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past broadcasts. Escape

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Pod, 973 The

0:39

Forest, by

0:42

Simone Heller. Hello

1:08

and welcome to to Escape your

1:10

your fiction podcast. fiction I'm

1:12

Valerie I'm your host for

1:14

this episode. host for this episode. Our this

1:16

week this our final story of

1:19

the year. story of the Forest

1:21

by Simone Heller. by Simone

1:23

Heller. appeared in Life

1:25

Beyond Us, an original

1:27

anthology of SF stories

1:29

and science essays and by

1:31

Susan Forrest, by Susan Forrest, Lucas

1:33

K. Law, Julie May 2023. May

1:35

2023. Simone Heller lives on

1:37

on an island in the River Danube

1:39

in Regensburg, Germany. She has been

1:42

has been working as a literary translator

1:44

for over 15 years. Her first steps Her

1:46

first steps in writing in English were taken

1:48

in 2016 with a group with

1:50

a group of international writers in Munich,

1:52

and her short fiction has since

1:54

appeared in several magazines and anthologies. She

1:57

She loves learning all kinds of things.

1:59

words most of... but also history,

2:01

science, and everything about the

2:03

strange creatures of Earth, and

2:06

beyond. Our narrator this week

2:08

is Hugo Jackson. Hugo is

2:10

an author and streamer on

2:12

the East Coast of the

2:15

USA. Born in the UK,

2:17

they moved to the US

2:19

to view with their partner,

2:22

and have since published the

2:24

first three novels of a

2:26

five-book young adult fantasy series,

2:28

the resonance tetralogy, through inspired

2:31

quill. They also stream semi-regularly

2:33

on Twitch, username, Pangolin Fox,

2:35

and run a yearly charity

2:37

stream on World Pangolin Day

2:40

to raise money for one

2:42

of their favorite animals, the

2:44

aforementioned Pangolin. Now, get ready

2:46

for a love letter from

2:49

a tree to a visitor

2:51

from the stars, because it's

2:53

story time. by Simone Heller,

2:55

narrated by Hugo Jackson. It

2:57

is known that the rootless

2:59

are only ever leaving. Always

3:01

moving on, never embracing soil

3:03

long enough for connection. A

3:05

life tumbled and tossed, and

3:07

if it touches ours, it

3:10

is only by chance, and

3:12

ill chance more often than

3:14

not. But you came, in

3:16

a tumble and a glorious

3:18

blaze. by intention and by

3:20

ill chance. The night of

3:22

your arrival was almost by

3:24

undoing. You rode an incandescent

3:26

gust tearing into our rows,

3:28

escorted by a rain of

3:30

hot metal. The ground rippled

3:32

once with your impact outward

3:34

and onward quicker than the

3:36

fungal netwood could warn us.

3:38

When the air stilled and

3:40

the conversation erupted in bursts

3:42

of pain and fire, no

3:44

one knew what had crashed

3:46

down on us. We sucked

3:49

moisture from the deep, made

3:51

the lesser plants close their

3:53

ranks and smother the flames,

3:55

and we calmed the conversation

3:57

with memories of renewal and

3:59

regrowth. You had plummeted

4:01

from the sky, the fungal

4:03

network relayed, as the filament

4:05

reached out again to take

4:07

hold of the large swath

4:09

of churned and scorched soil,

4:11

of everything that lay fallen

4:13

and ready to decompose. Our

4:15

rootscape expanded anew, tasting the

4:17

damage and the altered lay

4:19

of the land. But one

4:21

blank spot persisted. One fragment

4:23

had not shattered, tumbling over

4:25

and over until it had

4:27

come to rest next to

4:29

me. its edge nicking a

4:31

branch. Neither root nor spore

4:33

found purchaser, and no matter

4:35

how far and wide the

4:37

conversation was carried, this sealed

4:40

structure remained unknown. It was

4:42

deemed to be not of

4:44

our soil, and as it

4:46

lay inert, it was deemed

4:48

to be not of our

4:50

interest either. We would claim

4:52

it, sooner or later, either

4:54

encapsulating it and burying it

4:56

as a curiosity in our

4:58

rootscape, Or it would yield

5:00

after all, as everything yielded,

5:02

to rain and root and

5:04

frost and fungus. It cracked

5:06

open on its own soon

5:08

enough, right there within my

5:10

reach. My sap-quenching stillness spread

5:12

through the conversation until the

5:14

whole forest seemed to pause.

