The Free-dom, Post #3

The sun rose above the trees and mountains to light upon the serene face of Zachalope, who was sitting on the edge of the highest garden, legs crossed, palms up, eyes closed. He breathed in slowly, filling his entire stomach to it's full capacity, held it for a moment then breathed out slowly. For nearly an hour he had been repeating the process until his mind was completely clear and he was aware of his entire body and every thought.

A flash of the dream he'd had that night went through his mind and he hooked it and began exploring.

There were five of them, being pursued through a half barren city by men with no eyes. The buildings all looked exactly the same and they were soon lost in the maze of streets. Finally they came to a large building, the only one with no windows. They ran inside and down a long black hall. At the end of it they could feel a flickering presence. After a few moments they entered a large space with a dark, purpley-blue mass in the center, glowing too faintly to illuminate anything but itself. He tried to see his companions, but could make them out in the dark. He felt the sudden urge to touch the swirling light and stepped forward, feeling the others do the same. Their hands stretched forward...

And the dream ended. For a moment Zachalope sat, eyes closed, still breathing evenly. Then he sighed and opened his eyes. The sky was turning steadily lighter, yellow where the sun was peeking over the trees then fading through orange and red to light blue. A few wisps of cloud crossed the sky in front of him, tinted gold on the left and red on the right. Zach savored the beauty for a moment, but eventually stood up and stretched himself out. He looked at the sun once more before descending to the Platform.

Yuki and her daughters were in the kitchen making breakfast and a few early risers were standing by the table, drinking tea or yerba mate. Sitting a little out of the way and sipping absently from a mug, was Cactus. She stared straight ahead, lost in thought. He got himself a cup of tea and squatted down in front of her.

"How are you feeling?" he asked kindly, leaning forward to look into her face. He had dealt with plenty of trauma victims in his travels and found that someone to talk to who didn't push was what they usually needed.

"I', okay," she replied, though she took a deep breath in as if to calm herself. "I dreamt about it last night, though. I could hardly fall asleep because his face kept popping into my head." Zachalope put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"It'll take a while to go away," he told her, "but it will eventually. Things sometimes need a little time to fade." She nodded sadly and took another sip of tea. He decided the best thing to do would be to get her talking about something different. "So, how are things working in this Free-dom? Everything seems to be moving along pretty smoothly." She looked at him gratefully as he sat down beside her, understanding his method.

"Yeah, it runs pretty well. Most of the systems came into play after we all moved in. Of course, at the beginning there was only about ten of us. Me, my brother and sister, Drummah, Doreen, Rake, Spade and Lynx. Okay, eight. We built the place at first and made all the connections to other countries. Doreen and Drummah moved in before the cataclysm and the rest of us came along right after. Then we started picking up refugees and here we are with over forty people." She smiled ruefully. "Though I can't deny things can get a little dull with so little variation."

"Well, that's pretty much how it is in all the Free-doms," he told her. She snorted.

"That's reassuring. Sorta takes the mystery out of life, doesn't it?"

"Ah, there's plenty of mystery left, the Free-doms are just a little less mysterious." They laughed quietly at that.

"What are the other Free-doms like? Are they anything like this one? Well, what you've seen so far." He thought for a moment.

Well, the majority is built in trees like this one and there are a few that are out in remote mountains or deserts. The Glacial Free-dom in Norway is built, well, on a glacier and the St. John's Free-dom is inside aves that used to be hidden by the ocean. The only one that isn't reclusive is New Island Free-dom but that's because everyone who survived on the new island wanted a new beginning so they joined the village."

"Have you been to all the Free-doms then?" She looked up at him curiously.

"All except the Free-dom Down Under and the New Zealand Free-dom. Though I have been to both countries before." She raised an eyebrow in question. "My mother and I did a lot of traveling. So much, in fact, that I don't have a house or a birth certificate, so I was never technically a citizen of anywhere." He smiled on his memories of his mother and all the places they had been. He had been born in the basement of his grandparents' house in a small town in Saskatchewan and though they had tried to make his mother stay, "for the baby's sake" if not her own, she was gone within the week, bicycling to Vancouver where a friend was waiting to ferry them over to China. Zach's first words had been in Chinese and as soon as he started speaking they had sailed to Japan and then to Thailand, Africa, Australia and as many other places as they could. By the time he was sixteen he could passably speak almost every language in the world.

