Azalea floats. She has flowed, she is flowing, she will flow. Forever. She has been drifting on the currents for so long. Her fins whisper, her tail sighs. She floats.
The current intersects her with a cloud, glowing, and she brushes against the gases, taking a drink. It is nice to feel something different on her skin once in a while. She glimpses her reflection on the way by, pale, quiet, her tree the usual brown. What is she doing here?
The glow fades to twilight as she drifts on before completely disappearing. For as long as she can remember, Azalea has slipped through the cosmos.
The current brings her by a pebble, drifting along with her. As they cross paths, Azalea feels her leaves murmur. A feeling? For the first time, she slows down so she can inspect the pebble. It is tiny, maybe the size of her eye. Staring at the rock, Azalea swims against the current, waiting to understand what is happening. The rock is oblong, reddish gray, pock-marked in her glow. It is a fascinating shape, imperfect, ugly, dull and Azalea believes she could hang there forever, inspecting it. Her attention drifts. She is patient. She has time. She has all the time.
She sees another tree. Huge, beautiful. Swimming alongside, laughter flowing. They are dancing. They are joy. Effervescent. Who is that? She doesn’t know.
She looks back at the pebble: it is the same. Grey, lumpy. It is magical. She feels her leaves rustle again. Intrigue. She lets the current float her onward, away from the magical rock. She passes a nebula and studies her reflection, slowing down for a second time. Is she brighter than usual? Maybe it’s her imagination. Her glow seems to pulse faintly, her leaves are still rustling in excitement. She does a double take. What is that colour? Does she have a green leaf?
She tries to laugh, like in her vision. But it sounds all wrong. She stops. Instead, she tries out a move, pushing fast through the cloud, and slowing down abruptly with a twirl. It feels nice. She floats on. Maybe she’ll find another rock.
She sails on in the sea of nothing, carried by the tides. But she feels… a buzz… Excitement. That’s the feeling. She drifts by a nebula not unlike those she used to drift by before, but this time she decides to investigate. More rocks could be hidden beyond.
As she enters the nebula, she is surrounded by colour, light, and she is suddenly elsewhen. The other tree is back beside her, magnificent. Bright, green, brilliant, glowing. They swim gracefully, weaving through the rocks. The rocks are huge, nothing like her small pebble, but also very similar. Snapped out of the vision by a thought.
“That was me,” she says, in wonder.
When did she ever have a companion? Where did they go? She remembers being alone. But also not being alone. She swims on, purposefully. Curious. Searching for something. Another rock? Another memory?
She dives onward, practicing her dancing, and almost runs into a ball of light. Larger than her rock, maybe the size of her fin. Smooth and round, it glows so brightly it almost hurts to look at. So Azalea closes her eyes and remembers. She remembers the first star she saw, the other tree drawing her close. It was warm, so big, but not next to her mother. Her mother was enormous. She remembers.
The stellar wind buffets her fins and she snaps out of the dream. Her mother. She is surprised she remembers, surprised she forgot. Her leaves shiver, and she feels, as she dances around the star, frolicking in its light, its heat, its waves. She feels the love of her mother, the joy of song, the rapture of her first taste of stardust, the excitement of venturing into a nebula alone, and the relief when her mother found her. Dancing to the sound of the nebula, so much more lively than the sober tune outside. Maybe she’ll never leave. But maybe there are other memories out there, other feelings. What else can she feel?
Still dancing, she says goodbye to the star — her magical awakening — and swims out into open space. Chasing purpose. How could she have forgotten? Where did time go?
A bright sound reaches her and she follows it back to its source, the rumble piercing through her shell, opening another memory, and she sees her mother, smaller. Or was she bigger?
Corralling the asteroids, guiding them, trailing them like an extension of her tail. “Once these were stars”, she said. “Soon they will be dust, memories. But they are always beautiful.”
