Lotus

And the days were bone dry, void of soul, null of adventure, absent of God.

They constructed a temple to vanity but there was no worship inside. Only crinkled paper veils to cover the shame of their dead eyes.

We were hulls who bided our time to die.

Lotus

By: Divinity Sykes

The cold evening drew to a slow, blustery close in the low squatting foothills outside Crimson, Tennessee. Nightfall could not swallow the sun fast enough, and Lotus was playing risky games to be out and flying around this early.  

            I might as well move now and bed down tonight, he reasoned to himself, I’m near the spot, but they weren’t expecting me until tomorrow, anyway. With that thought in mind, he slipped gracefully off the tree branch he had been perching on into a slipstream of current that carried him fast over a great distance of wood. Birds much bigger than him eyed him as he passed, debating in their hearts if they were hungry enough to hunt down the swift sparrow. In the time it took them to decide, Lotus was already far beyond their sights, flying faster than any actual bird dared, for they knew the dangers of speeding into a chunky tree branch, or tangling up in a twisted vine.

            On any normal day, Lotus wouldn’t have been flying this fast either. He would have taken time to notice how the woods were abruptly cut in half by a cultivated pumpkin field, planted in rows of painfully straight lines. If time weren’t pressing down on him, or memories pressing in on him, or enemies pressing on behind him, he would perch among the sleeping fruit trees, collecting bright leaves to bring back home. Maybe, he’d even watch the bluebird family hatch their last batch of chicks for the season.

            How he loved to see a new bird learn to fly.

            But the bluebirds were back in Anhui, this time of year, thousands of miles from his current residency here in the border mountains of Tennessee. All the things he’d grown to love about his base in China were all forfeit now. Now, it was time to start over again.

Sensing ill will from a group of starlings that charged up from behind, Lotus banked hard to the left. Luck was on his side because there was an empty nest nearby that he managed to slip into unnoticed. Hunkered down, he listened attentively as the swarm fluttered past. From over the lip of the straw thatch work, he could see the cloud of starlings weaving in and around the fruit tree grove. The rustle of their hundreds of feathers beating all at once almost masked the sound of their conversational chittering. Not English chittering, of course, but not a sound any real Starling would take to understanding.

Sighing tiredly, Lotus crawled out of the nest as a slender, dodgy red squirrel scrambling down the pear tree. It was a downy, pleasant nest, but too exposed. No sooner would he have gotten comfortable than the starlings would have thrown his nest out of the tree. Sticking as near to the ground as he could, Lotus scratched at the leaf cover over the chilly autumn soil in search of abandoned snake holes or vacant groundhog burrows.

Pushing aside dead fig leaves at the base of a shedding tree, Lotus finally found a small tunnel dug by a vole. Checking over his shoulder, he saw that the starlings were onto him. They zeroed in on his location at the other end of the tree grove. He dove into the hole as a fat, meandering bumble bee. As urgent as the situation was, he couldn’t risk getting lost in the vole’s maze of construction. As he bumbled forward through the tunnels, he cast his thoughts out like a fishing net. When he hit an intersection between the left and right, he would throw out a thought. If he got a reply from the right tunnel, he knew to turn left. The replies were never fully organized thoughts, so much as a territorial chatter coming from somewhere deep down inside the burrow.

Apologetically, Lotus thought calming vole thoughts. Like insects and nice, cool dirt. Meanwhile he navigated the tunnels, he heard scratching, skittering paws enter in after him. The starlings had transformed into little mice invading the vole’s home by the bucket load.

Lotus stumbled upon an exit by sheer will and determination not to be caught. Dodging down a narrow alley when he thought the skittering mouse tails had come too close. The air was cool on his face. Unlike the vole, he was far more comfortable out in the open. Where the Earth couldn’t cave in on and suffocate him.

Above, half the starlings were still flitting around. Patrolling the grove with keen eyes. Because he was on the ground, with towering trees obstructing his view in every direction, disoriented by the tunnels, he had no idea which direction the pumpkin field was in. Just the vague notion that he didn’t want to stumble upon it, and thus, spill out into the open. 