"Where were you born then?" Cactus asked.

"Saskatchewan. I've never been back to the prairies, though. We left when I was less than a week old for Vancouver. Biked there, actually." She stared at him, astonished. "It's true. And when we got there a friend sailed us across the ocean to China."

"It's no wonder you're a messenger, you were practically born traveling. It must feel as natural as breathing for you." She gave him an admiring look. "I'd love to travel. I've never been anywhere but B.C. and I thin it would be great to see other parts of the world."

"Apply for the next trading party. That'll at least get you over to the next Free-dom."

"Maybe," she conceded. "But I think I'd like to go on an adventure." She smiled childishly. "Or at least go see some of the new wonders that must have popped up when the world changed." Zach smiled a little.

"I feel the same way sometimes," he admitted, "though I suppose my desire would probably be a little dulled down from the traveling I've already done."

"Could be." They fell silent until the bell rang and breakfast was served. The two of them stood up to help themselves to bread, fruit and oatmeal and within moments most of the Free-dom was up and eating, then heading to their various chores. Zachalope went with Cactus to the gardens and they spent the day harvesting.

That being Zach's first time to the Haida Gwaii Free-som, he marvelled at the enormous vegetables that the other Free-doms didn't have. He liked the Jack Beans the most, as he had loved the story of Jack and the Beanstalk as a child. The day passed lazily away and the sun set as they climbed down for supper. The fire was lit on the Platform and many of the villagers were already eating and talking. Skitch, Cactus, Zachalope and Dizzy sat down jut after Drummah took up a beat to their left.

"Is this your normal supper entertainment?" Zach asked Dizzy, who was seated beside him.

"Yep, Drummah always has her drum at supper." He took a mouthful of potato, chewed, swallowed and continued. "We have more instruments playing during celebrations, of course. Cactus and Bamboo have drums and Skitch and a few others have didgeridoos and Angora has a guitar. I think Tick is making a didg pretty soon, if she can find enough beeswax. And Rake has a trumpet and a piccolo. He's teaching Spam Can to play the pic. She sounds pretty good so far, too."

"So, what sort of things do you celebrate?"

"Lots of stuff. Solstices, Equinoxes, changing seasons, injury recoveries. We have celebrations of people's lives, too. Anyone who dies gets a celebration of how they lived. They're sad and happy at the same time." He smiled with more years than he had.

"We sometimes have random jam sessions, too," Cactus added from his other side. "We'll bring down the instruments just for the sake of making music. It's usually quite a lot of fun." She laughed and added, "They're usually caused when Rake decides to smoke a few of our lovely hemp buds." Zach raised an eyebrow questioningly. "That's not all we use it for. We use the fibers for textiles and the seeds for eating, too."

"I'm sure the smoking factor contributed to the planting, though." Cactus rolled her eyes.

"All right, that was a big part of Rake's decision to stay."

"And Angora's," Tick said from behind Cactus. Angora looked up from a few seats down.

"What are you saying about me?" Tick told him. "Hey, I thought of the practicality, too, when we got here," the shaggy man said.

"No doubt about it," his sister replied, "but you thought about smoking it the most." They all laughed, Angora included. Then he stood up to address the rest of the Free-dom.

"Members of the Haida Gwaii Free-dom, and our guest, of course," he said, bowing exuberantly to Zach, who gave him a salute, "I suggest we have a celebration in honor of hemp and it's many uses, practical and more practical!" Everyone laughed and cheered and several people ran to their houses to get instruments. Drummah and Sliver, who both already had drums, started on two fast beats while Rake stuffed a pipe with marijuana. In a few minutes there were four didgeridoos, six drums, a guitar, a trumpet and a piccolo playing and anyone who wasn't playing was singing, dancing, smoking or talking.