5:16

Something fell out. Topling to

5:18

the ground as if it

5:20

caught in a storm with

5:22

no grovekin, it just lay

5:24

there. Thumping fear and exhaustion

5:26

against the soil in the

5:28

way of the rootless. My

5:30

excitement for the unknown, a

5:32

rootless from the sky, with

5:34

neither nest nor burrow known

5:36

to tree or spore, surged

5:38

as the filament flashed agitation

5:40

in its alienness. Not of

5:42

our soil. I felt delight.

5:44

The quickening of survival rushed

5:46

through my sapwood, and deeper

5:48

even, curiosity sprouted. I reached.

5:50

I reached. With leaves rustling

5:52

welcome, with a fragrance of

5:54

earthy solidity, I reached. And

5:56

you came. You lifted yourself

5:58

up, stumbling forward. totally crashed.

6:00

I was able to sense

6:02

your strangeness, a limb first

6:04

to catch your fall, then

6:06

your weight against me, sliding

6:08

down along my base where

6:10

it stayed, almost motionless except

6:12

for small, a rhythmic quivers.

6:14

You were big for a

6:17

rootless, but still fragile, and

6:19

possibly damaged from your violent

6:21

arrival. I wanted to help

6:23

and feed the conversation with

6:25

my findings, your size, your

6:27

mass, the desperate grasp of

6:29

your initial touch. My excitement

6:31

was met with polite disinterest.

6:33

To my grovekin and my

6:35

sapkin, the rootless were nothing

6:37

but a nuisance. Pests at

6:39

worst, inconsequential bearers of gifts

6:41

to seal alliances, found dynasties

6:43

and end wars at best,

6:45

and always good for erratic

6:47

behaviour. But I knew better.

6:49

There was a pattern in

6:51

their wayward bustling, and a

6:53

purpose to their actions, thoughtless

6:55

as they might seem. We

6:57

believe they didn't reach toward the

7:00

sun, but you had fallen from

7:02

the sky, and how much closer

7:04

could one get? I wanted to

7:06

know about the reaching and the

7:08

falling, about the origin of your

7:10

vagrant ways. So, as the strange

7:12

quivers against my trunk became more

7:15

infrequent, I decided to keep you.

7:17

You were restless. A flurry of

7:19

action lacking the patience to feel

7:21

how the sun fueled regrowth in

7:23

the field of debris. Sapplings were

7:25

selected to settle on the fire-primed

7:27

earth while you darted in and

7:30

out of the structure that had

7:32

encapsulated you, scattering and silencing the

7:34

smaller rootless with a resounding boom,

7:36

each time you seal your enclosure

7:38

and you. Your distress entered our

7:40

water and our soil, and the

7:42

surrounding kin promised each other, soon

7:45

it will wander off to distant

7:47

groves. They gracefully ignored my attempts

7:49

to woo you to stay. Next

7:51

to your enclosure, under the outmost

7:54

reaches of my canopy you started

7:56

to dig in the soil. You

7:58

were relentless, like a root trying

8:00

to raise... an unwanted rock to

8:02

gravel with a piece of debris,

8:04

a dead branch, your bare limbs

8:06

until the filaments tasted blood. I

8:08

would have helped, if I had

8:10

understood. You went inside and hauled

8:13

out a body, similar to yours

8:15

in all but minor differences in

8:17

weight and build, and another, and

8:19

another, placing them in the hole

8:21

one by one. You stayed at

8:23

their side, more rooted than your

8:25

kind is usually known for. When

8:27

you moved again, first you sprinkled

8:30

up turned soil on the bodies,

8:32

a well-considered offering to the filament.

8:34

Next came the tiniest droplets of

8:36

salty water. And last, you showered

8:38

them with a hum you created

8:40

on a thing you held. Its

8:42

vibration softly tinkling like warm raindrops

8:44

on my leaves. Slowly, as we

8:46

tasted your offering, I observed more.

8:49

The filaments did not discriminate, and

8:51

my grovekin wanted to know if

8:53

you carried new kinds of parasites

8:55

we would have to synthesize toxins

8:57

against. We learned about the metabolism

8:59

of the bodies in the ground,

9:01

their hormones, the dozens of fractures

9:03

in their bodies which let us

9:05

observe their density, and the processes

9:08

in their marrow. Faintly. Ever so

9:10

faintly, I found traces of unknown

9:12

soil. And they sent my thoughts,

9:14

spiralling outwards towards my spirit kin

9:16

in the conversation, those few and

9:18

far-away trees sharing my scholarly interests.

9:20

But I knew something else too.

9:22

You had to be lonely. It

9:24

was your kin who had joined

9:27

our soil, and while the wound

9:29

in the forest caused by your

9:31

fall was mending, the wound in

9:33

you was gaping open. All I

9:35

could offer was to enrich my

9:37

fruit with the substance as you

9:39

needed. To provide shelter and shade

9:41

things anyone with a shoot of

9:43

kindness would do for a lost

9:46

rootless. But never the murmur of

9:48

the conversation and the promise of

9:50

regrowth. Never the echoes of trees

9:52

who had struck root here since

9:54

the plates of the earth first

9:56

ground against each other for a...