Scurrying along, he kept close to the tree trunks, all marred by little mammal claws and protected by wasps. Wasps disliked bees, so Lotus fell to the loose brown dirt as a thin black snake. He slithered desperately back towards what he hoped was the woodland, without realizing that he was slithering in the complete opposite direction. With a pumpkin field on his right, and a field of budding winter wheat on his left.  

A red glint caught his eye from where the sinking sun reflected off the broadside of a barn, and he did not hesitate for a second when he saw it. Lotus slunk forward, tasting the air for enemies. His heart seized when he saw the first mouse pop out of the vole hole he had just left behind. Knowing he was caught, he made a final effort at freedom. Lotus changed back to a starling, flying low to the ground but giving away his position all the same.

Starlings chirped, setting off a chain reaction alarm that brought forth all manner of woodland creature. Squirrel arms grabbed at him from every tree branch in the grove. Larger predatory birds swooped down on him, but he no longer cared. He had spent a full week without sleep, daily dodging these fellows. Hours of endless scrambling to stay just out of their reach, and he had had enough.

If he was going to die, he was going to die in that red barn. Where the hay bales stacked up to the roof were as good as any feather bed, in his exhausted state. He would kiss the dirt on the wooden floors just to have a small moment of rest before they tossed him out of that high window.

No sooner did he flit into the double doors to the second story, than did Lotus collapse into a pile of loose stray. It was mildewed and scattered with rat droppings. There was a snake hissing at him from somewhere nearby, but he lay deathly still. Taking in what few breaths he had left, before the starlings smothered him in this ghastly, flea ridden bed.

He waited. Lotus waited half an hour, and then half an hour longer. His heart jumping out of his throat as he waited for a death that didn’t come.

The starling mob had dispersed. All the bugs and birds had grown stiffly silent nearby. The rats that had, up until moments ago, been ready to eat him when they saw his ragged breathing go stale, scuttled away. Thinking the only word they had in their vocabulary besides prey; predator.

It wasn’t so much a sound that had made the world go mute, it was the pretext of a sound. The feeling one gets, when one is being watched, that raises hairs and makes one superstitious. Exhausted, but wary, Lotus took what energy he had left to turn back into a snake and slither out from his death bed to see dusk was coming on quickly. Evening light streaked in from the two barn doors, which were open wide. The sound, that anticipated sound that silenced the forest, finally happens. Only, it’s softer than Lotus expected.

Slinking back a little, so he could not be seen. Lotus smelled the tiny human girl before he saw her stumbling up the staircase under the tiresome weight of her backpack. Which she had been carrying around with her for hours now. 

A traveler, he smiled toothlessly, just like me. And though she may have been human, those determined little steps of hers spared him reprieve of the Starlings, if just for now. That is why he did not shy away when the stamping little thing puffed right past him, towards the open doors. The closer he stayed by her side, the safer he was. Carelessly, she swung her feet outside and leaned her chubby face against the splintered door post with a chocolatey, satisfied grin.

Climbing up the baling twine as a field mouse, Lotus skittered through the hay to get closer to her. Meanwhile the rats he passed cowered in their nests. Once his vantage point was better adjusted to see the workings of her hands, he stopped. It was those he wanted to keep in sight at all times. The hands were what he couldn’t trust about a human, always needing to keep busy, the very things that made a thought into a reality.

  But those hands, so small, and so dirty, did little more than throw a stalk of corn down to the lowing cows in the pen beneath them. Lotus relaxed the longer she dangled, so trusting that ledge to hold her up, so trusting no one would dare push her over. How he hoped his own children would never be that naive.

“Tell me, miss Jess,” mumbled the girl to one of the cows trying to nap below, “can you talk?” The little one played absently with her golden red hair.

Moo, was, of course, the cow’s reply.  

“No!” She giggled, and the whole sky lit up, reflecting against her pearly skin. Highlighting the freckles decorating her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. “I meant, can you talk like people?” She paused thoughtfully, her wide round eyes roaming the pale blue evening sky. “I meant, like, the not human people.”