"Well," Cactus said to Zachalope while beating steadily on her drum, "you asked what kind of celebrations we have. I guess you know now." They laughed, breaking Cactus' concentration on the beat. "Do you want to play for a while?" She held the drum out to him. He smiled and took it. At first he played a simple, steady best, boom da boom da boom da, and gradually he slipped in to a more complex rhythm. It didn't take long for him to get lost in the music and the haze of the fire and the faint pot smoke and he only resurfaced from semi-consciousness when the wind instruments and the guitar stopped, leaving the drums to tap out a slow beat. Then someone to his left began to sing in a language he didn't understand but which left him full of understanding.

"Mayam tol kae siiiaaa. Yemba co ul tam. Nada al coiiiaaa. Ayam mae ta am. Kee san goanda pell ka wavin tam no say. Yer pol casti con tar noi canatayonam." He looked over and saw Skitch rocking back and forth, eyes closed but her face displaying emotions like a painting as she sang. All around the fire people began humming along, rising and falling with the drums. Greece played softly on the didgeridoo adn soon Spam Can fluted incredibly high notes on the piccolo. Zachalope closed his own eyes and began humming with the rest, still beating slowly. One of the other drummers started with a more complex beat, following the complexity of Skitch's singing.

"Nao a kay amta, ye koheldi ah! Seh tamoyempa kal no, no sa la te ya!" The note she held then was high, clear and sweet. Everyone stopped a few beats before her, letting her fade out like mist. He took a deep breath, hearing and feeling everyone else do the same, and opened his eyes. Every face around the fire wore a serene, and sometimes surprised, expression and he could tell they had all felt the same connection to the music, each other and the world around them that he had felt. They all sat in a circle for a while, not thinking, just enjoying the moment. Then, very slowly and in silence, they left to go to bed. After a long while of staring through the flames with an empty head, Zach looked up to find that he was one of two people left. Skitch was sitting a few feet away from him, hypnotized by the fire. She looked slowly over to him as he stood.

He put out a hand and helped her up. The two of them walked silently to their beds.



Purple.

Purple.

Purple.

Why was everything purple?

Purple sky, purple water. There were even psychotic purple penguins! Hmm. Wasn't there a name for it? His sisters would know. They knew everything. He turned around to ask them, only they were gone. That was odd. Hadn't they been standing there a moment ago? And why were the trees dying? Purple (what was it called?)wasn't really their color but grey looked much, much worse. Someone tried to grab him from behind, whispering things he couldn't understand but didn't like. He started running only there were grey stone penguins grabbing at his legs and all the purples ones were diving into the purple oceans. Finally he managed to jump into the water and he marveled at the landscape under the waves. It was all in different shades of that same beautiful purple. Or was it blue? It seemed to shift constantly there. He looked back as he swam and saw legions of stone creatures marching off the cliff and falling into the water only to sink to the bottom and disappear. A few of them turned purple as they sank and they swam past him, deeper into he ocean. He stayed and watched as more of them sank and could feel others watching with him, only he couldn't seem to turn his head to look at them. Something started boiling under his skin, an odd feeling of liquids and gases roiling about and he lifted his hand to see.

For the first time he realized he was white, not purple, though he was somewhat transparent. But beneath the layers of skin on his palm he could see a squirming layer of colors, all moving around like snakes...

The morning light shining through the window played across his eyelids. The flickering shadows of the rustling branches made the redness roil like snakes.

Snakes!

And color under his skin! Dizzy shot up in bed and looked at his palms carefully. No colors. Relief and disappointment combated for precedence on his face. He was glad he didn't have the colors, but they had been so beautiful...Skitch murmured from across the room and he looked over at her, gradually realizing that it had been a dream, not reality. His sister opened her eyes slowly and smiled at him. She tried to say something, but all that came out was a croak. Dizzy laughed.

"Good morning," he said, his own voice a little hoarse from sleep. "Did you sleep well?" She only smiled contentedly and slid out of bed. "I'll take that as a yes." A moment later Cactus rolled over and stared at him.

"You know," she moaned, "it's a miracle the whole village isn't awake. You're incredibly loud for a quiet kid."

"My guess is you didn't sleep very well," Skitch said, pulling on a shirt and pants. Cactus shook her head.

