Under the Greenwood Tree

Under the Greenwood Tree
by
Malcolm Welshman
author of Pets in a Pickle
Available on Amazon.co.uk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgqDkDMWFHQ

All morning as William sifted through the soil, words silently filled his mind with sweet whispers.
‘Our life...finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks.’
During the break for lunch, they continued to echo through him. He looked down the hill to where the Watchers were patrolling the site, their laser guns glinting in the sun. He felt the waves of heat rippling up from the scorched valley, the hot breeze rattling the limpid leaves of the oak beneath which he now sat. At the edge of the oak’s shadow, Anne rested, lying on her back, cocooned in a bed of grass as diadems of pollen floated in the broken beams of sun that played on her face.
‘What did you say Will?’ she asked, her voice drowsy with sleep.
‘Oh, nothing,’ he murmured, his mind elsewhere, his fingers turning the object he’d found that morning, now tightly wrapped in zirconium foil to protect it from the heat.
Anne stretched out her nut-brown arms, yawned and sat up, conscious it was time to return back down to the dig. ‘You’ve been daydreaming again, haven’t you?’
Swiftly William slipped the find in his tunic pocket ‘No..no..not really,’ he lied.
Anne rolled onto her side and looked up at him. ‘Unorthodox thought processes are strictly forbidden, as you well know.’ She gave William a warning look. ‘We should be getting back before they start scanning for us.’ She nodded down in the direction of the Watchers, one of whom had stopped and was now staring up the hill at them. But she made no move to get up.
William gazed down at her sun-kissed body.
Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
There. It was happening again. His mind filling with words. Unconventional but wondrous words. If he told his wife, would she understand? After all when she and he had been bonded, the Watchers had not programmed them to accept anything like this. Down the hill, he saw other pairs scurrying back to the site, their senseless chatter like that of excited children on a school outing. But who could blame them? They, like him and Anne, had been specially assigned to this excavation. Made to feel privileged. Distinct from other clones.
To be or not to be. That is the question.
Indeed, this was the dilemma. William hadn’t conformed to programme ever since unearthing the artefact earlier and it was filling him with wild excitement. It had started the moment he brushed the sand from it and recognised what it was. Holding it briefly in his hand, he’d had no doubt as to his next move. He’d swiftly slipped it into his pocket praying his action had gone undetected by the Watchers. Then, and only then, had the words started to flow.
Anne sat up and leaned forward, arms resting on her knees and gazed down the hill. ‘Will,’ she said, ‘there’s something on your mind. I know there is.’ She turned at looked up at him, her dark eyes anxious. ‘And it’s frightening me.’
As she spoke, more words poured from the ruined walls of the building being unearthed below them. They babbled from the buried floors. Danced in the shimmering light. Cascaded into his mind. Waiting to be spoken. He had to tell her despite the dire consequences that could befall both of them. He prayed she’d understand.
William pulled the wrapped bundle from his pocket and eased himself down next to her. He carefully peeled away the zirconium foil. ‘I found it this morning,’ he said.
Anne stared down at the black, corroded metal cylinder in his hand.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
The words within him explained.
‘It’s a fountain pen.’
‘Anne’s brow creased. ‘It produces water then?’
‘No. No. It would have contained a substance called ink. Here.’ William attempted to unscrew the cap but it was seized. He unclipped the laser knife from his belt and carefully scored away the embedded grime and rust to release the cap. Once he’d unscrewed it, he pointed to the nib. ‘See. That’s where the ink flowed out as words.’
‘Oh. So it spoke?’
William hesitated. He realised he’d have to be patient with Anne as she wasn’t programmed to understand the meaning of the words that were now pouring into his mind, flooding him with new emotions. ‘No, it didn’t speak.’ He paused, knowing he was about to use banned vocabulary but the words within urged him on. ‘They were written words.’
Anne’s face remained blank. ‘What do you mean by “written”?’
‘Words not spoken but put down.’
‘Like ornaments?’
‘In a way, yes. They decorated a substance called “paper”. You scratched it with the pen. Like this.’ William drew a thin line in the soil.
Anne reached down and took the pen from him. ‘And where did paper come from.’
William gently placed his hand under her chin and tilted her head up.
‘See the branches of this oak tree?’ he said. ‘In the second millennium Man crushed branches such as those to make paper.’ He felt her shudder slightly. Could it be that her senses were wakening? ‘Yes, it was barbaric. But Man didn’t appreciate their value until such trees were depleted.’
‘But now,’ Anne raised her arm and swung round the panorama of forest that spread far out from the valley, ‘there are many trees.’
William nodded. ‘They’ve returned, yes.’
‘Who ordered them to return?’
No one. They regenerated of their own accord.’ William picked up an acorn. ‘A new oak can grow from this.’
‘You mean it’s not programmed by the Watchers?’
William nodded, a rueful smile on his face and followed her gaze into the heart of the oak. ‘Perhaps we should have been trees’ he heard her murmur. She was beginning to understand. He took the pen from her and as he grasped her hand more unspoken words flowed across from him.
Ignorance is the curse of God.
Knowledge is the wing wherein we fly to heaven.
Anne turned to him, a smile playing on her lips.
Back at the site, they worked in silence until late afternoon, carefully sifting the red sandstone, their trowels prodding and probing the uncovered bricks.
‘What do you think this used to be?’ said Anne, pausing to sit back on her heels as the outline of the walls began to turn honey-coloured in the evening sun.
‘It was a shrine.’
‘To a God?’
‘No. To the written word. Back then Man had many words bound in paper. They were called “books”. And they were collected in places like this known as “libraries”.’
‘So did they worship these books?’
‘In a way, yes.’
‘How?’
‘By reading them.’
‘But that’s a deviation.’
‘Back then it wasn’t. Man had the freedom to read and write.’ William reached across and gripped Anne’s arm tightly. ‘And they were such wonderful words.’ He gripped her arm even more tightly, his eyes shining with elation. ‘Anne, can you not hear them?’
For a moment she shrank back, pulling on his hand.
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends
Rough hew them how we will.
William felt her relax beneath his grip and knew that she was now aware of the words and succumbing to their beauty.
Later, before curfew, they climbed back up to the oak and from beneath its spreading boughs watched the sun sink over the virgin forest, crimson rays crowning the vibrant rustling canopy that stretched to the horizon. While Anne continued to watch the changing sky, William turned to the oak. His fingers traced the cracks and crevices in the pitted bark so many centuries old. Who knew what human forms had laughed and loved beneath that greenwood tree. He hesitated for a moment and then unclipped his laser knife and began to work. When finished, he stood back. ‘Anne, come and look.’ He turned and gently pulled her round and guided her fingers over the letters he’d etched in the bark.
‘What are they?’ she asked.
‘Letters,’ he replied. ‘Letters linked to make words.’
‘And what do the words say?’
‘I love you.’
‘That’s beautiful,’ Anne murmured. ‘Thank you.’
As the siren sounded for the start of curfew, William and Anne laid down beneath the bower of the oak, united in the love of words that now infused them both. And both aware of what was to come. As they caressed, a cooling breeze sang joyfully in the branches above them and a leaf spiralled down to where they lay. William caught it in his palm.
We have lived long enough; our way of life
Is fallen into the sear, the yellow leaf.
In the valley, a Watcher downloaded their programmes. For a moment his finger hovered over the keyboard and then deftly descended on ‘delete.’

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