The field mouse tilted his head, standing on his back paws to better observe her. Despite the barn having been gloomy before her arrival, it was now suffused with so many different forms of light. The light of day, which she wore like a cloak of beauty. The light she gave off as she swayed in time to some clanking, distant, metal object. The light of her rosy pink soul, which Lotus looked at as the light of his savior. For whatever reason, the more she giggled, the brighter his world became.

She continued to ramble innocuously, and had Lotus hung on her every word. “Anyway, maybe you were a not human once.” The little girl shrugged. “Maybe it was a long time ago so you forgot how to talk like one. That happens.”

Sensing that darkness would soon be upon them, and wanting to be asleep before then, she got up and took her time inspecting the hay bales for rats. She would kick gently at a hill of them, not wanting to hurt anyone, and listen for a rustle. After she had inspected the whole sector of bales by the doors, she started filling in all the crevices with loose hay, as high as she could reach. To avoid being seen, Lotus scrambled back towards the wall and up higher than she could reach, surveying her movements from above her head. From there, he noticed he was out of the line of sight of the doorway, and the Starlings, and perhaps became a little more reckless for it.

Once settled in, the vicious human predator leaned back against her hay stack, snacking peacefully on a granola bar in the dim evening light. Its chocolate smell permeated the stale air, wafting up to Lotus’ nose. He didn’t much like human food, usually it gave him stomach aches, but he hadn’t eaten in a week. His eyesight was starting to blur, and he remembered how weak he felt.

He decided to chance it.

Scurrying further down, he moved all the loose hay she had stuffed the crevices with and, with a final, relieved breath, fell into his true form. Lotus was at least the size of a raccoon, but with dusty golden fur covering his once plump, but now somewhat bony, figure. With yellow eyes as big as owl eyes set into his round face and six fingers on his two little arms and legs. His fluffy tail curled up higher than he was tall. Instead of nice round ears he had two long, oval antennae in the shape of hollow ears above his head.

All the better to hear her thoughts with.

I think I know who you mean by the not human people. His snout didn’t move as he spoke.

The little girl’s spine stiffened. She had no way of knowing what direction the voice had come from, so she jumped to her feet. Spinning round and round in search of him. She was shocked and a little bit scared to see he had been sitting behind her the whole time. A bolt of recognition shot through her. R-Reon said to be careful of the little fluffy ones. She thought to herself, but Lotus could hear it.

Not to worry, child, Lotus reassured her, I would never hurt my hero.

“Y-your hero? She kneeled to the floor, dragging her back pack to her. Clutching it tight to her chest. She was doing her best to block him from her mind, but she wasn’t strong enough. She didn’t know all the tricks. That gave Lotus an idea.

He stepped out onto the moonlit floor, stupidly brave but driven on by hunger. Up until now he didn’t have anything to trade. Any self-respecting creature of his sort knew a favor was owed a favor, and it was in poor taste to take what he could not return. I have travelled from a very off place, my dear. Desperately tired and hungry. Hoping with all my heart to find a hero who will protect me while I rest, and share a meal with me. Look! In only a week, I have found you! What luck!

Wary at first, the girl with strawberry blond hair grew starry eyed the longer he spoke. She? A hero? Just like on TV! She simply couldn’t believe and then, she simply didn’t believe him. Her eye lashes flittered shut, just as tightly as she could screw them together. “You’re not gonna play with my mind! I won’t let you!”

Lotus’ golden eyes abruptly stopped swirling. It was all he could do not to stomp furiously on the ground. He had been so close! The negative vibrations coming off him would only scare her, he shook them off and tried again. This time only with the power of his voice. What if I could trade you, friend? I could teach you how to block me out. So no one could ever mind trick you again.

He could see her peeking out from behind her blonde eyelashes to make sure he stayed back a comfortable pace. Lotus was not going to press her if he didn’t have to, but he had become nauseous and dizzy. He couldn’t live with the thought of walking out of here hungry.