"I had a horrible dream. And it left me with a pounding headache as a reminder." They both gave her sympathetic looks, which she smiled wanly at.

"What happened in it? Sometimes it helps to talk about nightmares," Skitch told her.

"Well, it started off just like the dream I had the other night, with me running through a forest and something chasing me. At first it seemed like a -a far away danger, but it started getting louder and closer and...thicker. It's presence, I mean. That was when the dream got different. In the other one I turned around and saw a raid coming at me with guns but in this one I turned and saw the forest dying, rotting on itself. I turned around and kept running, but it swallowed me up." She shuddered. "It was terrible, being surrounded by pure death like that. And then I woke when you started talking." The dream didn't seem particularly frightening to Dizzy and Skitch, but they both knew how bad it could be for the one having it. :But what about you two? How did you sleep?"

"I slept all right," Skitch said. "I had a dream that was the complete opposite of yours, though." Cactus cocked an eyebrow. "I was standing in the middle of an abandoned city, chanting in the same language I was using last night and all of a sudden all of the buildings were rapidly growing into trees and there were plants everywhere and it became a huge forest in a matter of minutes. Then I looked up at the sky and breathed deep and when I opened my eyes I was awake." She looked contentedly into space. "How about you Dizzy?"

"Well, I dreamed as well," he said. "There were some crazy purple penguins in it. And purple trees. And purple water. And then everything started dying, like in your dream, Cactus, so I followed the penguins into the water. Then all these stone animals were marching into the water, whole legions of them, and they sank and disappeared, except a few that turned into purple things and swam away. Then I felt something moving under my skin and I looked at my hand. I was sort of transparent and I had colors moving around under my skin. And that was when I woke up. I thought it was real for a minute or two," he admitted. Then the meal bell rang and the three of them filed out of the house. Zachalope was already awake and he caught up to them as they climbed down.

"Where were you at?" Cactus asked him.

"Up in the gardens," he answered. "I was meditating on a dream I had last night, trying to pick up it's message."

"Really? What did you dream?"

"It was a dream I've been having for the past few nights, now. It starts off with me and a few people being chased through a city that seems only half lived in. Then we come to a completely abandoned building and go inside. We start walking down a hallway and at the end there's this big, blueish, purpley mass of stuff. Then we all stick our hands in it and I wake up." He frowned slightly. "I know it has a message, all repetitive dreams do, but I have no idea what it could be."

"Maybe breakfast will loosen you brain matter," Skitch said, flashing him a broad smile. He smiled back as they stepped onto the Platform, smells of breakfast wafting towards them.

"Actually, it's more likely that food would make your brain more congested and less easy to think," Spellcheck said from behind them. Skitch shook her head and Cactus rolled her eyes.

"Thanks for the correction, Spellcheck," Dizzy said.

"That's why you named me," she replied with a shrug. Dizzy stuck out his tongue at her and she chased him across the Platform, Spam Can, Barbberry and several of the younger kids joining in when they saw them. The other three joined the line-up for food and the day settled into the usual routine. That day Zach went with Skitch and Desmond to the loom room and worked on making blankets with Doreen, Angora, Greece and Drummah. He spoke a lot with Doreen as she was one of the few people that knew how to weave before she ever came to the Free-dom and she taught him a few simple techniques that he could use while traveling.

"And it's fairly simple to make a loom if you're out in the middle of nowhere and need to weave a scarf or something," she told him. "And if you don't want to do that you can just carry around a pair of knitting needles." Zach smiled

"Or make some from sticks that I find lying around," he added, making her chuckle a bit.

"Yep, you could do that too." They listened for a moment to the groan of the trees and heard the meal bell ring. The seven of them stood up and went down for lunch. When he reached the Platform he noticed Yuki beckoning to him from the kitchens so he left the others and joined her.

"Would you like someone to go with you to pick up your bicycle?" she questioned.

"How did you know I have a bike?" he asked, startled.

"We have had messengers come through before. And we were the first Free-dom, so we set up the whole system. I know all about it even if I wasn't here from the beginning." She smiled. "I do wonder why you haven't gone down to get it yet, though." He shrugged.

