Chapter 11 — The Spot
And thus begins Chapter Eleven.
Now, children.
We walked.
A lot.
The council nods.
Not:
“pleasant little stroll through nature.”
No.
A proper trek.
Grass.
Mud.
Streams.
Rocks.
Inclines.
The sort of terrain that makes a road seem like one of humanity’s greatest inventions.
Kosmo led.
Naturally.
The man knew the spot.
Paul followed behind him.
Naturally.
The man possessed functioning navigation.
And behind them
Laia and I.
Holding hands.
The council raises an eyebrow.
Children.
Do not.
This was purely practical.
Uneven terrain.
Safety.
Balance.
Absolutely no romantic implications whatsoever.
The council stares.
Totally not romance by destiny.
Totally.
Now.
The acid had begun arriving.
Slowly.
Not enough to make reality collapse.
Just enough for reality to start behaving suspiciously.
Leaves seemed a little too alive.
Patterns in rocks became unnecessarily interesting.
The ground occasionally appeared to breathe.
Children.
The world had begun stretching before the main event.
And naturally,
we continued smoking joints along the way.
The council sighs.
Because apparently four people climbing through wilderness while acid begins activating required additional complications.
The joint passed.
Kosmo.
Paul.
Me.
Laia.
Then back again.
And onward we went.
Now.
Streams appeared.
The council leans forward.
Kosmo crossed.
Easy.
Paul crossed.
Easy.
I crossed.
The council waits.
Children.
Less easy.
I approached every stream like civilization depended upon my successful navigation.
Foot here.
Rock there.
Do not slip.
Do not fall.
Do not sacrifice dignity to freshwater.
The council applauds.
A heroic campaign.
Then came the climbing.
Rocks.
Large ones.
Kosmo climbed.
Paul climbed.
Effortless.
Like gravity had signed separate agreements with them.
The council looks toward me.
I climbed.
Poorly.
Children.
My relationship with vertical movement was apparently problematic even before I developed cigarettes as a personality trait.
Hands.
Feet.
Knees.
Occasional prayer.
At one point I believe I negotiated directly with a boulder.
The council nods.
Did it respond?
Emotionally.
No.
Then I looked back.
Laia.
The council becomes interested.
Tiny.
Children.
Very tiny.
Travel sized.
A creature apparently designed specifically for fitting into overhead luggage compartments.
The council laughs.
She reached upward.
And here,
for once,
I possessed a physical advantage.
I grabbed her hand.
Pulled.
Up she came.
The council applauds.
Efficient.
Children.
This became the system.
Kosmo climbs.
Paul climbs.
Nuo suffers.
Nuo survives.
Nuo turns around.
Retrieves Laia.
Repeat.
The council nods.
Primitive teamwork.
And I would like history to record that,
despite my complete incompetence with geography,
I was apparently useful for exactly one task.
Human elevator.
The council cheers.
Contribution achieved.
Now.
The deeper we went,
the stranger the path became.
If it could still be called a path.
Children.
At some point,
I stopped seeing any evidence that ordinary humans traveled this way.
No signs.
No obvious trail.
No little arrows.
Nothing saying:
Scenic Psychedelic Destination This Way.
Just Kosmo.
Walking confidently.
The council becomes concerned.
And because Kosmo walked confidently,
we followed.
The ancient system continued.
Someone else knows.
Therefore,
Nuo does not need to.
A beautiful philosophy right up until everyone dies.
The council sighs.
Yet eventually,
the trees opened.
And there it was.
The spot.
The council grows quiet.
Children.
I had expected something.
Maybe a cliff.
Maybe a riverbank.
Perhaps an abandoned structure.
Some hidden beach.
Maybe a little clearing where locals went to smoke.
I had not expected
that.
A banyan tree.
The council looks upward.
Big.
Very big.
No.
Children.
Massive.
The kind of tree that doesn’t look planted.
It looks established.
Ancient.
Like the forest had grown around it out of respect.
