to bat away my skepticism, and repeated in my head, We talk to the trees, they hear us. The trees talk to us, do we hear them? Then I replied in my mind, When do you hear us? Do you have a name? I stared hard into the growth-face. Though I was relaxed, there was a tension in my neck.

We hear you all the time. Every time you come out here. You thought before, that trees suckle up your negative thoughts. Well yes, we try to do that. And names are irrelevant to us, but you can give me one if you’d like?

I stared at the face, then looked around me, down the hill and at the other trees. There was no sign of any deer. I looked back at it. Why are the other trees not speaking too? Why only you?

We’re all alive, it retorted, but I just chose to speak to you today. Others will speak to you another day, or in the same day. But I’m here now.

I was still perplexed, and wary of myself, wary that I was having a conversation in my head with a tree. Are you just one spirit? Or do you each have different spirits?

Ah, now there’s a question. It’s not that simple and easy. You would think that we would have our own distinct spirits, and we do, but also we are together as part of a bigger thing. That’s the best I can explain it to you.

I looked at the knotted mark that made a mouth, the nub nose above it, and the hollow eyes either side. Tiny lines of rain split down between us, if it was us.

You say part of a bigger thing? You mean, God? Or part of a mass consciousness? A dual consciousness?

Yes. Both. Every being is tied up in this thing you call “mass consciousness”. But also we are from the thing you call God and we return to the thing you call God.

I looked down at the ground and tried to process that, “What do you mean, both coming from and returning to the thing called God?” I said silently.

It seemed to be chuckling again, or at least I felt it had a benign humour towards me. I know you’re eager, and that’s good. But it’s not that easy to get all the answers. Like you noticed when you built that fire, it takes patience, and it can’t all come from you either. If you go away and think about this, you will begin to piece together what I mean. That is the only way you can really learn, by working things out and experiencing them for yourself.

So you want me to go away and think about the thing about God? And I will realise its meaning, your meaning in my own time? Why can’t you tell me the answer now?

The face seemed wise. Like an old man, though I never particularly thought of old men as wise before.

Everything around me was quiet.

I’m sorry, you have to work at it. To get answers like that. You and everybody. We can give you some answers, and some help. But It’s all up to you. You all have your own free will. But I can see you and I know you will do well with it.

But I sometimes wish we didn’t though, have free will. I sometimes want God to strike us down like he used to do in the old testament. Or at least just take my life and live it for me, so I don’t make mistakes. Look what we’ve done to you with free will. What good has it done?”

You don’t mean that. Do you really think that’s the way He was? It all was? Really?

No. I just get frustrated.

I know. And you said it yourself, like you are learning yourself, boredom and frustration are the driving forces of humanity. Now that’s not all strictly true but it is partly. And what would life be if you didn’t get to live it, to make your own choices? To be in the driver’s seat as you said it. Now, I’ve said