The Forest Titan

The forest titan took a thousand years to take a single step.

But in such fashion, he strode across plains, dithered in valleys, paused in tundras.

He became one with the stones.

And no one ever noticed him.

For he was just as any other feature of the earth. Like the backdrop of a clear and cloudless sky. Or the lonely peak of a mountain.

 

In his cloak, night became day, and day effortlessly turned itself over to night. The dawn and the dusk were as specks of time, mere motes.

And the passing of a year, the blink of an eye.

But he still appreciated the waxing and waning of times:

The rise and fall of civilizations, which reached ever toward the Sun.

The retreat of a forest, the advance of a glacier.

The breath of the earth mother.

 

He stood proudly before the Sun.

And humble before the Moon.

And watched as the sacred became profane.

The primordial churnings of the world passed into myth.

Myth passed into legend.

And legend became history.

For it was not always forward that the titan walked, with an eye to the past, and an ear to the present. And prickling tingling intuitive inspiration about the future.

 

Eons passed in this way.

 

Until one divine day, he saw another.

Another titan!

They were both quite stunned at the presence of a familiar but strange reflection of themselves and the other.

Could it be, that he was not as lonely as the stark mountain peak? But part of a whole range?

Let us not be too hasty, he thought. Just one other, now.

But he could feel the future. A whole world full of beings just like she and him.

She?

Yes this one was like him, but different somehow, in some subtle way. His curiosity became profound, like a magnetic pull, drawing him onward, and closer.

Was this Desire?

He had seen many beings exhibit such a thing in his long eras of observance and silent sleep.

Ah, maybe I am dreaming, he thought.

 

The dreaming, a realm difficult to distinguish in so many ways from this real one, but with a few twists.

Yes, it was like the fabric of reality, the veil, was being pulled this way and that, blown by a wind, wrung out like a wet cloth, the dreaming.

I wonder if “this real one” is just a dream of a still bigger, slower titan? he thought.

 

At any rate, there she was. And, having noticed him as well, gave him an earnest look of curiosity, even welcome!

And it was through their eyes that much was communicated. Nary a sound was there for long uncounted years.

For the depths of their wells of knowledge were un-sounded since their bringing into being. And never had their experiences been shared.

 

And in his eyes, the forest titan yearned to say:

“I remember when the world was young.”

And, much to his surprise, he felt the yearning move from his heart to his head, and up and out of his body came energy woven of light, coalescing into a disk above.

 

There, it hovered, like the sun behind clouds. And then it dimmed. But only in part. That which is perfect had come, and so a symbol was left, as if embossed on a plate, glowing, even pulsing, with the longing to communicate ages past with another being who had seen them.

 

The she-titan regarded his offering, and, seemingly, almost smiled, in her eyes. A disk of her own ascended, but from her womb, and the core of her power spoke with the disk which darkened as in an eclipse:

“I remember, too.”

 

He was overjoyed, stunned even, if a being which moves so slow can be said to be stunned.

And there was a gleaming in his eyes, which kindled a glimmer in hers, and in such manner, much was passed between them.

Deep memories from the watersheds of ancient minds, wandering, spilling into an ocean of collected experience. Not so much halls of memory, as landscapes, utterly vast, but not without bound, boundless though they seemed.

And in this sharing they became more real.

They had woven together their dreams.

The tapestry was becoming what indeed had happened. What had befallen an age. What had spurred on an epoch.