9:58

the forest. You took my fruit,

10:00

and you lived through your wound,

10:02

collecting nourishment, water, dead wood for

10:05

your own ritual of fire, so

10:07

different and minuscule compared to our

10:09

roaring spectacles of burning and resettling.

10:11

You wore paths through the underbrush

10:13

until your presence felt like a

10:15

map imprinted on the land even

10:17

when you were hidden in your

10:19

enclosure. When dusk wove through the

10:21

canopy, you often rested at my

10:24

side. and brought the thing that

10:26

vibrates under your hands. It felt

10:28

like rain tinkling on my leaves,

10:30

with a deeper rhythm more akin

10:32

to your thumping blood than our

10:34

steady flow of sap. Its harmonics

10:36

resonated deep in my heartwood, even

10:38

if they were not meant for

10:40

me. Or maybe they were. I

10:43

was eager to find out what

10:45

they implied either way. There was

10:47

so much I wanted to ask

10:49

about your enclosure, your journey, the

10:51

piece of fabric you fixed on

10:53

one of my limbs first thing

10:55

every morning, and so much I

10:57

wanted to be asked. Had you

10:59

noticed the ferns I cultivated in

11:02

the crooks of my branches? Some

11:04

from spores usually found beyond the

11:06

great irrigation channel? I had collected

11:08

forty-nine sensations of extra fuzzy rootless

11:10

creeping along my leaves, never shared

11:12

with my kin, but maybe you

11:14

would appreciate them. At

11:16

night, when you were inside and

11:19

the conversation was a dream-like murmur,

11:21

I tried to imagine where you

11:23

came from. Was it a place

11:25

shaped by a forest too? And

11:27

did its eternal whisper mingle with

11:29

your tinkling there? Or did you

11:31

hail from stranger lands? I stayed

11:33

alert, contemplating the cool blackness of

11:35

the skies we all reached into.

11:37

The faint movements of light up

11:39

there, as if a sun-dappled stream

11:41

ran through the vastness. Far away

11:43

sons, my spirit kin said. when

11:45

their replies travelled back to me,

11:48

not worth wilting away for during

11:50

the nights. One sun was enough

11:52

to reach for. These were the

11:54

maps I lived by, the distant

11:56

suns wandering the skies, and you

11:58

forging a path through the forest.

12:00

Both patterns were strange to me,

12:02

uprooted, unhinged, but the other scholars

12:04

claimed the sons were reliable in

12:06

their revolutions, always coming back. And

12:08

so were you. You took such

12:10

great care to adorn me with

12:12

your piece of fabric every day,

12:15

and you sought my support, drawn

12:17

by your own kind of gravitropism.

