Miko

Walking for two hours, the amount of time it took to get to Maleki’s body, I prepared myself for what would come next. These last moments in The Garden, I wanted to enjoy them. Gliding my hands across the soft grass, I felt and smelled every flower that passed. All of this time in this place, and I never spent the time to enjoy it. Taking in every sight, touch, and smell, I let my senses be overwhelmed by this place with joy. This would likely be the last time I ever got to.

My old spot on the ground near Maleki could be seen through the trees. The grass had grown and stood taller to make up for the cushion I had made in it. A figure stood near him, and my eye caught him immediately. Khronos sat, his hands rested on his knees, with his chest and back sharply flat and tall, in a more proper take on what grandmother called “criss-cross apple sauce.” I was about to make the most delicate applesauce ever made,

Walking to my brother’s body, I asked aloud, “Did you come to stop me, Khronos?“

“Your decision may be your own. I will not interfere, though I must impose that I oppose it indiscriminately. However, let me tell you another story.”

“There’s no need Khronos. You know what the issue is?”

“Do tell.” He said, intrigued.

“You’re trapped in your wallowing. At some point, you stopped trying to fix what was wrong with you or this place.” I demanded. “You gave up, simple as that.” I walked past him to my brother’s essentially lifeless body. “Don’t trap me in your misery. I’ll fix this on my own.”

“You think you have me all figured out?” He asked with an offended tone. “Your life thus far is but a droplet in a rainstorm compared to what I have seen.”

“Yeah, you’ve lived all this time. A waste if you ask me. Eventually, you found comfort in your failed desperation, and then you returned to habit, making your punishment too hard to escape. At least Ananke was physically trapped here, but you could go anywhere you wanted in this whole wide world.” Is set my bag on the ground in between us.

“You believe I did not attempt? My footsteps exist in far-off places on this planet that none might ever see with their own eyes. Languages changed, kingdoms rose and fell, and a thousand useless wars were waged. If there was an idea or plan that could fix this, I uttered or plotted it first.”

“Ha. Haha. Bahaha!” I laughed maniacally. “You have some humour in you, after all! For the first time this journey, you look more pitiful than both of us here. Born at the beginning of time before last names were even needed, yet you claim to know and have tried everything.” He tried to interrupt, a quality unsuitable for him, but I stopped him, continuing, “You and your siblings were trapped here with imaginary rules and ideas. Screw ’em!”

Reaching into my bag, I clutched an apple in my hand and then took a bite.

“You have sealed your fate, then.” He scolded me with his eyes as his top lip raised.

I chewed like the pig he probably saw me as, talking aloud as the beginning of every word slurred, “No such thing, Khronos; you should know that. There’s just what is and what isn’t. My brother is getting better — actually, me too while I’m at it.”

I took a bite of the second apple as he watched in disgust, or maybe it was curiosity.

“Why? Why have you eaten both apples?” He begged in mental anguish.

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My mouth was entirely full at this point, yet I still spoke. “Schut up, Krumnus.” I crushed the apple into tiny bits in my mouth, being careful not to swallow any of the bits. Then I did something gross, trapping one side in my cheek; I spat out bits of the apple onto the ground. The remaining cheek puffed up like a squirrel, and I dug into my bag for one of my discs.

“What have you done? Are you going to feed your brother like a baby bird?” Khronos questioned me like he was indulging in a child’s plan.

“Didn’t I tell you to shut it? Either stop me or stand there and watch.” I said, eyeing him.

“Proceed your foolish escapade.” He said with hands raised, which he then crossed under his chest.

I began digging, first with my hands and then next with my disc, as it got deeper. Using the disc to scoop the dirt out of the hole, a minute passed until I had a decent-sized hole about two feet deep next to Maleki’s body.

Khronos spoke facetiously, “Forgive me, but that hole might be too small for your brother. Quite the preemptive burial.”

“I’m not burying him, you idiot.”

“So then, what are you doing?” He asked in what looked like genuine confusion.

I turned my head out of frustration. “Did your listening and watching skills suddenly worsen? You managed to get by the whole journey just fine.”

He signaled for me to continue with one of his hands, but I decided my rudeness earlier was undeserved for how much we had gone through together, so I explained further with an annoyed exhale. “You ever looked at the apples your siblings ate?”

“Numerous times.” He blinked assuredly.

“The apples are withered. The majikal power sucked dry from them when they were eaten. The tree regrows them out of habit, but the seeds still sit within the core. Did you ever try planting the seeds of the corrupted apples?” I said with a questioning pause, then continued. “Wouldn’t have mattered even if you did because you never tried plucking all the apples. You and Ananke feared plucking the good ones, just out of caution from what your brothers and sisters did, but also because you were scared to break whatever contract you made with this place.” I opened my bag and found the pouch designated for the apples. There lay six seeds from the corrupted apples I had gathered on my way down from plucking the still-good ones. Carefully, I slid them into my hand out of their slot. With my hands together, side to side, with my palms facing up, the seeds clumped in the center.

“The idea came into my head when I remembered my grandmother and her obsidian roses. A whole rose bush can be regrown from the seeds of the previous one. Her garden was real, smaller, but the scale of it allowed it to be truly pruned and managed so that every leaf was important. This colossal tree obfuscates your ability to pay attention to the tiny details. Important ones. All those months, I lay there, and I hadn’t given it much thought. Maleki was hurt, and I would fix him no matter the cost, and we would bear the curse together by eating the fruit. Then your much nicer wife completed the idea with just a simple sentence.” I mimicked her phrasing and tone, “Our eyelids unfolded and saw only darkness, the belly of the tree — surrounded by a cocoon of bark, but then it opened, exposing us to this paradise.’” I placed my hands in front of my face and then spat the rest of what was in my cheek onto my palm. Two seeds deposited themselves at the top of the pile, eight in total. Placing the bottom of my hands over the hole, I released the seeds, letting them fall into place.

Maleki was close, so I pulled at his armpits, dragging him over the hole I had made. Nomen stood silently, and then a semblance of a smile peered through. Dirt clumped around the hole, so I pushed and packed it in as my grandmother taught. With a deep breath and wide smile, I looked up at Khronos. “See you soon.” A rumble formed in the ground around us, quaking the dirt beneath my feet. Tendrils of roots shot above me, all different colors, creating a shape like a bird cage. Air passed between the roots enough that I could still see between them.

There was dear old Nomen, and if my eyes did not betray me, I believe there was a single tear forming at the crest of his cheek. “Seems I was the fool all along, Miko.”

I placed one hand on Maleki’s chest, feeling his heartbeat, and the other on his shoulder as I bent forward over him — just in case I was terribly wrong about all this. Then the roots thickened, contorting and twisting around us so that we were now inside a bark shell egg. Darkness filled my opened eyes, and then my vision began to fade as a watery substance filled the chamber from underneath. My neck fell back into the liquid, and I began to dream of a place near where this all started and what seemed like so long ago. A lake, a day into the journey where Maleki and I talked like brothers. I had missed that for so long.

Something pierced through the dream — a thumping sound that reverberated in my ears. Maleki’s heart began to beat faster.