Branches stretched outward.
Roots descended from them like ropes.
Some had reached the ground and thickened into columns.
Others hung freely,
moving slightly with the air.
The entire thing looked less like a tree
and more like a living building.
The council grows still.
And directly ahead
an opening.
Not carved.
Not built.
Natural.
Or perhaps made natural through repetition.
The roots had grown around a small passage,
leaving just enough room for a person to enter.
Children.
As though generation after generation of people had walked through the same place
until the tree itself had learned the route.
The council nods.
A doorway.
Exactly.
A doorway made of roots.
Now.
Kosmo walked toward it.
No hesitation.
Children.
Of course.
This was his spot.
He pushed through the hanging roots.
And disappeared inside.
The council leans forward.
Paul followed.
Also without hesitation.
Then
Laia and I remained.
For perhaps a second.
Maybe two.
We looked at the opening.
Then at each other.
The acid had climbed another step.
The roots seemed to shift when I wasn’t looking directly at them.
The shadows inside looked darker than shadows had any right to be.
The council becomes interested.
Children.
There are moments where sensible people stop.
Ask questions.
What is inside?
Is this safe?
Are there animals?
Snakes?
People?
A cult?
The council waits.
Laia looked at me.
I looked at Laia.
No words.
Just a tiny smile.
A nod.
The council smiles.
Same brain.
Apparently.
And together,
we stepped forward.
Through the hanging roots.
Past the living doorway.
Into the banyan.
The council grows quiet.
Children.
There is something strange about entering a tree.
Not climbing it.
Not sitting beneath it.
Entering it.
Outside,
it had been enormous.
Inside?
It became a world.
Roots surrounded us.
Thick trunks that were not quite trunks.
Natural walls.
Little corridors formed by wood.
Patches of sunlight filtering through leaves far above.
The air cooler.
The sound different.
Muted.
As though the tree itself absorbed part of the outside world.
The council listens.
And the acid loved it.
Every root seemed to pulse.
Bark patterns moved.
Tiny lines spiraled into one another.
The hanging roots appeared endless,
like veins descending from some enormous creature sleeping above us.
Children.
I remember thinking—
This is alive.
The council pauses.
Obviously it is a tree.
Not like that.
Alive.
Present.
Ancient enough that our four little lives seemed almost offensively brief beside it.
The council grows quiet.
Kosmo stood ahead.
Paul nearby.
Laia beside me.
And for once,
none of us spoke immediately.
Because what do you say?
“Huh.
Nice tree.”
The council laughs.
No.
Some places make conversation feel unnecessary.
The banyan was one of them.
Now.
We moved deeper.
The opening behind us disappeared among the roots.
And suddenly,
there was no road.
No scooter.
No hostel.
No rave.
No city.
Only the four of us
inside this enormous living maze.
The council leans forward.
Children.
The rave had shown me what acid could do to artificial light.
This place?
This was something else.
No lasers.
No speakers.
No psychedelic decorations.
Nature had apparently been designing psychedelic architecture long before humans began printing fractals on tapestries.
The council applauds.
Superior craftsmanship.
Everywhere I looked,
patterns.
Repetition.
Roots branching into roots.
Light splitting through leaves.
Shadows creating shapes,
then changing when the branches moved.
And somewhere inside me,
the trip continued rising.
The council becomes very still.
We had found the spot.
Or perhaps,
the spot had swallowed us.
Thus concludes Chapter Eleven.
The Trek.
The Human Elevator.
The Doorway Of Roots.
And The Banyan.
Children.
Kosmo had promised a spot.
I had expected somewhere nice to sit.
Instead,
he led us through streams,
rocks,
grass,
and increasingly questionable geography
to an enormous tree with a doorway growing through its roots.
The council nods solemnly.
And perhaps that should have been enough.
A beautiful place.
Four friends.
Acid beginning to bloom.
But children,
we had only just entered.
And the deeper we went into that banyan,
the less the outside world seemed to exist.