12:19

You would lean on me, the

12:21

frenetic rhythm of your pulse relaxing

12:23

when I passed my solidity onto

12:25

you. Any injuries caused by your

12:27

arrival were healing nicely, leaving only

12:29

a stiffened ridge of tissue, thick

12:31

like sanitising wound wood, rendering your

12:33

gate slightly uneven. Our world had

12:35

welcomed you with a fall, but

12:37

I tried to catch you, best

12:39

I could. You began to tinker

12:41

on your enclosure in amiable tranquility,

12:44

and I enjoyed the companionship growing

12:46

between us. Such delicate structures you

12:48

handled, even my grove can consider

12:50

you something like our sculptors of

12:52

rock and ravine. They would marvel

12:54

even more when you revealed what

12:56

you were building. It had to

12:58

be something big. You spent more

13:00

and more time inside, and dull

13:02

echoes vibrated along the hull. You

13:04

gathered the devices you had attached

13:06

to me and some others to

13:08

sound us out to the core

13:11

with electrical impulses, and I imagined

13:13

you, like me, couldn't wait to

13:15

grow a deeper connection. What if

13:17

you built something to help us

13:19

understand each other better? I was

13:21

ready to do my part and

13:23

make it work. Then

13:25

one day the piece of wreckage

13:27

finally yielded. It would have been

13:29

long before you noticed, just a

13:31

hairline crack in its base, though

13:33

enough for the filament to squeeze

13:35

in and thrive in the recesses

13:37

you never touched, taste what was

13:39

hidden inside. It was a steady

13:41

trickle of discoveries as the filament

13:43

swept over the planes of materials

13:45

so smooth it could not enter,

13:47

intricate lattice and fibre structures, dancing

13:49

electric impulses. Impatience

13:51

is for the rootless, my grovekin admonished

13:54

when I kept nudging. We will be

13:56

here to inspect this structure long after

13:58

it has moved on. I learned you

14:00

spend most of your time in front

14:02

of a flickering wall of light to

14:05

let vibrations and shifting luminance wash over

14:07

you in an endless repetitive pattern that

14:09

held no clue to anything I wanted

14:11

to know. It was irrelevant. It was

14:13

not what you had prepared to bring

14:15

us closer together. Your great work stood

14:18

in the centre of the chamber. An

14:20

upright, stelted capsule that would have fitted

14:22

you just so. First I thought it

14:24

was some kind of new shelter you

14:26

built. A pod, a nest, a home.

14:28

It wasn't the marvel of structure I

14:31

had envisioned, but we would find other

14:33

ways to connect. I felt a surge

14:35

of joy anyway. To me, it looked

14:37

like settling. I should have known better

14:39

because you never once slept in it.

14:41

And even a muddle shoot such as

14:44

I shouldn't have forgotten what pods were

14:46

for. But it took until the filament

14:48

explored the whole shape of your enclosure

14:50

to see what it was, what you

14:52

were trying to do. Like

14:54

a flower waiting to bloom, the

14:57

canopy of the chamber was hinged

14:59

to fold back and open up

15:01

to the sky and the capsule

15:03

inside ready to pop out, to

15:05

carry away its precious cargo to

15:07

a far-away sun. All this time,

15:09

you had been preparing to leave.

15:11

It was always going to leave,

15:13

but we are here. My grovekin

15:15

murmured, while my sapkin sent soothing

15:18

sugars to my roots when I

15:20

went silent in the conversation instead

15:22

of enthusiastically accounting for your every

15:24

move. We are rooted, and you

15:26

are passers-by, and it was as

15:28

if we were living on two

15:30

different worlds, even if you hadn't

15:32

left yet. I had thought we

15:34

wanted to lean on each other

15:36

and learn from each other. Someone

15:39

who crossed the sun-dappled river of

15:41

the sky, who braved it despite

15:43

the chance of falling into the

15:45

darkness. Someone who left their own

15:47

soil behind had to be a

15:49

scholar like me. And here you

15:51

were, on a new world, a

15:53

world that had reached out to

15:55

you with supportive branch, with a

15:57

rootscape steeped in eons of growing.

16:00

I had thought you were as

16:02

curious as I was, and I

16:04

had been wrong. Very rarely you

16:07

took the time to bring your

16:09

humming thing to me, and I

16:11

noticed some of its harmonics were

16:13

missing. Its vibrations diminished. You let

16:15

its tinkling patter across the clearing

16:17

anyway. But I knew it had

16:19

never been for me. And it

16:21

hurt. It hurt so much that

16:23

I only noticed you hurt too,

16:25

when you didn't come out anymore,

16:27

and the forest began to erase

16:29

your paths from my maps. You

16:31

still hung your piece of fabric

16:33

on my branch every morning, but

16:36

it felt limp and crumpled, not

16:38

like something to display as proudly

16:40

as I had. Others might have

16:42

assumed you were eagerly preparing for

16:44

the moment the petals of your

16:46

canopy would open. But I knew

16:48

your light touch when you discovered

16:50

a delicious new fruit, the spring

16:52

in your step when you climbed

16:54

sturdy branches to face the wind

16:56

rustling over the rise and falled

16:58

of the forest for the first

17:00

time. Now you stomped across the

17:02

clearing, kicked your enclosure, repeatedly, and

17:04

there was no eager impatience in

17:07

your movements, just desperation. And no

17:09

one to soothe you in a

17:11

way you could understand, when sweet

17:13

sugars did not suffice. when you

17:15

needed to dissipate your hurt into

17:17

the all-enduring forest. No single being

17:19

should have to bear such pain.

17:21

I probed again, observing your earlier

17:23

efforts more closely. I found the

17:25

scaffolding you had built, the broken

17:27

and bent tools you had used

17:29

for gaining leverage, the scratch marks

17:31

on the tightly closed petals of

17:33

your metal flower. I felt the

17:35

weight of each petal so much

17:38

more than you, and the way

17:40

the impact had bent them in

17:42

shapes that would prevent their elegant

17:44

opening motion. You had tried your

17:46

best to pry and cut and

17:48

scrape, but your flower was never

17:50

going to bloom. And I understood

17:52

how the sky must have closed

17:54

up to you, completely out of

17:56

reach beyond your locked canopy. How

17:58

the other sons became an empty

18:00

dream and you felt stuck, robbed

18:02

of your vagrant nature, bound to

18:04

a life grounded and confined instead

18:07

of tumbled and tossed. One son

18:09

has always been enough, my grovekin

18:11

assured me when I emitted your

18:13

pain. And maybe I could try

18:15

and convince us both. There were

18:17

things for us to explore, strange

18:19

and far reaches of the rootscape

18:21

like a whisper in the background

18:23

of the conversation. But it was

18:25

not what you needed, not now.

