The Meadow

The meadow was small. If five humans were to stand, arms spread wide, finger tip to finger tip, the ones on either end would find their hands submerged in the dark forest surrounding it. It was a perfect circle, a magical place. The air was still, stagnant but not stale, unchanged by time or sentient being. The grass was a healthy shade of green, not too bright like the lawns you see in front of houses that are not homes, but a comfortable shade of green. Dew sparkled on each flawless blade of grass, the temperature and exposure to the sun just right to always keep it there. Daisies littered ground, growing stronger and brighter for their lack of a predator. This meadow was a breath, a sigh, the eye of the hurricane, a place a weary traveler could sleep without fear of being harmed, if anyone were to ever discover it. Cocoons, ever dormant, were hidden among the wreath of various plants encircling the meadow. It was beautiful.

Overhead, a bird let out a taunting cry, and swooped down low over the meadow. One of the small seeds stuck on the bird’s dark grey beak, the survivors of the bird’s late breakfast, came unstuck, falling, falling. The meadow paid it no attention; it would get stuck in the trees like all of the others. But it had rained the previous night, and the large, paddle like leaves were slippery from the water they retained. The seed hit the water and followed gravity’s course, streaming down, leaf after leaf, until there were no more leaves, only the insignificant stretch of space to the ground. The seed, triumphant, took its time, knowing nothing could disturb its path now. A foolish, naïve assumption, but one that, as the seed rushed towards victory, proved to be true. There was no wind to err its path, no animal to toy with it, the things that once made the meadow magical condemning it. So the seed fell passed the caressing perfect blades of grass, to touch lightly onto the moist dirt, as one would lay down on silk sheets at the end of a long day. The lightest of touches, the meadow barely felt it. But it was like a mosquito bite, painless upon receiving it, but progressively worse and worse.

But for now the meadow paid it no heed. The seed, adrenaline fading, contented itself to sleep, fading, fading. The dirt blanketed it, singing sweat lullabies in its ear, gently brushing the hair back off its face, leaning down to kiss it a pleasant good night. The seed sighed and shifted its weight, already deep in dreamland. The dirt smiled a maternal smile before quietly shutting the door.

And nothing changed. The meadow was as it always was, still, unchanging. Time, always frozen, one minute indistinguishable from the other. And the seed dreamed.

Imagine. Intricate patterns, vines, swirling up towards the sky. Bursts of color, fading to black, interrupted by more bursts. The seed dreamed in patterns and colors, and with each inch higher, each new burst, the seed dug itself deeper into the ground.

When change comes to an unchanging place, it comes both very quickly and deceivingly slowly. The change the seed wrought on the meadow was irreversible and immediate, but the consequences, like so many other things, appeared only later. For three years, or maybe it was a week, or a century, the seed and it’s now plentiful roots stayed buried beneath the ground. By the time the little sprout of near transparent green poked it’s way almost hesitantly out of the soft damp earth, the web of sturdy black roots had completely encircled the meadow, weaving it’s way skillfully around the other plant’s roots, as to not disturb them. The budding seed felt no malice towards its neighbors, yet it’s nature was parasitic. That is not a thing one can help.

To be continued…