Her mother, only a little larger than Azalea, less bright, still beautiful. Her song is mellow, quiet, proud, as she tells Azalea about her own mother, her own travels, her own memories. “When I was little, smaller than you, my dearest, my mother sang to me of her grandmother, the brightest tree in the universe. My mother told me of her grandmother’s grandmothers, the myriad trees living together, the stars, the life she felt, the life she lived. She told me of clouds that sozzle and dust that dazzles. Even just the two of us can live alive.”
Her mother, smaller, fading. Sadness pouring off Azalea as she knows her mother isn’t forever. As they swim toward the endless horizon, freeing a planet here, sending a star there, Azalea feels lost even before she has lost. Afraid. Her mother comforts, singing the song of the universe, her favourite lullaby. Azalea calms, feeling peace, remembering contentment.
Her mother tiny, dead. Drifting on the waves, no longer in control, no longer leading, showing, teaching. Death. Azalea remembers death. The blazing pain, the booming panic, the horrified loneliness, the loss of colour, the dimming of the stars, withdrawing into the darkness, and finally the vengeful silence.
Azalea reaches the origin of the bright rumble. The dark song beckons, and Azalea is drawn to the emptiness and the song quiets. She feels at home. Azalea drifts into the darkness, comforted by the stillness, the slowing. Numbing. Forgetting.
How long does she float, unmoving, uncaring? As she lets her memories slip by, she catches one. Her mother, massive, as big as a galaxy, looking right at her, smiling. “One day, my love, you will look around at the sky and know you are home, even when it hurts.”
Azalea holds on to that thread of her mother, remembering her solace in the moment. Thinking of the star she found, hidden away inside a nebula. That warmth, that joy. Even fleeting, it’s worth feeling again. Considering the space around her, drifting timelessly, even here in the quiet, there is sound if she listens hard enough, a thin, scintillating melody, filtering in through the edges of the deep, stretched by time. Even here in the emptiness, there is matter if she is still enough hard enough, the particles bumping into her, sustaining her tree. Even here in the darkness, there is light, the faint glow reflecting off the dust, reflecting from her own body, but also sneaking in from outside. Like her memories. Sneaking back in. Rushing in, breaking her.
Feeling. She bursts backwards out of the black hole, and explodes back into time and space, blasting past galaxies as her feelings erupt. It is too much! Her tree is convulsing, her skin vibrating, her fins unable to stop her. She opens her mouth, her eyes, and releases a dazzling scream. Feeling relieved, she watches in fascination as her scream pierces through a nearby cloud, scattering it, and in dread as it does not dissipate as her song usually does. The scream is trumpeting towards a galaxy. Horrified, Azalea swims, faster than she has ever swum, and dives ahead of her scream before it gets too big, even for her. As it breaks onto her skin, she feels the feelings all over again, the fear ripping into the trunk, the anger shearing off branches, the grief crushing the detritus, and the joy making it all worth it.
The galaxy behind her shudders in the aftershocks and Azalea breathes out, heavily, quietly, grateful that she arrived in time. With her feelings diffused, she treads space for a while, thinking, calming her tree. She slowly swims away again, slipping between the stars. She remembers her mother and unbinds a song of outrage, fuelling a nearby star. She remembers her youth and releases a song of exultation, nourishing a cluster of asteroids as she passes. She remembers her loneliness and whispers a song of mourning, bolstering a cloud in the distance.
As she swims around the galaxies, among the stars, between the planets, and through the clouds, she encounters newness, laughing, crying, yelling as she goes. For too long, her song had been quiet, singing it only to herself. She may be the last tree in the universe, but her song affects the dust and the stars, the clouds, the streams. Maybe there are other trees out there, spread out further than before. For the first time in a long time, Azalea feels hope.
Author’s note
If you’ve ever struggled with emotional numbness, not feeling anything, or caring about anything, please talk to someone about it. You can read about my own experience with numbness as a teenager here.
EXSM 3989 - Digital Storytelling Class Blog 