18:27

Not now. as you kept facing

18:29

your wall of light, almost rooted

18:31

in whatever echoes and memories it

18:33

was evoking in you. You needed

18:35

the comfort, I was granted continuously

18:38

by the forest. So I primed

18:40

the filament once more for the

18:42

vibrations you let wash over you

18:44

in front of your wall, filtering

18:46

out the higher frequencies clearly produced

18:48

by you and others like you

18:50

in the repeating sequence, and focused

18:52

on the background rhythm. It

18:54

was nothing I had ever experienced, but

18:57

I could almost feel the soothing force

18:59

of its steady role. I sent it

19:01

out to my spirit, Kin, and were,

19:04

travelled far and wide in the conversation.

19:06

Favours were called in to cross borders,

19:08

and when replies trickle back, they came

19:11

from Strange Kin, who had ventured out

19:13

onto uninhabitable ground. We know. We share.

19:15

This is the urban flow surging around

19:18

our stilted roots, they said. The sea.

19:20

The unconquerable sea. Do you feel the

19:22

sharp nip of salt? I wanted to

19:25

feel the salt and everything else with

19:27

it, and I wanted to break it

19:29

down into its molecules and understand it.

19:32

For I knew you cherished this experience

19:34

above anything else, and I could give

19:36

it to you the way we used

19:39

to give the comfort of rain on

19:41

our leaves to our droughtland neighbours. I

19:43

called in more favours and recruited my

19:46

long-suffering grovekin to find trace elements to

19:48

accumulate in my sapwood for synthesizing something

19:50

this forest had never known. You

19:53

were abandoning your flower and yourself

19:55

within it, not even coming out

19:58

to hang your fabric anymore. electrical

20:00

pulses stilled one after the other,

20:02

and you stopped scraping off the

20:04

mosses claiming the ground. Life exploded

20:07

and it still felt lifeless after

20:09

you draped covers over the finer

20:11

structures and disabled your wall of

20:13

light. When you finally stepped out,

20:16

I was prepared. You didn't know

20:18

what I had released into the

20:20

air, but you stumbled right into

20:22

it. Every leaf of mine exuding

20:25

this strange sea smell so different

20:27

from the earthiness of our grove.

20:29

It hung in the air, briny,

20:31

fresh, ready to embrace you. And

20:34

I felt you swaying there, expanding

20:36

while you breathed in, drinking it

20:38

into every pore, this promise that

20:40

you were not alone. It wasn't

20:43

the rhythm and the light your

20:45

wall had shown you, but... As

20:47

you were drawn back to a

20:49

shore, even the strange stilted rootkin

20:52

couldn't imagine. You knew it. And

20:54

you knew me. You came to

20:56

gently pull down a twig and

20:58

press my leaves against your face,

21:01

breathing deeply. You let your calloused

21:03

fingers whisper over my skin, a

21:05

new map immediately ingrained in my

21:08

mind. You walked around me in

21:10

wonder, never breaking touch. Your steps

21:12

transmitting the lightness of climbing high

21:14

and probing deep the bounce of

21:17

discovery. When you stayed the whole

21:19

night instead of going back to

21:21

your enclosure to rest, I felt

21:23

I had become more than solidity,

21:26

more than a monument guarding your

21:28

dead kin. We scholars know the

21:30

rootless connection to the world is

21:32

often not by touch, but rather

21:35

your perception of light. And even

21:37

as you were touching me now,

21:39

what I felt was seen. After

21:42

that, you began wandering the grove

21:44

again. You didn't try to pry

21:46

open your flower anymore, and you

21:48

didn't even return to the inside

21:51

of your enclosure but once. You

21:53

walked around cautiously then, not to

21:55

dwell, but as if you were

21:57

an intruder, touching only the smallest

21:59

of things, tugging on a cover

22:01

there, trays. your fingers lightly along

22:03

a moss speckled surface there. Soon

22:05

you sealed your access hatch and

22:07

left, but you brought something with

22:09

you. I felt it in the

22:11

added weight and the hollowness of

22:13

it. Even if you didn't coax

22:15

out your rainfall tinkles anymore, you

22:17

carried the thing you made vibrate.

22:19

You stood there for some time,

22:21

and when you set it down

22:23

in the crook of my widest

22:25

roots, you didn't intentionally strum, but

22:27

it made the tiniest off-key quiver.