"If scavengers were going to get it they would have gotten it in the first night, so I'm in no rush. I should go check if the bike is all intact, though. Perhaps I'll head out after lunch, if it's no problem that I take someone away from their chores, that is."

"As long as it's only one person, go right ahead," she replied. Zach gave her a smile and walked to the food. When he'd dished up a plate he sat down between Cactus and Rake. He ate quickly and addressed Cactus.

"Hey, do you think you could guide me back to where I left my bike the other day? It's not far from where you were picking mushrooms, but I'm not completely sure how to get there." Cactus chewed thoughtfully for a moment.

"All right," she said after she had swallowed, "anything to get out of gardening all day." Rake grinned.

"Shirking your chores, Cactus?" he said. "Yuki'll have your head for that."

"If that was the case," she laughed, "I'd have been dead a long time ago. So, are we heading out soon?"

"Right now, if you're ready," Zachalope said. She nodded and they put their dishes away and walked across the Platform to the rope ladder that led down to the ground. Cactus set off to the left as soon as her feet hit solid earth and Zach followed easily. They chatted lightly the whole way to the spot, which was still full of mushrooms, and they made very good time. Cactus paused a moment between the trees, remembering how innocent the day had seemed. She shook herself out of the memory as Zachalope walked forward.

"Have you got any extra bags on your bike?" she asked him.

"Yeah, I should, why do you ask?"

"Well, we should probably pick some more of these mushrooms, seeing as we're already here." He nodded in agreement. "I'll start while you find your bike." And with that she crouched down and started gently pulling mushrooms. Zach walked a ways through the bush and looked for where he'd dropped his bike. It took him a few minutes of searching, but he eventually found it half under a log down a little ways down a hill. He pulled it out, checked that it was still in working order and rolled it up the hill. He extracted a couple of cloth bags form his paniers and started picking with Cactus.

They left most of the smaller ones and it didn't take them long to fill both bags. When they had as many as they felt was good, they headed back through the forest, stopping a few times for more foraging. Cactus took his paniers up when they reached the ladder and Zach pulled the bicycle up beneath him with a length of rope. When they were both at the top he sat down with his bags and took an inventory count while Cactus swept the Platform.

"Okay," he said to himself, "the list says half a bag of mate, dried chiles, and a bag of herbs; chamomile, fennel, cannabis, cardamom..." He perused his list, checking thing off and by the end he was completely surprised. "All still here. Wow. Well, continuing on; Personal effects. Tarp, rope, tool kit, matches dishes, herb guide, sewing kit, basic first aid. Check check check check check check check check. Huh, so nothing at all lost. Well, praise the Universe."

"I take it things are good," he heard from behind him. Yuki squatted down beside him a moment later.

"Yes, everything is here still," he told her. She nodded.

"We should bring the food into the kitchen, then." And with that she picked up the bag of chiles and the mushrooms, leaving Zach to pick up the rest and saunter after her. He had been in many Free-dom kitchens before, but it always came as a shock to see how sophisticated they were with no electricity. On the far wall from the door was a large fireplace with two roasting racks and a huge brick oven. Along the left side were several wash basins for hands and food as well as a large rain water barrel for drinking and cooking. Down the center was a table covered in knife marks, stains and burns. In the center of that was a large hole to brush compost into so it could be used in the gardens. Hanging above it were three spice racks, dishes and various pots, pans and roasters. Supper was being prepared by Conk, a young girl with short brown hair, Serena, Yuki's youngest daughter, and Toni, one of the surprisingly few black people in the Free-dom. And Yuki herself, of course, as she ached to much to go up the stairs and do anything else.

"Put the mate in the cupboard above the barrel," she directed him, "and whatever spices you don't want you can put into the racks." She put the chiles up in a cupboard and started chopping onions at the table. He was kind of surprised by how easily she moved in the kitchen, just barely showing that she had weak knees and a back problem. "If you wouldn't mind, Zach, we could use some help chopping vegetables." He nodded, put his things away and picked up a knife to shop some garlic. Twenty minutes and eleven giant garlics later, he scooped the slices into the pans so Serena could sauté them with the onions. Twenty minutes after that he aided in carrying all the food out to the serving table. Conk ran up the steps on top of the kitchen and pulled the length of rope that was attached to the meal bell.