“O-okay. But you have to pinky swear!” She lifted her pinky up in the air, and he rolled backwards, startled.

Glancing down at his own hands, in tattered, fingerless gloves, he knew that was a non-starter. Pardon me, but my people don’t really- touch hands.  

She sank to her bottom. She hadn’t thought about that, but it did seem like she knew it. She seemed to know a lot more than she should. Finally, she came to what was, in her mind, the perfect solution. “Then you gotta cross your heart, like this,” her chubby little fingers crossed over the left side of her chest, “And say, I promise to do what I said I would. Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye.”

Lotus lifted his hand to his abdomen, started to cross over it, then hesitated. If I break my promise, do I have to stick a needle in my own eye?

“No, I just won’t like you anymore,” She stated matter of factly, and dug around in her backpack for two granola bars with two juice boxes, inviting him over.

Forgetting the starlings who could see him through the barn doors, Lotus pattered over on the pads of his four paws. Content to sit across from his new human friend, his dirty, matted tail wrapped around his loose waist like a belt. It was the best meal he had ever eaten, alongside the most curious company with whom he had ever had the pleasure of dining. They talked about everything her little mind could conceive: the troubles of elementary school, that one time her friend Tommy ate a bug on a dare, her adventure this afternoon that brought her here to this barn. She mentioned something about a gold fish that Mom and Dad said escaped down a drain and into the ocean. Her goal was to find the ocean, retrieve her pet gold fish- she demonstrated that she had brought a baggy of fish flakes to supplement her master plan- and reunite Mr. Speckles with his aquarium buddies.

Lotus didn’t have the faintest idea how stressful life must have been in her shoes, but he was an attentive listener all the same. Until she talked herself to sleep, but not before he was able to keep his promise to her. Before the night was over, she could push his thoughts out as well as some of the best of them. Before the night was over, he curled up beside her. Finally, finally, finally getting to rest his aching body.

                                                                  ∞  ֎ ∞

In the light of early dawn, a fat owl stumbled clumsily out of the eaves in the roof of the barn. From there, he broke through the thick, chilled, foggy air and flopped his wings just hard enough to keep from spiraling to the ground.

There was a little white house on the hilltop, only a half a mile from the barn. Below him, police cruisers crowded the little family driveway. A tall, muscular, sun burnt man emerged bleary eyed, onto the back porch.

“Jennifer!” He shouted, his deep voice hoarse from a long night of screaming and searching.

Lotus dipped his large wings down towards the man. Check the barn, he inserted the thought into the man’s confused cloud of frightened thoughts. The farmer was well on his way towards the barn before Lotus picked himself up off the roof, and started flying towards the road.

 When he was sure he could not fly any further from exhaustion, and equally as uncaring that he might be spotted by the murder of starlings that pursued him steadily from behind, Lotus sunk to the ground. On the side of a clay dirt road in the middle of terraced miles, he fell limp from cold and having been chased for a week solid across half a country, an ocean, and another stretch of monotonous dirt.

Small, black, beady eyed birds circled miles over-head, passing tentatively closer each time. Some were brave enough to light on a row of fence posts, or the farmer’s mailbox, but most were hesitant to believe he might give up after so many miles.

Not once did the owl stir. Not once did his chest rise or fall like there might be a pair of working lungs inside. If anyone had checked his pulse, its normally clear, fast drumbeat would have been a hollow thud.   

Just as the multitude had gathered close enough to their prey to take him, there was a low rumble along the dirt road. A rust riddled car drove up to the mailbox, tearing up the road in tight, smoky circles. It screeched to a halt, its tires spinning and rubber burning beside Lotus’ limp body. Gravel flew up in every direction, scattering the starlings from their prey.  

Frustrated, the iridescent black birds had to watch their kill be removed gently from the roadside, and laid across the shredded backseat of an old, tan sedan. What little gumption they had to follow quickly departed when the car, as it drove faster into the sunrise than they could fly, disappeared with a final glint like an impish wink.

© 2020 A.K.