22:29

I had hopes, but only after

22:31

you fixed it there a little

22:33

bit more firmly, and you again

22:35

showed the understanding you had worked

22:37

out for yourself by sprinkling soil

22:39

on top of it. I knew,

22:41

you truly intended, it is a

22:43

gift. And what a gift it

22:45

was! I took my time tasting

22:47

it, filament first and rootwood later,

22:49

and I found something familiar in

22:51

its strange shape among bits of

22:53

metal and synthetics. Years upon years

22:55

of rooting and growing were embedded

22:57

in its wooden body, and I

22:59

sensed the faint echoes of far-away

23:01

forests, spaciously arrayed evergreens dreaming under

23:03

the weight of a wintery chill,

23:05

a tangle of mist and clasped

23:07

giants teeming with a flurry of

23:09

wildlife, mellow woodlands in the gentle

23:11

sway of ever-changing seasons. The forests

23:14

this would have been taken from

23:16

were old and alien, growing and

23:18

reaching like us, but different down

23:20

to the tiniest components of their

23:22

cells. They were forever beyond reach,

23:24

but they were kin nonetheless. Kin

23:26

across the skies, kin under a

23:28

different sun. Such was the gift

23:30

you gave me. I couldn't hold

23:32

it in. Jolted the root-scapes with

23:34

my prompts of taste, feel, hoping

23:36

it would reach my spirit can

23:38

make them understand. Ours is not

23:40

the only conversation. Other memories were

23:42

tangled within the wood. The ghosts

23:44

of caressing skin and dancing fingers.

23:46

Fragments of you like overtones to

23:48

the whispering of the wood. You,

23:50

clearly, among your spirit kin, cheered

23:52

and accompanied while you energetically entice

23:54

the hum from the wood. You,

23:56

alone, exploring a burbling stream in

23:58

adding your own tinkling to while

24:00

away the night. You clasping the

24:02

wood as if it supported you,

24:04

when a stranger's message opened the

24:06

sky to you and you got

24:08

thumping all over down to your

24:10

fingertips. And you, in a capsule,

24:12

suspended in the void with three

24:14

others, reaching for this body of

24:16

wood whenever you needed a piece

24:18

of something grown. A piece of

24:20

home. I almost felt the pulse

24:22

of being rootless, of being pulled

24:24

along and beyond the field lines

24:26

of our world. Would it be

24:28

so bad to leave? Would it

24:30

be nice to explore, to experience,

24:32

the places the rootscape that it

24:35

could never touch and our conversation

24:37

had never envisioned? No amount of

24:39

excitement would stir the interest of

24:41

my kin above a friendly rustle,

24:43

while they invoked the feeling of

24:45

the sun and the rain providing

24:47

for us, the soil reliably carrying

24:49

our weight and the weight of

24:51

our memories. Messages of comfort to

24:53

calm my strange thoughts. And yes,

24:55

the sun warmed me just as

24:57

well as ever, it raised caressed

24:59

my leaves just as gently, but

25:01

I felt it was not enough.

25:03

There was a longing for different

25:05

suns, suns I could never feel.

25:07

You knew this longing, it made

25:09

you reach. It made you fall.

25:11

But it shouldn't have tangled you

25:13

in roots you never wanted, cut

25:15

off from your own conversation. Shouldn't

25:17

have made you dwell in my

25:19

shade all miserable and yearning, the

25:21

sky like a mockery mockery above

25:23

you. I might not be able

25:25

to act upon my longing, and

25:27

I could never reach a distant

25:29

sun, but there was one thing

25:31

I could do, even if it

25:33

would hurt to lose you. We

25:35

are rooted, and while we are

25:37

not able to abandon our places

25:39

and leave, we are shapers and

25:41

shifters, and with the right approach,

25:43

we raise mountains. So I reached

25:45

towards the sun, and gathered my

25:47

strength. You didn't know. You were

25:49

focused on your own movement, into

25:51

a new shelter by my side,

25:53

draped in vines and cushioned with

25:55

mosses, and away from your failure.

25:58

Exploring the forest, though when you

26:00

climbed it was less... energetic and

26:02

never all the way up to

26:04

the canopy anymore. Ironically, we were

26:06

now as I had envisioned us

26:08

to be. We had an understanding,

26:10

you and I, that we were

26:12

akin in curiosity. You brought me

26:14

stones washed up in the riverbed,

26:16

rich in history with leaf imprints

26:18

from a long-lost nation. Smaller rootless

26:20

you found and nurtured, and maybe

26:22

you kept those for yourself, but

26:24

it was still a gift, nesting

26:26

in my branches, basking on my

26:28

leaves. Even if I had experienced

26:30

them a hundred times before in

26:32

the conversation, these gifts always felt

26:34

new after they passed through your

26:36

hands. I tried to do the

26:38

same for you, so you could

26:40

sense our world beyond your reach.

