Sunflower - Chapter 27

The true beauty of this world is often found in its transitionality.

A thing becomes another thing.

This new thing becomes yet another new thing.

A day turns into a night. This then turns into a new day.

- Enough of these turn into a week, then a month, and so on.

The egg turns into a bird.

The bird turns into bones.

The bones turn into soil.

The soil turns into a plant.

This goes all the way and around and around, until eventually, it becomes a bird again.

Life is funny, isn’t it?

Burch and I have reached the end of the great-desert. It was by far the largest, longest and most arid place we have ever needed to cross.

And, the transition of our position, from one side to the other, has revealed something most troublesome for me.

- Paradise is not here. It is even further away still.

We wander through lands which I find most intriguing. Crystals, like in the caves we had once passed through, line the landscape, jutting out of dense, dark green foliage.

A day after leaving the desert, the soil was dry.

Then, a day after that, it became more to what we are accustomed to. I drank a lot that day.

Then, on the next day, it became damp.

The transition continued, as on the day after that, the soil became wet.

Burch and I have transitioned from a desert to a swamp.

Is this not most unusual?

How funny life can be.

You think you are here, but then you are there. The sky might shine with sunlight now, but in an hour it might rain.

We might be alive now, but in an hour, we might transition unto death.

Navigating the swamp is difficult. There is only sparse land and the waters, pungent and green, do not seem like they are kind and welcoming to anyone who does not belong to them already.

Many things with many teeth lurk beneath the green coating, which floats atop the water.

My-my, aren’t I a talkative sunflower today?

Perhaps I too have transitioned from a thing that is quiet and solitary, to a thing that is most rambunctious and thrives in cohabitation?

This is certainly unusual for a sunflower.

Burch bends down and looks.

Ahead of us is a frog.

*Ribbit* croaks the frog.

Burch smiles.

The frog does not, as it transitions from the state of a frog, to the state of food.

And around and around the circle of life goes.

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Burch plays with her skin, pulling off pieces of it, which had been burnt by the sun’s radiant grace, during our week in the desert.

Now that she has found shade and water, her body is starting to peel in a lot of places.

It is as if she were a snake, shedding its skin.

I still do not really know what exactly my friend Burch is.

I have had many theories in the past. From her being a mushroom, to a fish, to a worm, to a butterfly and so on, all the way through towards my last guess of her being a monster.

- This one is still the leading theory.

I realize that this chain of assumptions too, is a transition.

Burch winces, pulling off a particularly large flake and tossing it over her shoulder, revealing a burnt, red, sun-kissed arm beneath.

There is not much sunlight here in the swamp.

At least not beneath the trees of many roots, half of which dip into the water and half of which sit atop the soil.

Burch watches my face and sees me looking at a tree.

She lifts her hand.

[Mangrove Tree]

Found in brackish, swampy areas between the inland and the ocean, mangroves serve as natural filters for salt-water, allowing it to turn sweet. They thrive in high moisture environments.

Fascinating.

Even the trees here serve a purpose of transition.

I did not know that water could be this salty.

- Perhaps my prior judgment of trees as a whole was too harsh.

If they steal the sunlight and keep it for themselves, I find that most unforgivable.

But if they clean the water and nourish the soil, allowing me to drink of it, then I suppose it all evens out.

Thank you, tree.

Burch hisses, peeling off another large piece of flaking skin.

I reconsider my snake theory.

__________________________________________________________

I have identified already that I too am in a state of transition.

- Perhaps the same can be said of Burch?

I can not help but notice that I feel higher up than I used to, many weeks ago.

Her body had, for a long time, become gaunt and skeletal and weak.

Then it began to fill with muscle and with fat, provided to her by the bounties of nature, by my sugars.

Burch is growing strong.

She has begun the transition into whatever adulthood means for her species. While her body is not there yet, in comparison with the many others of her kind who we have seen, her spirit certainly is.

We look at a large crystal, jutting out of the swampy waters.

Above those waters, no trees block the sunlight. So the green algae flourishes everywhere.

But here, the sunlight hits the azure crystal, which jabs out of the middle of the slow water.

From it, sunlight refracts out in all directions, spreading out over the water in a most beautiful spectacle. It is as if glowing creatures were swimming just beneath its disturbed surface.

And the reason for the water’s disturbance is that fish jump up from below the surface, diving out of the sun-spots, before flopping noisily back into the brackish mire.

I can not say why they do this.

But it seems that they have some interest in jumping out of the water, but only ever where the sunspots float.

I wonder.

- Do fish crave the light of the sun too?

Could the answer be this simple?

No.

I see it now.

They too are trying to reach paradise.

Why else would they be jumping towards the sun?

It would make sense to me.

What an odd life it must be, to be a fish.

I fondly recall the memory of the very big fish, as I watch a little fish jump out of the water over and over again.

Jump high, little fish.

We will see each other again in paradise.

I am sure of it.

__________________________________________________________

An old house sits in the swamp.

And in the old house sits an old woman.

And in the lap of the old woman, sits a cat.

- In the cat sits nothing, except perhaps some parasites.

We have no reason to stop here. Houses have brought us little but misfortune.

Well, we did find Burch’s book.

But apart from that.

We look at the old woman and the old woman looks at us, together with her cat.

I like cats.

They eat the little mice, who would nibble of my roots.

They eat the little birds, who would steal my most precious seeds.

Sadly, there is little that I can offer the cat in exchange for these services.

After all, I am just a sunflower.

“A witch…” mutters Burch beneath her breath.

I do not know what this means.

Given her unusual complexion, it seems unlikely that the woman speaks the same dialect as Burch.

We keep our distance and continue walking, following the sun, towards the west.

__________________________________________________________

A day has passed.

But a problem has found us.

Burch and I stand at the edge of the water, staring at the house in the middle of it, in which sits a woman, with a cat.

I am fairly confident that we left this place a full day ago.

Yet here we are again.

Ah, how troublesome.

Did we get lost?

I can not say.

Burch grabs the straps of her bag and nervously shuffles away, the eyes of the woman on us both.

We move towards the west.

__________________________________________________________

A new day.

We are here yet again.

The swamp seems to be intent on keeping us forever.

Burch and I, hungry, missing the kisses of the sun, stare at the witch and the witch stares at us.

- Perhaps we should simply eat her?

This would be my suggestion.

Burch grabs the straps of her rucksack, hoisting me up and we try walking off again.

My stubborn friend does not seem to want to relinquish her control of the situation.

We head towards the west as always.

__________________________________________________________

Of course, we are here again on yet another new day.

The swamp has kept us as long as the desert had already.

I wilt.

I need sunlight.

Burch has eaten little, save for a few frogs. She too, hungers.

But the witch stares at us and we stare at her, lost.

My friend admits defeat and then falls onto her bottom, sitting on the swampy grasses of the mire.

The woman doesn’t move. But the cat nods and lifts a paw, pointing to our left, rather than to the path to the right.

We look.

There, tethered to the shore, in the direction we simply had never looked in, is a small boat.

Haha.

A life lesson.