The first people to dish up were Tick'lish, Goner, Cracked and Shimmy, all orphans who were being taught whatever things people thought they should know before they started working, and the people who were teaching them that day, Rooster and Doreen. Then came the returned foragers, Dizzy, Chill, Tick, Sarah, Spellcheck, Barbberry, Lina and Cathy. The next to show up were the weavers, Siren, Coconut, Simmer, Angora, Skitch and Laurence. The last people to come down were the eighteen gardeners, Penguin, Sliver, Drummah, Lynx, Spade, Rake, Hannah, Smear, Sam, Janae, Laura, Mark, Bamboo, Jack, Greece, Spam Can, Krill and Seth. The only people missing were Cactus and Itch, but that was because Cactus was taking him his supper. Zach lined up with the four cooks to get his share of the meal.


Itch was awake when Cactus walked into his house, her tortilla and his bowl of soup in her hands. He smiled weakly as she sat down on the edge of his bed.

"How are you feeling, man?" she asked, returning a smile just as weak as his. Itch shrugged a little.

"I've certainly been better," he replied. "I can't sit up yet and can only eat the soup that you've so kindly brought me. It's a good thing Yuki knows how to make some damn fine soup." They both smiled, but a somber silence soon followed. "How are you feeling, Cactus?" he asked, giving her a look of an understanding that only they had. She returned the look sadly.

"I've been all right physically, but I'm, sure the dreaming is going to drive me insane and it's only been two days. You'd think my subconscious wouldn't have wanted to go through it once, let alone replaying it like it is. But I guess it must be otherwise." Itch nodded knowingly, confirming that he, too, had been having nightmares. Cactus abrubtly changed the subject, but neither of them really put much effort into talking, prefering to follow their own thoughts.

"Well," Cactus said when she had finished spooning him the soup, "hurry up and heal. We're really missing you downstairs." Then she stood and walked out of the house he shared with Sliver and Barbberry.

She hesitated on the landing, not sure if she wanted to have supper with the others on the Platform or find some place quiet to eat. When a burst of laughter reached her ears from below, she chose the latter and started up the stairs to the gardens. She sat down on the edge of the tallest, legs dangling over the side of the walkway, and watched the darkening forest sway in the light breezes. Before her father had left them, when she was about four, he would take her out on windy days to ask the trees to stop shaking and making so much wind. He would lift her up onto his shoulders to let her try to still the branches, or they would 'warm' the trees by hugging them.

"They're so cold they're shivering," he would tell her, even if it was a beautifully hot day and nothing could possibly be cold.

"Maybe we should put some jackets and mitts on them," she would say, then. He would laugh and proceed to carry out the boxes of winter clothes so they could dress up the trees, usually with Skitch riding inside of it. Clothes bins or old boxes used to be her favorite place to sleep. Then the three of them would laugh for hours on end until their mother would call them back in. She smiled as she remembered her dad, but that slowly turned into an expression of sadness when she thought of the fighting and the day he had left and not come back. Eventually her mother told her that he had mailed divorce papers and when she signed them he never talked to them again. Her mom said she regretted it every day, but Cactus never once believed her.

The sound of didgeridoo and drum floated up through the branches, mixing eerily with the wind and the growing dark. She had never realized how comforting a fire could be when people played natural instruments. She looked down and saw the faint glow of the fire. She couldn't make out any individual people, but she somehow knew it was Dizzy playing the didj that time. Something in the style, she supposed.

Out in the distance something caught her eye and she pulled her gaze away from the fire and out over the forest. For a moment she thought it was nothing, until she saw a pale blue light flicker into existance, like a light bulb being turned on. She stared at it in alarm at first, wondering if it was a raid camped in the forest. but soon enough more were popping up, too many to be raiding parties unless they were planning a full scale assault on the forest. She wondered if Zach knew what they were and stood up to go ask him.

On her way down she decided she really would sign up to trade with the other Free-doms.