26:42

I may you smell the acrid

26:44

tang of the distant saltflats before

26:46

you left, where our mining kins

26:48

crystallized leaves chime in the wind.

26:50

Taste the sweet desert dew collected

26:52

in thorn-clad night forests, distilled into

26:54

a fruit. I wanted you to

26:56

consider us worth exploring, despite your

26:58

fall. All the while my grovekin

27:00

sent strength to me, no matter

27:02

what, even when you foolishly brought

27:04

saplings grown from my fruit out

27:06

to places where they were completely

27:08

unsuited for. So inconsiderate, these rootless,

27:10

they said. But you meant well,

27:12

and the filament took care of

27:14

the offshoots. I couldn't be bothered

27:16

much toiling away as I was.

27:18

To you, it must have seemed

27:21

crude, for I have always been

27:23

more of a dreamer than a

27:25

builder than a builder. But if

27:27

you ever felt disrespected by the

27:29

way I treated your abandoned enclosure,

27:31

you didn't complain. My roots found

27:33

and widened the cracks, and then

27:35

the real work began. Defying every

27:37

gravitropic impulse, I slanted my roots

27:39

upwards away from the soil, reaching

27:41

for the sky myself. Some things

27:43

had to yield along the way.

27:45

Walls bent and hull panels crashed

27:47

down, but never the capsule itself.

27:49

I'm not that clumsy. Upwards I

27:51

strained, ever upwards in the dark,

27:53

until I touched the canopy. I

27:55

noticed you sticking closer. Your circle's

27:57

getting smaller, more reluctant. And maybe

27:59

I too... too would have grown

28:01

a reluctant in my task because

28:03

I didn't want to lose you,

28:05

didn't want this pod to bear

28:07

you away yet. But roots have

28:09

their own momentum. As they strengthened,

28:11

metal bulged and tore, seems strained

28:13

and burst until I was the

28:15

only thing holding them together. The

28:17

canopy cracked, not elegantly as it

28:19

was supposed to, but under my

28:21

brute force. Still when the first

28:23

slanted rays of sunlight touched the

28:25

capsule inside, it was as beautiful

28:27

as any blooming. That's

28:29

when you realized what I was

28:31

doing, didn't you? After you hung

28:33

your piece of fabric each morning,

28:35

mended in so many of the

28:37

places now it felt small and

28:40

brittle, you wouldn't explore. You just

28:42

walked the clearing, stopping often to

28:44

take it in from every angle,

28:46

what was now fused, part root,

28:48

part wreckage. And when I had

28:50

finished my task, you went inside,

28:52

gingerly climbing through the broken hatch,

28:54

using the stick you had taken

28:56

to walking around with to lift

28:58

the covers you had placed. This

29:00

is where we are. You are

29:02

leaving. The petals of your flower

29:04

are crumpled, some have already fallen.

29:06

Before you, the sky unfolds. Before

29:08

me, the dream of your next

29:10

discovery, of the sun's you will

29:12

visit. And while you prepare to

29:14

leave, slowly making your way through

29:16

the root-shot interior of the wreckage,

29:18

touching capsule and console alike with

29:20

shaking hands, and while I sense

29:22

the awakening of the power that

29:24

will whisk you away, This is

29:26

what I wanted to tell you,

29:28

in every rustling leaf and every

29:30

pulse of sap. All the things

29:32

I can't say because the conversation

29:34

is eluding you. You need to

29:36

go and rejoin your own. I'll

29:38

never know the wonders you're going

29:40

to encounter on your way, and

29:42

I'll never thank you for your

29:44

gift of seeing me, of singling

29:46

me out in a vast forest.

29:48

I'll never know what you want

29:50

to tell me. Because that's what

29:52

you've been doing all this time,

29:54

haven't you. You talk to me

29:56

almost from the day we met

29:58

with these gentlemen vibrations you breathe

30:00

into the air. You're talking to

30:02

me now, passing my roots, your

30:04

hands unsteady, your whole being shaking.

30:06

A rumble builds up, pulsing slowly

30:08

first as your capsule wakes from

30:10

its hibernation, but gaining the irresistible

30:12

strength of an earthquake. No root

30:14

will hold you back, no matter

30:16

its strength. And when you hurry

30:18

to your shelter, I know, these

30:20

are your last preparations. To get

30:22

sustenance for the time you need

30:25

to unfold yourself into your pod

30:27

while it is shooting away. But

30:29

when you fumble your way back,

30:31

carefully planting your stick, it is

30:33

an armful of my saplings you

30:35

carry, cultivated from my fruit, the

30:37

ones you always try to spread

30:39

across the forest. It is them

30:41

you place into the capsule first.

30:43

This is when something in me

30:45

begins to sing, to the tinkling

30:47

of raindrops and the rhythm of

30:49

a distant sea. This is when

30:51

I allow my thoughts to shoot

30:53

up and accompany you, hurrying ahead

30:55

even faster and further than I

30:57

have ever dared to reach. But

30:59

you, with your shaking hands and

31:01

your unsteady step, you seal the

31:03

capsule off, and you back away.

31:05

The rumbling grows, and you are

31:07

not inside. You are, in fact,

31:09

at my side, and your hand

31:11

is on me. A map of

31:13

ridges and valleys against my skin.

31:15

No firmness left in your grip

31:17

in your grip. I brace against

31:19

the pain every departing pod causes

31:21

as its power surges. Woundwood will

31:23

soon seal these gifted roots as

31:25

they burn away in a blast

31:27

of heat. The forest is utterly

31:29

still. In the aftermath of the

31:31

thundering departure, none of the rootless

31:33

dare move. A pod caps your

31:35

once sprung is gone for good,

31:37

out of reach, but I know

31:39

it is on its journey. These

31:41

are our saplings I want to

31:43

shout into the conversation. but only

31:45

you are still able to follow

31:47

their course bent back to see

31:49

them shoot across the sky. I

31:51

wish them luck on their flight

31:53

and should they ever fall I

31:55

hope they are met by You

31:57

stayed. You are leaning on me

31:59

harder than ever. are

32:01

leaning on me

32:03

harder than ever, your

32:06

fingers slowly sifting through the

32:08

soil after you sit down. your soil

32:10

now It is your soil now

32:12

waiting to a conversation waiting to

32:14

be joined. my You stayed,

32:17

while my saplings are farther away

32:19

every moment and the joy of

32:21

knowing both runs through me like

32:23

a sun -dappled river. river. Evening Evening approaches,

32:25

you take a and you take a

32:27

slow walk around the clearing, filament

32:30

already claiming the scattered remnants of

32:32

the wreckage. Your

32:34

shuffling steps are gentle, almost too

32:36

light for me to sense on

32:38

the upturned soil as you walk

32:40

in the dusk. me to sense on the upturned

32:42

it is said, walk in the by, only

32:45

ever said, are passers-by, they may

32:47

try for roots, But they

32:50

and we may try for

32:52

new we may try for new suns.

32:54

we may both find completion

32:56

in in trying. Once

33:18

again, that was was Forever the

33:20

by Simone Heller. Heller. The The author

33:22

had this to say about

33:24

her story. I love I love

33:26

stories that explore and try

33:28

to to a different different Like

33:30

literary translating, which is my

33:32

day job, it is an exercise

33:34

in failure, it an up interesting

33:36

spaces. but opens up interesting spaces. As the year comes to

33:38

an the year comes to an

33:41

end, it feels fitting to

33:43

close things with a story about,

33:45

on one hand, helping a

33:47

stranger to survive and thrive in

33:49

an unfamiliar and sometimes hostile hostile

33:51

place, and on the other hand,

33:53

making a new home

33:55

when the hope

33:58

for returning to the

34:00

past is gone. is

34:02

gone. We humans humans often

34:04

misunderstand. each other, misinterpret things, and

34:07

cause harm whether it's intentional or not.

34:09

But we also have a vast capacity

34:11

for solidarity and altruism, for empathy and

34:14

caregiving. Despite the endless hostility of which

34:16

our species is capable, every day we

34:18

see examples of people refusing to give

34:20

up, to give in, to accept what

34:23

appears inevitable and succumb to futility and

34:25

nihilism. We continue to strive to strive

34:27

to strive to strive to strive to

34:29

strive to strive bleak as our situations

34:32

may become, uncertain as their outcomes may

34:34

be. Even when we cannot hope to

34:36

see the results of our efforts, like

34:38

the character in this story, we can

34:41

load our escape pods with saplings and

34:43

send them rocketing into the future for

34:45

the next generation. Every ending carries with

34:47

the seeds of a new beginning, as

34:50

long as we're willing to keep planting

34:52

them. Escape

34:57

POD is part of the Escape

34:59

Artists Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit, and

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our our closing quotation this week

37:04

is from Ursula K. from said,

37:06

Kaleguin, each of us alone us

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be sure. to be sure? What can

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you do do hold your hand

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out in the dark? the dark? Thanks

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Thanks for joining us may may

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